luculentissima Josephi edita paulo post annum à Christi abitu 40. Cum quibus consentiunt ea quae apud Thalmudicos de iisdem temporibus leguntur Neronis saevitiam in Christianos Tacitus memoriae prodidit Exstabant olim libri tum privatorum ut Phlegontis tum acta publica ad quae Christiani provocabant quilus constabat de eo sidere quod post Christum natum apparuit de terrae motu solis deliquio contra naturam plenissimo lunae orbe circa tempus quo Christus crucis supplicio affectus est Celsus and Julian do not deny the miracles of Christ Mahomet himself confesseth Christ to be a true Prophet and the Word of God and condemneth the Jews for rejecting him he confesseth his miraculous Nativity and mighty works and that he was sent from heaven to preach the Gospel He bringeth in God as saying We have delivered our declarations to Jesus the Son of Mary and strengthned him by the holy Ghost And We have delivered him the Gospel in which is direction and light c. And he teacheth his followers this Creed Say We believe in God and that which was delivered to Moses and Jesus and which was delivered to the Prophets from their Lord we distinguish not between any of them and we deliver up our selves to his faith And if Christ be to be believed as Mahomet saith then Christianity is the true Religion for as for his and his followers reports that the Scriptures are changed and that we have put out Christ's prediction that Mahomet must be sent c. they are fables not only unproved but before here proved utterly impossible Read Eusebius Eccles Hist l. 8 c. 17 18. l. 9. c. 10. of God's strange judgments on Maximinus the Emperour whose bowels being tormented and his lower parts ulcerated with innumerable worms and so great a stink as kill'd some of his Physicians which forced him to confess that what had befallen him was deservedly for his madness against Christ for he had forbidden the Christians their assemblies and persecuted them wherefore he commanded that they should cease persecuting the Christians and that by a Law and Imperial Edict their Assemblies should be again restored He confessed his sins and begg'd the Christians Prayers and professed that if he were recovered he would worship the God of the Christians whom by experience he had found to be the true God See Bishop Fotherby Atheomast l. 1. c. 3. p. 140 141. comparing his case with Antiochus his Paulus Orosius histor li. 6. fine telleth us of a Fountain of Oyl which flowed a whole day in Augustus Reign and how Augustus refused to be called Dominus and how he shut up Janus Temple because of the Universal Peace and that eo tempore id est eo anno quo fortissimam verissimamque pacem ordinatione Dei Caesar composuit natus est Christus cujus adventum pax ista famulata est in cujus ortu audientibus hominibus exultantes Angeli cecinerunt Gloria in excelsis Deo in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis See also what after others he saith of Tyberius motioning to the Senate that Christ might be accounted a God and Sejanus resisting it li 7. Auct Bib. Pat. To. 1. p. 209. where he saith also that aliquanti Graecorum libri attested the darkness at Christs death And li. 7. p. 216. he sheweth that as after the ten Plagues of Egypt the Israelites were delivered and the Egyptians destroyed so was it in the Roman Empire with the Christians and Pagans after the particular revenges of the ten Persecutions But because he is a Christian Historian I cite no more from him CHAP. IX Yet Faith hath many Difficulties to overcome What they are and what their Causes THere are two sorts of persons who may possibly peruse these things and are of tempers so contrary that what helpeth one may hurt the other The first are those who see so many objections and difficulties that they are turned from the due apprehension of the Evidences of Christianity and can think of nothing but stumbling-blocks to their Faith To tell these men of more difficulties may adde to their discouragement and do them hurt And yet I am not of their minde that think they should be therefore silenced For that may tempt them to imagine them unanswerable if they come into their mindes The better way for these men is to desire them better to study the Evidence of truth And there are other men who must be thought on who seeing no difficulties in the work of Faith do continue unfortified against them and keep up a Belief by meer extrinsick helps and advantages which will fall as soon as the storms assault it And because no doubt is well overcome that is not known and Nil tam certum quà m quod ex dubio certum est I will venture to open the Difficulties of Believing § 1. That Believing in Christ is a work of Difficulty is proved both by the paucity of sound Believers and the imperfection of Faith in the sincere and the great and wonderfull means which must be used to bring men to believe Superficial Believers are a small part of the whole World and sound Believers are a small part of professed Christians And these sound Believers have many a temptation and some of them many a troublesom doubt and all of them a Faith which is too farr from perfection And yet all the Miracles Evidences Arguments and Operations aforesaid must be used to bring them even to this § 2. The Difficulties are I. Some of them in the things to be believed II. Some of them in extrinsecal impediments III. And some of them in the minde of Man who must believe § 3. I. 1. The mysteriousness of the doctrine of the blessed Trinity hath alwayes been a difficulty to Faith and occasioned many to avoid Christianity especially the Mahometanes and many Hereticks to take up Devices of their own to shift it off § 4. 2. The Incarnation of the second Person the Eternal Word and the personal union of the Divine Nature with the Humane is so strange a condescension of God to man as maketh this the greatest of difficulties and the greatest stumbling-block to Infidels and Hereticks § 5. 3. The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ and the advancement of mans nature in him above the Angelical nature and glory is a difficulty § 6. 4. To believe all the history of the Miracles of Christ the Prophets and Apostles is difficult because of the strangeness of the things § 7. 5. It is not without difficulty firmly to believe the Immortality of Souls and the endlesness of the felicity of the life to come § 8. 6. And it hath proved hard to many to believe the endless miseries of damned souls in Hell § 9. 7. And it is as hard to believe the paucity of the blessed and that the damned are the farr greater number § 10. 8.
and to dwell within us The Scripture often calleth Christ the Wisdom of God and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is both the Ratio Oratio the Internal and Expressed or Incarnate Word And he that understandeth that by the holy Ghost which is said in Scripture to be given to believers is meant the habitual or prevalent LOVE to GOD will better understand how the holy Ghost is said to be given to them that already have so much of it as to cause them to believe Abundance of Hereticks have troubled the Church with their self-devised opinions about the Trinity and the Person and Natures of Christ and I am loth to say how much many of the Orthodox have troubled it also with their self-conceited misguided uncharitable zeal against those whom they judged Hereticks The present divisions between the Roman Church the Greeks the Armenians Syrians Copties and Ethiopians is too sad a proof of this and the long contention between the Greeks and Latins about the terms Hypostasis and Persona 5. And I would advise the Reader to be none of those that shall charge with Heresie all those School-men and late Divines both Papists and Protestants who say that the Three Persons are Deus seipsum intelligens Deus à seipso intellectus Deus à seipso amatus though I am not one that say as they nor yet those holy men whom I have here cited Potho Prumensis Edmundus Archiepisc Cantuariensis Parisiensis and many others who expresly say that Potentia Sapientia Amor are the Father Son and holy Ghost 6. But for my own part as I unfeignedly account the doctrine of the Trinity the very summ and kernel of the Christian Religion as exprest in our Baptism and Athanasius his Creed the best explication of it that ever I read so I think it very unmeet in these tremendous mysteries to go further than we have God's own light to guide us And it is none of my purpose at all to joyn with either of the two fore-mentioned parties nor to assert that the mysterie of the blessed Trinity of Hypostases or Persons is no other than this uncontroverted Trinity of Essential Principles All that I endeavour is but as aforesaid to shew that this Doctrine is neither contradictory incredible nor unlikely by shewing the vestigia or Image of it and that which is as liable to exception and yet of unquestionable truth And if the three Hypostases be not the same with the Trinity of Principles aforesaid yet no man can give a sufficient reason why Three in One should not be truly credible and probable in the one instance when common natural reason is fully satisfied of it in the other He must better understand the difference between a Person and such an Essential Principle in Divinis than any mortal man doth who will undertake to prove from the Title of a Person that one is incredible or unlikely when the other is so clear and sure or rather he understandeth it not at all that so imagineth For my part I again from my heart profess that the Image or Vestigia of Trinity in Unity through the most notable parts of Nature and Morality do increase my estimation of the Christian Religion because of the admirable congruity and harmony Object II. But who is able to believe the Incarnation and Hypostatical Vnion If you should read that a Kings Son in compassion to poor flies or fleas or lice had himself become a flie or flea or louse had it been in his power to save their lives would you have thought it credible And yet the condescension had been nothing to this as being but of a creature to a creature Answ This is indeed the greatest difficulty of faith but if you do not mistake the matter you will find it also the greatest excellency of faith 1. Therefore you must take heed of making it difficult by your own errour think not that the Godhead was turned into man as you talk of a man becoming a flie nor yet that there was the least real change upon the Deity by this incarnation nor the least real abasement dishonour loss injury or suffering to it thereby For all these are not to be called difficulties but impossibilities and blasphemies There is no abatement of any of the Divine Perfections by it nor no confinement of the Essence but as the soul of man doth animate the body so the Eternal Word doth as it were animate the whole humane Nature of Christ As Athanasius saith As the reasonable soul and humane flesh do make one man so God and Man are one Christ and that without any coarctation limitation or restriction of the Deity 2. And this should be no strange Doctrine nor incredible to most of the Philosophers of the world who have one part of them taught that God is the Soul of the world and that the whole Universe is thus animated by him and another part that he is the Soul of Souls or Intelligences animating them as they do bodies That therefore which they affirm of all cannot by them be thought incredible of one And it is little less if any thing at all which the Peripateticks themselves have taught of the assistant Forms Intelligences which move the Orbs and of the Agent Intellect in man and some of them of the universal soul in all men And what all their vulgar people have thought of the Deifying of Heroes and other men it is needless to recite Julian himself believed the like of Aesculapius None of these Philosophers then have any reason to stumble at this which is but agreeable to their own opinions And indeed the opinion that God is the Soul of souls or of the Intellectual world hath that in it which may be a strong temptation to the wisest to imagine it Though indeed he is no constitutive form of any of those creatures but to be their Creator and total efficient is much more What Union it is which we call Hypostatical we do not fully understand our selves but we are sure that it is such as no more abaseth the Deity than its concourse with the Sun in its efficiencies Object But what kin are these assertions of Philosophers to yours of the Incarnation of the Eternal Word and Wisdom of God Answ What was it but an Incarnation of a Deity which they affirmed of Aesculapius and such others And they that thought God to be the Soul of the world thought that the world was as much animated with the Deity as we affirm the humane Nature of Christ to have been yea for ought I see whilst they thought that this soul was parcelled out to every individual and that Matter only did pro tempore individuate they made every man to be God incarnate And can they believe that it is so with every man and yet think it incredible in Christianity that our humane Nature is personally united to the Divine I think in this they contradict themselves 3. And it is
no way incredible that God should value man according to his natural worth and usefulness as an intellectual agent capable of Knowing and Loving and Praising him and Enjoying him His creating us such and his abundant mercies to us do abundantly prove the truth of this Nor is it incredible that he should be willing that his depraved creature should be restored to the use and ends of its nature nor is it incredible that God should choose the best and fittest means to effect all this Nothing more credible than all this 4. And it is not incredible at all that the Incarnation of the Eternal Word should be the fittest means for this reparation If we consider 1. What question we should have made of the word of an Angel or any meer creature that should have said he came from God to teach us seeing we could not be so certain that he was infallible and indefectible 2. And how short a creature would have fallen in the Priestly part of Mediation 3. And how insufficient he would have been for the Kingly Dignity and universal Government and Protection of the Church and Judgement of the world 4. And withall that God Himself being the Glorifier of Himself and the Donor of all felicity to us it is very congruous that he should most eminently Himself perform the most eminent of these works of mercy 5. And it much assisteth my belief of the Incarnation to consider that certainly the work that was to be done for man's recovery was the winning of his heart to the Love of God from himself and other creatures and there was no way imaginable so fit to inflame us with love to God as for him most wonderfully to manifest his love to us which is more done in the work of man's Redemption than any other way imaginable so that being the most suitable means to restore us to the love of God it is fittest to be the way of our recovery and so the more credible 6. And it much suppresseth temptation to unbelief in me to consider that the three grand works in which God's Essentialities declare themselves must needs be all such as beseemeth God that is most wonderful transcending man's comprehension And as his Omnipotency shewed it self with Wisdom and Love in the great work of Creation so was it meet that his Wisdom should shew it self most wonderfully in the great work of Redemption in order to the as wonderful declaration of his Love and Goodness in the great work of our Salvation our Regeneration and Glorification And therefore if this were not a wonderful work it were not fit to be parallel with the Creation in demonstrating God's Perfections to our minds Object III. But how incredible is it that humane nature should in a glorified Christ be set above the Angelical nature Answ There is no arguing in the dark from things unknown against what is fully brought to light What God hath done for man the Scripture hath revealed and also that Christ himself is far above the Angels But what Christ hath done for Angels or for any other world of creatures God thought not meet to make us acquainted with There have been Christians who have thought by plausible reasonings from many Texts of Scripture that Christ hath three Natures the Divine and a Super-angelical and a Humane and that the Eternal Word did first unite it self to the Super-angelical nature and in that created the world and in that appeared to Abraham and the other Fathers and then assumed the Humane nature last of all for Redemption And thus they would reconcile the Arrians and the Orthodox But the most Christians hold only two Natures in Christ but then they say that he that hath promised that we shall be equal with the Angels doth know that the nature of Man's Soul and of Angels differ so little that in advancing one he doth as it were advance both and certainly maketh no disorder in nature by exalting the inferiour in sensu composito above the Superiour and more excellent Let us not then deceive our selves by arguing from things unknown Object IV. There are things so incredible in the Scripture-Miracles that it is hard to believe them to be true Answ 1. No doubt but Miracles must be Wonders they were not else so sufficient to be a divine attestation if they were not things exceeding our power and reach But why should they be thought incredible Is it because they transcend the Power of God or his Wisdom or his Goodness Or because they are harder to him than the things which our eyes are daily witnesses of Is not the motion of the Sun and Orbs and especially of the Primum Mobile which the Peripateticks teach yea or that of the Earth and Globes which others teach as great a work as any miracle mentioned in the holy Scriptures Shall any man that ever considered the number magnitude glory and motions of the Fixed Stars object any difficulty to God Is it not as easie to raise one man from the dead as to give life to all the living 2. And are not Miracles according to our own necessities and desires Do not men call for signs and wonders and say If I saw one rise from the dead or saw a Miracle I would believe Or at least I cannot believe that Christ is the Son of God unless he work Miracles And shall that be a hinderance to your belief which is your last remedy against unbelief Will you not believe without miracles and yet will you not believe them because they are Miracles This is but meer perversness as much as to say we will neither believe with Miracles nor without 3. Impartially consider of the proof I have before given you of the certain truth of the matter of Fact that such miracles were really done and then you may see not only that they are to be believed but the doctrine to be the rather believed for their sakes Obj. V. It is hard to believe the Immortality of the Soul and the Life to come when we consider how much the soul dependeth in its operations on the body and how it seemeth but gradually to exceed the bruits Especially to believe the Eternity of it or its joyes when omne quod oritur interit And if Eternity à parte ante be proper to God why not Eternity à parte post Answ 1. The Immortality of the Soul and consequently its perpetual duration and a life of Retribution after this did not seem things incredible to most of the Heathens and Infidels in the World And I have proved it before by evidence of Nature to common Reason So that to make that incredible in Christianity which Philosophers and almost all the World hold and which hath cogent natural evidence is to put out the eye of Reason as well as of Faith 2. And that it hath much use of or dependance on the body in its present operations is no proof at all that when it is out of the body
unjust that the fullest evidence for their Justification doth but seem to aggravate their faults and nothing is so great a Crime as their highest Virtues Or if their Justification be undenyable they rage the more because they are hindered from making them suffer as deeply in their Names as in their Bodies These things are no more questionable than the Warrs of Alexander or Caesar the World having longer proof and fuller evidence of them § 15. And ordinarily God himself so ordereth it that his faithfullest Subjects shall be the deepest sufferers in this life § 16. Therefore self-denyal mortification contempt of the World and patience under manifold sufferings from God and Man are necessary to all who will be faithfull to God in the unquestionable duties before described It is tryed Friendship and Obedience which is most valuable And unwholsom pleasures though preferred by the foolish Patient are forbidden by our wise Physician that they hinder not our health and greater Pleasures § 17. Therefore if Worldly fleshly pleasures were our end and chief Good the best men would have the smallest measure of them Obj. But you restrain man further than God restraineth him and binde him to more than God bindeth him to and make superstition to seem his duty and then raise these consequences from such Premises Answ What I mean by sin and duty I have so fully opened before and proved to be such by the light of Reason that this Objection hath no place Even the sober Heathens the Greek Philosophers and Romane Worthies found and confessed all this to be true If there be any thing in the Life before described which all sound Reason doth not justifie and command let him that is able manifest so much If not it is no superstition to live as a man that is governed by God and led by Reason and to do that which all our faculties were made for And for austerities I have pleaded for none which are not become needfull to our own preservation and felicity As a Patient will endure a strict dyet and exercise and blood-letting and bitter Physick for his health It is not any affected unprofitable austerities that I plead for but those which are for our good and fit us for our duty and keep the flesh from rebelling against Reason and keep Man from living like a Beast Even less than many of the Philosophers plead for and he that useth but thus much which is needfull will finde it both opposed as unsufferable by the World and murmured against by his suffering and displeased Flesh and that the Soul cannot do its duty but at a considerable cost and trouble to the Body Though there may be an evil masked and cunningly moderated which men call Goodness which may be had at a cheaper rate But saith Seneca truly Non est Bonitas pessimis esse meliorem CHAP. XIV That there is a Life of Retribution after this TO know whether there be a Life after this for men to receive Rewards or Punishments in is a matter of greatest importance to Mankinde to be fully resolved in upon which depend our Comforts and our Religion and without which we know not what to expect to hope for or to fear nor what to intend and seek after through our lives nor how to order our hearts or actions This therefore I shall inquire into by the help of Reason and Natural evidence as one that would not be deceived nor deceive in so great a matter And I shall pass by those arguments which are commonly fetcht from the Souls immateriality and independence upon matter and other such like which are commonly to be found in Physicks and Metaphysicks as being not such as my present method leadeth me to and shall make use of such as are the necessary consectaries of the certain Truths already proved Object But whatever Rationalities may be drawn from the Divine Attributes to prove a future state yet it depending wholly on the Divine Will and the Divine Will being absolutely free we can have no rational inducements to bring us to any sufficient knowledge of it but by a clear Revelation of the Divine Will Answ Is the Law of Nature no clear Revelation of Gods will or is it a Law without any Rewards or Penalties It depended on Gods will whether man should be his Subject or no obliged to obey him But doth it follow therefore that it cannot be proved By making him a Rational free Agent and sociable placed among occasions of good and evil God did reveal that it was his will that Man should be his Subject and obey him One action of God doth oft reveal his will concerning another Those Attributes of God which signifie his Relation to us do reveal much of his will concerning what he will do with us in those Relations And though his will be free his perfections consist not with falshood and mutability If in freedom you include indetermination then when we prove the determination of it ad unum you will plead no longer that it is free no more than it is yet free whether he will make the World § 1. I. He that is the most Righteous Governour of the World making a just difference by Rewards and Punishments between the obedient and the wicked which yet he maketh not in this life will certainly make it after this life But God is the most Righteous Governour of the World making a just difference by Rewards and Punishments between the obedient and the wicked which yet he maketh not in this life Therefore he will make it after this life That God is the Governour of the World in a proper sense by Laws and Moral Government is proved And that he is Righteous is contained in the Perfections of his Nature To deny either of these is to deny him to be God That his Laws of Nature have not only Precepts of Duty but sanctions of Reward and Punishment is also proved And further may be thus 1. If there be no Rewards or Punishments there is no Judgement or Execution But there is Judgement and Execution for they are parts of Government Ergo 2. Without Rewards and Punishments Precepts would be vain to such as us and uneffectual as to their ends But God hath not made his Laws in vain Ergo. Obj. Governours use not to give men Rewards for their Obedience subjects must obey without Reward Answ It is not the Name but the Thing that we enquire of Call it a Benefit if you had rather All Government is upheld by Rewards and Punishment Reward is either that which is common to all obedient Subjects or such as is specially proper to some All subjects that are faithfull have title to protection and approbation and justification against all false accusations and to their share in that peace and felicity of the Common-wealth which is the end of the Government And some Commonwealths having far greater felicities than others accordingly the Subjects of
that the object of those hopes and fears are certain truths which are so necessary to the government of the world and this needeth no other proof but this If God can govern the world without a course of deceit and lying then the objects of these necessary hopes and fears are true But God can govern the world without a course of deceit and lying Ergo. The Major is evident because to govern by the hopes and fears of falshoods or things that are not when those hopes and fears are not only of God but made necessary to Government is to govern by deceit and lying or if it had not been by falshood uttered but falshood permitted the Minor is certain For if God cannot govern without such a course of deceit it is either for want of Power or of Wisdom or of Goodness that is Holiness and Benignity of Will But the Omnipotent wanteth not Power and the Omniscient wanteth not Wisdom to find out true and suitable means and he that is Optimus wanteth neither Holiness to love truth and hate falshood nor Benignity to love his Creature and therefore needeth no such means And he that believeth that God himself doth govern the world by a cheat even by the hopes and fears of fictions will sure think it best to imitate his God and to govern and trade and live accordingly This argument was à necessitate ad ordinem the next shall be only from God's actual government § 6. VI. If God do de facto govern the world by the hopes and fears of Good and Evil in another Life then the object of those hopes and fears is certain But God doth de facto so govern Ergo. The Major is proved as before for that which proved that God can govern without falshood proved also that he doth govern without it It belongeth only to the Impotent the Ignorant or the Bad to use such means Obj. May not a Parent or Physician honestly deceive a Child or Patient for his recovery to health why then may not God do so Answ 1. They do it through insufficiency to attain their end by a better means but the Omnipotent and Omniscient hath no such insufficiency 2. They may not lie or utter any untruth to do it though they may hide some truth by words which he is apt to mistake But if the world be governed by such hopes and fears of futurity it is hard to think whence they should fetch the object but from some divine revelation in nature 3. A whole course of Government of all the rational world by so sorry an instrument as deceit and falshood is more inconsistent with the nature and perfections of God than a particular act of deceit in a work of necessity and charity is with the nature of imperfect man The Minor is proved in the answer to the last objections and by the common experience of the world Obj. How little doth the hopes and fears of another world do with the most Do you not see that fleshly interest ruleth them and therefore they are what the Great ones would have them be who can help or hurt them Answ 1. I have proved how much worse it would be ◠that restraint which these hopes and fears make were taken off 2. That this restraint is general in all Nations almost of the earth though the prevalency of sin do much enfeeble it 3. That Rulers themselves are under some of these restraints in their Law-making and Judgement Though fleshly interest much prevail against it there are some remnants of secret hopes or fears in the consciences of sinners which keep up so much good as is yet left and keep men from those villanies in which they might hope to escape all sufferings from men § 7. VII If God himself kindle in the best of men desires to know him love him and enjoy him perfectly hereafter then such desires shall attain their end But God himself doth kindle such desires in the best of men Ergo And consequently there is such a Life to come Here 1. I must prove that the best men have such desires 2. That God kindleth them 3. That therefore he will satisfie them 1. And for the first the Consciences of all Good men are my witnesses whose desires to know God better to love him and please him more and to enjoy his Love is as the very pulse and breath of their souls For this they groan and pray and seek for this they labour wait and suffer If you could help them to more of the Knowledge and Love of God you would satisfie them more than to give them all the wealth and honours of the World Their Religious lives their labours prayers contemplations and sufferings prove all this and shew for what they long and live Obj. But this is caused by the power of a deluded fantasie which seeketh after that which is not to be had What if you fall in Love with the Sun Will it prove that you must be loved by it see it and enjoy it in the life to come Answ 1. To the similitude Either the Sun is a rational free Agent or not If it be it is either the chief Agent or a dependent Instrument If it were the first as it is not I should owe my self totally to it in the exercise of all the powers given me as is aforesaid And if it gave me such Desires I might suppose it was not in vain But if it give me nothing but as an Instrument or dependent Cause I owe it nothing but in subserviency to the first Cause But in such subserviency if God had commanded me to love and honour it as a Lover of Mankinde and a Rational Benefactor and had placed any of my duty or felicity in seeking perfection in that love and honour I should obey him and expect an answerable benefit But if it be no intelligent Agent or I cannot know that it is so then I can owe it no other respect but what is due to a natural Instrument of God 2. To the matter That these desires are not from a deluded fantasie but the work of God I prove 1. In that I have fully proved them already to be our Duty by the Law of Nature To love God with all the heart and might and consequently to desire to love him and please him and enjoy him in perfection that is in the utmost of our capacity is a proved duty 2. In that the Best men are the possessors of it And the more all other Virtues and Obedience do abound the more this aboundeth And the more any are vicious impious sensual worldly the less they have of these desires after God 3. They encrease in the use of holy means appointed by God and they decay by evil means All sin is against it and all obedience doth promote it 4. It is found most suitable to the tendency of our faculties as their only perfection The only true advancement of Reason
and rectitude and felicity of the Will If it be not by God that the Love and Desires of God are kindled in us then no good is to be ascribed unto God For we have here no greater good Now that God will satisfie these desires is proved In that he maketh nothing in vain nor kindleth any such desires as shall deceive them and make all their lives a meer delusion Yea and do this by the very best of men None of this is consistent with the perfections of God § 8. VIII If there were no life of Retribution after this Obedience to God would be finally mens loss and ruine But Obedience to God shall not be finally mens loss and ruine Ergo there is another Life The Major is proved before However it would be best in point of Honesty it would be worst to thousands in point of personal Vtility Even to all those that forsaking all the sinfull pleasures of this World do conflict with their flesh and keep it under and suffer the loss of all outward comforts by the cruelty of Persecutors and it may be through melancholy or weak fears have little comfort from God instead of them and at last perhaps be tormented and put to death by cruelty Few will think this desirable for it self And that our Obedience to God shall not be mens final loss and ruine needeth no proof but this that he hath made our self-love a Principle inseparable from our nature and maketh use of it in the Government of the World and commandeth nothing but what is finally for our good and so conjoyneth the pleasing of him and our own felicity inseparably in our end His Regiment is paternal His Glory which he seeketh by us is the Glory of his Goodness communicated and accumulated on us This taken in with the Wisdom and Goodness of his Nature will tell any man that to be a loser finally by our Obedience to God is a thing that no man need to fear He doth not serve himself upon us to our hurt nor command us that which will undo us He neither wanteth Power Wisdom nor Goodness to make us gainers by our duty It is the desire of natural Justice in all ut bonis bene sit malis male If I finde but any duty commanded me by God my Conscience and my sense of the Divine perfections will not give me leave to think that I shall ever prove finally a loser by performing it though he had never made me any promise of reward so far the Law of Nature hath a kinde of Promise in it that if he do but say Do this I will not doubt but the doing of it is for my good And if he bid me but use any means to my own happiness I should blaspheme if I suspected it would tend to my loss and misery and was made my snare § 9. IX The highest Love and Obedience to God is never a work of imprudence or folly nor ever to be Repented of But such they would be to many if there were no life to come Ergo By imprudence and folly I mean that course which tendeth to our own undoing as aforesaid No man shall ever have cause to repent of his fidelity to God and say I did foolishly in ruining my self by it This argument being but a meer consectary of the former I pass over § 10. X. If no man living be certain that there is no future life of Retribution then it is certain that there is such a life But no man living is certain that there is no such life Ergo its certain that there is The Major is proved thus If all men be in Reason obliged to seek the happiness and escape the punishments of another life before all the treasures and pleasures of this World then it is certain that such a Life of happiness and punishments there is But if no man be certain that there is no such life the bare probability or possibility that there is such doth in reason oblige all men to seek it above all the World Ergo it is certain that such a life there is My argument is from our Obligation to seek it before all to the certain being of it 1. That no man is certain that there is no life to come I need not prove as long as no man ever proved such an opinion and the boldest Atheists or Infidels say no more than that they think there is no other life but all confess that they have no assurance of it 2. If so then that the possibility or probability obligeth us to regard it in our hopes fears and endeavours before all this World is evident from the incomparableness of them or great disparity of the things When most of the World think there is another life and there is so much for it as we here lay down and a few Atheists say only we do not believe it or it is not likely though it be not a thing that we are certain of now Reason commandeth every man that loveth himself to preferr it before all earthly things Because we are fully certain beyond all doubt that all earthly things are of short duration and will quickly leave us and when they are gone they are to us as if they had never been They are a shadow a dream a something which is next to nothing To say It will shortly have an end doth blot out the praise and embitter the pleasures of all below What the better are all generations past for all the wealth and fleshly pleasures which they ever received in the World There is no wise man but would preferre the least probability of attaining full felicity and escaping death and torments before the certainty of possessing a pin or a penny for an hour The disparity is much greater between things temporal and everlasting than any such similitude can reach All the Christians and all the Mahometans and most of the Heathens of the World do hold the Immortality of the Soul and the perpetuity of the Happiness or misery hereafter The Atheist is not sure of the contrary and he is sure that a few years or hours will put an end to all his temporal pleasures and equal those that lived here in pleasure and in pain And therefore that at the worst his loss or hazard of the pleasures of sin for the hopes of eternal pleasure is not a thing considerable If those that dissent from him prove in the right the sensualist is utterly undone for ever He must live in endless pain and misery and must lose an endless unspeakable joy and glory which he might have possest as well as others But if he himself prove in the right he gets nothing by it but the pleasing of inordinate concupiscence for a few years and will die with as much emptiness of content as if he had lived in continual pain Now this being the true case no sober reason can deny but that wisdom obligeth
would not have been a full exemplification of his Doctrine nor a perfect Revelation of it to the World Example bringeth Doctrine neer our Senses and thereby maketh it more clear and powerfull § 20. It is the undertaken Office of Jesus Christ to send the Holy Spirit into Believers mindes and to write out the substance of this Law upon their hearts and give them such holy and heavenly inclinations that it may become as it were a Natural Law unto them and they obey it with love facility and delight though not in perfection till they arrive at the state of Perfection So much to shew WHAT the Christian Religion is CHAP. IV. Of the Nature and Properties of the Christian Religion HAving understood the matter and words of the Christian Religion before I proceeded any further I thought it meet to pass a judgment upon the nature temperament constitution and properties of it And therein I found that which must needs be a great preparative to belief § 1. And first I found that it is a most holy and spiritual Religion resolved into the most excellent Principles and Ends glorifying God and humbling man and teaching us the most divine and heavenly life in the love and patient service of our Creator 1. It is most Holy for it calleth us up entirely unto God and consisteth in our absolute dedication and devotedness to him 2. It is most Spiritual leading us from things carnal and terrene and being principally about the government of the Soul and placing all our felicity in things spiritual and not in fleshly pleasures with the Epicureans and Mahometans It teacheth us to worship God in a spiritual manner and not either irrationally toyishly or irreverently And it directeth our lives to a daily converse with God in holiness 3. The Principles of it are the three Essentialities of God in Unity viz. the Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness and the three grand Relations of God to Man as founded in his three most famous works viz as our Creator our Redeemer and our Regenerater or Sanctifier and the three great Relations arising from Creation and also from Redemption viz. as he is our Owner our Ruler and our Benefactor or chiefest Good and End 4. The Ends of the Christian Religion I find are proximately the saving of man from Satan and the Justice of God the sanctifying them to God and purifying them from sin the pardon of their sins and the everlasting happiness of their Souls in the pleasing and fruition of God for ever In a word it is but the redeeming us from our carnal self the world and the devil to the love and service of our Creator 5. Nothing can be spoken more honourably of God in all his perfections in the language of poor mortals than what the Christian Religion speaketh of him 6. And no Religion so much humbleth man by opening the malignity both of his original and actual sin and declaring the displeasure of God against it 7. It teacheth us who once lived as without God in the world to live wholly unto God and to make nothing of all the world in comparison of him 8. And it teacheth us to live upon the hopes of heaven and fetch our motives and our comforts from it § 2. I find that the Christian Religion is the most pure and clean and utterly opposite to all that is evil There is no vertue which it commendeth not nor duty which it commandeth not nor vice which it condemneth not nor sin which it forbiddeth not The chief thing in it which occasioneth the rebellion and displeasure of the world against it is the purity and goodness of it which is contrary to their sensual nature and as Physick to their licentious lives would it indulge their vices and give them leave to sin they could endure it § 3. Particularly it most vehemently condemneth the grand vices of Pride Worldliness and Sensuality and all their polluting and pernicious fruits 1. No Religion doth so much to teach men Humility and make Pride appear an odious thing It openeth the malignity of it as it lifteth up the mind against God or Man it condemneth it as Satans image it giveth us a multitude of humbling precepts and motives and secondeth them all with the strangest example of condescension and lowliness in Christ that was ever presented to the view of man Whereas I find even in the famousest of the Roman Heathens that a great deal of pride was taken for a virtue and men were instructed and exhorted to be proud under pretence of maintaining and vindicating their honour and true Humility was taken for disgraceful baseness and men were driven from it by the scorn not only of the vulgar but of Philosophers themselves 2. And there is no Religion that is fitted so much to the destruction of Worldliness or of the love of Riches as Christianity is for it teacheth men most effectually the vanity of the world it appointeth them a holy life so hateful to worldly men as will occasion them to feel the vexation of the world it openeth to them the hopes of a life so much better as may teach them to take all the wealth and glory of this world for a shadow a feather or a dream It condemneth worldly love as the sin inconsistent with the love of God and the certain mark of a drossy unsanctified miserable soul It setteth before us such an example of Christ as must needs shame worldliness with all true believers 3. And for Sensuality it openeth the shame of its beastiality and maketh the carnal mind and life to be enmity to God and the contrary to that spiritual mind and life which is the property of all that shall be saved It strictly and vehemently condemneth all gluttony and excess of drink all ryotting and time-wasting needless sports all fornication and ribald talk and wanton carriage words or thoughts Whereas I find among Heathens and Mahometans that inordinate sensuality was much indulged excess of eating and drinking was made a matter of no great blame time-wasting Plays were as little accused as if men had no greater matter to do in the world than to pass away time in some sensual or fantastical delight either by fornication or many wives at once their lust was gratified and so their minds were debased polluted and called down and made unfit for spiritual contemplation and a holy life From whence no doubt it came to pass that they were so dark about things spiritual and divine and so overspread with errors about many plain and necessary things § 4. There is no Religion which so notably detecteth and disgraceth the sin of SELFISHNESS nor so effectually teacheth SELF-DENIAL as the Christian Religion doth It maketh man understand the nature of his corrupt depraved state that it is a falling from GOD to SELF and that his recovery lieth in returning from SELF to GOD. It sheweth him how selfishness is the principle of divisions enmity
much doubted of that the vaster and more glorious parts of the Creation are not uninhabited but that they have Inhabitants answerable to their magnitude and glory as Palaces have other inhabitants than Cottages and that there is a connaturality and agreeableness there as well as here between the Region or Globe and the inhabitants But whether it be the Globes themselves or only the inter-spaces or other parts that are thus inhabited no reason can doubt but that those more vast and glorious spaces are proportionably possess'd And whether they are all to be called Angels or Spirits or by what other name is unrevealed to us but what ever they are called I make no question but our number to theirs is not one to a million at the most Now this being so for ought we know those glorious parts may have inhabitants without any sin or misery who are filled with their Makers love and goodness and so are fitter to be the demonstration of that love and goodness than this sinful mole-hill or dungeon of ignorance is If I were sure that God would save all mankind and only leave the devils in their damnation and forsake no part of his Creation but their Hell it would not be any great stumbling to my faith Or if Earth were all God's creation and I were sure that he would condemn but one man of a hundred thousand or a million and that only for final impenitency in the contempt of the mercy which would have saved him this would be no great difficulty to my faith Why then should it be an offence to us if God for their final refusal of his grace do for ever forsake and punish the far greater part of this little dark and sinful world while he glorifieth his Benignity and Love abundantly upon innumerable Angels and blessed Spirits and inhabitants of those more large and glorious seats If you would judge of the Beneficence of a King will you go to the Jail and the Gallows to discern it or to his Palace and all the rest of his Kingdom And will you make a few condemned malefactors the measure of it or all the rest of his obedient prosperous subjects If Hell be totally forsaken of God as having totally forsaken him and if Earth have made it self next to Hell and be forsaken as to the far greater part because that greater part hath forsaken him as long as there may be millions of blessed ones above to one of these forsaken ones on earth it should be no offence to any but the selfish guilty sinner I confess I rather look on it as a great demonstration of God's holiness and goodness in his Justice that he will punish the rebellious according to his Laws and a great demonstration of his Goodness in his Mercy that he will save any of such a rebellious world and hath not forsaken it utterly as Hell And when of all the thousands of Worlds or Globes which he hath made we know of none forsaken by him but Hell and part of the Earth all the Devils and most of Men we should admire the glory of his bounty and be thankful with joy that we are not of the forsaken number and that even among sinners he will cast off none but those that finally reject his mercy But selfishness and sense do make men blinde and judge of Good and Evil only by self-interest and feeling and the malefactor will hardly magnifie Justice nor take it to be a sign of Goodness But God will be God whether selfish rebels will or not Obj. That any thing existeth besides God cannot be known but by sense or history Have you either of these for those Inhabitants And if we may go by Conjectures for ought you know there may as many of those Worlds be damned as of earthly men Ans 1. Some men are so little conscious of their humanity that they think that nothing is known at all But he that knoweth by sense that He is himself and that there is a World about him and then by Reason that there is a God may know also by Reason that there are other Creatures which he never saw Neither sense nor history told us of the inhabitants of the then unknown parts of the World and yet it had been easie to gather at least a strong probability that there are such He that knoweth that an intelligent Nature is better than a non-intelligent and then knoweth that God hath made man intelligent and then thinketh what difference there is in matter magnitude and glory between the dirty body of Man with the Earth he liveth in and those vast and glorious Ethereal spaces will quickly judge that it is a thing incredible that God should have no Creatures nobler than man nor imprint more of his Image upon any in those more glorious Regions than on us that dwell as Snails in such a shell or that there should be such a strange disproportion in the works of God as that a punctum of dirty earth only should be possessed of the Divine or Intellectual nature and the vast and glorious Orbs or Spaces be made only to look on or to serve these mortal Worms But proofs go according to the preparation of the Receivers minde Nothing is a proof to the unprepared and prejudiced 2. We have sense by the Telescope to tell us that the Moon hath parts unequal and looketh much like the habitable Earth And we have sense to tell us that there are Witches and Apparitions and consequently other kinde of intellectual Wights than we And we have History to tell us of the appearances and offices of Angels And if there be certainly such wights our eyes may help us to conjecture at their Numbers compared to us by the spaces which they inhabit 3. There is a proportion and harmony in all the works of God And therefore we that see how much the superiour Orbs do in glory excell this dirty Earth have reason to think that the nature of the Inhabitants is suited to their Habitations and consequently that they are more excellent Creatures than we and therefore less sinfull and therefore more happy 4. Yet after all this I am neither asserting that all this is so nor bound to prove it I only argue that you who are offended at the numbers that sin and perish do wrangle in the dark and speak against you know not what Conjecture is enough for me to prove that you do foolishly to argue against experience of the sin and misery of the most upon meer uncertainties You will not censure the actions of a Prince or Generall when your ignorance of their Counsels maketh you uncertain of the cause yea and of the matter of fact it self The proof lyeth on your part and not on mine You say our doctrine is incredible because so few are saved and yet confess that for ought you know taking all together it may be many millions for one that perisheth I think by proving you uncertain of this
to the cause in all the entities and motions in the world is undeniable Whatsoever any Being hath and hath not originally from it self or independently in it self it must needs have from another and that other cannot act beyond its power nor give that which it hath not either formally or eminently Therefore he that findeth in the world about him so much entity and motion so much Intellection Volition and Operation and so much Wisdom Goodness and Power must needs know that all these have some cause which formally or eminently or in a way of transcendency hath more it self than it giveth to others I measured my endeavours about this subject according as the occasions of my own soul had led me among all the temptations which have at any time assaulted me I have found those so contemptible and inconsiderable as to their strength which would have made me doubt of the being of a God that I am apt to think that it is so with others And therefore in the review of this discourse I find no reason to stand to answer any mans objections against the Being or essential Attributes or Properties of God And for the second point that we all owe to this God our absolute Resignation Obedience and Love and so that Holiness is naturally our duty it doth so naturally result from the Nature of God and Man compared that I can scarce think of any thing worthy of a confutation which can be said against it but that which denieth the Nature of God or Man and therefore is either confuted under the first head or is to be confuted under the third As for the fourth particular contained in the second Tome the truth of the Gospel I find not any reason to defend it more particularly nor to answer any more objections than I have done for in proving the truth I have proved all the contradictory assertions to be false and I have answered already the greatest objections and after this to answer every ignorant exception of unsatisfied persons against the several passages of the Scripture would be tedious and not necessary to the end of my design And indeed I perceive not that any considerable number are troubled with doubtings of the truth of the Christian faith in a prevalent degree who are well convinced of those antecedent verities of the Deity and of the natural obligation and necessity of Holiness and of the Immortality of the soul or of a future life of reward and punishment and that live in any reasonable conformity to these natural principles which they profess For when natural evidence hath sufficiently convinced a man that he is obliged to be holy in absolute obedience and love to his Creator through the hopes and fears of another life he is very much prepared to close with the design and doctrine of the Gospel which is so far from contradicting this that it doth but confirm it and shew us the way by which it may most certainly be brought to pass And therefore my observation and experiences constrain me to think that there is no point which I have insisted on which so much calleth for my vindication as the third about the Life to come I know there is a sort of over-wise and over-doing Divines who will tell their followers in private where there is none to contradict them that the method of this Treatise is perverse as appealing too much to natural light and over-valuing humane reason and that I should have done no more but shortly tell men that All that which God speaketh in his word is true and that propria luce it is evident that the Scripture is the Word of God and that to all God's Elect he will give his Spirit to cause them to discern it and that this much alone had been better than all these disputes and reasons but these over-wise men who need themselves no reason for their Religion and judge accordingly of others and think that those men who rest not in the authority of Jesus Christ should rest in theirs are many of them so well acquainted with me as not to expect that I should trouble them in their way or reason against them who speak against reason even in the greatest matters which our reason is given us for As much as I am addicted to scribling I can quietly dismiss this sort of men and love their zeal without the labour of opening their ignorance My task therefore in this conclusion shall be only to defend the doctrine delivered in this fore-going Treatise of the Life to come or the Soul's Immortality against some who call themselves Philosophers For of men so called it is but a small part who at all gainsay this weighty truth The followers of Plato the Divine Philosopher with the Pythagoreans the Stoicks the Cynicks and divers other Sects are so much for it that indeed the most of them go too far and make the soul to be eternal both à parte arte and à parte post and Cicero doth conclude from its self-moving power that it is certainly eternal and divine Insomuch that not only Arnobius but many other ancient Christians write so much against Plato for holding the soul to be naturally immortal and assert themselves that it is of a middle nature between that which is naturally immortal and that which is meerly mortal that he that doth not well understand them may be scandalized at their expressions and think that he readeth the Philosopher defending the souls immortality and the Christian opposing it And though Aristotle's opinion be questioned by many yet Cicero who lived in time and places wherein he had better advantage than we to know his meaning doth frequently affirm that he was in the main of Plato's mind and that the Academicks Peripateticks and Stoicks differed more in words than sense chiding the Stoicks for their schism or separation in setting up a School or Sect as new which had almost nothing new but words Not only Fernelius de abditis rerum causis but many others have vindicated Aristotle however his obscurity hath given men occasion to keep up that controversie And if the book de Mundo be undoubtedly his I see no reason to make any more question of his meaning much less if that book be his which is entitled Mystica Aegypt Chald. Philos which Aben Ama Arabs translated out of Greek into Arabick which Franc. Roseus brought from Damascus and Moses Rovas Medicus Haebr translated into Italian and Pet. Nicol. Castelinus into Latine and Patricius thinketh Aristotle took from Plato's mouth It is only then the Epicureans and some novel Somatists that I have now to answer who think they have much to say against the separated subsistence and immortality of mans soul which I may reduce to these objections following I. Matter and Motion without any more may do all that which you ascribe to incorporeal substances or souls therefore you assert them without ground II. To confirm this
sunt tria haec distincta et POSSE est per se ut principale SAPIENTIA est a POTENTIA ab utrisque VOLUNTAS AMOR. Ecce in uno capite duo tibi sunt Oculi sed est substantiae eorum unus Aspectus c. Quod si unius substantiae in te ista bina continent unitatem non vâ—s in Deo Patre Filio vere duas personas unam habere substantiam Arnobius Conflict cum Serapione p. 354. Vid. Caesarii dialog Q. 2. de triplici lumine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inquit Theophil Antioch ad Antol. l. 1. p. 3. Leg. August de Trinitate Dialog ex eo excerpt de Trinit in B.P. Gr. Lat. To. 1. p 540. Nihil aliud est Filius vel Verbum Dei quam Cogitatio vel Ars vel Sapientia ejus Nihil aliud Sp. sanctus quam Amor Dei intelligitur Id. Ibid. pag. 542 543. Leg. Hilar. de Trinit Vid. Maxim Mystagog Ecclesiast cap. 6. Per talem rationem venit homo ad cognitionem Dei quod est Unus in substantia Trinus in Personis Istud idem videt homo in seipso Nam ipse videt bene quod semper habuit homo in seipso Potentiam post Potentiam Sapientiam Et de ambabus venit Amor quando videt homo quod ita est in seipso ex hoc intelliget bene quod ita est in Deo qui est ultra illum viz. Quod in Deo fit Potestas de illa Potestate venit sapientia de utraque venit Amor. Et propter hoc quod ex prima persona venit secunda de ambabus procedit tertia ideo prima persona vocatur Pater secunda Filius tertia Spiritus S. Isto modo venit homo primo ad cognitionem Dei sui creatoris quomodo est fine principio quare vocatur Deus â—nus substantia trinus personis Et quia prima persona vocatur Pater secunda Filius tertia Spiritus Sanctus quia appropinquatur Potestas Patri Sapientia Filio Bonitas Amor Sp. Sancto Tali modo debet cognoscere Deum Filium iste modus cognitionis est fundamentum contemplationis Edmund Archiepis Cantuari Specul Eccles cap 28. See more of this before tom 1. cap. 5. See Bp. Lucy in the end of his Book against Hobs proving the Trinity by Lully's reasons Arnobius junior in his conflict cum Serapion useth this similitude As fire and gold are two distinct substances yet fire is of it self invisible till by union with the heated gold it becometh visible So Christ's Divine Nature and his Humane c. Leg. pag. 368 369. And to the question Utrum Pater Filium genuerit Necessitate an Voluntate he answereth Neither because understanding or Wisdom is not necessitated and yet is antecedent to Volition But by Necessity he seemeth to mean that which is by constraint Vid. Nat. Fevardent in loc Leg. Methodii Resp ad eos qui dicunt Quid profuit nobis Filius Dei homo factus c. Edit per Gretser Tunilius de part Div. Leg. l. 1. c. 19. saith that Et essentia vel natura facit quia ei nihil accidens est tamen voluntate quia nihil facit necessitate vel coactus Speaking of his operations as he is Bonas Sapiens Fortis Leg. Ruperti Tuitiens de Divin Offic. l. 11. c. 2 3 4. Quod nomen Patris Filâ—i Sp. Sancti propria veri Dei descriptio sit c. per totum lib. Arnob. ubi supra l. 1. telleth the Heathens how many they worship as Gods who once were men as Jupiter Aesculapius Hercules c. p. 6. Leg. Theodori Presbyteri Rhaithuensis Praepar Meditat. de Incarnat Christi Heresibus circa eandem Leg. Theodori Abucarae Opuscul 2. explan vocum quibus Philosophi utuntur c. Et ejusdem fidem orthodox missam ad Armen à Thoma Patriarch Hierosol Vide Theoriani Dialog cum Generaliss Armeniorum At Deus Verbum nihil ipsum à societate animae immutatum neque illorum imbecilitatis particeps sed eis suam divinitatem impartiens unum cum eis fit permanet quod erat ante junctionem Vid. caetera in Nemesio Emissen de Natura hom cap. 3. †Fuge garrulitates anxias Philosophorum qui asserere non erubescunt suas canumque animas eandem tenere speciem Basil Hexam l. 8. Interp Eustath Leg. Mammerti Claudiani lib. 3. de statu Animae praecipuè Gr. Nyssenum quae ex eo citâ—ntur in Caesarii Dialog 3. This stuck with Galen and some such His talibus adductus Socrates nec patronum quaesivit ad judicium capitis nec judicibus supplex fuit Adhibuitque liberam contumaciam à magnitudine animi ductam non à superbia supremo vitae die de hoc ipso multa disseruit paucis ante dâ—ebus cum facile posset educi è custodia noluit Et cum pene in manu jam mortiferum illud teneret poculum locutus ita est ut non ad mortem verum in coelum videretur ascendere Ita enim censebat atque disseruit Duas esse vias duplicesque cursus animorum è corpore excedentium Nam qui se humanis vitiis contaminassent se totos libidinibus dedissent quibus coecati velut domesticis vitiis atque flagitiis se inquinassent vel in Republica violanda fraudes inexpiabiles concepissent iis devium quoddam iter esse seclusum à Concilio Deorum Qui autem se integros castosque servassent quibusque fuisset minima cum corporibus contagio seseque ab his semper sevocassent essentque in corporibus humanis vitam imitati Deorum his ad illos à quibus essent profecti reditum facilem patere Cicer. Tuscul 1. pag. 233. Campanella well inteth that the Soul hath naturally a certain inward knowledge or sense of it self but when men go about to bring this to such a knowledge as we have of things extrinsical by ratiocination they oft-times reason themselves into Ignorance and Error And Cicero hath the very same Nec vero de hoc quisquam dubitare posset nisi idem nobis accideret diligenter de animo cogitantibus quod iis saepe usu venit qui acriter oculis deficientem solem intuerentur ut aspectum omnino amitterent sic mentis acies seipsam intuens nonnunquam hebescit ob eamque causam contemplandi diligentiam amittimus Cic. Tusc l. 1. p. 233. Sosipatra ubi incidisset in disputationem de anima in genere quae ejus pars supplicio puniatur quaeque interitus sit expers dum furore quodam divino incitata rapitur c. Eunap in Aedes p. 594. Et ut quod gnotum est pateat haec est hominis vera mors cum animae nescientes Deum perlongissimi temporis cruciatu consumuntur ignifero in quem illas jacium quidam crudeliter saevi ante Christum incogniti ab