the weaker or by the forcibleness of outward impression upon one or more of the ingredients a dissolution of that composure is brought to pass The Heavens and heavenly Bodies being purer and more uncompounded have stood so many Ages with so little alteration A Spirit being simply and entirely it self can neither be forced asunder by feuds within it self nor by violence from without there being nothing in its substance to make any intestine War nor any thing weaker or stronger to subdue or be subdued and therefore it receives all strokes upon its whole self as an Anvile that is beaten closer and more united by all the Hammers that fall upon it All the griefs and troubles and disquiets that rise up in it are only the crosses and counter motions and actions of its sentiments and apprehensions yea the very dismal falls of Divine Displeasure upon it do but awaken and stir up sad and grievous apprehensions in it but do not in the least touch the essence or substance of the Soul to weaken it This is that death the only death of the Soul that it is capable of a darkness in the loss of that Beauty and excellency of holy motion and in the deprivation of happiness and blessedness the favour of God a loss of its perfection without any diminution of Being And though it be now in the Body and seems to be lost in the ruines of that yet it is indeed so perfectly it self so separable in its nature from the Body as I have already discours'd at large so distinct and complete in it self that it is only acquitted from that in death not at all altered or changed in its substantial self So then this simplicity of the Soul witnesses the Immortality of its nature and that it cannot be dissolved like the things of this world that consist in the union of several things that conspire and meet together and afterwards flye asunder but the Soul hath nothing to lose or part from but its whole self being one simple thing One All and All One there can be no dissolution Nay the things of this world although they are several things united and made up so into one as several things can be and when those several things flye asunder that one thing is dissolved yet because the parts still continue to be they become something else for there can be no annihilation or bringing things back to nothing but by the omnipotency that created them so that all the death and dissolution that is in whole nature is but only a continual flux and reflux a perpetual passing out of one shape figure nature into another which because things love to be as they are look for the present like death perishing and the decay of the world it self although the composition for that time being is only brought to ruine and although the parts it may be are meliorated made more beautiful and advanced as when a Vessel of Silver designed for baser use is broken to pieces purged in the Refiners fire and then made a Vessel of honour and the materials of a meaner and decayed Building taken down and laid into a nobler Structure yet while this is doing it hath the appearance of spoil and destruction whereas indeed all even to the very Fragments is gathered up that nothing may be lost not so much as the filth of the Vessel or the dust of the Building We may then thus far derive from lower Nature what may make the Immortality of the Soul an easier Notion to us For we see It is the twisting things together with such unequal strengths of the Parts in motion one against another and the liableness of those Parts to the impression of Forreign Motion that let in the Mortality and Frailty that is in worldly Things that so by the prevalency sometimes of one thing sometimes of another there might be those continual Changes and Vicissitudes that God hath appointed for Purposes most agreeable to the greatness and mysteriousness of his most wise Government and Providence But the simpler and more self any thing is the more hardly it is altered till we come to that which is call'd First Matter and Motion which in the abstract Notion of them and as they are by themselves cannot be chang'd or lost but by annihilation For that we call First Matter or Matter as we understand it unimpress'd by Form or Particular Nature though as it is in Particular Nature it by always dying out of one Shape Figure Nature into another is yet so immortal in it self that it cannot it self perish but by annihilation And that Motion which is us'd by God for the twirling this Matter into so many several Forms and is perpetually flitting from one part of it to another and is even driven and expuls'd by the Contrasts it hath with it self as it is in those several parts of Matter from one to another cannot yet be spent in the Sum or any Degree of it be abated in the Total These two because thus abstracted they are perfectly and intirely themselves have thus much of Immortality that they never take End till an End is put to them by Almighty Efficiency But Matter is laid by God and so lies as a Foundation of his Works that cannot be removed and Motion is the Instrument he hath prepared for the management of those his Works and these in their simple selves have no Jars within nor cannot be touched by any extern Hand but as they are in composition undergo those several Changes and hasten out of the posture into another as it pleased God being still the same in themselves For all that Matter can be squeez'd into is Matter and all that Motion can be overcome into is Motion and so they will be till they are disannull'd by God And thus the Soul it s own Substance it s own Motion receiving both from God in its very Being and so being all Self as an unshaken Rock or First Matter bears and lies under all the disposes of God and as highest Life turns every way with subserves his admirable Administrations upon it self which are all in Righteousness Holiness Justice and Mercy This Spirit I say lies under all possible Impressions that can be made on a Soul and yet it is a Soul still it is always the same It is always the same as to its Essence and cannot be so altered or changed as to become another Thing It must be it self or it must be nothing and all Action upon it can but provoke it to Intellectual Action So it is found and so it is left by every thing that comes near it except God should come to make a final Determination upon its Being There is no change upon the Substance of a Spirit but Annihilation The State and Condition and Quality of it may be chang'd from Good to Evil from Evil to Good from Happiness to Misery from Misery to Happiness the very Being remains unalterable while it is The onely way
and more especially as they are Divine and relate to God Because the knowledge of the Things themselves is most lost and the Understanding so cramp'd concerning them To be able therefore in such Treaties to speak so as to compare Spiritual things with Spiritual that is to observe the Decorum Spiritual Things require to be spoken with there is necessary the Divine Revelation of Scripture and the assistance of the Holy Spirit For so to speak is that Divine Vtterance or Elocution which the Apostle joins with Knowledge and magnifies as an Act of Grace to Fallen man in order to his Recovery derived from Jesus Christ the restorer of Humane Nature and is in various degrees distributed to the professors of Christianity and conveyed to them in the diligent Exercise of themselves in Sacred Writings 2. The Dulness and Inattentiveness of Hearers makes things hard to be interpreted especially things of great Retreat from ordinary Apprehension We cannot speak them plainly enough to make people conceive of them so as to be affected with them Yet notwithstanding we having so often occasion to converse with these great Sounds A Soul An Immortal Spirit and its Eternal State there is as great an obligation to search the Things as far as we can lest they appear to us no more than great sounds without as great a Substance whereas indeed their Substance and Reality exceeds their Sound how great soever And to encourage us in this most industrious search we are first to oppose to the Difficulty this Consideration That it is not so much the Unintelligibleness of the things themselves as the want of a due Intention of Mind in our inquiries as also an humble application of our selves to the Divine Assistance that makes it so hard to speak and hear of these Spiritual Subjects as Wise men and Christians For Discourses of them made up of such words as the spirit of God teaches jointed and put together by the same Wisdom and then aright received how significant and potent would they be how clearly representative to the Understanding how perswasive upon the whole Soul And seeing in these things we have a kind of natural Knowledge and Experience like Natural Arithmetique and Mathematiques which yet being adorn'd and cultivated by Art are much improved but especially because we have the Word of God so great a light to our feet and lamp to our paths in our Discourse concerning them and the promise of the Blessed Spirit to assist our Inquiries into Truth There is great reason of Confidence the closer our Researches and the more industrious our Explanations of the things are the brighter our apprehensions and the more prevailing our Knowledge of them will grow so as to enlighten and perswade others also Committing then this Undertaking to Divine Assistance I have chosen this great assumption of Elihu concerning Man to rest this Discourse upon There is a Spirit in Man and the Inspiration of the Almighty giveth him Vnderstanding Not that the Soul of Man and its excellent Nature deriving it self in Creation from God inspiring it is precisely and in the first place here intended or the original proceeding of the Finite Vnderstanding from the Infinite But the mighty Vigor and Force of this Spirit stirred up by God and the Understanding acted to the Height by a more gracious inspiration enlivening assisting and setting it on work in some peculiar persons and to some peculiar ends and employment is that which this Eloquent Reasoner immediately means and hath a particular respect to himself in it as notably assisted by God in his following Discourses Yet it plainly appears he alludes to that History of the First Creation the Tradition of which all Wise and Good men had conveyed and assured to them by undoubted Monuments for it very much agrees with and resembles that relation There is a Spirit in man says Elihu a mighty and Gen. 1. 26. excellent Spirit In the Image and Likeness of God as Moses describes it And the Breath of the Almighty giveth him understanding as Elihu speaks Which in the words of Moses is thus expressed God breath'd into his Face Gen. 2. 7. the Breath of Life and Man became a living Soul That Inspiration gave that Soul of Life whose Nature is Vnderstanding or Intellect and its Life Rational and Intellectual And herein rest fundamentally those extraordinary Vigors of which Elihu here speaks when God by a secondary Donation and Grace enables this Spirit and Vnderstanding to act like it self and to appear as it is For all excellent motions of Soul inspired by God into eminent personages are but Fairer Exemplifications of Creation and the Vniversal Nature of mans Soul So that while Elihu intends something further he assures the main position That Man in general hath a Great Spirit or Soul in him and an Vnderstanding or Intellect given him by immediate inspiration from God in Creation To give then a description of this Great Soul of man as a foundation of the whole Treaty concerning it I shall do it under these three following Heads 1. As it is considered in its substantial and Essential Nature and so I describe it An Invisible Spirit and Immortal made in the Image and Likeness of God and nearly allyed to Angels the very Nobleness and Excellency of mans Being above Brutes and Common matter 2. As it is to be understood in its immediate Emanations and Motions of it self and so it is An Intellectual Light indued with all the powers of Rational and Moral Action It is that by which a man breaths in the free and open Air of Reason and Intelligence It is the principle of such Action as is far above sense for if rightly ordered it bears the lofty Characters of Good Holy Virtuous and because it cannot sink upon a Common level if disorderly and irregular it carries the black indeed but Tremendous names of Sin Wickedness Vice 3. As it is to be known in its Resentments and so It is that which tastes and enjoys all Good or feels and endures discerns and perceives Evil and Misery If that be well the whole is well If that be wounded and in Torment there can be no Ease or Remedy And it is prepared to be a Great and Ample Receipt of and a most vehement Agent in its own Everlasting Happiness or Misery This Soul is that which is Eternally Happy or Miserable And though this Spirit be hid in the Body and the Body seems to be All yet it can indeed do nothing nor feel any thing but as the Soul does by it and this Body because as it is now it is an Instrument unfit is laid aside in Death without any prejudice to the Souls Action or Resentment but to the unspeakable Exaltation of it and at last a Body more fit for its use is given to it and which is every way proportion'd to its state whether of Happiness or Misery Now whosoever shall well weigh and consider this Soul will stand
then of the Souls coming to an end must be by Annihilation or being crush'd to Nothing by Infinite Power Concerning which let us further consider It is true the Essence and Existence of the Soul are several things that is There is the Nature of the Soul in general and this is one thing and is call'd its Essence and this considered in a possibility of Actual Being or not Being as it may be or may not be When it is we call it Existence or Actual Being and this is another thing from its Essence Therefore it might either not have come into Being at all or after it is come into Being it may be turn'd out of Being by the immediate Power of God who gave it Being who onely can annihilate or bring to nothing that which is In all these things the Soul is beyond all expression excell'd by God who onely as the Apostle speaks hath immortality For he it is alone that in the truest sense is what he is so inconceivably and perfectly Himself that he is onely of and from himself and Himself so infinitely that he comprehends and embraces in himself the whole Divine Nature and there is not a second God He is alone and besides him there is no God he knows not any other with him there is no variation nor shadow of turning neither in his Being nor in any of the Attributes of his Being Most Great and Good Most Happy and for ever Best For he hath all within himself and there is nothing without him of any compare with him not any thing but what receives Being from him so that neither from within nor from without can there be any occasion of change in him He it is whose Essence and Existence are one and the same Thing His Essence in the very true Notion of it rises up into immediate and absolute Existence For there is no other Notion of his Essence but in his Existence It is his very Essence or Nature to Be. He is never so little as in a possibility to Be but always so great that it is impossible he should not Be. He is without the allay of a possibility to Be which also includes a possibility not to Be. He is the highest and most perpetual Act of Being Eternal in the very Life of Being To grant the Nature of God no incompossible Notion is to wrap up a Mans self in the conclusion he is and that unchangeably For he is a necessary Being a Being that cannot but Be. And it is of much consideration concerning his Being that there should be such a Lock upon the Mind of Man that it can no sooner grant There may be a God but it is surpriz'd with this There must be a God for the very Nature of Deity concludes a necessity of Being Absolute Being God is Paramount in these Prerogatives of Being and the Soul cannot be likened to him from whom it hath its All. But yet a much truer and nobler Immortality have the Spirits and Souls of Men than Matter and Motion before spoken of seeing Spirit is design'd prepar'd for and in its own Nature and immediately in it self of much higher Excellency Purity Self-motion fit for Intelligency and all Rational Enjoyment as much above any Notion of Matter or appearance of it in any Form or acted by any Motion or into any Nature whatever as Heaven is above Earth And beyond this It is the Nature of Spirits having their Substance Nature Motion all within themselves to be always distinct and to have Subsistence in themselves proper and peculiar to themselves and divided from all others whereas the others as they are made up in such and such Natures and out of which they are not found are continually altering and changing and passing out of one Form into another and have no other actual Subsistence in themselves but what they have in these so continually variated Appearances For the whole Stock of Matter and Motion that is in the World is made use of by God in common and these two are always running every way into all the successive Compositions the Creator hath design'd them for and as they are govern'd by him But all the whole Nature of Spirit that hath ever been in the Creation from the very Beginning hath without any confusion or running one Spirit into another been preserv'd in strictest distinction and separation one from another so many proper Subsistences always known to God understood and taken notice of by him in this their distinctness and so are and shall be known to themselves for ever and as such they shall be manifested and exposed to the universal Assembly of themselves Angels and Men and judg'd according to their Works because they have been their own and not anothers with them So then though the Spirits and Souls of Men even as Matter and Motion are dependent upon the Pleasure of the Creator whether they shall continue in Being or not if we speak of the thing absolutely yet it is very evident from the consideration of the whole state of the matter that Spirits are the most proper and natural Inhabitants of Immortality and howsoever it may please the Creator to determine upon the other Parts of the Creation yet there is as great assurance as Reason can rise unto and higher yet from Divine Revelation that he intends that our Souls should be for ever seeing he hath made them with Faculties and Powers of Action Intellectual Moral and immediately respecting himself which are so connatural to the true state of Immortality and so plain an approach to and resemblance of him who only hath Immortality that it is almost impossible to a serious Considerer to think that there could be any other designation of them by God but for an immortal duration seeing he hath so prepared them for such a Condition who does nothing in vain nor does so debase his own Image as to draw the Lineaments of it in Dust It remains then That the Soul in the Nature given it by Creation and in the designation of the Almighty who gave it that Nature is an Immortal Spirit 3. From the Character of a Spirits self-communication it follows The Soul is an Vnderstanding For the highest degree of Self-communication is Understanding Even in things artificial when any thing seems to communicate with another and to receive Intelligence from another and imparts it again to it there is a semblance of understanding as in the Sympathetique answer of one Lute to another When the Heaven hears the Earth in the Prophets phrase it seems to understand it The mutual Returns of one Creature to another are a kind of Understanding in them or rather that Great Understanding of God runs through them all and is an Understanding in their behalf Life within the compass and sphere of that Being that hath it is self-communicated Motion for all the Parts are in a confederacy one with another and at an agreement among themselves for the motion of the whole
THE Great Soul OF MAN OR The Soul in its likeness to God its Nature Operations and everlasting State DISCOURSED By Tho. Beverley LONDON Printed for William Grantham at the Black Bear in S. Pauls Church-yard 1675. THE PREFACE TO THE READER THE Discourse of a Soul may be censured a Nicety by some who think all expence of Time and Pains for the refining Mens Intellectuals in Religious Matters a waste and prodigality either from sloth and stupidity which having seised upon them they lay themselves down upon the first Rudiments of the Doctrine of Christ and resolving themselves to stick there are angry with all that endeavour to go on to Perfection as making too much ado and aspiring to be over-wise not remembring the severe reproof upon those who notwithstanding their standing in the Profession of Christianity are still such as have need of Milk and not of Heb. 5. 12 13 14. strong Meat through the not exercising their senses to discern betwixt Good and Evil. Or else in others it arises from the little love and regard they bear to Religion and a secret favour for Atheism upon which they design to keep all Divine Things under as gross and course Representations as may be that so they may take advantage against them as if they were of the same Leaven with Mahometane or Popish Fictions To this purpose they are carried with great vehemency against the whole nature of Spirit and particularly against the Soul of man as a distinct Being from the Body well knowing the Doctrine of a Future State is both ascertained and ennobled from a clear understanding and assurance of such a Spirit whereas on the other side by wrapping up all in Body that Future State becomes Bodily and Material also and so the Happiness or Misery of it may be blown off as pleasant Tales or frightful Stories for the Body so plainly mouldring into Dust and Rottenness it easily becomes a matter of greatest incertainty whether ever it shall rise again or not Besides how doth it derogate from the Glory and Certainty of the Divine Being when for the denying the spirituality of Mans Soul all things are plunged down into the thick Matter and the Nature of Spirit deemed an aiery and phantastick or downright an incompossible Notion so that hereby all foundations are destroyed But now if the Soul of Man be as particularly as may be understood and reasoned into in its Faculties and Operations if its immortality and continuing life and motion after it leaves the Body be clearly asserted and upon as great moments of Argument as can be desired be demonstrated if its sentiments of Good and Evil its apprehensions of a Supreme Justice be so illustrated that they may be even felt and perceived within us so that they can be no more denyed than the several impressions made upon the Body if what the Scripture in great condescention vests under such Symbols as that it may strike common Imagination and alarm the most vulgar apprehension be by a Compare of Scripture with it self and the use of manly Reason sublimated to its true spiritual intention there will arise from all this a daily improvement of Divine Knowledge and Vnderstanding a substantial sense and assurance of the Supreme Spirit and his Being liveliest fore-thoughts strongest assurances of a Future State and consequently the most powerful engagements to lay hold upon Eternal life and to fly from the wrath that is to come which are those two immense Globes of the Future State or the World to come To which ends this following Discourse is endeavoured and that it may be blessed by God with success is the Prayer of T. BEVERLEY The omission of distributing this Treatise into several Chapters is supplyed by the following Table The HEADS of this TREATISE THE Introduction pag. 1 Of Invisible Beings and the proof of them 11 Of the Soul a Spirit distinct from the Body 41 Of the Nature of a Spirit precisely considered 76 Of the Souls Activity and Self-Motion 81 Of the Souls Immortality 84 Of the Souls Self-communication and so being an Vnderstanding 96 Of the Souls likeness to God in its Puissance 115 Of Eternity and the Souls participation of it 156 Of the Soul considered distinctly in its Intellectual Powers 184 Of the Soul considered in the Activity of its Powers 219 Of the Soul of Man the true seat of Happiness or Misery present and everlasting 235 Practical Conclusions arising from the whole Discourse 296 A Brief Inference concerning the Resurrection 308 ERRATA PAge 13. line 26. read Rind of Matter p. 57. l. 10. after Beasts read in regard of their Souls l. 12. for thus read that l. 16. for returning read returns p. 229. l. 6. for contracting read contrasting p. 250. l. 7. blot yet p. 225. l. 26. read Cariere p. 275. l. 9. for another read others THE Great Soul OF MAN Job 32. 8. There is a Spirit in Man and the Inspiration or Breathing of the Almighty giveth them Understanding IT is a great Subject The Soul of Man and the whole estate of it Now and for Ever of which we have so dark and confused apprehensions that we can express very little clearly Darkness of Conception issues it self into Darkness of Expression For the forming of the apprehensions of the Mind the Dictates and Results of our Reason into clear and eloquent expression fit to instruct and perswade is a gift of the Divine Wisdom and Goodness in appendage to our Reason and it much follows the state and degree of our Reason Christ the wisdom of God spake as never man spake The Tongue of Angels excels even as the Vnderstanding of Angels Adam understanding the natures of the Creatures and fully comprehending them gave them fit names and such as carried the Images and very presences of things imprinted upon them as some sounds now create the words that signifie them Since so great a ruine of our natures in him as our Reason is much declined and degraded so is also our Eloquence For though words because they are known agreed upon to signifie such and such things call the mind to the consideration of those things and the more advantagiously they are put together the more they prevail yet those words and our contexture of them are as much beneath the primitive Eloquence as the Understandings of men now fall below the wisdom of Innocency Nevertheless still according to the Readvancement of the Understanding so the Faculty of Discourse rises also Solomon in his Wisdom and clear Understanding spoke with Grandeur of whole Nature from the Cedar in Lebanon down to the Hyssope that grows upon the Wall and of all Piety and Morality in words of greatest acceptance and recommendation And proportionable have been the Discourses and Writings of the Men of Great Name for Learning and Knowledge in every Age. But in nothing is the Faculty of Discourse more maim'd and imperfect than in Things of a Nature spiritual and retired from Body
these Effects however it be Invisible to us For when we take account of all the Beings here we easily grant the most Considerable for such Effects is Man his Reason and Providence were most likely to summon things so together and to keep them in their order but we presently find he neither hath a Might nor a Knowledge sufficient Not a Might for the Heavens above him are far out of his Reach or any application he can make to them The Earth under him is too big for any of his Engines to dispose The Waters about him are altogether out of his Grasp and all that he can possibly do in the summ of these is plainly just nothing at all His utmost attempt is to obtain what advantages he can to himself from them according to the nature wherein they are already fix'd and settled And as for his knowledge of them it is but as a span to the Universe he searches and pries and receives but a very little and his greatest Knowledge is to know his own Ignorance so impossible it is he should be either the Author or Conservator of them But oh how prodigious is it to think Things should by some lucky Hit cast themselves as by a Throw into this Order and Harmony For Chance provides not for every circumstance of any thing or if it should hit so well throughout in one Thing in how many would it miss But we see things great and small and without number ordered with so exact a Care and Contrivance and among them very many little Things upon which yet great consequences and conveniencies depend that none but a most excellent Mind could forecast or provide for some very great and designing Architect and it ought to be no prejudice against him that we do not see him When any one stands on a Tower and sees upon the Sea a Ship gallantly Equipped with its Sails Masts and all the various Tackling of it and when by settled observation he finds it moves with Design and Instruction and if he should further know it attends certain and stable Rules though the Pilot and Sailors are not seen nor the Artificer that built it nor the Owner that designs with it yet could he think that there neither are nor were such but that all this is the contrivance of Accident because he sees nothing but the Ship While then Naturalists observe such an Earth floating in the Air and a World swimming in the boundlesness of Imaginary Space and keeping yet those just Rules by which all things move should it be any reason to conclude because he sees none able to guide this Frame There is none Is it not rather to be concluded There is an Invisible supreme Cause If a man were first cast upon a Desert and after should come to a City adorned with Temples Palaces Magnificent Structures all of great Beauty Proportion and Order and should yet find no Inhabitants but what are beneath the wisdom of such a magnificence would he so much as suspect this was a fortuitous convention of the Materials into such an Union and not presently resolve There are or have been personages equal to the work they see although they see not them When a man is in an empty Room sees no man but hears the voice of excellent Reason and Discourse he will conclude A Man however placed out of sight or a Greater than a Man is there And why then should we so much as surmize Effects far greater than these should have been wander'd into by an incertain up and down Rolle or Frisk of Things And if we allow there is so great though an unseen Cause of all those Things we may allow also it is greater than any of those things that are seen not only because it is their Cause but because it hath reached those Effects that none of them can extend themselves unto and have great reason to be assured the Cause is the greater for being seen only in its Effects and not in it self seeing those things that are seen have some such disadvantages upon them whatever they are that they cannot work as this unseen Cause hath done and therefore further we have reason to believe that their very being seen is one of those disadvantages and that which runs through all the rest seeing we cannot find in a whole world of visible Beings any one that can work like this invisible Cause and therefore that it appertains to it to be invisible that it may be a Cause so universal of both which it is no hard thing to conceive the account For that things may fall under sense they must be gross and so are cumbersom shut out of things by their own unfitness for penetration capable of opposition subject to dissolution They must also be of a slow confined restrained nature But things purer and not condescending to sense may be free from these and whatever is the soveraign Cause of all must be so for he must be of an excellency of power perfectly free and dis-incumbred of an infinitely quick motion too high for opposition more intimate to things than themselves for he is over all in all through all and therefore must be also so transcendently pure as not to fall under dull and slow-sighted sense And if there be one unseen Being there may be more and they that are not be the less because they are not to be seen but the greater resembling in some degree the excellency of that super-invisible Being whom no man hath seen nor can see and such a one we affirm the Soul of man to be Argum. 2 When we come to man himself we perceive evidently and undeniably by our senses and those conclusions we make from them as certain as themselves how high and great the effects of Humane Reason and Understanding are what huge and orderly contrivances of all sorts have been accomplished by men what Laws Governments Collections of knowledge have been and are continually extant among them what aspiring of religious and devout thoughts as so many searches and attempts beyond this world and that all these are without parallel among all the rest of the Creatures under heaven Now what is there in man that is seen to the function of which we would intrust these offices and administrations Who can believe the Eye or Tongue or Hand could of themselves contribute to any of these things in the first plot or device of them or if we look into all the inward parts of humane body that Anatomy pryes into which of them can be fit for so great an employment or how can the whole frame amounting from no higher particulars conspire one part with another into so high atchievements How notoriously are all the pretences made for any of them baffled by true Philosophy so that there must be some other Architect of them though out of sight What an excellency is there in man above beasts Their highest motions and such as we admire for their approach to Humane
Reason except such wherein the wisdom of the God of Nature is immediately seen stoop as much below those of men as the faint light of the Moon falls below the lustre of the Sun or as the untuned unmodelled sound of a musical Instrument made by a vulgar Hand or wild Notes come short of the Musick and Harmony of some excellent Artist or as the gamesom leaps and rebounds of wild Creatures differ from the measured and becoming moves of a most orderly Dance And yet the Bodies of men and the Organs of sense in them differ so little from those of Beasts in relation to the main of these great effects that when we consider man in the majestickness of true Reason and Understanding and see so little upon his body more than in theirs we cannot but acknowledge something divine within him that as we may say with reverence to the highest Majesty sits as a God there The Body is a Palace or Temple indeed compared with the bodies of Beasts but this shews it only to be the Residency of so great an Inhabitant and in some peculiarities it may be so framed as to be prepared thereby to be the Instrument of so great an Artist but both signifie as little to the immediate source of Reason as a stately House or more curious Instrument do to the Offices or Discharges of the Master of the House or Art the magnificence and prudence of the one the exactness and curiosity of the other To this we must still recourse There is a spirit in man and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding and teacheth him more than the beasts of the field and maketh him wiser than the fowls of heaven And yet it is hard to perswade any serious considerer that the utmost attempts and endeavours of matter can arise to the performance of the duties of very Sense in these brute Creatures how much less can it to those of Reason in man In man then we see effects that witness enough some great Cause and Original we see not yet still seeing the Effects are plainly greater than we can attribute to any thing that may be seen in man this Cause because not to be seen is not lesser than other things in man that are to be seen but greater and therefore greater for not being to be seen because it is not subject to the inabilities of those parts of man we can see and yet cannot ascribe the Effects to because they are so much above them And yet too we might well expect these great Effects from the visible parts of an Humane Body if any where seeing man is the most excellent of the visible Creatures we know but as we reasoned before in speaking of the first Cause All things that are seen are too impure and unweildy to conduct things to so great ends as those of Reason and Intelligence and so not enough to act in the likeness of the first Cause which likeness we must all along observe as the true Key of the knowledge of mans Soul Argum. 3 To make the entertainment of invisible Beings and their greatness easier to us let us survey the whole state of Beings visible and we shall find It is not any of their outward lineaments shape colour habit figure or apparent motion that makes them what they are but their retir'd Essences A Drug hath not its nature from its shape colour or common circumstances wherein it may agree or be exceeded by other things of less virtue or by those of its own kind that have lost their virtue though they may still have the outward semblances but there is something within that is not to be pored upon by Sense but is pierced to by Reason and Understanding The appearance of Gold counterfeited deceives the Eye but is detected by the Reason that tryes things themselves If any thing be painted so to the life that it cheats the sight and seems to be the very thing that it dissembles yet it is never the more the thing It is therefore an unseen nature from which every thing hath its virtue Hence it appears there is a great retirement of that which is the Kernel of these Beings from outward garbs lineaments appearances and it fairly leads us to the belief of Beings invisible whose whole nature and beings are hidden from Sense but only in their operations wherein they exceed so much as to recompense with that evidence of themselves the retreat of their Beings from fight For if those poorer things whose pretence is small and their effects low and their essence but a duly prepared matter and so must for the most part lye open to Sense have yet a secret of their essence in reserve and made solemn by a vail of secrecy drawn over them how reasonable is it to think the highest operations should have their seat in Beings wholly immaterial and invisible of which the supreme God is known to Sense only by effects and the Souls of men the lowest of them by acting in and by visible and material Bodies indeed yet in their operations and truest nature wholly independent upon them Argum. 4 The appearances like to men in Bodies Invisible Beings have sometimes put on and the great effects they have wrought in such or any other appearances to Sense as demonstrations of themselves to it perswade the reality of their Beings and the greatness of them For by such addresses and such kind of effects as are the most assuring credentials to men as they are now in Bodies they have given to sense and sight great satisfaction and notices of themselves and at the same time awakened Reason to observe they were some unusual and stranger Beings and not familiar and ordinary ones and that they took up a short lodging only in these appearances to put Sense out of doubt concerning themselves For in the mean time to make it plain to Reason that they exceeded the force of all visible things and were not tyed to act by their proportion or so much as by the rule the Soul of man in the body acts by they have always contrived into some part or circumstance of their appearances or the effects they wrought tokens of their spirituality and grandeur they did something wonderful so that while they have descended to sense they have also amazed it and one way or other unriddled their disguise From whence arise these plain characters of Invisible Beings 1. The reality of their Beings notwithstanding their invisibility seeing they can as they please demonstrate themselves by the way of Sense and assume visibility not to make themselves more real but more known to men that otherwise being in body judge at disadvantage of those out of it 2. Their independency upon visibility seeing they could do all out of that visible appearance they do in it and do indeed much more out of it than they do in it 3. Their preference of invisibility to visibility seeing they appear only a short time Body
to be always conformed to that exemplar shine forth together the created in subordination to the increated Of all which Body is altogether insensible and utterly incapable In the original therefore of man there is according to Scripture a clear distinction betwixt Spirit and Body 2. That the Scripture doth plainly own the distinction of the Soul from the Body in a state of conjunction with it I argue especially from the powers of mind and the actions of those powers wherein are laid and to which are directed continually all the Discourses and those pressing Reasonings Exhortations Admonitions and Reproofs we find in sacred Writings These powers according to the universal speech of mankind it calls Vnderstanding Faculty of Reason Conscience Judgment and the actions proceeding from these it names Thought Apprehension or Perceiving Consideration Reasoning Accusation and Apologie or Defence of Conscience Judging of Things and all these powers working out into these acts it comprehends in this word the Spirit of man and unites these acts with it speaking of these powers as the Essence of a man and of the acts as most connatural to that Essence to which also every mans knowledge and feeling within himself give as clear testimony and as full as the parts of Body give of themselves to Sense For the Spirit of a man knows the things of a man within him Now it is plain All these things are most improper to Body or so much as a brutal Spirit especially when they lift up themselves to the sense of a God and extend themselves to religious concernments when they receive those high proposals of the Gospel and Mysteries that lye out of the whole region of Sense so that though the organs and instruments of the body are sometimes spoken of and to in these cases yet it is only upon this account because they are such as by which the mind acts or are symbols and representations of this rational sense and motion These things being then so well known and every where met with in inspired Writings they are as great a demonstration of their consciousness to another greater and more excellent Being in man than Body as can be required seeing Body hath no fitness nor possible sublimation to these things that Scripture so wholly insists upon in relation to man There must be therefore another man a more excellent man within or else all thus spoken must have been in vain such powers and actions cannot be ascribed originally to the most excellent temper of Body or Tune of motions but must have a proper and peculiar substance to reside in and that whatever any one else will call it is that Scripture and common speaking calls Spirit And this being so plain and clear and of so general consent the Scripture without any industry as in a case presumed speaks of Spirit as one thing and Body as another distributes 1 Thess 5. 23. man into Body Soul and Spirit Body is well enough known Soul is either Spirit as it contains within it self the faculties of sensitive nature and takes the Government of them upon it self and the care and feeling of things that concern Body and the life of it or as it moves in the most excellent parts of Body that mediate betwixt body and mind and are fittest for the more immediate motions of Spirit in Body and so called Spirits Spirit is pure mind exalted to its own objects and the highest of those objects Divine Things This Spirit is that Inward Man holy 2 Cor. 4. 16. Writing speaks of renewed and repaired every day not in its substantial nature but in gracious and heavenly qualities of which it is the only residence and receipt and which are its true health and strength Lastly In this distinction of Soul and Body is founded that excellent discourse of the Apostle Rom. 8. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11. of Being in the flesh and in the Spirit of being carnally minded or of the carnal mind and of being spiritually minded or of the spiritual mind By which on one side he describes this mind allured and drawn down to Body and Flesh which comes to pass first through nearness to Body and closest sympathy with all those natural and sensitive motions which it self inspires Body with but chiefly by degeneracy the Soul comes to feel it self and places its enjoyments wholly in flesh and makes that the Center of its reigning passions and affections and so it self becomes carnal and sensual and cannot please God On the other side is described Mind lifted up above Body and out of Flesh by Grace and the Divine Spirit to an inseparable adherence to God and Christ and eternal things to which it advances its own motions in Body also presenting them a living and acceptable Sacrifice which is the rational service of a man consisting of Soul and Body Thus the Flesh and the Heart together cry out for the living God In the mean time this Spirit of the mind subdues and restrains its own motions arising from unholy Bodily inclination and affection Now to be carnally minded is death The mind unpurged and glued to Body dyes in that sense a Spirit can dye that is a death of separation from God and deprivation of Divine Beauty and Happiness and the Body whose ministery it uses and makes it the seat of its carnal pleasures and sensualities perishes also leaving no possible satisfaction any longer from them and yet that Body because it was the Body of that unpurged Soul and retains its order to it remains guilty and foul dust and rises again so that the Soul may suffer and its misery may be seen in a Body even as it sinned in Body which is the second death But to be spiritually minded is life and peace For Mind renewed and made the habitation of the Holy Spirit and its righteousness cannot it self dye no not as Spirits dye because of that blessed and immortal allyance for it lives in the enjoyment of God likeness to him lively motions of it self in all goodness and blessedness And though the Body is dead that is is under the sentence of death to be unavoidably fulfilled in the separation of the Soul from the Body upon which the Body becomes a dead lump and further it must dye that the Soul may obtain a perfect purification from sin which it cannot have while cemented with Body sin being so lodged in that Cement that there can be no perfect purification till that Cement be dissolved Then when that Cement is dissolved the separated Soul becomes perfect Spirit and Divine through the almighty efficacy of the Divine Spirit resiant in it and bearing it up to the perfection of the Divine life for ever Thus the Spirit is life because of righteousness And if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you That is The Body that
Spirits whose property it is more perfectly to do this Now that these are true Characters of a Spirit besides that we have some kind of intuitive knowledge or down-right look into these things by the very virtue of a Spirits knowledge of it self and that general sense and experience we have of our own Beings and the motions and activities of them it may yet farther be assured by what we find and perceive daily to be the disadvantages of bodies for we find by effects as hath already been insisted upon that there must be a higher order of Beings than body which we call Spirits and that of this order the Supreme Being is the first and that inferiour natures are so because they are made in his Image and likeness we must then ascribe to the Supreme Spirit such essential Attributes and Characters wherein he is infinite as may answer those effects for which we seek so great a Cause and so in created Spirits seeing there are depressions and inconveniences that peculiarly belong to body by reason of which we cannot allow to them such and such effects that are plainly above them we must therefore fix such Characters upon these spiritual Natures which we say are created in Divine likeness as may ennoble them above those inconveniences which befall mean matter As when first we ascribe to Spirit simplicity It is easie to argue that the more any thing is simple sincere and one with it self with the more certainty it doth hold its own subsistence in that it can run no hazard but of its entire single essence whereas compounded Beings are in perpetual danger of a dissolution and the more one and single any thing is with the more force and power it proceeds to its effects seeing it moves at once with its whole self and a perfect union of its strength whereas also compounded Beings must be accountable for their parts which must be made good that there may be a full force for the effect but parts being but loosly set together if any be lost the whole is impaired and weakened according to the nobleness and value of the part it hath lost Lastly that self-communion and communication whereby any Being hath its center every where in it self and hath in every point of it self the center of its own Intelligence of it self is vastly necessary that any efficient may work with counsel and design and the full improvement of it self to every thing it would bring to pass so that these things are hereby manifested to be true Characters of such a Being as we call Spirit infinite in the infinite Spirit in created Spirits sutable and proportionable to the rank of their Creation and so in the Soul of man though under the restraint and disadvantages of a Body joined with it in which we are particularly to take notice of the great force and consequences of these Characters 1. From hence it follows The Soul is a most active Being of greatest life vigour and motion in a perpetual intellectual self-motion like the Sun that is always playing its beams and light God hath prepared the Soul for such a motion in its very creation he designed it for motion and set it into motion a rational motion of understanding will affection imagination and remembrance self-reflexion and conscience In these it hath a most lively agitation of it self as soon as ever it was in being from the very first moments of its being and in the very nature of its being it became a perpetual motion a self-motion or mover of it self we may perceive it in the quick and free motion of Thought the continual motion of Thought that never rests The purity fineness and simplicity of it assures it cannot but be natural to it to move and move it self God impressed it with life and action in the very make of it seeing it is all self and all of it received motion alike from the first mover it can have no heavy and sluggish parts to heave from their rest and carry along with it by which its motion being controlled should grow dull The most vivacious parts of Body and which are most active having so much load so much dull matter to inspire and move on are easily damped but it is not so with Spirit And then from without Bodies continually have their motion arrested by encountring other Bodies of a contrary intention imprinted with the just opposite motion but Spirit finds nothing abroad to cool but every thing provokes every thing stirs up their motion For it is moved to move self by every thing that presents it self to it and the more object the more motion like a violent recoil from a hard body the motion back is made fiercer Every thing the Soul meets instead of abating its motion reflects it with a new force and returns it upon more vehement examination and enquiry that is more earnest motion if it be in things pertaining to its knowledge but if in things related to its affection the action is more forcible upon it self with pleasure or vexation according to the nature of what is encountred Whatever is to be abated from this account of the Souls motion must be imputed to the inconvenience of its working by Body whose chanels are so tender and brittle and cannot endure too great vehemency in compassion to which the motion is moderated the conduits are so strait and obstructed through the Senses unexercised to the uses and ends of the Soul that its action cannot stream out like it self Lastly the instruments and organs grow weary and heavy by the disadvantages and rencounters the parts of matter have between themselves upon which the Souls motion seems slower and tired also Yet there is no time wherein Thought stands still though in the narrowest Soul and how meanly soever it be employed as it is in ignorant and sordid minds But further there are at all times great Examples of the lively motions of the Soul of man in wise and excellent persons and of the greatness and vehemency thereof which is yet a thousand fold greater and will be perfect in the everlasting state Its motion will be then wound up to the highest and there will be no allay from a heavy Body then all the thoughts affections powers will sally out with an unimaginable life Oh how necessary is it that we prepare by holy motion and action now to that motion that it may be blessed seeing there is no rest from it there is no quieting it nor so much as slackning the swiftness of it If it be not a motion that makes happy and blessed it is yet as high a motion but in misery and to the perfection of misery 2. Hence it follows the Soul is immortal because it is perfectly it self and so separated from all things else for the alteration of things in matter is from their composition one thing having many meeting to make it up and these either struggling and contesting among themselves the stronger subduing
Frame as if they had treated and still held intelligence one with another But in Diseases they grow strange to one another their Language like that of Babel is confounded and in death utterly silenc'd But the higher the Life still the more appearance of Understanding because there is a higher Self-communication till we come indeed to the Life of Understanding and so up to the highest Life and highest Understanding which is also the highest most true and perfect Self-communication that is the Life and Vnderstanding of God who hath not onely a Life and Understanding within himself but also of and from himself An Eternal Self-communication or Reflection of himself to and within himself upon himself And this Infinite Spring of Being and Self-communication never ceases nor can cease to communicate himself to himself ever knowing understanding himself enjoying conversing with himself which is Eternity of Life for he that does thus can never have been out of Being nor can ever die A perpetual Circle of deriving himself from himself to himself A purest Intellect and Mind ever beholding and most divinely resenting it self in unintermitted Knowledge and understanding of it self and so living for ever For what understands lives and what understands highest lives highest and what understands for ever lives for ever All Creatures of Life even of highest Life the Life of Understanding have in an abated sense onely Life within themselves or a Self-communication having receiv'd it at first and receiving it still every moment from God In Christ was Life as in the Johan 1. Fountain that is that high Life of Vnderstanding and this Life was the Light of Men that is the Spring and Original of their Understanding And this Understanding in resemblance of God's Life is the proper Life of the Soul For the Soul lives by feeling it self in these Self-communications by perceiving its own Cogitations Conceptions Comprehensions Affections and whatever else are the natural Results and Activities of a Rational and Intellectual Life even as we feel and perceive Natural Life by the several Motions and Self-communications of that Life And this Life if we speak strictly of it as it is a Life of Reason and Understanding hath no Contrary it hath no Adversary to encounter nor is there any Privation of it conceivable except by the destruction of the Soul it self into nothing For this Life is as near to the Soul as Lustre and Splendor is to Light if you take it away the very Nature it self is lost all the Wickedness and Misery in Hell cannot quench it For who more knowing sagacious restless in all Motions natural to Spirits than the Devils That which comes nearest to the stupefying this Life is being sunk down into Body in the lower state of which yet this Life remains though greatly cover'd and conceal'd and it cannot be long so conceal'd This Life is therefore in this regard plainly a Life immortal except God himself by an immediate hand extinguish it and this cannot be believ'd seeing it is so near a resemblance of his own Life For that he should make an Intellectual Life so high in its Nature to so low a purpose is not agreeable with the Wisdom of all the Works of God Now this Understanding as we have said is Self-communication For as Reasoning or Ratiocination is the communicating of Things one with another in a way of compare a collating of them one with another and ballancing them together and then giving the account and the quicker and more sudden this motion is made the more lively is the Ratiocination and the more excellent is the Understanding So the Principle of this Ratiocination every moment confers with it self what it hath attain'd by this course of Reason and reciprocates with it self all it hath observ'd God in an infinite manner knows himself within himself and all that is in a moment by an Omnipresent Understanding but according to the advantage the Soul hath to work with as it is in the Body or in the state of separation from it so the Understanding of Man goes a greater or lesser Circle for the communicating with Things but every moment it communicates with it self what it gathers by its communication with other things This self-communication both of the Divine and Humane Spirit the Apostle thus expresses to us The Spirit 1 Cor. 2. 10 11. searches the deep or most retired things of God There is nothing in God reserv'd or afar off from himself he eternally communicates his whole self with himself so he hath given to Man to understand himself The things of a man knows no man but the spirit of a man that is within him and that knows them So then a Man hath a power of self-communication or understanding the things within himself Yet God communicates with Mans Soul nearer than he can with himself that is he understands more of Man than Man himself does he is greater than our 1 Joh. 3. 20. Psal 139. 2. hearts and knows all things he understands our thoughts afar off The Reason is He is the Fountain of this Life of Understanding In him we intellectually live and move and have our being and he knows in himself what is done in us by the vertue that goes out of him for the doing of it for he communicates with himself all that he enables his Creatures to do From all this then it appears That to understand any thing is to communicate with it The Mind communicates with all it understands and the Nature of Understanding is communicating with Things and self-communication The Mind communicates with it self all it receives by communication with other Things The Understanding goes out to understand things at a distance from it It communicates with them It enters into their Natures as far as it can Yet it is not in this chiefly an Understanding but that it reflects within it self its own Observations in that it communicates with it self all the while it communicates with other things and feels within it self its own Perceptions as the Eye perceives its own Receptions In this it is chiefly an Understanding not like a dead Instrument or Trepan that enters within things and knows not that it does so that takes hold without any apprehension or like the Eye of a Beast that looks upon things without Knowledge and comes no nearer them than Sense can do Things that cannot communicate themselves within themselves cannot understand Understanding encreases it self by more plentiful and continual Self-communication Understandings encrease one another by mutual communication and grow greater Understandings and as it were into one common Understanding This is the proper Nature and the Specification of an Understanding and the Soul in its very Essence is an Understanding 4. The fourth Consequence from the Nature of a Spirit is That the Happiness or Misery of it must needs be exceeding great For since such a Being cannot but have great Capacities for one of these States whichsoever of them it
is it must needs be exceeding great both because it feels it self throughout in either of them and must needs do so in regard of the Reciprocation Self-communication of all its Powers and Motions and in regard of the Fineness and Purity of its Being not abated by Grosness Distance and Distinction of Parts but the Whole running into it self as also in regard of the Forcible motion of a Spirit which carries therefore its Griefs or Pleasures with the rapidness of its own motion and either blesses or torments it self according to the vehemency of its Nature The Spirit or Soul of Man in the Body discovers somewhat hereof but in lower degrees by reason of the distribution of it self to the several Parts Pleasures Pains and various Concernments of Bodily Nature which while the Soul condescends to and complies with it seems to imitate so that it tastes generally intermixed Pleasures onely and suffers but alleviated Griefs because this agrees most with the Condition of Body that hath nothing pure And further while it is thus interested it s own proper Motions and Activities are both damp'd and confin'd For Body is dull and strait and if the Soul dwells in it and acts by it it must proportion it self to it or else it cannot be its Instrument Yet these Properties of the Soul are not altogether imperceptible even in Bodily state for as the Soul is conform'd very far to the Body in those Regards so hath the Body its Conformities to the Soul and those much more necessary seeing it is acted and moved by it For even Bodily Sense pays this resemblance to Spiritual that in every Part it bears Sympathy with what is felt in any one Part Yet this is because the Soul enlivening the whole Body and undertaking for every Part feels in it self as in the Center the state of every Part though it feels according to the manner nature and situation of the several parts of the Body In some degree of Likeness also the vigour of the Souls Resentments are seen in the most spirituous Pleasures or acute Pains of Body that are able to move Nature high which fall out onely in a lively Constitution and not taken off so as to chill the Pleasure or dull the Pain because the Soul hath more Active Bodily Powers to shew it self by and wherein it can give greater Testimony of its own vivid Motion though but in concernedness for the Body Thus the Pains of Stone and Gout are much sharper because they abate so little from the Constitution and the vigours of Health are necessary for the receipt of Pleasure But the Soul is much more in things proper to it self All Center where every one of its proper Pleasures and Pains meet that is Spiritual Joys and Sorrows and then the liveliness persistency of its Nature carries up to a height all its Enjoyments or Sufferings But this is never so clear as in its separated and free estate for then especially as it is said of Eternity It is all drawn as it were into every Moment So whatever can be suppos'd in any Point of the Intellectual Nature if we could so distinguish in the same instant runs through all which is the first Height of the Happiness or Misery of a Spirit In the next place the Happiness or Misery of a Spirit can be no other than a Happiness or Misery of a Spiritual nature and so cannot but be great for that is the Nature of every thing Spiritual It is all what it is and nothing else Every thing but Spirit hath a great deal of cumber a great deal of Clothes and Habiliments upon it But Spirit is purely it self Spiritual Happiness hath no clog upon it Spiritual Misery hath no Sheath upon it it is all Edge And when we are entred into the Region of Spirits there will be no heaviness of Body nor diversions of that in the way The Bodies of the Resurrection when we receive them will be fitted to the velocity and swiftness of our Minds and prepar'd so wholly for them as most perfectly to attend their condition Object But because we see the Body now such an Obstruction to all Motions of Soul it may be doubted whether there may not be a state of Souls as insensible or more insensible than now To resolve this the Scripture tells us God makes the Happiness of his Saints like a River of highest Pleasure and the punishment of Evil like a sea of flaming Brimstone both to the height therefore it withal appears the Faculties are rais'd to the height also Else there could be no such Happiness nor any such Punishment Insensible things enjoy nothing endure nothing and the lower the Sense the lower of necessity is also the Enjoyment and the Pain There must be therefore an exaltation of the Faculties to the highest Life that in the meeting of the Object and the Faculties there may be greatest Satisfaction or Misery Yet it may be understood upon this very account there may be Glories and Punishments of higher and lower degrees according to the advancement or low estate of the Faculties and that the state of the other World may be proportion'd to this that he who by a Soul more enlarg'd in this World he who by five Talents gain'd Luc. 19. 17 19. Luc. 12. 47 48. ten or that knew his Masters will and yet did it not these being agreeably of higher apprehensions and quicker motions in this World are in the World to come by the continuing elevation of those Powers made Rulers over more Cities or beaten with more stripes but those of fewer Talents and meaner Sentiments keep still their Ranks being Rulers over fewer Cities or beaten with fewer stripes Yet in each of these the state of their Souls here and in Eternity differs as much in regard of their apprehensions and the clearness of their Faculties as Twilight and Noon-day From this state of things that hath been given it may be briefly inferr'd in these Particulars following 1. If the Souls of Men that are an Inferiour Spirit are so active and high in their motion then how exalted and infinitely adorable are all the Perfections of that Supreme Spirit lifted up out of all Height That Eternal-Fountain-Author-Spirit how infinitely pure is his Being without any variation or shadow of turning dwelling in such a Light and Lustre of his own Divinity that nothing can so much as approach or come within any distance of Although his Spirit runs through All yet there is an infinite separation of Excellency between God and all things How clear and bright is his Understanding before whom Hell is naked and Destruction hath no covering Darkness and Light are all one to him because Light and Glory are always round about him and Hell is but the displeasure of his Holiness against Sin like a Flame that dazles and scorches together A Fire devours before him and burns up his Enemies on every side How potent are his Efficacies which way soever he
Matter to work upon nor work with Infinite Understanding brought forth Matter and stirr'd it as he pleas'd And though there is no comparison between Understanding Finite and Infinite yet by this it appears there is no contradiction for Understanding to produce Matter when there was none nor to move it when it is We know too there must be some way by which our Souls though acknowledged to be Spirits move our Bodies known enough to be gross and material and that meerly by Thought and Consideration what is to be done and that they obey them speedily and with ease although we are not able to expedite all the Questions that may be mov'd in relation hereunto In the sum I think it not to be doubted but that many of the extraordinary and wonderful Atchievements of Men the even prodigious Valours and mighty Prevalencies of some Warriours that have in heat of Fight mov'd like Lightning have been the true and proper Effects and Sallies out of a Soul through the Freedoms given by God to such Persons for the bringing about those Changes he hath resolv'd upon by their Victoriousness and Conquests And to conclude in all those things that have been done by Men not plainly miraculous nor exceeding the Power of Created Spirits I know no reason why the Wonder should be plac'd any where else but upon that admirable Freedom such Souls by especial Grant from God have had to work like themselves and so to exceed the ordinary Operations of Men. And though this doth not equal their present State to nor bring up their Services to the Services of Angels that Order of Creatures God in his Wisdom hath appointed for the greater and more remarkable Expeditions and Actions in the World as being always ready and as we say in procinctu excelling in prepared and unincumbred strength always upon the guard and hearkning to the voice of his word yet in that such great and mighty Works do shew forth themselves in the Soul and there have been so great and wonderful Persons in all Ages of Famous Memory in their several kinds and vertues in whom the Greatness of this Soul hath broken forth it is a marvellous Instance that the Soul of Man is a Great Potent and Excellent Spirit of vast Activities in its own Nature and that it hath a near resemblance of God and Alliance to Angels that however it be for a little time made lower than Angels yet it shall be brought into a Condition wherein it shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal to Angels For though I make no doubt some Men have greater Souls than others as one Star differs from another in Magnitude and as Bodies differ in Strength Beauty and Proportion yet there is the main Excellency of a Humane Body wherein all agree So it is in the Souls of Men the Soul of one Man is a Measure and carries the Pourtraicture of the Souls of Men in their Universal Nature even as Face answers Face in the water so the Soul of one Man returns the Soul of another Man Against all this it lies as a great Objection That the greatest Effects of a Soul we can observe are not great and high enough for such a Being as I have describ'd Mans Soul to be and the great Effects we do see are found onely in some lesser numbers of Men. Let us then inquire into these two things Why the Effects are not greater wherein Souls display themselves and Why we see them not more generally and universally among Men For the first it is to be considered The Soul in the Body is like an Artificer that works by a very dull and unapt Instrument though himself of excellent Skill like a valiant Warriour with a Sword of Lead or as Samson if confin'd to the general Laws of Humane Nature he had fought with the Jaw-bone of an Ass onely or like the Eye though never so quick looking through a dull Glass or in a Dark Room or like a strong and valorous Man in a Cage or close Dungeon or like a Light in a Dark Lantern or like a strong Man asleep All this is the State of the Soul in the Body or like a Prince of Just Authority in Captivity or like a Jewel clos'd up in Clay or a Beauty shrouded under a course Covering To judge of the Soul now and according to such Rules as it acts by in the Body that it shall never be greater and more active than it appears is to conclude the Soul of a Child shall never shew it self greater and more active than it appears while the Child is in Swadling Clothes Or as if the Infant in the Cloyster of the Womb could make a Judgment of it self and think it self in as good a condition or better than it should be in the open Air and that what it is there it must be always The Soul sees now through a glass darkly and is in the condition of a Child and of a Child shut up in the Womb. That the Body is now a great hinderance to the Soul is apparent by the necessity that the Soul must be separated from it and that it must be dissolv'd into Dust or changed and that in the Resurrection our Bodies must be Spiritual Bodies fit to cast the Glories and display the Excellencies of a Soul to discharge the Activities of the highest Elevation of a Spirit But to return to the present State of the Soul in the Body why it is order'd thus that the Body should be such an Instrument out of Tune to the Soul such an excellent Harmonist such a Dungeon to the Mind Princely in its Creation We may give it thus In the very first and most innocent state the Soul was so framed by God that though the Powers of it were much larger than Body and independent upon it yet that they should for a certain season be restrain'd to the Body to govern take care of and act it according to its Nature and Measures according to its Preparations to run along under the Powers of the Soul in their Motion and not be destroy'd by the over-vehemency This Body the Soul was able and fit to act to the utmost of its Capacities and far beyond them and yet it was so moderated as not to over-act them but it could not raise this Body or the Matter of it above its Natural Excellency That was reserv'd in the Creators Power alone as a Reward of the Souls Obedience in that Body for the present time allotted to it The Soul could not make the Body what it would have it be or fit it to all it would have it do when it found it short It could not enable body to all things a Soul had Power for or a desire to For it was but a Living Soul and not a Quickning 1 Cor. 15. 45. Spirit that is It had a Life given it by God and such a Life that it should be always a Living Soul that it should never decay and
dissent it can derive no happiness upon the Soul but on the contrary anguish and affliction This being then preconsidered let us now more pressingly search the nature of Mans Soul as it is in Scripture stiled The Heart and the Heart out of which are the Issues of Life first drawing the powers of Reason themselves and their motions and then shewing them as they are derived for so they are always into one of those two Channels Good or Evil. In the Heart then are all the powers of Motion 1. Here is the immediate directive Understanding or Judgment which determines to Action and this is a different thing from the Light of the Candle of the Lord which is always the same for this may be debased and corrupted it may mix it self with lower Considerations and in the generality of Men it does so even to the eclipsing and darkening the higher Light not in it self but in its oriency and brightness upon the Soul as the Sun is the same although its Light may be shadowed from us But this practical Understanding however it may be corrupted yet hath the more immediate conduct of all the actions and contains in it self the Gust Taste and Motion of the whole Soul and immediately foreruns Action for it determines things with their Circumstances it ballances diviner Reasons and Temptations on the contrary part together the Love and Fear of God on one side Inticements from Flesh and Blood and the World on the other Now there is a great difference between these two It is best to be holy and virtuous in it self and in general and It is best for me in particular and in this particular Action to be holy Between these two An Act of Judgment as it resides in the Understanding and an Act of Judgment as it inclines the whole Soul Motion and Action unto it This very practical Understanding is in Scripture called The Heart Let Prov. 23. 15. thy Heart be wise It is this Wisdom of the Heart that denotes a man Good not that most clear Light that shines from above and down upon the Heart not within it but so without it that it doth not reside in it and change it into it self 2. Here are the Will and Affections which are the resolution vehemency and keenness of the Judgment and carry the notion of the nearest and next Powers of Action 3. Here is the Memory presenting anew the Images of Things past and offering what hath been observed of them heretofore either as to their chuseableness or undeservingness Here is the Imagination displaying things new and old and so displaying them that in things of lesser importance their appearance is greater than themselves in Things of truest and greatest Importance by the help of Imagination well imprinted they come nearer to their own greatness and appear much greater than they would do else which is the great benefit of sanctified Imagination in regard of which David prays That God would keep it always in the imaginations 1 Chron. 29. 18. of the people to fear the Lord and keep his Laws 4. Here is the resort of all outward Objects with their several Characters of Commendation or Dispraise as Embassies in the Court of a Prince so are the several Proposes made and addressed here from those several Regions the Region above which makes Offertures of greatest Happiness and the Region below which sends also the glozed Tenders of Good 5. Here are the Habits rising up by the degrees of propensions inclination temper and readiness to Action till by repeated Action they are so settled that they become the Treasure of the Heart out of which it freely expends Mat. 12. 35. every moment and at a minutes warning as occasion calls it out And from all these arise restless motions moves and removes of the Soul it self and of the Things within it self about which it treats endless Thoughts Imaginations Remembrances Willings Hatings Desirings Aversations and Abhorrencies and these in infinite mazes cutting one another some weaving one with another and mutually strengthening themselves others contracting cool and suspend the Soul to either part sometimes the Prints that have prevailed are defaced and new ones take and these again thrust out and the former returning in continual vicissitudes sometimes the Understanding encourages the Affections and other Powers and they it as several Artificers in a Building at other times there is a Confusion of Languages among them and they bring forth only a Babel But at all times is found here that great contest between the higher Soul and the Reasons and Dictates of that and the contrary struggles of the lower through its correspondencies and intelligences with the Body and its Sensualities the encounters between the Law of the Mind and the Members which cause great distractions and rollings of the Soul this way and that way according to the liveliness of the one or the violence of the other Lastly From the Heart arise both sudden and every way formed and contrived Actions accomplished perfected and fledg'd for all the forming and beating out of actions to this or that shape are upon the Anvil of the Heart and those that break out on the instant had yet their first motion from thence even as all the Arteries and Veins are from the natural Heart and it hath its Pulses every where so this Heart we speak of hath in this Life Moral and Intellectual Now that which makes the Consideration of all we have spoken in this particular great is that according to these Issues of life is the state of a Man in Holiness or Sin and so he is in an order for Happiness or Misery hereby For by these and all these and no other thing whatever is a Man what he is with these a Man is holy with these he is wicked nothing else gives him his Temper his Character and when these are twisted together and holily moved by the Grace of God and incited by heavenly motions the Soul is then drawn with the Cords of Hos 11. 4. a Man but when they are united in Evil it is drawing Iniquity with a Isa 5. 19. Cart-rope and sin with the Cords of Vanity that is of a Vain Heart For these being neither the higher Reason alone necessarily resulting from the motion and excellency of an Understanding nor being only the meer sensuality or inclination of Body but truly the substance bulk and substantial powers and motions of a man what a man is in these he truly is Further the true genuine and sincere motions of these are they that try him for which ever Sin or Holiness have the Ballance and cast the Scale that a Man is For on one side the cunning Heart sends out some actions out of choice and inclination only in complyance with the higher Soul for which it cannot but have a reverence and again sometimes however it be in its own native state corrupt yet it is forced to receive or rather suffers the
strongly agitated impressions of enlightened Conscience upon it But this is not accounted of with God who sees and trys the Heart and knows the ground and motion of all There is also that unworthier way of the Heart when meerly to contrive its easier passage to sensual Enjoyments it only counterfeits some agreeable actions to the higher Soul and pays its Vows to those ignoble ends that it may have some greater advantages to Voluptuousness Riches or Honour which is the grossest kind of Hypocrisie On the other side there are many Infestations and troublesom Inrodes of sensuality upon a man that are truly preponderated by the Diviner Principle that yet do not debase him in account with God such as the Apostles Thorn in the Flesh as it is interpreted 2 Cor. 12. 7. by some and the Law of the Members in contest against the Law of the Mind that yet doth not prevail into the Character of a Man whose Heart is upright with God The keeping then of the Heart is of greatest moment and it must be our care that the Treasure and Temper of it be good our observation must be ever awake upon all that passes out of it that we may take its true Character Our endeavour must be earnest to reform all we find out of order to get it swayed by Holiness to stop the evil Motions of it till we have so discouraged them as to alter the very Temper of it to incline it continually upon all holy and good Actions till we have endeared them to it to take heed of all Proffers and Proposes to it that we may not suffer it to be tempted to guard it to offer it to all holy and gracious Converses to chastise it continually in all it does ill to encourage it in all it does well and that we may do all this we must devocare mentem supremam è Coelo we must bring that highest Mind enlightened by Grace into the Government and Command of it and detrudere Corpus in imas Terras we must thrust down Body the love of which seduces and corrupts the Heart as low and as much into subjection as may be and above all we must commit it continually unto God for the safety and all the power of even this Supreme Mind is the Free Princely Spirit of Ps 51. 12. God establishing it and always joining it self with it as wickedness is kept a-foot by being acted by the Spirit of wickedness This Heart now let us consider It is always a beating the Pulses of it are every minute and every where the motion of it is vehement as Fire to what a boundless measure of sin and iniquity will it rise if suffered But to what vast degrees of good might it also rise if its Motions were improved to good And so consequently to what degrees of Happiness or Misery may it rise or fall We must use therefore all our care to be always with it that we may guide its Motion that in respect to Evil we may restrain and suppress its Motion as we do that of Fire that in relation to Good we may promote and advance it that in regard of it self we may always provide it enough of true good to feed upon that it may not inflame nor break it self by grinding it self Yea we must take care of the very Rest of it for even that is accounted equal to Action Rest in any sinful Action till we have removed from it by Repentance is a continuation of that Action even as Gods Rest from Creation yet upholding and preserving all Things is expressed by Working as our Saviour speaks My Father worketh hitherto and I work So men uphold sin by their acquiescence in it without Repentance though they do not proceed to new Acts. The nature of the Soul being now thus far expressed It remains as the top and sum of all to shew that it is made with great and large Receipts for Happiness or Misery Whether we consider it immediately in the substantial Nature or whether we consider it in the Faculties and Motions of it 1. In the immediate substantial Nature of it as hath been already made plain It is immortal made to continue for ever Whatever melts away from its misery the misery of that is not considerable If a Prince would put an Assassinate to death with an extreme but leisurely torment and he dyes at the very first approach of it he deceives his punishment So that Happiness is not desirable that smothers the Being that should enjoy it by the greatness of it self but the Soul made for For Ever is great in either of these the Happiness of it infinitely desirable the Misery of it most formidable because it can abide and survive in either 2. It is Immaterial and of such a Fineness and Purity of Substance that it pierces far into all Reasons of Joy or Trouble and is penetrated by them The sympathies of it in Happiness or Misery are sudden and universal as the Light spreads it self through the Air in a moment it receives in all parts the Light the Sun gives and instantly thus the Soul the Favour or Indignation the Smiles or Frowns of God when they indeed break out upon it it is most sensible presently sensible all over and most intimately sensible But of these things I have already spoken Let us further consider the Faculties themselves whereby it is fully fitted to take in Happiness or Misery and to execute them in it self The Faculties indeed compared with Gods Favour or Displeasure are but the Instruments and Organs God gives the Breath and the Power yet they are fearfully and wonderfully made by God to these great ends both in their Capacities and Activities 1. The Understanding is that great Receipt of all Principles of Light and Truths as may conduce either way and this is such a capacity as must receive whatever God offers so plainly to it as he will have it received Thus God manifested himself in the Hearts of the Gentiles however prejudiced against the Knowledge of the true God they could not resist it but that they must needs be without Excuse For that which might be known of God was still manifest in them for God had shewed it to them So the work of the Law was written in their Hearts and they shewed it by their thoughts accusing or excusing and this they could not help A Table must receive what is written upon it and in the accounts of being Happy or Miserable upon these Principles of Truth through the Apologies or Accusations of Conscience and the Motions of the Favour or Displeasure of God upon them the case is the very same Now this Understanding first entertains and then lodges Truth and when that Truth is enlivened and stirred up sutable impressions of Pleasure or Grief are made and from thence stream down with all their force into the Rest of the Soul the Understanding being indeed so much the Soul that all the rejoicings and complaints
surprised the whole Animal Power also and extinguished that Life and how often the Soul gives a Constitution to the Body we know not but this is certain however the case be otherwise The Comfort or Discomfort of a Man is seated in his Soul and whencesoever the Causes of them arise or through whatsoever Conduits they pass they please or afflict according to the settled Judgment the Mind makes of them But for the further clearing and confirming these things let us make this account of them 1. From the Nature of Mans Soul it is certainly to be concluded The Soul is the Man which way soever the Soul goes that way certainly the Man goes and when the Soul is in a high concern any way it values the Body no more than the Body does a Garment For though it is true in the generality of men and in general Cases the Soul doth willingly subordinate it self to the Body or rather it self to it self as in the Body and makes the service the safety the pleasure of it self in the Body to be its whole pleasure safety and satisfaction yet there are particular persons by whom particular cases in which the Body is slighted as of smallest consideration We see good men use the service of it in Study and Contemplation to such a height that it is macerated weakened discouraged and speedily worn out they subdue it by daily mortification they 1 Cor. 9. 27. offer it up in Martyrdom deliver and resign it to the Flames submit it to the Torturer Bad Men enslave it to vicious affections lavish it out upon their Lusts and in their Rage sometimes destroy it by violence upon themselves From all which it is plain how much the Body is at the service of the Soul when the Soul is excited to the exercise of its own power 2. The great Mystery of the Soul is That whereas in its own Nature it is thus great and commanding was made in the Image and Similitude of God hath a resemblance of his Liberty and even of his infinite Motion in the displays of Understanding Will and Affections yet notwithstanding it may be as it were silenced and slumbered and the Motion of it so suppressed that it seems to have nothing so considerable as such a Being imports In this state it is like a strong Man asleep but that will awake it sleeps its sleep now but when God awakens it it shakes its self and throws off all its Manacles or like a strong man that shoâ—â—s by reason of Wine then its strength and vigour appears It lyes still as Samson when his Locks were cut off it re-enforces it self hereafter as Samson when his Locks were grown again like Water running softly and in a very weak and indiscernible Current afterwards like an Inundation of Water like a Spark under Ashes but afterwards like the whole Element of Fire in fiercest motion so that there is no judgment to be made of its influences into the Comfort or Discomfort of a Man when it is in its duller and more stupified condition but in its highest Flights now and in its Everlasting State 3. God hath the great power of moving the Soul he that formed the Spirit of a Man within him he that made it what it is that gave it his own likeness he will shew when he pleases that he made it such as it is indeed and it must needs be plainly in his power to do it who is the Supreme and All-working Spirit so that all the state and condition of it from the first moments of its Being throughout Eternal Ages is a Government and Ordination of God upon it Nothing then is to be concluded but by and upon his declarations of himself and of the manner of his Government he hath prescribed to himself which is in part made known to us in the Nature Frame and Constitution of the Soul it self and the daily Experiments of it but most especially in his Word which describes both the deplumed and low estate of Souls and the certain exaltation the lifting them up whether to Salvation or Destruction 4. The things the force and strength of the Soul move upon as descriptive and constitutive of its own state and condition give temper to its Satisfactions and Disquiets When it moves upon such things as have truly the Springs of Joy and Comfort in them as its own it hath an exceeding Joy that carries it above all things Again when it moves upon those things that have indeed the reasons of Sorrow and Affliction and that it must acknowledge it hath an unhappy Right to there is an excess of Sorrow and Vexation If there are but apprehended reasons of either or lower degrees of them aggravated by that apprehension the force of the Soul may yet make them great till it be undeceived for when there is nothing worthy either way to work upon yet it s very deceived and deluded Imagination are in the room of a great Object to it and either very pleasing or afflictive Thus it is till Reality takes place of Appearance and Eternity finds so much employment for all the Powers upon things so grand that they have nothing of leisure either for Appearances or lesser Things or to spend their strength in vain Thus far I have argued the Motions of the Soul unto Happiness or Misery immediately from the Nature of the Soul it self in the next place let the account of these things be drawn from the Ordination and Government of God in relation to himself and the eternal condition of the Soul 1. There is an Absolute Will and Determination of God that it shall appear that Himself and Holiness and the enjoyment of Himself for ever are the true Happiness of the Soul and the only Happiness of it on the other side That Sin his Wrath and Disfavour are the greatest Evils as God says I will famish all the Gods of the Earth so he will all that the Earth calls Good besides himself which is a worshipping of the Creature besides or in preference to the Creator blessed For Ever Else Men who are in Covenant with seeming Goods and in Union with them would think themselves well enough without God and without any enjoyment of him God therefore hath appointed a time wherein all the Idols of the World shall be smitten as Dagon before the Ark and all little Evils that are so reputed here shall shrink into none compared with his Wrath and Displeasure Then shall Men reflect upon all the Fatigues they have undergone for worldly Pleasure Profit and Honour as so much lost and misplaced labour and their so earnest recoil from present Evils though with their eternal hazard shall be reputed as basest Cowardise then Religion and Holy Walking which had so mean an allowance of Deference from them shall be esteemed of greatest worth and value 2. God hath determined to draw out Souls to their own Greatness and Extent that his Workmanship in them may not be always hid
viz. That our Saviour intends no more than that mans killing the body is infinitely less than Gods destroying that Body and its whole life in Hell though after many Ages Yet it is observable in the first place our Saviour to imprint the fear of Divine Revenges places them not only upon the Body but upon the Soul as a distinct and greater part of man than body 2. And beyond this our Saviour plainly aims at the great odds there is betwixt a hand that can execute no further than dying once and in the body only and that almighty hand that sends down the Soul to Hell immediately and the Body at the Day of Judgment For he implies a man easily slips from mans severity by death for he may yet live and be happy in his Soul presently and in his Body at the Resurrection but death can give no escape from the stroke of God either to the Soul which incontinently falls under it nor to the Body awakened hereafter to endure it Now I know it is possible for Serpentine wits to glide off from these and many the like proofs of Scripture that might be produced for their way of elusion is very wonderful like that of Solomons Serpent upon a Rock that winding every way yet leaves no track of solid Reason behind it but yet I affirm that such concurrent Testimonies of Scripture are so conclusive that no sober consideration can escape from them unto which revealed Truth is also to be annexed Reason it self teaching us as I have already urged the effects of a Soul are too great to be ascribed to any power of Body and therefore seeing every Effect must have an equal Cause it is a high justification of the assertion of a Spirit to which those effects may be duly and worthily ascribed And therefore I shall further adventure to avouch from Scripture that the Soul is so much the Man that it hath the compleat substantial essence of a man so far in it self that in comparison of it the body is but prepared for a sensible mode or representation in which the Soul is to act and shew and illustrate it self visibly and sensibly and that man might thereby become of the order of the sensible and visible world beholding and judging by the ministery of sensitive organs of the beauty excellent array and variety of bodies in this Creation and himself appear the principal of them but retaining still a higher and nearer relation to the Invisible world to God to the state and life of Angels so that without any prejudice to his main being he may be removed out of the body thither and yet still be himself as to all the chief intents and purposes of his Creation and continue so till in the restitution of all things and the manifestation either of the goodness or severity of God after the manner of the sensible and visible Creation that is in such a plain way as seeing and knowing things by sense men be again set out by God in a bodily scheme or fashion at the Resurrection so that the Body it shall then have shall more compliably wait upon all the state and motions of the Souls happiness or misery The Soul then only visibly shews it self now in a body and is submitted to be in it but when it goes out of the body it wants nothing through the whole time of its separation that it had here but only the apparence of its motions in a body nor hath any thing added to it when it is cloathed with a body at the Resurrection but an opportunity for its glory or misery to be seen sensibly Even as God was excellent and perfect in himself from eternity when there was no Creation or any beside himself nor received he any thing or found any addition to himself by the Creation for all things that he made received their All from him but only he hath illustrated and manifested himself in the Creation and the Creatures do no more than shew the power wisdom and goodness of God in creating preserving and governing them After the same manner so far as we may with reverence compare any of the Creatures with the infinitely excelling Creator the Soul receives nothing from the Body or any of the parts of it but only such organs and instruments which it is to inspire govern and rule and thereby to shew its efficacy vigour and great endowments of understanding and virtue for all motions from the highest to the lowest derive from the Soul But as to the present case That the Soul falls in love with its self as dwelling in body and with its lower motions in it and forgets its own proper and higher motions of immediate converses with holiness and true wisdom and that rule of body committed to it according to these Laws this is only its sin weakness degeneracy and fall as of a created and mutable Being placed in a body All motions and appetites that we call in ordinary speaking motions of body and fleshly appetites are not any thing that body can first proffer to the Soul but those that the Soul communicates first by that universal life and motion it gives to body and then derives from its own communications the pleasure that it self finds from it self in body Yet is not the Souls good or ill management of Body all its holiness or sin there are many acts so retired that body shares not in their praise or guilt The Soul in such acts of goodness is like God and good Angels as if it had no body and as unconcerned in this world as God in his own immanent perfections and actions On the other side wicked men are in some wicked actions alone as it were from the body like Devils and damned Spirits those spiritual wickednesses the Apostle speaks of exercised in spiritual Impurities But to return The Souls acting and taking care of the body is but an inferiour and under-part of its administration and is for that higher end that there might be an image and likeness of God imprinted upon a body and sensibly seen in it by virtue of the Souls acting holily in and upon it This is the highest and most excellent part of its Government the pleasure it takes in the lower should be but an imitation of the Lord taking pleasure in his lower works who is never the less spiritual heavenly and divine for running through and governing the whole world of matter and rejoicing in his doings therein but is always in the perfect purity of his own Attributes and guides all things according to them But contrary-wise if the Soul makes its lower and less noble functions its principal and supreme and instead of moving the body rationally and religiously by it self continuing spiritual and intellectual it chiefly attends to and interests it self in its lower sensitive motions and so becomes carnal and sensual this is its great fall into sin and misery yet still it retains its prerogative of nature it is
still the source and life of all motion though sinful for body alone cannot sin nor any way can it be guilty but as the Souls body The Soul then is All Thus it is now in the Resurrection it will be much more so when the body is so drawn up into the state of the mind that the mind hath no opportunity to be carnal in it and with it because it hath no longer such a low body as this for even the bodies of miserable Spirits are in this part so refined that the Soul can have none of its carnal delights in them which it had in these In that space of time then between death and the Resurrection the Soul must needs be no less compleat in it self for though it hath a fitness in it to animate a body yet that is as unnecessary to its absolute perfection as Gods actual Creation and Government of the world was to his power and wisdom whereby he created and governs and although at the Resurrection it appears in a body again yet this is from the ordination of God to set a beauty upon the visible Creation in which he will then fully display that part of his glory in the glorious body of his Son and Saints conformed to him and set out his justice and wrath visibly also in the dusky bodies of those that rise to everlasting shame and contempt That the Soul thus separated from the body is thus perfect I argue from that expression of our Saviour that they which are accounted worthy to obtain Luc. 20. 35. that world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like and equal to the Angels so that though the Soul hath a power to act order and guide the motions of such a body as it is joined to now yet they are no way necessary to its true perfection for its highest state of perfection even in body is without the exercise of such acts viz. in the Resurrection And further they that are equal to the Angels have no more need of a body than the Angels have that is not as to themselves or their own perfection but only to serve the order of Divine Wisdom in the various disposition of the Creation a body and a body suited to this free and exalted state of the Soul is given to them Further The perfection of the separated Soul may be argued from the Apostles discourse of the state of immortality immediately entred into as soon as ever the weak and cumbersome Tabernacle of Earth is dissolved Through the gracious provision of God the Soul is invested with life and immortality and all the blessedness and entertainment of Heaven as the most natural receptacle and becoming robes of good Spirits without which they would be naked and Souls not so received but left naked of that blessedness are immediately shrowded in blackness and darkness hellish blackness and darkness For though Souls are indeed determined by the righteous judiciary appointment of God each sort to their own place yet the natures of these things themselves are so wisely contrived as fairly to comply therewith so that holy Souls uncloathed become Spirits Divine heavenly and blessed but Souls unpurged as soon become dark hellish and miserable Now that happy Souls immediately upon leaving the body enter into such a state is very plain in that they desire earnestly this state but if for want of bodies they lay asleep or if being nothing but body the whole man should lye so long in the earth as till the Resurrection it were a much worse state than the present for the time might be much better improved in the World than in the Grave and there would be no reason to groan for so long and dark an interval instead of a life of Grace converse with God and doing good in the world which is the life of holy men It may indeed be said It is safer every way to be laid up in the Grave and more quiet and this interval is not felt nor perceived in the dust but a thousand years seem as short as an hour now this is so far from an answer that it tends to subvert the great principle of a future life for ten thousand Ages and an everlasting duration beyond could as little be perceived There can be no complaint that so many Ages of duration were run out before men which lay out of life came into it nor can there be any sense of the want of life where it was never had and in like manner there can be none by them that are quite gone out of life But if this way of reasoning were good it might be as well for good men if there were no Resurrection at all for they that are thus muffled up cannot make any appeals to God for nor so much as know there is reason to desire a Resurrection nor resent the want of it and so would have no loss But if good men suffer loss in this total suppression of life they must suffer proportionably in those huge spaces of death the Saints of God dying in the beginning of the world have already and are still to lye under till the end of the world Further This silence and interval of life is equal as to the case we are now speaking of to Not Being and seems so to obliterate all the former state and the good or evil done in it as to acquit and discharge it as if it had never been to those whose actions are so quite broken off and so perfectly forgotten by themselves It is therefore certainly most agreeable to Reason as well as Scripture there should be at least a continuation of that sense and understanding we had of our actions in this world when we are passed out of it whether in relation to happiness or misery that all should not begin anew in our acknowledgment of them and evil men that have been some thousands of years out of Being as men should yet be forced to own those things they did so long ago having also been so many other things since in the various shapes the matter of their Bodies may easily have been supposed to pass into and in which they may have deserved better or at least been more innocent and harmless and if there be nothing higher than that matter tuned to rational motion as men of this opinion suppose we may easily allow an expiation may have been made by that same matter for the offences committed while it made up such a man in the innocency or better demeanour of it self in some other state into which it removed afterward and so on the other side the matter that hath been virtuous while it was such a man may afterwards come to be debauched in its future disguises and so a demerit of its former worthy performances ensue and thus body not be found by either sort of men such as they left it So unreasonable are these Hypotheses that are set up