Annotations UPON THE Two foregoing TREATISES LUX ORIENTALIS OR An Enquiry into the OPINION OF THE EASTERN SAGES Concerning the Prae-existence of Souls AND THE Discourse of TRUTH Written for the more fully clearing and further confirming the main DOCTRINES in each TREATISE By one not unexercized in these kinds of SPECULATION LONDON Printed for J. Collins and S. Lounds over against Exeter-Change in the Strand 1682. Annotations UPON LUX ORIENTALIS THese two Books Lux Orientalis and the Discourse of Truth are luckily put together by the Publisher there being that suitableness between them and mutual support of one another And the Arguments they treat of being of the greatest importance that the Mind of man can entertain herself with the consideration thereof has excited so sluggish a Genius as mine to bestow some few Annotations thereon not very anxious or operose but such as the places easily suggest and may serve either to â—…ctifie what may seem any how oblique or illustrate what may seem less clear or make a supply or adde strength where there may seem any further need In which I would not be so understood as that I had such an anxiety and fondness for the Opinions they maintain as if all were gone if they should fail but that the Dogmata being more fully clearly and precisely propounded men may more safely and considerately give their Judgments thereon but with that modesty as to admit nothing that is contrary to the Judgment of the truly Catholick and Apostolick Church Chap. 2. p. 4. That he made us pure and innocent c. This is plainly signified in the general Mosaick History of the Creation that all that God made he saw it was good and it is particularly declared of Adam and Eve that they were created or made in a state of Innocency Pag. 4. Matter can do nothing but by motion and what relation hath that to a moral Contagion We must either grant that the figures of the particles of Matter and their motion have a power to affect the Soul united with the Body and I remember Josephus somewhere speaking of Wine says it does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regenerate as it were the Soul into another life and sense of things or else we must acknowledge that the parts of Matter are alterable into qualifications that cannot be resolved into mere mechanical motion and figure whether they be thus altered by the vital power of the Spirit of Nature or however it comes to pass But that Matter has a considerable influence upon a Soul united thereto the Author himself does copiously acknowledge in his fourth Chapter of this Book where he tells us that according to the disposition of the Body our Wits are either more quick free and sparkling or more obtuse weak and sluggish and our Mind more chearful and contented or else more morose melancholick or dogged c. Wherefore that he may appear the more consistent with himself it is likely he understands by this Moral Contagion the very venome and malignity of vitious Inclinations how that can be derived from Matter especially its power consisting in mere motion and figuration of parts The Psalmist's description is very apposite to this purpose Psal. 58. The ungodly are froward even from their mothers womb as soon as they are born they go astray and speak lyes They are as venomous as the poyson of a serpent even like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear That there should be such a difference in the Nativity of some from that of others and haply begot also of the same Parents is no slight intimation that their difference is not from their Boâ—… but their Souls in which there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eruptions of vitious Inclinations wâ—… 〈◊〉 had contracted in their former statâ—… 〈◊〉 pressed nor extinct in this by reason oâ—… 〈◊〉 lapse and his losing the Paradisiacal 〈◊〉 which he was created and which should 〈◊〉 had not been for his Fall been transmitted to his Posterity but that being lost the several measures of the pristine Vitiosity of humane Souls discover themselves in this life according to the just Laws of the Divine Nemesis essentially interwoven into the nature of things Pag. 5. How is it that those that are under continual temptations to Vice are yet kept within the bounds of Vertue c. That those that are continually under temptations to Vice from their Childhood should keep within the bounds of Vertue and those that have perpetual outward advantages from their Childhood to be vertuous should prove vitious notwithstanding is not rationally resolved into their free will for in this they are both of them equal and if they had been equal also in their external advantages or disadvantages the different event might well be imputed to the freedom of their Will But now that one notwithstanding all the disadvantages to Vertue should prove vertuous and the other notwithstanding all the advantages to Vertue should prove vitious the reason of this certainly to the considerate will seem to lie deeper than the meer liberty of Will in man But it can be attributed to nothing with a more due and tender regard to the Divine Attributes than to the pre-existent state of humane Souls according to the Scope of the Author Pag. 9. For still it seems to be a diminutive and disparaging apprehension of the infinite and immense goodness of God that he should detrude such excellent Creatures c. To enervate this reason there is framed by an ingenious hand this Hypothesis to vie with that of Pre-existence That Mankind is an Order of Beings placed in a middle state between Angels and Brutes made up of contrary Principles viz. Matter and Spirit indued with contrary faculties viz. Animal and Rational and encompassed with contrary Objects proportioned to their respective faculties that so they may be in a capacity to exercise the Vertues proper and peculiar to their compounded and heterogeneal nature And therefore though humane Souls be capable of subsisting by themselves yet God has placed them in Bodies full of brutish and unreasonable Propensions that they may be capable of exercising many choice and excellent Vertues which otherwise could never have been at all such as Temperance Sobriety Chastity Patience Meekness Equanimity and all other Vertues that consist in the Empire of Reason over Passion and Appetite And therefore he conceives that the creating of humane Souls though pure and immaculate and uniting them with such brutish Bodies is but the constituting and continuing such a Species of Being which is an Order betwixt Brutes and Angels into which latter Order if men use their faculties of the Spiritual Principle in them well they may ascend Forasmuch as God has given them in their Spiritual Principle containing Free Will and Reason to discern what is best a power and faculty of overcoming all their inordinate Appetites This is his Hypothesis mostwhat in his own words and all to his own sence as near as I could with brevity express
be attributed to him that enterferes with the uncontroulableness of his Dominion And therefore says he they that assert Goodness to be a necessary Agent that cannot but do that which is best directly supplant and destroy all the Rights of his Power and Dominion Nay he adds afterwards That this notion of Gods goodness is most apparently inconsistent not onely with his Power and Dominion but with all his other moral Perfections And for a further explication of his mind in this matter he adds afterwards That the Divine Will is indued with the highest kind of liberty as it imports a freedom not onely from foreign Violence but also from inward Necessity For spontaneity or immunity from coaction without indifferency carries in it as great necessity as those motions that proceed from Violence or Mechanism From whence he concludes That the Divine Will cannot otherwise be determined than by its own intrinsick energie And lastly Forasmuch as no Courtisie can oblige but what is received from one that had a power not to bestow them if God necessarily acted according to his Goodness and not out of mere choice and liberty of Will there were no thanks nor praise due to him which therefore would take away the duties of Religion This is the main of his Hypothesis whereby he would defeat the force of this Argument for the Pre-existence of Souls taken from the Goodness of God Which this Hypothesis certainly would do if it were true and therefore we will briefly examine it First therefore I answer That though the Scriptures do frequently represent God as the Lord and Soveraign of the Universe yet it does not conceal his other Attributes of Goodness and Mercy and the like But that the former should be so much inculcated is in reference to the begetting in the People Awe and Obedience to him But it is an invalid consequence to draw from hence that the Idea of God does mainly consist in Dominion and Soveraignty which abstracted from his other Attributes of Wisdom and Goodness would be a very black and dark representation of him and such as this ingenious Writer could not himself contemplate without aversation and horror How then can the Idea of God chiefly consist in this It is the most terrifying indeed but not the most noble and accomplishing part in the Idea of the Deity This Soveraignty then is such as is either bounded or not bounded by any other Attributes of God If bounded by none then he may do as well unwisely as wisely unjustly as justly If bounded by Wisdom and Justice why is it bounded by them but that it is better so to be than otherwise And Goodness being as essential to God as Wisdom and Justice why may not his Soveraignty be bounded by that as well as by the other and so he be bound from himself of himself to do as well what is best as what is better This consists with his absolute Soveraignty as well as the other And indeed what can be absolute Soveraignty in an intelligent Being if this be not viz. fully and entirely to follow the will and inclinations of its own nature without any check or controul of any one touching those over whom he rules Whence in the second place it appears that the asserting that Gods goodness is a necessary Agent in such a sense as Gods Wisdom and Justice are which can do nothing but what is wise and just the asserting I say that it cannot but do that which is the best does neither directly nor indirectly supplant or destroy any Rights of his Power or Dominion forasmuch as he does fully and plenarily act according to his own inclinations and will touching those that are under his Dominion But that his Will is always inclined or determined to what is best it is the Prerogative of the Divine Nature to have no other Wills nor Inclinations but such And as for that in the third place That this notion of Gods Goodness is inconsistent with all his other moral Perfections I say that it is so far from being inconsistent with them that they cannot subsist without it as they respect the dealings of God with his Creatures For what a kind of Wisdom or Justice would that be that tended to no good But I suspect his meaning is by moral Perfections Perfections that imply such a power of doing or not doing as is in humane actions which if it be not allowed in God his Perfections are not moral And what great matter is it if they be not provided they be as they are and ought to be Divine But to fancy moral actions in God is to admit a second kind of Anthropomorphitism and to have unworthy conceits of the Divine Nature When it was just and wise for God to do so or so and the contrary to do otherwise had he a freedom to decline the doing so Then he had a freedom to do unjustly and unwisely And yet in the fourth place he contends for the highest kind of liberty in the Divine Will such as imports a freedom not onely from forreign Violence but also from inward Necessity as if the Divine Will could be no otherwise determined than by its own intrinsick Energie as if it willed so because it willed so which is a sad principle And yet I believe this learned Writer will not stick to say that God cannot â—…ye cannot condemn myriads of innocent Souls to eternal Torments And what difference betwixt Impossibility and Necessity For Impossibility it self is onely a Necessity of not doing which is here internal arising from the excellency and absolute perfection of the Divine Nature Which is nothing like Mechanism for all that Forasmuch as it is from a clear understanding of what is best and an unbyassed Will which will most certainly follow it nor is determined by its own intrinsick Energy That it is otherwise with us is our imperfection And lastly That Beneficence does not oblige the Receiver of it to either Praise or Thanksgiving when it is received from one that is so essentially good and constantly acts according to that principle when due occasion is offered as if it were as absurd as to give thanks to the Sun for shining when he can do no otherwise I say the case is not alike because the Sun is an inanimate Being and has neither Understanding nor Will to approve his own action in the exerting of it And he being but a Creature if his shining depended upon his Will it is a greater perfection than we can be assured would belong to him that he would unfailingly administer Light to the World with such a steadiness of Will as God sustains the Creation Undoubtedly all Thanks and Praise is due to God from us although he be so necessarily good that he could not but create us and provide for us forasmuch as he has done this for our sakes merely he wanting nothing not for his own Suppose a rich Christian so inured to the works of Charity that the Poor
and bluntness of this rude Writer nor are at all surprized at it as a Noveltie that any ignorant rural Hobthurst should call the Spirit of Nature a thing so much beyond his capacitie to judge of a prodigious Hobgoblin But to conclude be it so that there may be other causes besides the pristine inurements of the Pre-existent Soul that may something forcibly determine her to one course of life here yet when she is most forcibly determined if there be such a thing as Pre-existence this may be rationally supposed to concur in the efficiencie But that it is not so strong an Argument as others to prove Pre-existence I have hinted alreadie Pag. 79. For those that are most like in the Temper Air Complexion of their Bodies c. If this prove true and I know nothing to the contrarie this vast difference of Genius's were it not for the Hypothesis of their Classical Character imprinted on Souls at their very creation would be a considerably tight Argument But certainly it is more honest than for the avoiding Pre-existence to resolve the Phaenomenon into a secret Causality that is to say into one knows not what Pag. 82. There being now no other way left but Pre-existence c. This is a just excuse for his bringing in any Argument by way of overplus that is not so apodictically concluding If it be but such as will look like a plausible solution of a Phaenomenon as this of such a vast difference of Genius's Pre-existence once admitted or otherwise undeniably demonstrated the proposing thereof should be accepted with favour Chap. 11. pag. 85. And we know our Saviour and his Apostles have given credit to that Translation c. And it was the authentick Text with the Fathers of the Primitive Church And besides this if we read according to the Hebrew Text there being no object of Job's knowledge expressed this is the most easie and natural sence Knowest thou that thou wast then and that the number of thy days are many This therefore was reckoned amongst the rest of his ignorances that though he was created so early he now knew nothing of it And this easie sence of the Hebrew Text as well as that Version of the Septuagint made the Jews draw it in to the countenancing of the Tradition of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Pre-existence of Souls as Grotius has noted of them Pag. 85. As reads a very credible Version R. Menasse Ben Israel reads it so I gave thee Wisdom which Version if it were sure and authentick this place would be fit for the defence of the Opinion it is produced for But no Interpreters besides that I can find following him nor any going before him whom he might follow I ingenuously confess the place seems not of force enough to me to infer the conclusion He read I suppose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Piel whence he translated it Indidi â—…ibi Sapientiam but the rest read it in Cal. Pag. 86. And methinks that passage of our Saviours Prayer Father glorifie me with the glorie I had before the World began c. This Text without exceeding great violence cannot be evaded As for that of Grotius interpreting that I had that which was intended for me to have though it make good sence yet it is such Grammar as that there is no School-boy but would be ashamed of it nor is there for all his pretences any place in Scripture to countenance such an extravagant Exposition by way of Parallelism as it may appear to any one that will compare the places which he alleadges with this which I leave the Reader to do at his leisure Let us consider the Context Joh. 17. 4. I have glorified thee upon earth during this my Pilgrimage and absence from thee being â—…ent hither by thee I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do and for the doing of which I was sent and am thus long absent And now O Father glorifie me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud teipsum in thine own presence with the glorie which I had before the world was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud te or in thy presence What can be more expressive of a Glorie which Christ had apud Patrem or at his Fathers home or in his presence before the world was and from which for such a time he had been absent Now for others that would salve the business by communication of Idioms I will set down the words of an ingenious Writer that goes that way Those Predicates says he that in a strict and â—…igorous acception agreed onely to his Divine Nature might by a communication of Idioms as they phrase it be attributed to his Humane or at least to the whole Person compounded of them both than which nothing is more ordinarie in things of a mixt and heterogeneous nature as the whole man is stiled immortal from the deathlessness of his Soul thus he And there is the same reason if he had said that man was stiled mortal which certainly is far the more ordinarie from the real death of his Bodie though his Soul be immortal This is wittily excogitated But now let us apply it to the Text expounding it according to his communication of Idioms affording to the Humane Nature what is onely proper to the Divine thus Father glorifie me my Humane Nature with the glorie that I my Divine Nature had before the world was Which indeed was to be the Eternal Infinite and Omnipotent brightness of the Glory of the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the Glory which his Divine Nature had before the World was But how can his Humane Nature be glorified with that Glory his Divine Nature had before the world was unless it should become the Divine Nature that it might be said to have pre-existed But that it cannot be For there is no confusion of the Humane and Divine Nature in the Hypostasis of Christ Or else because it is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature but if that be the Glory that he then had already and had it not according to the Opposers of Pre-existence before the world was So we see there is no sence to be made of this Text by communication of Idioms and therefore no sence to be made of it without the Pre-existence of the Humane Nature of Christ. And if you paraphrase me thus My Hypostasis consisting of my Humane and Divine Nature it will be as untoward sence For if the Divine Nature be included in me then Christ prays for what he has already as I noted above For the Glory of the eternal Logos from everlasting to everlasting is the same as sure as he is the same with himself Pag. 86. By his expressions of coming from the Father descending from Heaven and returning thither again c. I suppose these Scriptures are alluded to John 3. 13. 6. 38. 16. 28. I came down from Heaven not to do my own will but the will of him that
therefore would not adventure of any so called for the adjudging any matters Heresie But if any pretended to be such their Authority should no further prevail than as they made out things by express and plain words of Canonical Scripture And for other Synods whether the Seventh which is the second of Nice or any other that the Church of Rome would have to be General in defence of their own exorbitant points of Faith or Practice they will be found of no validity if we have recourse to the sixth seventh eighth and ninth Heads Fifthly In reference to the fifth Head This fifth Council loseth its Authority in anathematizing what in Origen seems to be true according to that express Text of Scripture John 16. 28. especially compared with others See Notes on Chap. II. I came forth from the Father and am come into the world again I leave the world and go to the Father He came forth from his Father which is in Heaven accordingly as he taught us to pray to him the Divine Shechina being in a peculiar manner there He leaves the world and goes to the Father which all understand of his Ascension into Heaven whence his coming from the Father must have the same sense or else the Antithesis will plainly fail Wherefore it is plain he came down from Heaven as he signifies also in other places as well as returns thither But he can neither be truly said to come from heaven nor return thither according to his Divine Nature For it never lest Heaven nor removes from one place to another and therefore this Scripture does plainly imply the Pre existence of the Soul of the Messiah according to the Doctrine of the Jews before it was incarnate And this stricture of the old Cabala may give light to more places of St. Johns Writings than is fit to recite in this haste I will onely name one by the by 1 John 4. 2. Every Spirit that confesseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh that is to say is the Christ incarnate is of God For the Messiah did exist viz. his Soul before he came into the flesh according to the Doctrine of the Jews Which was so well known that upon the above-cited saying John 16. 28. of our Saviour they presently answered Lo now speakest thou plainly and speakest no Parable because he clearly discovers himself by this Character to be the expected Messias incarnate Nor is there any possible evasion out of the clearness of this Text from the communication of Idioms because Christ cannot be said to come down from Heaven according to his Humane Nature before it was there therefore his Humane Nature was there before it was incarnate And lastly The Authority of the Decision of this Council if it did so decide is lessened in that contrary to the second Head as was hinted above it decides a point that Faith and Godliness is not at all concerned in For the Divinity of Christ which is the great point of Faith is as firmly held supposing the Soul of the Messias united with the Logos before his incarnation as in it So that the spight onely of Pelagius against Theodorus to multiply Anathematisms against Origen no use or necessity of the Church required any such thing Whence again their Authority is lessened upon the account of the third Head These things may very well suspend a careful mind and loth to be imposed upon from relying much upon the Authority of this fifth Council But suppose its Authority entire yet the Acts against Origen are not to be found in the Council And the sixth Council in its Anathematisms though it mention Theodorets Writings the Epistle of Ibas and Theodorus Mopsuestenus who were concerned in the fifth Council yet I find not there a syllable touching Origen And therefore those that talk of his being condemned by that fifth Coâ—…ncil have an eye I suppose to the Anathematisms at the end of that Discourse which Justinian the Emperour sent to Menas Patriarch of Constantinople according to which form they suppose the errours of Origen condemned Which if it were true yet simple Pre-existence will escape well enough Nor do I think that learned and intelligent Patriarch Photius would have called the simple Opinion of Pre-existence of souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but â—…or those Appendages that the injudiciousness and rashness of some had affixed 〈◊〉 it Partly therefore reâ—…lecting upon that first Anathematism in the Emperours Discouâ—…se that makes the pre-existent souls of men first to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if their highest felicity consisted in having no body to inactuate which plainly clashes with both sound Philosophy and Christianity as if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Rephaim were all one and they were not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 grown cold to the Divine Love and onely gathered body as they gathered corruption and were alienated from the Life of God which is point-blank against the Christian Faith which has promised us as the highest prize a glorified body And partly what himself adds that one soul goes into several bodies Which are impertinent Appendages of the Pre-existence of the soul false useless and unnecessary and therefore those that add these Appendages thereto violate the sincerity of the Divine Tradition to no good purpose But this simple Doctrine of Pre existence is so unexceptionable and harmless that the third collection of Councils in Justellus which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though it reckon the other errours of Origen condemned in the fifth Council omits this of Pre-existence Certainly that Ecclesiastick that framed that Discourse for the Emperour if he did it not himself had not fully deliberately and impartially considered the Dogma of Pre-existence taken in its self nor does once offer to answer any Reasons out of Scripture or Philosophy that are produced for it Which if it had been done and this had been the onely errour to be alledged against Origen I cannot think it credible nay scarce possible though their spight had been never so much against some loâ—…ers of Origen that they could have got any General Council to have condemned so holy so able so victorious a Champion for the Christian Church in his life-time for an Hâ—…retick upon so tolerable a punctilio about three hundred years after his death What Father that wrote before the first four General Councils but might by the Malevolent for some odd passage or other be doomed an Heretick if such severity were admittable amongst Christians But I have gone out further than I was aware and it is time for me to be think me what I intended Which was the justifâ—…ing of my self in my seeming to prefer the Discretion of our own Church in leaving us free to hold the Incorporeity and Immortality of the soul by any of the three handles that best fitted every mans Genius before the Judgment of the fifth General Council that would
serve the younger Which sufficiently illustrates the matter in hand with St. Paul that as Jacob was preferred before Esau in the Womb before either of them was born to act here on the Earth and that therefore done without any respect to their actions so the purpose of God touching his people should be of free Election not of Works That of Zachary also Chap. 12. 1. I have heard alledged by some as a place on which no small stress may be laid The Lord is there said to be the Former of the Spirit of Man within him Wherefore they argue If the Spirit of Man be formed within him it did never pre-exist without him But we answer That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is but the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And then the sence is easie and natural that the Spirit that is in man God is the Former or Creator of it But this Text defines nothing of the time of forming it There are several other Texts alledged but it is so easie to answer them and would take up so much time and room that I think fit to omit them remembring my scope to be short Annotations not a tedious Commentary Pag. 41. Mr. Ben Israel in his Problems De Creatione assures us that Pre-existence was the common belief c. That this was the common opinion of the wiser men amongst the Jews R. Menasse Ben Israel himself told me at London with great freedom and assurance and that there was a constant tradition thereof which he said in some sence was also true concerning the Trinity but that more obscure But this of Pre-existence is manifest up and down in the Writings of that very ancient and learned Jew Philo Judaeus as also something toward a Trinity if I remember aright Chap. 5. Pag. 46. We should doubtless have retained some remembrance of that condition And the rather as one ingeniously argues because our state in this life is a state of punishment Upon which he concludes That if the calamities of this life were inflicted upon us only as a punishment of sins committed in another Providence would have provided some effectual means to preserve them in our memories And therefore because we find no remainders of any such Records in our minds 't is says he sufficient evidence to all sober and impartial inquirers that our living and sinning in a former state is as false as inevident But to this it may be answered That the state we are put in is not a state only of punishment but of a merciful trial and it is sufficient that we find our selves in a lapsed and sinful condition our own Consciences telling us when we do amiss and calling upon us to amend So that it is needless particularly to remember our faults in the other world but the time is better spent in faithfully endeavouring to amend our selves in this and to keep our selves from all faults of what nature soever Which is a needless thing our memory should discover to us to have been of old committed by us when our Consciences urge to us that they are never to be committed and the Laws of holy Law-givers and divine Instructers or wise Sages over all the world assist also our Conscience in her office So that the end of Gods Justice by these inward and outward Monitors and by the cross and afflicting Rancounters in this present state is to be attained to viz. the amendment of Delinquents if they be not refractory And we were placed on this stage as it were to begin the world again so as if we had not existed before Whence it seems meet that there should be an utter obliteration of all that is past so as not to be able by memory to connect the former life and this together The memory whereof if we were capable of it would be inconsistent with the orderly proceedings of this and overdoze us and make us half moped to the present Scene of things Whenas the Divine Purpose seems to be that we should also experience the natural pleasures and satisfactions of this life but in an orderly and obedient way keeping to the prescribed rules of Virtue and Holiness And thus our faithfulness being exercised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in those things which are more estranged from our nobler and diviner nature God may at last restore us to what is more properly our own But in the mean time that saying which the Poet puts in the mouth of Jupiter touching the inferiour Deities may not misbeseem the mercy and wisdom of the true God concerning lapsed Souls incorporate into terrestrial Bodies Has quoniam coeli nondum dignamur honore Quas dedimus certè terras habitare sinamus Let them not be distracted betwixt a sensible remembrance of the Joys and Glories of our exteriour Heaven above and the present fruition of things below but let them live an holy and heavenly life upon Earth exercising their Graces and Vertues in the use and enjoyment of these lower earthly Objects till I call them up again to Heaven where after this long swoond they are fallen into they will more seasonably remember their former Paradisiacal state upon its recovery and reagnize their ancient home Wherefore if the remembring or forgetting of the former state depend absolutely upon the free contrivance of the Divine Wisdom Goodness and Justice as this ingenious Opposer seems to suppose I should even upon that very point of fitness conceive that an utter oblivion of the former state is interwoven into the fate and nature of lapsed Souls by a Divine Nemesis though we do not conceive explicitely the manner how And yet the natural reasons the Author of Lux Orientalis produces in the sequel of his Discourse seem highly probable For first As we had forgot some lively Dream we dreamt but last night unless we had met with something in the day of a peculiar vertue to remind us of it so we meeting with nothing in this lower stage of things that lively resembles those things in our former state and has a peculiar fitness to rub up our Memory we continue in an utter oblivion of them As suppose a man was lively entertain'd in his sleep with the pleasure of dreaming of a fair Crystal River whose Banks were adorned with Trees and Flags in the flower and those large Flies with blue and golden-colour'd Bodies and broad thin Wings curiously wrought and transparent hovering over them with Birds also singing on the Trees Sun and Clouds above and sweet breezes of Air and Swans in the River with their wings sometimes lifted up like sails against the wind Thus he passed the night thinks of no such thing in the morning but rising goes about his occasions But towards evening a Servant of a Friend of his presents him with a couple of Swans from his Master The sight of which Swans striking his Perceptive as sensibly as those in his Dream and being one of the most extraordinary and eximious Objects of his Night-vision
were as certain of getting an Alms from him as a Traveller is to quench his thirst at a publick Spring near the Highway would those that received Alms from him think themselves not obliged to Thanks It may be you will say they will thank him that they may not forfeit his Favour another time Which Answer discovers the spring of this Misconceit which seems founded in self-love as if all Duty were to be resolved into that and as if there were nothing owing to another but what implied our own profit But though the Divine Goodness acts necessarily yet it does not blindly but according to the Laws of Decorum and Justice which those that are unthankful to the Deity may find the smart of But I cannot believe the ingenious Writer much in earnest in these points he so expresly declaring what methinks is not well consistent with them For his very words are these God can never act contrary to his necessary and essential properties as because he is essentially wise just and holy he can do nothing that is foolish unjust and wicked Here therefore I demand Are we not to thank him and praise him for his actions of Wisdom Justice and Holiness though they be necessary And if Justice Wisdom and Holiness be the essential properties of God according to which he does necessarily act and abstain from acting why is not his Goodness when it is expresly said by the Wisdom of God incarnate None is good save one that is God Which must needs be understood of his essential Goodness Which therefore being an essential property as well as the rest he must necessarily act according to it And when he acts in the Scheme of Anger and Severity it is in the behalf of Goodness and when he imparts his Goodness in lesser measures as well as in greater it is for the good of the Whole or of the Universe If all were Eye where were the Hearing c. as the Apostle argues So that his Wisdom moderates the prompt outflowings of his Goodness that it may not outflow so but that in the general it is for the best And therefore it will follow that if the Pre-existence of Souls comply with the Wisdom Justice and Holiness of God that none of these restrain his prompt and parturient Goodness that it must have caused humane Souls to pre-exist or exist so soon as the Spirits of Angels did And he must have a strange quick-sightedness that can discern any clashing of that act of Goodness with any of the abovesaid Attributes Chap. 7. pag. 56. God never acts by mere Will or groundless Humour c. We men have unaccountable inclinations in our irregular and depraved Composition have blind lusts or desires to do this or that and it is our present ease and pleasure to fulfil them and therefore we fancy it a priviledge to be able to execute these blind inclinations of which we can give no rational account but that we are pleased by fulfilling them But it is against the Purity Sanctity and Perfection of the Divine Nature to conceive any such thing in Him and therefore a weakness in our Judgments to fancy so of him like that of the Anthropomorphites that imagined God to be of Humane shape Pag. 59. That God made all things for himself It is ignorance and ill nature that has made some men abuse this Text to the proving that God acts out of either an humourous or selfish principle as if he did things merely to please himself as self not as he is that soveraign unself-inreressed Goodness and perfect Rectitude which ought to be the measure of all things But the Text implies no such matter For if you make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Compound of a Preposition and Pronoun that so it may signifie for himself which is no more than propter se it then will import that he made all things to satisfie his own Will and Pleasure whose Will and Pleasure results from the richness of his eternal Goodness and Benignity of Nature which is infinite and ineffable provided always that it be moderated by Wisdom Justice and Decorum For from hence his Goodness is so stinted or modified that though he has made all things for his own Will and Pleasure who is infinite Goodness and Benignity yet there is a day of Evil for the Wicked as it follows in the Text because they have not walked answerably to the Goodness that God has offered them and therefore their punishment is in behalf of abused Goodness And Bayns expresly interprets this Text thus Universa propter seipsum fecit Dominus that is says he Propter bonitatem suam juxta illud Augustini DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA Quia bonus est Deus sumus in quantum sumus boni sumus But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be a Compound of a Participle and a Pronoun and then it may signifie for them that answer him that is walk anserably to his Goodness which he affords them or for them that obey him either way it is very good sence And then in opposition to these it is declared that the Wicked that is the Disobedient or Despisers of his Goodness he has not made them wicked but they having made themselves so appointed them for the day of Evil. For some such Verb is to be supplied as is agreeable to the matter as in that passage in the Psalms The Sun shall not burn thee by day neither the Moon by night Where burn cannot be repeated but some other more suitable Verb is to be supplied Chap. 8. pag. 63. Since all other things are inferiour to the good of Being This I suppose is to be understood in such a sence as that saying in Job Skin for skin and all that a man has will he give for his life Otherwise the condition of Being may be such as it were better not to be at all whatever any dry-fancied Metaphysicians may dispute to the contrary Pag. 67. Indeed they may be morally immutable and illapsable but this is Grace not Nature c. Not unless the Divine Wisdom has essentially interwoven it into the natural constitution of our Souls that as after such a time of the exercise of their Plaistick on these Terrestrial Bodies they according to the course of Nature emerge into a plain use of their Reason when for a time they little differed from Brutes so after certain periods of time well improved to the perfecting their Nature in the sense and adherence to Divine things there may be awakened in them such a Divine Plastick faculty as I may so speak as may eternally fix them to their Celestial or Angelical Vehicles that they shall never relapse again Which Faculty may be also awakened by the free Grace of the Omnipotent more maturely Which if it be Grace and Nature conspire together to make a Soul everlastingly happy Which actual Immutability does no more change the species of a Soul than the actual exercise of Reason does after the
time of her stupour in Infancy and in the Womb. Pag. 67. I doubt not but that it is much better for rational Creatures c. Namely such as we experience our humane Souls to be But for such kind of Intellectual Creatures as have nothing to do with matter they best understand the priviledges of their own state and we can say nothing of them But for us under the conduct of our faithful and victorious Captain the Soul of the promised Messias through many Conflicts and Tryals to emerge out of this lapsed state and regain again the possession of true Holyness and Vertue and therewith the Kingdom of Heaven with all its Beauty and Glories will be such a gratification to us that we had never been capable of such an excess thereof had we not experienced the evils of this life and the vain pleasures of it and had the remembrance of the endearing sufferings of our blessed Saviour of his Aids and Supports and of our sincere and conscientious adhering to him of our Conflicts and Victories to be enrolled in the eternal Records of the other World Pag. 69. Wherefore as the Goodness of God obligeth him not to make every Planet a fixt Star or every Star a Sun c. In all likelihood as Galilaeus had first observed every fixed Star is a Sun But the comparison is framed according to the conceit of the Vulgar A thing neither unusual with nor misbecoming Philosophers Pag. 69. For this were to tye him to Contradictions viz. to turn one specifical form or essence into another Matter indeed may receive several modifications but is still real Matter nor can be turned into a Spirit and so Spirits specifically different are untransmutable one into another according to the distinct Idea's in the eternal Intellect of God For else it would imply that their essential properties were not essential properties but loose adventitious Accidents and such as the essence and substance of such a Spirit could subsist as well without as with them or as well with any others as with these Pag. 69. That we should have been made peccable and liable to defection And this may the more easily be allowed because this defection is rather the affecting of a less good than any pursuing of what is really and absolutely evil To cavil against Providence for creating a Creature of such a double capacity seems as unreasonable as to blame her for making Zoophâ—…ton's or rather Amphibion's And they are both to be permitted to live according to the nature which is given them For to make a Creature fit for either capacity and to tye him up to one is for God to do repugnantly to the Workmanship of his own hands And how little hurt there is done by experiencing the things of either Element to Souls that are reclaimable has been hinted above But those that are wilfully obstinate and do despite to the Divine Goodness it is not at all inconsistent with this Goodness that they bear the smart of their obstinacy as the ingenious Author argues very well Chap. 9. pag. 73. Have asserted it to be impossible in the nature of the thing c. And this is the most solid and unexceptionable Answer to this Objection That it is a Repugnancy in Nature that this visible World that consists in the motion and succession of things should be either ab aeterno or insnite in extension This is made ouâ—… clearly and amply in Dr. H. Moore 's Enchiridion Metaphysicum cap. 10. which is also more briefly toucht upon in his Advertisements upon Mr. Jos Glanvil's Letter written to him upon the occasion of the Stirs at Tedworth and is printed with the second Edition of his Saducismus Triumphatus We have now seen the most considerable Objections against this Argument from the Goodness of God for proving the Pre-existence of Souls produced and answered by our learned Author But because I find some others in an Impugner of the Opinion of Pre-existence urged with great confidence and clamour I think it not amiss to bring them into view also after I have taken notice of his acknowledgment of the peculiar strength of this Topick which he does not onely profess to be in truth the strongest that is made use of but seems not at all to envy it its strength while he writes thus That God is infinitely good is a Position as true as himself nor can he that is furnished with the Reason of a man offer to dispute it Goodness constitutes his very Deity making him to be himself for could he be arayed with all his other Attributes separate and abstract from this they would be so fâ—…r from denominating him a God that he would be but a prodigious Fiend and plenipotentiary Devil This is something a rude and uncourtly Assâ—…veration and unluckâ—…y divâ—…on of the Godhead into two parts and calling one part a Devil But it is not to be imputed to any impiety in the Author of No-Pre-existence but to the roughness and boarishness of his style the texture whereof is not onely Fustian but over-often hard and stiff Buckram He is not content to deny his assent to an Opinion but he must give it disgraceful Names As in his Epistle to the Reader this darling Opinion of the greatest and divinest Sages of the World visiting of late the Studies of some of more than ordinary Wit and learning he compares it to a Bug and sturdy Mendicant that pretends to be some Person of Quality but he like a skilful Beadle of Beggars lifting up the skirts of her Veil as his Phrase is shews her to be a Counterfeit How this busie Beadle would have behaved himself if he had had the opportunity of lifting up the skirts of Moses's Veil when he had descended the Mount I know not I dare not undertake for him but that according to the coarsness of his phancy he would have mistaken that lucid Spirit shining through the skin of Moses's face for some fiery Fiend as he has somewhere the Spirit of Nature for an Hobgobling But there is no pleasure in insisting upon the rudenesses of his style he is best where he is most unlike himself as he is here in the residue of his Description of the Divine Goodness 'T is Goodness says he that is the Head and Glory of Gods perfect Essence and therefore when Moses importuned him for a Vision of his Glory he engaged to display his Goodness to him Could a man think that one that had engaged thus far for the infiniteness of Gods Goodness for its Headship over the other Attributes for its Glory above the rest nay for its Constitutiveness of the very Deity as if this were the onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God himself the rest of Him divided from this a prodigious Fiend or plenipotentiary Devil should prove the Author of No-Pre-existence a very contradiction to this Declaration For to be able to hold No-Pre-existence he must desert the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God and
betake himself to the Devil-part of him as he has rudely called it to avoid this pregnant proof for Pre-existence taken from the infinite Goodness of God And indeed he has pickt out the very worst of that black part of God to serve his turn and that is Self will in the worst sence Otherwise Goodness making God to be himself if it were his true and genuine Self-will it were the Will of his infinite Goodness and so would necessarily imply Pre-existence But to avoid the dint of this Argument he declares in the very same Section for the Supremacy of the Will over the Goodness of the Divine Nature Which is manifestly to contradict what he said before That Goodness is the Head and Glory of Gods perfect Essence For thus Will must have a Supremacy over the Head of the Deity So that there will be an Head over an Head to make the God-head a Monster And what is most insufferable of all That he has chosen an Head out of the Devil-part of the Deity to use his own rude expression to controul and lord it over what is the onely God himself the rest a Fiend separate from this according to his own acknowledgment These things are so infinitely absurd that one would think that he could have no heart to go about to prove them and yet he adventures on it and we shall briefly propose and answer what he produceth And this Supremacy of the Will saith he over the Goodness of the Divine Nature may be made out both by Scripture and other forcible Evidences The Scriptures are three the first Psal. 135. 6. Whatsoever the Lord pleased that did he in heaven and in the earth and in the seas and in all deep places Now if we remember but who this Lord is viz. he whom Goodness makes to be himself we may easily be assured what pleased him namely that which his Wisdom discerned to be the best to be done and therefore it is very right that whatsoever he pleased he should do throughout the whole Universe The second place is Mat. 20. 15. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own Yes I trow every one must acknowledge that God has an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Original to dispose of what is his own and indeed all is his No one has either a right or power to controul him But this does not prove that he ever disposes of any thing otherwise than according to his Wisdom and Goodness If his Goodness be ever limited it is limited by his Wisdom but so then as discerning such a limitation to be for the best So that the measure of Wisdoms determination is still Goodness the only Head in the Divine Nature to which all the rest is subordinate For that there are different degrees of the Communication of the Divine Goodness in the Universe is for the good of the Whole It is sufficient to hint these things it would require a Volume to enlarge upon them And then for the last place Exod. 33. 19. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious This onely implies that he does pro suo jure and without any motive from any one but himself communicate more of his Goodness to some Men or Nations than others But that his Wisdom has not discovered this to be best for the whole constitution of things I challenge any one to prove But of this we shall have occasion to speak more afterward These are the Scriptures The other forcible Evidences are these The first The late Production of the World The second The patefaction of the Law but to one single People namely the Jews The third The timing the Messias's Nativity and bringing it to pass not in the Worlds Infancy or Adolescence but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 1. 2. in its declining Age. The fourth The perpetuity of Hell and interminableness of those Tortures which after this life shall incessantly vex the impious The fifth and last God 's not perpetuating the Station of Pre-existent Souls and hindering them from lapsing into these Regions of Sin and Death These he pretends to be forcible Evidences of the Soveraignty of Gods Will over his Goodness forasmuch as if the contrary to all these had been it had been much more agreeable to the Goodness of God As for the first of these forcible Arguments we have disarmed the strength thereof already by intimating that the World could not be ab aeterno And if it could not be ab aeterno but must commence on this side of Eternity and be of finite years I leave to the Opposer to prove that it has not been created as soon as it could be and that is sufficient to prove that its late Production is not inconsistent with that principle that Gods Goodness always is the measure of his Actions For suppose the World of as little continuance as you will if it was not ab aeterno it was once of as little and how can we discern but that this is that very time which seems so little to us As for the second which seems to have such force in it that he appeals to any competent Judge if it had not been infinitely better that God should have apertly dispensed his Ordinances to all Mankind than have committed them onely to Israel in so private and clancular a manner I say it is impossible for any one to be assured that it is at all better For first If this Priviledge which was peculiar had been a Favour common to all it had lost its enforcement that it had upon that lesser number Secondly It had had also the less surprizing power with it upon others that were not Jews who might after converse with that Nation and set a more high price upon the Truths they had travelled for and were communicated to them from that People Thirdly The nature of the thing was not fitted for the universality of Mankind who could not be congregated together to see the Wonders wrought by Moses and receive the Law with those awful circumstances from Mount Sinai or any Mount else Fourthly All things happened to them in Types and themselves were a Type of the true Israel of God to be redeemed out of their Captivity under Sin and Satan which was worse than any Aegyptian Servitude Wherefore it must be some peculiar People which must be made such a Type not the whole World Fifthly Considering the great load of the Ceremonial Law which came along with other more proper Priviledges of the Jews setting one against another and considering the freedom of other Nations from it unless they brought any thing like it upon themselves the difference of their Conditions will rather seem several Modifications of the communicated Goodness of God to his Creatures than the neglecting of any Forasmuch as sixthly and lastly though all Nations be in a lapsed condition yet there are the Reliques of the Eternal Law of Life
it is plain that Justice and the execution thereof is for the best and that so Goodness not mere Will upon pretence of having a Supremacy over Goodness would be the measure of this sentencing such obdurate sinners to eternal punishment And this eternal punishment as it is a piece of vindicative Justice upon these obdurate sinners so it naturally contributes to the establishment of the Righteous in their Celestial Happiness Which this Opposer of Pre-existence objects somewhere if Souls ever fell from they may fall from it again But these eternal Torments of Hell if they needed it would put a sure bar thereto So that the Wisdom and Goodness also of God is upon this account concerned in the eternal punishments of Hell as well as his Justice That it be to the unreclaimable as that Orphick Hemistichium calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The fifth and last forcible Argument as he calls them for the proving the Soveraignty of Gods Will over his Goodness is this If Gods Goodness saith he be not under the command of his Will but does always what is best why did it not perpetuate the Station of Pre-existent Souls and hinder us if ever we were happy in a sublimer state from lapsing into these Regions of Sin and Death But who does not at first sight discern the weakness of this Allegation For it is plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an absurd thing and contrary to Reason to create such a species of Being whose nature is free and mutable and at the first dash to dam up or stop the exercise of that freedom and capacity of change by confining it to a fixt Station As ridiculous as to suppose a living Creature made with wings and feet and yet that the Maker thereof should take special care it should never flie nor go And so likewise that the mere making of such an Order of Beings as have a freedom of Will and choice of their Actions that this is misbecoming the Goodness of God is as dull and idiotical a conceit and such as implies that God should have made but one kind of Creature and that the most absolutely and immutably happy that can be or else did not act according to his Goodness or for the best Which is so obvious a Falshood that I will not confute it But it is not hard to conceive that he making such a free-willed Creature as the Souls of men simul cum mundo condito and that in an happy condition and yet not fixing them in that Station may excellently well accord with the Soveraignty of his Goodness nor any one be constrained to have recourse to the Supremacy of his Will over his Goodness as if he did it because he would do it and not because it was best For what can this freedom of Will consist in so much as in a temptableness by other Objects that are of an inseriour nature not so divine and holy as the other to which it were the security of the Soul to adhere with all due constancy and therefore her duty But in that she is temptable by other Objects it is a signe that her present enjoyment of the more Divine and Heavenly Objects are not received of her according to their excellency but according to the measure and capacity of her present state which though very happy may be improved at the long run and in an orderly series of times and things whether the Soul lapse into sin or no. For accession of new improvements increaseth Happiness and Joy Now therefore I say suppose several and that great numbers even innumerable myriads of pre-existent Souls to lapse into the Regions of Sin and Death provided that they do not sin perversely and obstinately nor do despight to the Spirit of Grace nor refuse the advantageous offers that Divine Providence makes them even in these sad Regions why may not their once having descended hither tend to their greater enjoyment when they shall have returned to their pristine Sâ—…tion And why may not the specifical nature of the Soul be such that it be essentially interwoven into our Being that after a certain period of times or ages whether she sin or no she may arrive to a fixedness at last in her heavenly Station with greater advantage to such a Creature than if she had been fixed in that state at first The thing may seem least probable in those that descend into these Regions of Sin and Mortality But in those that are not obstinate and refractorie but close with the gracious means that is offered them for their recoverie their having been here in this lower State and retaining the memorie as doubtless they do of the transactions of this Terrestrial Stage it naturally enhances all the enjoyments of the pristine selicitie they had lost and makes them for ever have a more deep and vivid resentment of them So that through the richness of the Wisdom and Goodness of God and through the Merits and conduct of the Captain of their Salvation our Saviour Jesus Christ they are after the strong conslicts here with sin and the corruptions of this lower Region made more than Conquerours and greater gainers upon the losses they sustained before from their own solly And in this most advantageous state of things they become Pillars in the Temple of God there to remain for ever and ever So that unless straying Souls be exceedingly perverse and obstinate the exitus of things will be but as in a Tragick Comedy and their perverseness and obstinacie lies at their own doors for those that finally miscarrie whose number this confident Writer is to prove to be so considerable that the enhanced happiness of the standing part of pre-existent Souls and the recovered does not far preponderate the infelicitie of the others condition Which if he cannot do as I am confident he cannot he must acknowledge That God in not forcibly fixing pre-existent Souls in the state they were first created but leaving them to themselves acted not from the Supremacy of his Will over his Goodness but did what was best and according to that Soveraign Principle of Goodness in the Deitie And now for that snitling Dilemma of this eager Opposer of Pre-existence touching the freedom of acting and mutabilitie in humane Souls whether this mutabilitie be a Specifick property and essential to them or a separable Accident For if it were essential says he then how was Christ a persect man his humane nature being ever void of that lapsabilitie which is essential to humanitie and how come men to retain their specifick nature still that are translated to Celestial happiness and made unalterable in the condition they then are To this I answer That the Pre-existentiaries will admit that the Soul of the Messiah was created as the rest though in an happie condition yet in a lapsable and that it was his peculiar merit in that he so faithfully constantly and entirely adhered to the Divine Principle incomparably above what was done by others
variety may well seem an addition to the felicity of their state And the shadowyness of the Night may help them in the more composing Introversions of their contemplative mind and cast the soul into ineffably pleasing slumbers and Divine extasies so that the transactions of the Night may prove more solacing and beatifick sometimes than those of the day Such things we may guess at afar off but in the mean time be sure that these good and serious Souls know how to turn all that God sends to them to the improvement of their Happiness To the fourth Argument we answer That there are not a few reasons from the nature of the thing that may beget in us a strong presumption that souls recovered into their Celestial Happiness will never again relapse though they did once For first it may be a mistake that the Happiness is altogether the same that it was before For our first Paradisiacal Bodies from which we lapsed might be of a more crude and dilute Aether not so full and saturate with Heavenly glory and perfection as our Resurrection-body is Secondly The soul was then unexperienced and lightly coming by that Happiness she was in did the more heedlessly forgo it before she was well aware and her mind roved after new adventures though she knew not what Thirdly It is to be considered whether Regeneration be not a stronger tenour for enduring Happiness than the being created happie For this being wrought so by degrees upon the Plastick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with ineffable groans and piercing desires after that Divine Life that the Spirit of God co-operating exciteth in us when Regeneration is perfected and wrought to the full by these strong Agonies this may rationally be deemed a deeper tincture in the soul than that she had by mere Creation whereby the soul did indeed become Holy innocent and happie but not coming to it with any such strong previous conflicts and eager workings and thirstings after that state it might not be so firmly rooted by far as in Regeneration begun and accomplished by the operation of Gods Spirit gradually but more deeply renewing the Divine Image in us Fourthly It being a renovation of our Nature into a pristine state of ours the strength and depth of impression seems increased upon that account also Fifthly The remembrance of all the hardships we underwent in our lapsed condition whether of Mortification or cross Rancounters this must likewise help us to persevere when once returned to our former Happiness Sixthly The comparing of the evanid pleasures of our lapsed or terrestrial life with the fulness of those Joys that we find still in our heavenly will keep us from ever having any hankering after them any more Seventhly The certain knowledge of everlasting punishment which if not true they could not know must be also another sure bar to any such negligencies as would hazard their setled felicity Which may be one reason why the irreclaimable are eternally punished namely that it may the better secure eternal Happiness to others Eighthly Though we have our triple Vital Congruity still yet the Plastick life is so throughly satisfied with the Resurrection-body which is so considerably more full and saturate with all the heavenly richness and Glorie than the former that the Plastick of the soul is as entirely taken up with this one Bodie as if she enjoyed the pleasures of all three bodies at once Aethereal Aereal and Terrestrial And lastly Which will strike all sure He that is able to save to the utmost and has promised us eternal life is as true as able and therefore cannot fail to perform it And who can deny but that we in this State I have described are as capable of being fixed there and confirmed therein as the Angels were after Lucifer and others had faln And now to the fifth and last Argument against the state of Silence I say it is raised out of mere ignorance of the most rational as well as most Platonical way of the souls immediate descent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the first Mover or stirrer in this matter I mean in the formation of the Foetus is the Spirit of Nature the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Universe to whom Plotinus somewhere attributes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first Predelineations and prodrome Irradiations into the matter before the particular soul it is preparing for come into it Now the Spirit of Nature being such a spirit as contains Spermatically or Vitally all the Laws contrived by the Divine Intellect for the management of the Matter of the World and of all Essences else unperceptive or quatenus unperceptive for the good of the Universe we have all the reason in the world to suppose this Vital or Spermatical Law is amongst the rest viz. That it transmit but one soul to one prepared conception Which will therefore be as certainly done unless some rare and odd casualty intervene as if the Divine Intellect it self did do it Wherefore one and the same Spirit of Nature which prepares the matter by some general Predelineation does at the due time transmit some one soul in the state of Silence by some particularizing Laws that fetch in such a soul rather than such but most sure but one unless as I said some special casualty happen into the prepared Matter acting at two places at once according to its Synenergetical vertue or power Hence therefore it is plain that there will be no such clusters of Foetus's and monstrous deformities from this Hypothesis of the souls being in a state of Silence But for one to shuffle off so fair a satisfaction to this difficulty by a precarious supposing there is no such Being as the Spirit of Nature when it is demonstrable by so many irrefragable Arguments that there is is a Symptome of one that philosophizes at random not as Reason guides For that is no reason against the existence of the Spirit of Nature because some define it A Substance incorporeal but without sense and animadversion c. as if a spirit without sense and animadversion were a contradiction For that there is a Spirit of Nature is demonstrable though whether it have no sense at all is more dubitable But through it have no sense or perception it is no contradiction to its being a Spirit as may appear from Dr. H. Mores Brief Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit To which I direct the Reader for satisfaction I having already been more prolix in answering these Arguments than I intended But I hope I have made my presage true that they would be found to have no force in them to overthrow the Hypothesis of a threefold Vital Congruity in the Plastick of the soul. So that this fourth Pillar for any execution they can do will stand unshaken Pag. 103. For in all sensation there is corporeal motion c. And besides there seems an essential relation of the Soul to Body according to Aristotles definition thereof he
adjudge any matter or cause to be Heresies but onely such as heretofore have been adjudged to be Heresie by the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures or by the first four General Councils or any of them or by any other General Council wherein the same was declared Heresie by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures By brief reflections upon some of these ten Heads I shall endeavour to lessen the Invidiousness of my seeming to prefer the Discretion of the Church of England before the Judgment of a General Council I mean of such a General Council as is so unexceptionable that we may relie on the Authority of their Decisions that they will not fail to be true Of which sort whether the fifth reputed General Council be we will briefly first consider For reflecting on the first head It seems scarcely numerous enough for a General Council The first General Council of Nice had above three hundred Bishops That of Chalcedon above six hundred This fifth Council held at Constantinople had but an hundred sixty odd And which still makes it more unlike a General Council in the very same year viz. 553 the Western Bishops held a Council at Aquileia and condemned this fifth Council held at Constantinople Secondly The Pre-existence of Souls being a mere Philosophical Speculation and indeed held by all Philosophers in the affirmative that held the Soul incorporeal we are to consider whether we may not justly deem this case referrible to the second Head and to look something like Pope Zacharies appointing a Council to condemn Virgilius as an Heretick for holding Antipodes Thirdly We may very well doubt whether this Council proceeded in via Spiritus Sancti this not being the first time that the lovers and admirers of Origen for his great Piety and Knowledge and singular good service he had done to the Church of Christ in his time had foul play plai'd them Witness the story of Theophilus Bishop of Antioch who to revenge himself on Dioscorus and two others that were lovers of Origen and Anti-Anthropomorphites stickled so that he caused Epiphanius in his See as he did in his own to condemn the Books of Origen in a Synod To which condemnation Epiphanius an Anthropomorphite and one of more Zeal than Knowledge would have got the subscription of Chrysostome the Patriarch of Constantinople but he had more Wisdom and Honesty than to listen to such an injurious demand And as it was with those Synods called by Theophilus and Epiphanius so it seems to be with the fifth Council Piques and Heart-burnings amongst the Grandees of the Church seemed to be at the bottom of the business Binius in his History of this fifth Council takes notice of the enmity betwixt Pelagius Pope Vigilius's Apocrisiarie and Theodorus Bishop of Caesarea Cappadociae an Origenist And Spondanus likewise mentions the same who says touching the business of Origen that Pelagius the Popes Apocrisiarie eam quaestionem in ipsius Theodori odium movisse existimabatur And truly it seems to me altogether incredible unless there were some hellish spight at the bottom that they should not have contented themselves to condemn the errours supposed to be Origens but after so long a time after his death there being in his writings such choppings and changings and interpolations hard to prove to be his but have spared his name for that unspeakable good service he did the Church in his life-time See Dr. H. Mores Preface to his Collectio Philosophica Sect. 18. where Origens true Character is described out of Eusebius Wherefore whether this be to begin or carry on things in via Spiritus Sancti so that we may rely on the Authority of such a Council I leave to the impartial and judicious to consider Fourthly In reference to the fourth Head That true wisdom and moderation and the holy assistance of Gods Spirit did not guide the affairs of this Council seems to be indicated by the Divine Providence who to shew the effect of their unwise proceedings in the self-same year the Council sate sent a most terrible Earthquake for forty days together upon the City of Constantinople where the Council was held and upon other Regions of the East even upon Alexandria it self and other places so that many Cities were levelled to the ground Upon which Spondanus writes thus Haea verò praesagia fuisse malorum quae sunt praedictam Synodum consecuta nemo negare poterit quicunque ab eventis facta noverit judicare This also reminds me of a Prodigy as it was thought that happened at the sixth reputed General Council where nigh three hundred Fathers were gathered together to decide this nice and subtile Point namely whether an operation or volition of Christ were to be deemed Una operatio sive volitio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to that Axiom of some Metaphysicians that Actio est suppositi and so the Humane and Divine Nature of Christ being coalescent into one person his volition and operation be accounted one as his person is but one or because of the two Natures though but one person there are to be conceived two operations or two volitions This latter Dogma obtained and the other was condemned by this third Constantinopolitan Council whereupon as Paulus Diaconus writes abundance of Cobwebs or Spiders webs fell or rained as it were down upon the heads of the people to their very great astonishment Some interpret the Cobwebs of Heresies others haply more rightfully of troubling the Church of Christ with over-great niceties and curiosities of subtile Speculation which tend nothing to the corroborating her Faith and promoting a good Life and are so obscure subtile and lubricous that look on them one way they seem thus and another way thus To this sixth General Council there seemed two Operations and two Wills in Chriâ—… because of his two Natures To a Council called after by Philippicus the Emperour and John Patriarch oâ—… Constantinople considering Christ as one person â—…ere appeared Numerosissimo Orientalium Episcoporum collecto Convenâ—…ui as Spondanus â—…as 〈◊〉 but as Binius Innumerle Orientalium Episcoporum multitudini congregatâ—…e but one will and one operation And ceâ—…tainly this numerous or innumerable company of Bishops must put as fair sor a General Council as that of less than three hundred But that the Authority of both these Councils are lessened upon the account of the second Head in that the matter they consulted about tended nothing to the corroboration of our Faith or the promotion of a good Life I have already intimatâ—…d These things I was tempted to note in reference to the tenth Head For it seems to me an undeniable Argument that our First Reformers which are the Risen Witnesses were either exquisitely well seen in Ecclesiastick History or the good Hand of God was upon them that they absolutely admitted onely the four first General Councils but after them they knew not where to be or what to call a General Council and
have appointed other Laws and indeed framed another Geometry than we have and made the power of the Hypotenusa of a Right-angled Triangle unequal to the powers of the Basis and Cathetus This piece of Drollery of Des Cartes some of his followers have very gravely improved to what I said above of the Whole and Part. As if some superstitious Fop upon the hearing one being demanded whether he did believe the real and corporeal presence of Christ in the Sacrament to answer roundly that he believed him there booted and spurred as he rode in triumph to Jerusalem should become of the same Faith that the other seemed to profess and glory in the improvement thereof by adding that the Ass was also in the Sacrament which he spurred and rid upon But in the mean time while there is this Phrensie amongst them that are no small pretenders to Philosophy this does not a little set off the value and usefulness of this present Discourse of Truth to undeceivâ—… them if they be not wilfully blind Pag. 167. Therefore the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones namely Because a Quadrangle is that which is comprehended of four right lines It is at least a more operose and ambagious Inference if any at all The more immediate and expedite is this That the two internal alternate Angles made by a right line cutting two parallels are equal to one another Therefore the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones P. Ram. Geom. Lib. 6. Prop. 9. Is the reasoning had been thus A Quadrangle is that which is comprehended of â—…our right lines Therefore the three Angles of a Triangle are not equal to two right ones as the Conclusion is grosly salse so the proof had been egregiously aliâ—…n and impertinent And the intention of the Author seems to be carried to Instances that are most extravagant and surprizing which makes me doubt whether equal was read in the true MS. or not equal but the sense is well enough either way Sect. 4. pag. 168. The Divine Understanding cannot be the fountain of the Truth of things c. This seems at first sight to be a very harsh Paradox and against the current Doctrine of Metaphysicians who define Transcendental or Metaphysical Truth to be nothing else but the relation of the Conformity of things to the Theoretical not Practical Intellect of God His Practical Intellect being that by which he knows things as produced or to be produced by him but his Theoretical that by which he knows things as they are but yet in an Objective manner as existent objectively not really And hence they make Transcendental Truth to depend upon the Intellectual Truth of God which alone is most properly Truth and indeed the fountain and origine of all Truth This in brief is the sense of the Metaphysical Schools With which this passage of our Author seems to clash in denying the Divine Intellect to be the fountain of the Truth of things and in driving rather at this That the things themselves in their Objective Existence such as they appear there unalterably and unchangeably to the Divine Intellect and not at pleasure contrived by it for as he says it is against the nature of all understanding to make its Object are the measure and fountain of Truth That in these I say consists the Truth in the Object and that the Truth in the Subject is a conception conformable to these or to the Truth of them whether in the uncreated or created Understanding So that the niceness of the point is this Whether the Transcendental Truth of things exhibited in their Objective Existence to the Theoretical Intellect of God consists in their Conformity to that Intellect or the Truth of that Intellect in its Conformity with the immutable natures and Relations or Respects of things exhibited in their Objective Existence which the Divine Intellect finds to be unalterably such not contrives them at its own pleasure This though it be no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or strife about mere words yet it seems to be such a contest that there is no harm done whethersoever side carries the Cause the two seeming sides being but one and the same Intellect of God necessarily and immutably representing to it self the natures Respects and Aptitudes of all things such as they appear in their Objective Existence and such as they will prove whenever produced into act As for example The Divine Understanding quatenns exhibitive of Idea's which a Platonist would call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does of its infinite pregnancy and fecundity necessarily exhibit certain and unalterable Idea's of such and such determinate things as suppose of a Cylinder a Globe and a Pyramid which have a setled and unalterable nature as also immutable properties references and aptitudes immediately consequential thereto and not arbitrariously added unto them which are thus necessarily extant in the Divine Intellect as exhibitive of such Idea's So likewise a Fish a Fowl and a four-footed beast an Ox Bear Horse or the like they have a setled nature exhibited in their Idea's and the properties and aptitudes immediately flowing therefrom As also have all the Elements Earth Water and Air determinate natures with properties and aptitudes immediately issuing from them Nor is a Whale fitted to fly in the Air nor an Eagle to live under the Water nor an Ox or Bear to do either nor any of them to live in the Fire But the Idea's of those things which we call by those names being unchangeable for there are differences indeed of Idea's but no changing of one Idea into another state but their natures are distinctly setled and to add or take away any thing from an Idea is not to make an alteration in the same Idea but to constitute a new one As Aristotle somewhere in his Metaphysicks speaks of Numbers where he says that the adding or taking away of an Unite quite varies the species And therefore as every number suppose Binary Quinary Ternary Denary is such a setled number and no other and has such properties in it self and references immediately accrewing to it and aptitudes which no other number besides it self has so it is with Idea's the Idea's I say therefore of those things which we call by those names above-recited being unchangeable the aptitudes and references immediately issuing from their nature represented in the Idea must be also unalterable and necessary Thus it is with Mathematical and Physical Idea's and there is the same reason concerning such Idea's as may be called Moral Forasmuch as they respect the rectitude of Will in whatever Mind created or uncreated And thus lastly it is with Metaphysical Idea's as for example As the Physical Idea of Body Matter or Substance Material contains in it immediately of its own nature or intimate specifick Essence real Divisibility or Discerpibility Impenetrability and mere Passivity or Actuability as the proper fruit of the Essential Difference and intimate Form thereof
unalterably and immutably as in its Idea in the Divine Intellect so in any Body or Material Substance that does exist So the Idea of a Spirit or of a Substance Immaterial the opposite Idea to the other contains in it immediately of its own nature Indiscerpibility Penetrability and Self-Activity as the inseparable fruit of the essential difference or intimate form thereof unalterably and immutably as in its Idea in the Divine Intellect so in any Immaterial Substance properly so called that doth exist So that as it is a contradiction in the Idea that it should be the Idea of Substance Immaterial and yet not include in it Indiscerpibility c. so it is in the being really existent that it should be Substance Immaterial and yet not be Indiscerpible c. For were it so it would not answer to the Truth of its Idea nor be what it pretendeth to be and is indeed an existent Being Indiscerpible which existent Being would not be Indiscerpible if any could discerp it And so likewise it is with the Idea of Ens summè absolutè perfectum which is a setled determinate and immutable Idea in the Divine Intellect whereby were not God himself that Ens summè absolutè perfectum he would discern there were something better than Himself and consequently that he were not God But he discerns Himself to be this Ens summè absolutè perfectum and we cannot but discern that to such a Being belongs Spirituality which implies Indiscerpibility and who but a mad man can imagine the Divine Essence discerpible into parts Infinity of Essence or Essential Omnipresence Self-Causality or necessary Existence immediately of it self or from it self resulting from the absolute and peculiar perfection of its own nature whereby we understand that nothing can exist ab aeterno of it self but He. And lastly Omniscience and Omnipotence whereby it can do any thing that implies no contradiction to be done Whence it necessarily follows that all things were Created by Him and that he were not God or Ens summè perfectum if it were not so And that amongst other things he created Spirits as sure as there are any Spirits in the world indiscerpible as himself is though of finite Essences and Metaphysical Amplitudes and that it is no derogation to his Omnipotence that he cannot discerp a Spirit once created it being a contradiction that he should Nor therefore any argument that he cannot create a Spirit because he would then puzzle his own Omnipotence to discerp it For it would then follow that he cannot create any thing no not Metaphysical Monads nor Matter unless it be Physically divisible in infinitum and God Himself could never divide it into parts Physically indivisible whereby yet his Omnipotence would be puzzled And if he can divide matter into Physical Monads no further divisible there his Omnipotence is puzzled again And by such sophistical Reasoning God shall be able to create nothing neither Matter nor Spirit nor consequently be God or Ens summè absolutè perfectum the Creator and Essentiator of all things This is so Mathematically clear and true that I wonder that Mr. Rich. Baxter should not rather exult in his Placid Collation at the discovery of so plain and useful a truth than put himself p. 79. into an Histrionical as the Latin or as the Greek would express it Hypocritical fit of trembling to amuze the populacy as if the Doctor in his serious and solid reasoning had verged towards something hugely exorbitant or prophane The ignorant fear where no fear is but God is in the generation of the knowing and upright It 's plain this Reasoning brings not the existence of God into any doubt For it is no repugnance to either his nature or existence not to be able to do what is a contradiction to be done but it puts the Indiscerpibility of Spirits which is a Notion mainly useful out of all doubt And yet Mr. Baxter his phancie stalking upon wooden stilts and getting more than a spit and a stride before his Reason very magisterially pronounces It 's a thing so high as required some shew of proof to intimate that God cannot be God if he be Almighty and cannot conquer his own Omnipotency Ans. This is an expression so high and in the Clouds that no sense thereof is to be seen unless this be it That God cannot be God unless he be not Almighty as he would discover himself not to be if he could not discerp a Spirit of a Metaphysical amplitude when he has created it But it plainly appears from what has been said above that this discerping of a Spirit which is immediately and essentially of its own nature indiscerpible as well as a Physical Monad is implying a contradiction it is no derogation to the Almightiness of God that he cannot do it all Philosophers and Theologers being agreed on that Maxim That what implies a contradiction to be done is no Object of Gods Almightiness Nor is he less Almighty for not being able to do it So that the prick-ear'd Acuteness of that trim and smug saying that seemed before to shoot up into the Sky flags now like the slaccid lugs of the over-laden Animal old Silenus rid on when he had a Plot upon the Nymphâ—… by Moon-shine Pardon the tediousness of the Periphrasis For though the Poet was pleased to put old Silenus on the Ass yet I thought it not so civil to put the Ass upon old Mr. Baxter But he proceeds pag. 80. Your words says he like an intended Reason are For that cannot be God from whom all other things are not produced and created to which he answers 1. Relatively says he as a God to us it 's true though quoad existentiam Essentiae he was God before the Creation But I say if he had not had the power of creating he had been so defective a Being that he had not been God But he says 2. But did you take this for any shew of a proof The sense implyed is this All things are not produced and created by God if a spiritual ample substance be divisible by his Omnipotencie that made it Yea Then he is not God Negatur consequentia Ans. Very scholastically disputed Would one think that Reverend Mr. Baxter whom Dr. More for his Function and Grandevity sake handles so respectfully and forbears all such Juvenilities as he had used toward Eugenius Philalethes should play the Doctor such horse-play having been used so civilly by him before What Buffoon or Antick Mime could have distorted their bodies more ill-favour'dly and ridiculously than he has the Doctors solid and well-composed Argument And then as if he had done it in pure innocency and simplicity he adds a Quaker-like Yea thereunto And after all like a bold Scholastick Champion or Polemick Divine couragiously cries out Negatur consequentia What a fardle of freaks is there here and illiberal Artifices to hide the Doctors sound Reasoning in the 28th Section of his Answer to the
sufficiently enable them to be Guides to the people especially by adhering in Matters of moment to the Ancient Apostolick and unapostatized Church and presuming nothing upon their private spirit against the same Such questionless will prove able and safe Pastors and will not fail of being approved of by our Lord Jesus the great Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls But if any such as I noted above for that they conceit themselves also dapper fellows at Cudgils or Quarter-stafs shall leaving their Flocks solitary in the fields out of an itch after applause from the Country-Fry gad to Wakes and Fairs to give a proof of their dexterity at those Rural exercises if they shall I say for their pains return with a bruised knuckle or broken pate who can help it it will learn them more wit another time Thus much by way of Digression I thought fit to speak not out of the least ill-will to Mr. Baxter but onely in behalf of the Doctor hoping though it is far from all that may be said that yet it is so much and so much also to the purpose that it will save the Doctor the labour of adding any thing more thereto So that he may either enjoy his Repose or betake himself to some design of more use and moment In the mean time I having dispatcht my Digression I shall return to the main business in hand I think it may plainly appear from what has been said that it is no such harsh thing to adventure to conclude That the Truth of the Divine Intellect quatenus conceptive speculative or observative which a Platonist would be apt to call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Divine Intellect exhibitive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for though it be but one and the same Intellect yet for distinctness sake we are fain to speak as of two does consist in its Conformity with the Divine Intellect exhibitive with the immutable Idea's Respects and References of things there In conceiving and observing them as I may so speak to be such as they are represented in the said Intellect quatenus necessarily and unalterably representing such Idea's with the immediate Respects and References of them In this consists the Truth of the Divine Intellect Speculative But the Transcendental Truth of things consists in their Conformity to the Divine Intellect Exhibitive For every thing is true as it answers to the immutable Idea of its own nature discovered in the Divine Intellect Exhibitive To which also the same Divine Intellect quatenus Conceptive Speculative or Observative gives its suffrage steadily and unalterably conceiving these immutable Idea's of things in their Objective Existence what their natures will be with their necessary references aptitudes or ineptitudes to other things when they are produced into act From whence we may discern how that saying of this ingenious Author of the Discourse of Truth is to be understood Where he writes It is against the nature of all Understanding to make its Object Which if we will candidly interpret must be understood of all understanding quatenus merely conceptive speculative or observative and of framing of its Object at its pleasure Which as it is not done in the setled Idea of a Sphere Cylinder and Pyramid no more is it in any other Idea's with their properties and aptitudes immediately issuing from them but all the Idea's with their inevitable properties aptitudes or ineptitudes are necessarily represented in the Divine Intellect Exhibitive immutably such as they are a Triangle with its three Angles equal to two right ones a right-angled Triangle with the power of its Hypotenusa equal to the powers of the Basis and Cathetus both put together Which things seem necessary to every sober man and rightly in his wits our understanding being an Abstract or Copy of the Divine Understanding But those that say that if God would he might have made the three Angles of a Triangle unequal to two right ones and also the powers of the Basis and Cathetus of a right-angled Triangle unequal to the power of the Hypotenusa are either Bussoons and Quibblers or their Understandings being but creatural huffiness of mind and an ambition of approving themselves the Broachers and maintainers of strange Paradoxes has crazed their Intellectuals and they have already entred the suburbs of down-right Phrensie and Madness And to conclude Out of what has been insinuated we may reconcile this harsh sounding Paradox of our Author that seems so point-blank against the current doctrine of the Metaphysical Schools who make Transcendental Truth to depend upon the Intellectual Truth of God which they rightly deem the Fountain and Origine of all Truth whenas he plainly declares That the Divine Understanding cannot be the Fountain of the Truth of things But the seeming absurdity will be easily wiped away if we take notice of our distinction touching the Divine Understanding quatenus merely conceptive speculative or observative and quatenus necessarily through its own infinite and immutable pregnancie and foecundity Exhibitive of the distinct and determinate Idea's or natures of things with their immediate Properties Respects or Habitudes in their Objective Existence representing them such as they certainly will be if reduced into act His assertion is not to be understood of the Divine Understanding in this latter sense but in the former But being it is one and the same Understanding though considered under this twofold Notion our Author as well as the ordinarie Metaphysicians will agree to this truth in the sense explained That the Divine Understanding is the Fountain of the truth of things and that they are truly what they are as they answer to their Idea's represented in the Exhibitive Intellect of God How the Author himself comes off in this point you will better understand when you have read the fifteenth sixteenth and seventeenth Sections of his Discourse Let this suffice in the mean time for the removing all stumbling-blocks from before the Reader Pag. 168. Nor the foundation of the references one to another that is to say The Divine Understanding quatenus Conceptive or Speculative is most certainly not the Foundation of the references of things one to another but the Divine Understanding quatenus Exhibitive that represents the Idea's or natures of things in their Objective Existence such as they would be if reduced really into act represents therewith all the references and habitudes they have one to another Which habitudes are represented not as flowing from or arbitrariously founded in any Intellect whatsoever but as resulting from the natures of the things themselves that respect one another and are represented in the Exhibitive Understanding of God Which is the main thing that this ingenious Author would be at and such as will serve all his intents and purposes Pag. 168. It is the nature of Understanding ut moveatur illuminetur c. namely of Understanding quatenus Conceptive or Speculative not quatenus Exhibitive Pag. 169. No Idea's or Representations either are or make the things they
represent c. This Assertion is most certainly true But yet they may be such Idea's and Representations as may be the measure of the Truth of those things they represent And such are all the Idea's in the Divine Intellect Exhibitive their setled distinct natures necessarily exhibited there in vertue of the absolute perfection of the Deitie though onely in their Objective Existence are the measures of the Truth of those things when they are reduced into act as I have noted above but they are not the things themselves reduced into act no more than an Autographon is the very Copy Ibid. All Understanding is such that is Idea's and Representations of the natures of things in their Objective Existence the Patterns of what and how they are when they Exist and what references and aptitudes they have I suppose he means here by Understanding not any power of the mind to conceive any thing but Understanding properly so called viz. that whose Objects are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Platonists speak the Idea's or Representations of such things as are necessarily and unalterably such not fictions at pleasure Let the Intellect Speculative be such Idea's or Representations as these and then what it perceives conceives or observes it does not make but it is made to its hand as not being able to be otherwise nor it self to think otherwise And therefore it is rightly inferred as follows That no Speculative Understanding in that restrict sense above-named makes at pleasure the natures respects and relations of its Objects represented in the Intellect Exhibitive in their Objective Existence but finds them there Nor does any Intellect whatsoever make them at pleasure but they are necessarily and unalterably represented in the Exhibitive Intellect of the Deitie both their natures respects and habitudes as Inoted above Sect. 5. pag. 169. It remains then that absolute arbitrarious and independent Will must be the Fountain of all Truth c. It being supposed that the Divine Understanding and the independent Will of God are the onely competitours who should be the Fountain of all Truth and the former Section proving in a sense rightly understood that the Divine Understanding cannot be the Fountain of Truth it remains that the mere Will of God should be the Fountain of Truth and that things are true onely because he wills they be so As if four bore a double proportion to two because God would have it so but if he would that Two should bear a double proportion to Four it would immediately be so Ibid. Which Assertion would in the first place destroy the nature of God c. Nay if he will it destroys his very Existence For if all Truths depend upon Gods Will then this Truth That God Exists does And if he will the contrary to be true namely That he does not Exist what becomes of him then Ibid. And rob him of all his Attributes That it robs him of Science and assured Knowledge whose Objects are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Things immutable and necessary this Section makes good And that it despoils him of his Rectitude of Nature the Eighth Section will shew Pag. 170. Any Angel or man may as truly be said to know all things as God himself c. Because this supposition takes away all the steadie and scientifick Knowableness in things it taking away their setled fixt and necessary habitudes one to another as if double proportion of Four to Two did no more belong to it in Truth and Reality than Sub-double and that Four in Truth were no more the Quaternarie number than the Binary but indifferently either as the Will of God will have it This plainly pulls up by the roots all pretence of Science or Knowledge in God Angels and Men. And much more flatly to assert That if God will contradictions may be true For this plainly implies that there is really no Repugnancy nor Connection of one thing with another and that therefore no one thing can be proved or disproved from another Pag. 171. If we distinguish those two Attributes in God c. namely of Wisdom and Knowledge as if the one were Noematical the other Dianoetical although that discursiveness is more quick than lightning or rather an eternal intuitive discernment of the consequence or cohesion of things at once Sect. 6. pag. 172. Because they suppose that God is immutable and unchangeable c. This can be no allegation against the other Arguings because we cannot be assured of the Immutability or Unchangeableness of God but by admitting of what those arguings drive at namely That there is an immutable necessary and unchangeable reference and respect or connection of things one with another As for example of Immutableness or Unchangeableness with Perfection and of Perfection with God For to fancie God an imperfect Being is nonsense to all men that are not delirant and to fancie him Perfect and yet Changeable in such a sense as is here understood is as arrant a Contradiction or Repugnancie Wherefore they that would oppose the fore-going Arguings by supposing God Unchangeable must acknowledge what is aimed at That there is a necessary and unchangeable respect and connection betwixt things or else their opposition is plainly weak and vain But if they grant this they grant the Cause and so Truth has its just victory and triumph This Section is abundantly clear of it self Sect. 8. pag. 174. Will spoâ—…l God of that universal Rectitude which is the greatest perfection of his nature c. In the fifth Section it was said That the making the Will of God the Fountain of all Truth robs him of all his Attributes And there it is proved how it robs him of his Wisdom and Knowledge Here it is shewn how it robs him of his Justice Mercy Faithfulness Goodness c. Pag. 175. For to say they are indispensably so because God understands them so c. This as the Author saies must be extream Incogitancy For the Truth of the Divine Understanding Speculative consists in its Conformitie with the Idea's of things and their Respects and Habitudes in the Divine Understanding Exhibitive which necessarily unchangeably and unalterably represents the natures of things with their Respects and Habitudes in their Objective Existence such as they necessarily are when they do really exist As of a Sphere Pyramid Cube and Cylinder And there is the same reason of all natures else with their Respects and Habitudes that they are as necessarily exhibited as the Cube and Cylinder and their Habitudes and Respects one to another as the proportion that a Cylinder bears to a Sphere or Globe of the same altitude and equal diameter Which Archimedes with incomparable clearness and subtiltie of wit has demonstrated in his Treatise De Sphaera Cylindro to be ratio sesqâ—…altera as also the Superficies of the Cylinder with its Bases to bear the same proportion to the Superficies of the Sphere And as these Idea's are necessarily
and unalterably with their Respects and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 represented so are all Idea's else Physical and Moral as I have noted above And the nature of Justice Mercy Faithfulness and Goodness are with their habitudes and respects as fixedly determinately and unalterably represented in their Idea's as the Sphere and Cylinder or any other Form or Being whatsoever Sect. 9. pag. 178. For we are to know that there is a God and the Will of God c. That is to say If there be no setled natures and respects and habitudes of things in the order of Nature antecedent to any Will whatever Meditation or Contrivance nor there be any certain nature respects habitudes and connections of things in themselves it will be necessary that we first know there is a God and what his Will is touching the natures respects and habitudes of things Whether these which we seem to discern and do argue from are the same he means and wills or some other And so there will be a necessity of knowing God and his Will before we have any means to know him or which is all one we shall never have any means to know him upon this false and absurd Hypothesis Sect. 11. pag. 181. Then it infallibly follows that it is all one what I do or how I live c. This as the following words intimate is to be understood in reference to the pleasing God and to our own future Happiness But it is manifest it is not all one what I do or how I live though I did suppose there were no real distinction betwixt Truth and Falshood Good and Evil in the sense here intended in reference to this present condition in this World where the sense of pain and ease of imprisonment and liberty and of the security or safety of a mans own person will oblige him to order his life in such a manner as hath at least the imitation of Temperance Faithfulness and Justice Sect. 12. pag. 183. If the opposition of Contradictory Terms depend upon the arbitrarious resolves of any Being whatsoever The plainness and irrefragableness of this Truth that the opposition of contradictory Terms is an affection habituâ—…e or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betwixt those terms that no power in Heaven or Earth can abolish methinks should assure any that are not pure Sots or crazie Fantasticks that there may be many other such unalterable and immutable habitudes of Terms Natures or Things that are every jot as unabolishable as this Which is no derogation to the Divine Perfection but an Argument of it unless we should conceit that it is the height of the Perfection of Divine Omnipotence to be able to destroy himself And truly to fancie an ability in him of destroying or abolishing those eternal necessary and immutable habitudes or respects of the natures of things represented in their Idea's by the Divine Intellect Exhibitive is little less than the admitting in God an ability of destroying or abolishing the Divine Nature it self because ipso facto the Divine Wisdom and Knowledge would be destroyed as was shewn in the fifth Section and what a God would that be that is destitute thereof Wherefore it is no wonder that those men that are sober and in their wits find it so impossible in themselves but to conceive that such and such natures are steadily such and no other and betwixt such and such natures there are steadily and immutably such habitudes and respects and no others Forasmuch as the Intellect of man is as it were a small compendious Transcript of the Divine Intellect and we feel in a manner in our own Intellects the firmness and immutability of the Divine and of the eternal and immutable Truths exhibited there So that those that have their minds so crackt and shatter'd as to be able to fancy that if God would he could change the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or common notions into their Contradictories as The whole is less than its Part c. must have very crazy Intellectuals and have taken their lodging at least in the suburbs of downright dotage or Phrensie as I noted above Pag. 184. If any one should affirm that the Terms of common notions have an eternal and indispensable relation to one another c. That this priviledge is not confined to the common notions they are abundantly convinced of that have bestowed any competent study upon Mathematicks where the connection of every link of the demonstration is discerned to be as firmly and indissolubly knit as the Terms of a common notion are the one with the other And it is our Impatience Carelesness or Prejudices that we have not more conclusions of such certitude than we have in other studies also Sect. 13. pag. 184. For if there be Truth antecedently to the Divine Understanding c. This Objection of the Adversaries is framed something perversly and invidiously as if the other party held That there were Truth antecedently to the Divine Understanding and as if from thence the Divine Understanding would be a mere passive Principle actuated by something without as the Eye by the Sun But it is a plain case out of what has been declared that the Divine Understanding though there be such eternal Natures and unchangeable respects and habitudes of them represented in the Idea's that are in the Exhibitive Intellect of the Deity that it is I say before any external Object whatever and yet always had exhibited to it self the eternal and unalterable natures and respects of things in their Idea's And it was noted moreover that the Truth of the external Objects when brought into act is measured by their Conformity to these Idea's Besides the Divine Understanding being before all things how could there be any Truth before it there being neither Understanding nor Things in which this Truth might reside Or the Divine Understanding be a mere passive Principle actuated by something without as the eye by the Sun whenas questionless the Divine Intellect quatenus Exhibitive is the most active Principle conceivable nay indeed Actus purissimus the most pure Act as Aristotle has defined God It is an eternal necessary and immutable Energy whose very Essence is a true and fixt Ideal Representation of the natures of all things with their respects and habitudes resulting eternally from the Divine foecundity at once How then can this which is so pure and pregnant an Energy be a mere passive Principle or be actuated by any external Object when it was before any thing was But a further Answer is to be found of the Authour himself in the Fifteenth Section Pag. 185. Which is to take away his independency and self sufficiency Namely If there be mutual and unalterable Congruities and Incongruities of things as if they would determine God in his actions by something without himself Which is a mere mistake For the pregnant fulness of the Divine Essence and perfection eternally and necessarily exerting it self into an Ideal display of all the natures
properties respects and habitudes of things whether Congruities or Incongruities and these fixt immutable necessary and unchangeable in their Ideal or Objective Existence And in time producing things according to these Paradigms or Patterns into actual Existence by his Omnipotence and ever sustaining supporting and governing them by his unfailing Power and steady and unchangeable Wisdom and Counsel I say when all things are thus from God sustained by God and regulated according to the natures he has given them which answer the Patterns and Paradigms in him how can any such determination of his Will any way clash with his Self-sufficiency or Independency whenas we see thus that all things are from God and depend of him and his actions guided by the immutable Idea's in his own nature according to which all external things are what they are and their Truth measured by their Conformity with them But there is a fuller answer of the Author's to this Objection in the sixteenth and seventeenth Sections Sect. 14. pag. 187. And to fetter and imprison Freedom and Liberty it self in the fatal and immutable chains and respects of things c. This is a misconceit that savours something of a more refined Anthropomorphitism that is to say Though they do not make the Essence of God finite and of an Humane figure or shape yet they imagine him to have two different Principles in him an extravagant and undetermined lust or appetite as it is in man and an Intellectual or rational Principle whose Laws are to correct the luxuriancies and impetuosities of the other and to bridle and regulate them But this is a gross mistake For there is no such blind and impetuous will in God upon which any Intellectual Laws were to lay a restraint but his whole nature being pure and Intellectual and he acting according to his own nature which contains those Idea's and immutable respects Congruities and Incongruities of things there eternally and unalterably represented he acts with all freedom imaginable nor has any chains of restraint laid upon him but is at perfect liberty to do as his own nature requires and suggests Which is the most absolute liberty that has any sound or shew of Perfection with it that can be conceived in any Being Sect. 15. pag. 189. And does as it were draw them up into its own beams This is something a sublime and elevate expression But I suppose the meaning thereof is That the natures and respects of the things of this lower Creation the Divine Understanding applies to the bright shining Idea's found in his own exalted nature and observes their Conformity therewith and acknowledges them true and right as they answer to their eternal Patterns Sect. 16. pag. 189. To tie up God in his actions to the reason of things destroys his Liberty Absoluteness and Independency This is said but it is a very vain and weak allegation as may appear out of what has been suggested above For reasons of things and their habitudes and references represented in the eternal Idea's in their Objective Existence which is the Pattern of their natures when they exist actually is the very life and nature of the Divine Understanding And as I noted above the most true and perfective libertie that can be conceived in any Being is that without any check or tug or lubricity and unsteadiness it act according to its own life and nature And what greater Absoluteness than this For that which acts according to its own nature acts also according to its own will or appetite And what greater Independencie than to have a power upon which there is no restraint nor any modification of the exercise thereof but what is taken from that which has this power For the eternal and immutable reasons of things are originally and Paradigmatically in the Divine Understanding of which those in the Creatures are but the Types and transitorie Shadows The Author in this Section has spoke so well to this present Point that it is needless to superadd any thing more Sect. 17. pag. 191. In this seventeenth Section the Author more fully answers that Objection As if Gods acting according to the reasons of things inferred a dependency of him upon something without himself Which he does with that clearness and satisfaction that it is enough to commend it to the perusal of the Reader Sect. 18. pag. 193. Truth in the power or faculty is nothing else but a Conformity of its conceptions or Idea's unto the natures and relations of things which in God we may call c. The Description which follows is though the Author nowhere takes notice of that distinction a Description of the Divine Understanding quatenus Exhibitive not Conceptive or Speculative The Truth of which latter does indeed consist in the Conformity of its Conception unto the natures and relations of things but not of things ad extra but unto the natures habitudes and respects of things as they are necessarily eternally and immutably represented in the Divine Understanding Exhibitive which is the Intellectual World which the Author here describes and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the vast Champion or boundless field of Truth So that in those words unto the natures and relations of things which in God we call an actual steady immoveable eternal omniformity c. Which is to be referred to the Natures and Relations of things as is evident to any that well considers the place And with this sense that which follows the description is very coherent Pag. 194. Now all that Truth that is in any created Being is by participation and derivation from this first Understanding that is from the Divine Understanding quatenus Exhibitive and Fountain of Intellectual Light That is according to the Platonick Dialect of those steady unalterable and eternal Idea's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the natures and respects of things represented there in the Divine Understanding Exhibitive in their Objective Existence In conformity to which the Truth in all created things and Understandings doth necessarily consist Pag. 195. Antecedently to any Understanding or Will c. That is Antecedently to any Understanding Conceptive Observative or Speculative whatsoever or to any Will but not antecedently to the Divine Understanding Exhibitive For that is antecedent to all created things and contains the steady fixt eternal and unalterable natures and respects or habitudes before they had or could have any Being I say it contains the Truth and measure of them nor can they be said to be truly what they are any further than they are found conformable to these eternal immutable Idea's Patterns and Paradigms which necessarily and eternally are exerted and immutably in the Divine Understanding Exhibitive And of these Paradigmatical things there what follows is most truly affirmed Pag. 195. For things are what they are and cannot be otherwise without a Contradiction c. This was true before any external or created things did exist True of every Form in that eternal Omniformity which the Platonists
call the Intellectual World as the Author has observed above in this Section A Circle is a Circle and a Triangle a Triangle there nor can be otherwise without a Contradiction And so of a Globe Cylinder Horse Eagle Whale Fire Water Earth their Ideal fixt and determinate natures habitudes aptitudes and respects necessarily and immutably there exhibited are such as they are nor can be otherwise without a contradiction And because it is thus in the Divine Nature or Essence which is the root and fountain of the exteriour Creation the same is true in the created Beings themselves Things are there also what they are nor can they be a Globe suppose or a Cylinder and yet not be a Globe or a Cylinder at once or be both a Globe and Cylinder at once and so of the rest As this is a contradiction in the Intellectual World so is it in the Exteriour or Material World and so because it is so in the Intellectual For the steadiness and immutableness of the nature of all things and of their respects and habitudes arise from thâ—… necessity immutability and unchangeableness of the Divine Essence and Life which is that serene unclouded undisturbed and unalterable Eternity where all things with their respects and aptitudes their order and series are necessarily steadily and immutably exhibited at once P. 195. As they conform agree with the things themselves c. 〈◊〉 The more Platonical sense and more conformable to that we have given of other passages of this learned and ingenious Author is if we understand the things themselves at least primarily to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Plato which is the term which he bestows upon his Idea's which are the Patterns or Paradigms according to which every thing is made and is truly such so far sorth as it is found to agree with the Patterns or Originals in which all Archetypal Truth is immutably lodged All created things are but the Copies of these these the Original the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Writing it self from whence Plato calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if those Archetypal Forms were the forms or things themselves but the numerous created Beings here below only the Copies or Imitations of them Wherefore no Conception or Idea's that we frame or any Intellect else as Conceptive merely and Speculative can be true but so far as they agree with these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that sense we have declared or with creâ—…ted things so far as they are answerable to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Archetypal things themselves And from hence is sufficiently understood the nature of Truth in the Subject These few cursory Notes I thought worth the while to make upon these two learâ—…ed and ingenious Writers the Subjects they have written on being of no mean importance and use and the things written in such a time of their age as if men be born under an auspicious Planet best fits their minds for the relishing and ruminating upon such noble Theories For I dare say when they wrote these Discourses or Treatises they had neither of them reached so much as half the age of man as it is ordinarily computed Which has made them write upon these Subjects with that vigour and briskness of Spirit that they have For the constitution of Youth in those that have not an unhappy Nativity is far more heavenly and Angelical than that of more grown age in which the Spirit of the World is more usually awakened and then begins that Scene which the Poet describes in his De Arte Poetica Quoerit opes amicitias inservit honori their mind then begins to be wholly intent to get wealth and riches to enlaâ—…ge their Interest by the friendship of great Persons and to hunt after Dignities and Preferments Honours and Imployments in Church or State and â—…o those more heavenly and Divine Sentiments through disuse and the presence of more strong and filling Impressions are laid asleep and their Spirits thickened and clouded with the gross fumes and steams that arise from the desire of earthly things and it may so fall out if there be not special care taken that this mud they have drawn in by their coarse desires may come to that opaque hardness and incrustation that their Terrestrial body may prove a real dungeon cast them into an utter oblivion of their chiefest concerns in the other State Nec auras Respicient clausi tenebris carcere coeco Which I thought sit to take notice of as well for the instruction of others as for a due Appretiation of these two brief Treatises of these florid Writers they being as it were the Virgin-Honey of these two Attick Bees the Primitioe of their intemerated Youth where an happy natural complexion and the first Rudiments of Christian Regeneration may seem to have conspired to the writing of two such useful Treatises Useful I say and not a little grateful to men of refined Fancies and gay Intellectuals of benign and Philosophical tempers and Lovers of great Truths and Goodness Which natural constitution were a transcendent priviledge indeed were there not one great danger in it to those that know not how to use it skilfully For it does so nearly ape as I may so speak the Divine Benignity it self and that unself-interessed Love that does truly arise from no other seed than that of real Regeneration which Self-mortification and a serious endeavour of abolishing or utterly demolishing our own will and quitting any thing that would captivate us and hinder our union with God and his Christ does necessarily precede that too hastily setting up our rest in these mere complexional attainments which is not Spirit but Flesh though it appear marvellous sweet and goodly to the owner if there be not â—…ue care taken to advance higher in that Divine and Eternal Principle of real Regeneration by a constant mortification of our own will there may be a perpetual hazzard of this Flesh growing corrupt and fly-blown and sending up at lâ—…st no sweet savour into the nostrils of the Almighty That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit And all flesh is grass and the beauty thereof as the slower of the field but that which is born of the eternal Seed of the living Word abideth for ever and ever And therefore there is no safe Anchorage for the Soul but in a perpetual endeavour of annihilating of her own Will that we may be one with Christ as Christ is with God Otherwise if we follow the sweet enticing Counsels of mere Nature though it look never so smugly on it it will seduce us into a false liberty and at last so corrupt our Judgment and blind us that we shall scarce be able to discern him that is that great Light that was sent into the world but become every man an Ignis Fatuus to himself or be so silly as to be led about by other