of them may with better pretence than the Pharisee cry out Lord we thank thee that we are not as these men are There is nothing permitted by God but it has its use some way or other and therefore it cannot be concluded because that an Event has this or that use therefore God by his immediate and free Omnipotence effected it A Pre-existentiary easily discerns that these Monstrosities plainly imply that God does not create Souls still for every humane Coition but that having pre-existed they are left to the great Laws of the Universe and Spirit of Nature but yet dares not conclude that God by his free Omnipotence determines those monstrous Births as serviceable as they seem for the evincing so noble a Theory Pag. 15. That God on the seventh day rested from all his works This one would think were an Argument clear enough that he creates nothing since the celebration of the first seventh days rest For if all his works are rested from then the creation of Souls which is a work nay a Master-piece amongst his works scarce inferiour to any is rested from also But the above-mentioned Opposer of Pre-existence is not at a loss for an Answer for his Answers being slight are cheap and easie to come by He says therefore That this supposeth onely that after that time he ceased from creating new Species A witty Invention As if God had got such an easie habit by once creating the things he created in the six days that if he but contained himself within those kinds of things though he did hold on still creating them that it was not Work but mere Play or Rest to him in comparison of his former labour What will not these men fancy rather than abate of their prejudice against an opinion they have once taken a toy against When the Author to the Hebrews says He that has entred into his rest has ceased from his own works as God ceased from his verily this is small comfort or instruction if it were as this Anti-Pre-existentiary would have it for if God ceased onely from creating new Species we may notwithstanding our promised Rest be tyed to run through new instances of labours or sins provided they be but of those kinds we experienced before To any unprejudiced understanding this sence must needs seem forced and unnatural thus to restrain Gods Rest to the Species of things and to engage him to the dayly task of creating Individuals The whole Aethiopian Church is of another mind Qui animam humanam quotidiè non creari hoc argumento asserunt quòd Deus sexto die perfecerit totum opus Creationis See Ludolfus in the place above-cited Chap. 3. pag. 17. Since the Images of Objects are very small and inconsiderable in our brains c. I suppose he mainly relates to the Objects of Sight whose chief if not onely Images are in the fund of the Eye and thence in vertue of the Spirituality of our Soul extended thither also and of the due qualification of the Animal Spirits are transmitted to the Perceptive of the Soul within the brain But how the bignesses and distances of Objects are conveyed to our cognoscence it would be too tedious to signifie here See Dr. H. Moore 's Enchiridion Metaphysicum cap. 19. Pag. 17. Were it not that our Souls use a kind of Geometry c. This alludes to that pretty conceit of Des Cartes in his Dioptricks the solidity of which I must confess I never understood For I understand not but that if my Soul should use any such Geometry I should be conscious thereof which I do not find my self And therefore I think those things are better understood out of that Chapter of the Book even now mentioned Pag. 17. And were the Soul quite void of all such implicit Notions it would remain as senseless c. There is no sensitive Perception indeed without Reflection but the Reflection is an immediate attention of the Soul to that which affects her without any circumstance of Notions intervening for enabling her for sensitive Operations But these are witty and ingenious Conjectures which the Author by reading Des Cartes or otherhow might be encouraged to entertain To all sensitive Objects the Soul is an Abrasa Tabula but for Moral and Intellectual Principles their Idea's or Notions are essential to the Soul Pag. 18 For Sense teacheth no general Propositions c. Nor need it do any thing else but exhibit some particular Object which our Understanding being an Ectypon of the Divine Intellect necessarily when it has throughly sisted it concludes it to answer such a determinate Idea eternally and unalterably one and the same as it stands in the Divine Intellect which cannot change and therefore that Idea must have the same properties and respects for ever But of this enough here It will be better understood by reading the Discourse of Truth and the Annotations thereon Pag. 18. But from something more sublime and excellent From the Divine or Archetypal Intellect of which our Understanding is the Ectypon as was said before Pag. 21. And so can onely transmit their natural qualities They are so far from transmitting their Moral Pravities that they transmit from themselves no qualities at all For to create a Soul is to concreate the qualities or properties of it not out of the Creator but out of nothing So that the substance and all the properties of it are out of nothing Pag. 22. Against the nature of an immaterial Being a chief property of which is to be indiscerpible The evasion to the force of this Argument by some Anti-Pre-existentiaries is that it is to philosophize at too high a rate of confidence to presume to know what the nature of a Soul or Spirit is But for brevities sake I will refer such Answerers as these to Dr. H. Moore 's brief Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit printed lately with Saducismus Triumphatus and I think he may be thence as sure that Indiscerpibility is an essential property of a Spirit as that there are any Spirits in the Universe and this methinks should suffice any ingenuous and modest Opposer But to think there is no knowledge but what comes in at our Senses is a poor beggarly and precarious Principle and more becoming the dotage of Hobbianism than men of clearer Parts and more serene Judgments Pag. 22. By separable Emissions that pass from the flame c. And so set the Wick and Tallow on motion But these separable Emissions that pass from the flame of the lighted Candle pass quite away and so are no part of the flame enkindled So weak an Illustration is this of what these Traducters would have Chap. 4. pag. 32. Which the Divine Piety and Compassion hath set up again that so so many of his excellent Creatures might not be lost and undone irrecoverably but might act anew c. To this a more elegant Pen and refined Wit objects thus Now is it not highly derogatory to the
and bluntness of this rude Writer nor are at all surprized at it as a Noveltie that any ignorant rural Hobthurst should call the Spirit of Nature a thing so much beyond his capacitie to judge of a prodigious Hobgoblin But to conclude be it so that there may be other causes besides the pristine inurements of the Pre-existent Soul that may something forcibly determine her to one course of life here yet when she is most forcibly determined if there be such a thing as Pre-existence this may be rationally supposed to concur in the efficiencie But that it is not so strong an Argument as others to prove Pre-existence I have hinted alreadie Pag. 79. For those that are most like in the Temper Air Complexion of their Bodies c. If this prove true and I know nothing to the contrarie this vast difference of Genius's were it not for the Hypothesis of their Classical Character imprinted on Souls at their very creation would be a considerably tight Argument But certainly it is more honest than for the avoiding Pre-existence to resolve the Phaenomenon into a secret Causality that is to say into one knows not what Pag. 82. There being now no other way left but Pre-existence c. This is a just excuse for his bringing in any Argument by way of overplus that is not so apodictically concluding If it be but such as will look like a plausible solution of a Phaenomenon as this of such a vast difference of Genius's Pre-existence once admitted or otherwise undeniably demonstrated the proposing thereof should be accepted with favour Chap. 11. pag. 85. And we know our Saviour and his Apostles have given credit to that Translation c. And it was the authentick Text with the Fathers of the Primitive Church And besides this if we read according to the Hebrew Text there being no object of Job's knowledge expressed this is the most easie and natural sence Knowest thou that thou wast then and that the number of thy days are many This therefore was reckoned amongst the rest of his ignorances that though he was created so early he now knew nothing of it And this easie sence of the Hebrew Text as well as that Version of the Septuagint made the Jews draw it in to the countenancing of the Tradition of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Pre-existence of Souls as Grotius has noted of them Pag. 85. As reads a very credible Version R. Menasse Ben Israel reads it so I gave thee Wisdom which Version if it were sure and authentick this place would be fit for the defence of the Opinion it is produced for But no Interpreters besides that I can find following him nor any going before him whom he might follow I ingenuously confess the place seems not of force enough to me to infer the conclusion He read I suppose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Piel whence he translated it Indidi â—…ibi Sapientiam but the rest read it in Cal. Pag. 86. And methinks that passage of our Saviours Prayer Father glorifie me with the glorie I had before the World began c. This Text without exceeding great violence cannot be evaded As for that of Grotius interpreting that I had that which was intended for me to have though it make good sence yet it is such Grammar as that there is no School-boy but would be ashamed of it nor is there for all his pretences any place in Scripture to countenance such an extravagant Exposition by way of Parallelism as it may appear to any one that will compare the places which he alleadges with this which I leave the Reader to do at his leisure Let us consider the Context Joh. 17. 4. I have glorified thee upon earth during this my Pilgrimage and absence from thee being â—…ent hither by thee I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do and for the doing of which I was sent and am thus long absent And now O Father glorifie me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud teipsum in thine own presence with the glorie which I had before the world was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud te or in thy presence What can be more expressive of a Glorie which Christ had apud Patrem or at his Fathers home or in his presence before the world was and from which for such a time he had been absent Now for others that would salve the business by communication of Idioms I will set down the words of an ingenious Writer that goes that way Those Predicates says he that in a strict and â—…igorous acception agreed onely to his Divine Nature might by a communication of Idioms as they phrase it be attributed to his Humane or at least to the whole Person compounded of them both than which nothing is more ordinarie in things of a mixt and heterogeneous nature as the whole man is stiled immortal from the deathlessness of his Soul thus he And there is the same reason if he had said that man was stiled mortal which certainly is far the more ordinarie from the real death of his Bodie though his Soul be immortal This is wittily excogitated But now let us apply it to the Text expounding it according to his communication of Idioms affording to the Humane Nature what is onely proper to the Divine thus Father glorifie me my Humane Nature with the glorie that I my Divine Nature had before the world was Which indeed was to be the Eternal Infinite and Omnipotent brightness of the Glory of the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the Glory which his Divine Nature had before the World was But how can his Humane Nature be glorified with that Glory his Divine Nature had before the world was unless it should become the Divine Nature that it might be said to have pre-existed But that it cannot be For there is no confusion of the Humane and Divine Nature in the Hypostasis of Christ Or else because it is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature but if that be the Glory that he then had already and had it not according to the Opposers of Pre-existence before the world was So we see there is no sence to be made of this Text by communication of Idioms and therefore no sence to be made of it without the Pre-existence of the Humane Nature of Christ. And if you paraphrase me thus My Hypostasis consisting of my Humane and Divine Nature it will be as untoward sence For if the Divine Nature be included in me then Christ prays for what he has already as I noted above For the Glory of the eternal Logos from everlasting to everlasting is the same as sure as he is the same with himself Pag. 86. By his expressions of coming from the Father descending from Heaven and returning thither again c. I suppose these Scriptures are alluded to John 3. 13. 6. 38. 16. 28. I came down from Heaven not to do my own will but the will of him that
adjudge any matter or cause to be Heresies but onely such as heretofore have been adjudged to be Heresie by the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures or by the first four General Councils or any of them or by any other General Council wherein the same was declared Heresie by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures By brief reflections upon some of these ten Heads I shall endeavour to lessen the Invidiousness of my seeming to prefer the Discretion of the Church of England before the Judgment of a General Council I mean of such a General Council as is so unexceptionable that we may relie on the Authority of their Decisions that they will not fail to be true Of which sort whether the fifth reputed General Council be we will briefly first consider For reflecting on the first head It seems scarcely numerous enough for a General Council The first General Council of Nice had above three hundred Bishops That of Chalcedon above six hundred This fifth Council held at Constantinople had but an hundred sixty odd And which still makes it more unlike a General Council in the very same year viz. 553 the Western Bishops held a Council at Aquileia and condemned this fifth Council held at Constantinople Secondly The Pre-existence of Souls being a mere Philosophical Speculation and indeed held by all Philosophers in the affirmative that held the Soul incorporeal we are to consider whether we may not justly deem this case referrible to the second Head and to look something like Pope Zacharies appointing a Council to condemn Virgilius as an Heretick for holding Antipodes Thirdly We may very well doubt whether this Council proceeded in via Spiritus Sancti this not being the first time that the lovers and admirers of Origen for his great Piety and Knowledge and singular good service he had done to the Church of Christ in his time had foul play plai'd them Witness the story of Theophilus Bishop of Antioch who to revenge himself on Dioscorus and two others that were lovers of Origen and Anti-Anthropomorphites stickled so that he caused Epiphanius in his See as he did in his own to condemn the Books of Origen in a Synod To which condemnation Epiphanius an Anthropomorphite and one of more Zeal than Knowledge would have got the subscription of Chrysostome the Patriarch of Constantinople but he had more Wisdom and Honesty than to listen to such an injurious demand And as it was with those Synods called by Theophilus and Epiphanius so it seems to be with the fifth Council Piques and Heart-burnings amongst the Grandees of the Church seemed to be at the bottom of the business Binius in his History of this fifth Council takes notice of the enmity betwixt Pelagius Pope Vigilius's Apocrisiarie and Theodorus Bishop of Caesarea Cappadociae an Origenist And Spondanus likewise mentions the same who says touching the business of Origen that Pelagius the Popes Apocrisiarie eam quaestionem in ipsius Theodori odium movisse existimabatur And truly it seems to me altogether incredible unless there were some hellish spight at the bottom that they should not have contented themselves to condemn the errours supposed to be Origens but after so long a time after his death there being in his writings such choppings and changings and interpolations hard to prove to be his but have spared his name for that unspeakable good service he did the Church in his life-time See Dr. H. Mores Preface to his Collectio Philosophica Sect. 18. where Origens true Character is described out of Eusebius Wherefore whether this be to begin or carry on things in via Spiritus Sancti so that we may rely on the Authority of such a Council I leave to the impartial and judicious to consider Fourthly In reference to the fourth Head That true wisdom and moderation and the holy assistance of Gods Spirit did not guide the affairs of this Council seems to be indicated by the Divine Providence who to shew the effect of their unwise proceedings in the self-same year the Council sate sent a most terrible Earthquake for forty days together upon the City of Constantinople where the Council was held and upon other Regions of the East even upon Alexandria it self and other places so that many Cities were levelled to the ground Upon which Spondanus writes thus Haea verò praesagia fuisse malorum quae sunt praedictam Synodum consecuta nemo negare poterit quicunque ab eventis facta noverit judicare This also reminds me of a Prodigy as it was thought that happened at the sixth reputed General Council where nigh three hundred Fathers were gathered together to decide this nice and subtile Point namely whether an operation or volition of Christ were to be deemed Una operatio sive volitio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to that Axiom of some Metaphysicians that Actio est suppositi and so the Humane and Divine Nature of Christ being coalescent into one person his volition and operation be accounted one as his person is but one or because of the two Natures though but one person there are to be conceived two operations or two volitions This latter Dogma obtained and the other was condemned by this third Constantinopolitan Council whereupon as Paulus Diaconus writes abundance of Cobwebs or Spiders webs fell or rained as it were down upon the heads of the people to their very great astonishment Some interpret the Cobwebs of Heresies others haply more rightfully of troubling the Church of Christ with over-great niceties and curiosities of subtile Speculation which tend nothing to the corroborating her Faith and promoting a good Life and are so obscure subtile and lubricous that look on them one way they seem thus and another way thus To this sixth General Council there seemed two Operations and two Wills in Chriâ—… because of his two Natures To a Council called after by Philippicus the Emperour and John Patriarch oâ—… Constantinople considering Christ as one person â—…ere appeared Numerosissimo Orientalium Episcoporum collecto Convenâ—…ui as Spondanus â—…as 〈◊〉 but as Binius Innumerle Orientalium Episcoporum multitudini congregatâ—…e but one will and one operation And ceâ—…tainly this numerous or innumerable company of Bishops must put as fair sor a General Council as that of less than three hundred But that the Authority of both these Councils are lessened upon the account of the second Head in that the matter they consulted about tended nothing to the corroboration of our Faith or the promotion of a good Life I have already intimatâ—…d These things I was tempted to note in reference to the tenth Head For it seems to me an undeniable Argument that our First Reformers which are the Risen Witnesses were either exquisitely well seen in Ecclesiastick History or the good Hand of God was upon them that they absolutely admitted onely the four first General Councils but after them they knew not where to be or what to call a General Council and
Annotations UPON THE Two foregoing TREATISES LUX ORIENTALIS OR An Enquiry into the OPINION OF THE EASTERN SAGES Concerning the Prae-existence of Souls AND THE Discourse of TRUTH Written for the more fully clearing and further confirming the main DOCTRINES in each TREATISE By one not unexercized in these kinds of SPECULATION LONDON Printed for J. Collins and S. Lounds over against Exeter-Change in the Strand 1682. Annotations UPON LUX ORIENTALIS THese two Books Lux Orientalis and the Discourse of Truth are luckily put together by the Publisher there being that suitableness between them and mutual support of one another And the Arguments they treat of being of the greatest importance that the Mind of man can entertain herself with the consideration thereof has excited so sluggish a Genius as mine to bestow some few Annotations thereon not very anxious or operose but such as the places easily suggest and may serve either to â—…ctifie what may seem any how oblique or illustrate what may seem less clear or make a supply or adde strength where there may seem any further need In which I would not be so understood as that I had such an anxiety and fondness for the Opinions they maintain as if all were gone if they should fail but that the Dogmata being more fully clearly and precisely propounded men may more safely and considerately give their Judgments thereon but with that modesty as to admit nothing that is contrary to the Judgment of the truly Catholick and Apostolick Church Chap. 2. p. 4. That he made us pure and innocent c. This is plainly signified in the general Mosaick History of the Creation that all that God made he saw it was good and it is particularly declared of Adam and Eve that they were created or made in a state of Innocency Pag. 4. Matter can do nothing but by motion and what relation hath that to a moral Contagion We must either grant that the figures of the particles of Matter and their motion have a power to affect the Soul united with the Body and I remember Josephus somewhere speaking of Wine says it does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regenerate as it were the Soul into another life and sense of things or else we must acknowledge that the parts of Matter are alterable into qualifications that cannot be resolved into mere mechanical motion and figure whether they be thus altered by the vital power of the Spirit of Nature or however it comes to pass But that Matter has a considerable influence upon a Soul united thereto the Author himself does copiously acknowledge in his fourth Chapter of this Book where he tells us that according to the disposition of the Body our Wits are either more quick free and sparkling or more obtuse weak and sluggish and our Mind more chearful and contented or else more morose melancholick or dogged c. Wherefore that he may appear the more consistent with himself it is likely he understands by this Moral Contagion the very venome and malignity of vitious Inclinations how that can be derived from Matter especially its power consisting in mere motion and figuration of parts The Psalmist's description is very apposite to this purpose Psal. 58. The ungodly are froward even from their mothers womb as soon as they are born they go astray and speak lyes They are as venomous as the poyson of a serpent even like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear That there should be such a difference in the Nativity of some from that of others and haply begot also of the same Parents is no slight intimation that their difference is not from their Boâ—… but their Souls in which there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eruptions of vitious Inclinations wâ—… 〈◊〉 had contracted in their former statâ—… 〈◊〉 pressed nor extinct in this by reason oâ—… 〈◊〉 lapse and his losing the Paradisiacal 〈◊〉 which he was created and which should 〈◊〉 had not been for his Fall been transmitted to his Posterity but that being lost the several measures of the pristine Vitiosity of humane Souls discover themselves in this life according to the just Laws of the Divine Nemesis essentially interwoven into the nature of things Pag. 5. How is it that those that are under continual temptations to Vice are yet kept within the bounds of Vertue c. That those that are continually under temptations to Vice from their Childhood should keep within the bounds of Vertue and those that have perpetual outward advantages from their Childhood to be vertuous should prove vitious notwithstanding is not rationally resolved into their free will for in this they are both of them equal and if they had been equal also in their external advantages or disadvantages the different event might well be imputed to the freedom of their Will But now that one notwithstanding all the disadvantages to Vertue should prove vertuous and the other notwithstanding all the advantages to Vertue should prove vitious the reason of this certainly to the considerate will seem to lie deeper than the meer liberty of Will in man But it can be attributed to nothing with a more due and tender regard to the Divine Attributes than to the pre-existent state of humane Souls according to the Scope of the Author Pag. 9. For still it seems to be a diminutive and disparaging apprehension of the infinite and immense goodness of God that he should detrude such excellent Creatures c. To enervate this reason there is framed by an ingenious hand this Hypothesis to vie with that of Pre-existence That Mankind is an Order of Beings placed in a middle state between Angels and Brutes made up of contrary Principles viz. Matter and Spirit indued with contrary faculties viz. Animal and Rational and encompassed with contrary Objects proportioned to their respective faculties that so they may be in a capacity to exercise the Vertues proper and peculiar to their compounded and heterogeneal nature And therefore though humane Souls be capable of subsisting by themselves yet God has placed them in Bodies full of brutish and unreasonable Propensions that they may be capable of exercising many choice and excellent Vertues which otherwise could never have been at all such as Temperance Sobriety Chastity Patience Meekness Equanimity and all other Vertues that consist in the Empire of Reason over Passion and Appetite And therefore he conceives that the creating of humane Souls though pure and immaculate and uniting them with such brutish Bodies is but the constituting and continuing such a Species of Being which is an Order betwixt Brutes and Angels into which latter Order if men use their faculties of the Spiritual Principle in them well they may ascend Forasmuch as God has given them in their Spiritual Principle containing Free Will and Reason to discern what is best a power and faculty of overcoming all their inordinate Appetites This is his Hypothesis mostwhat in his own words and all to his own sence as near as I could with brevity express
were as certain of getting an Alms from him as a Traveller is to quench his thirst at a publick Spring near the Highway would those that received Alms from him think themselves not obliged to Thanks It may be you will say they will thank him that they may not forfeit his Favour another time Which Answer discovers the spring of this Misconceit which seems founded in self-love as if all Duty were to be resolved into that and as if there were nothing owing to another but what implied our own profit But though the Divine Goodness acts necessarily yet it does not blindly but according to the Laws of Decorum and Justice which those that are unthankful to the Deity may find the smart of But I cannot believe the ingenious Writer much in earnest in these points he so expresly declaring what methinks is not well consistent with them For his very words are these God can never act contrary to his necessary and essential properties as because he is essentially wise just and holy he can do nothing that is foolish unjust and wicked Here therefore I demand Are we not to thank him and praise him for his actions of Wisdom Justice and Holiness though they be necessary And if Justice Wisdom and Holiness be the essential properties of God according to which he does necessarily act and abstain from acting why is not his Goodness when it is expresly said by the Wisdom of God incarnate None is good save one that is God Which must needs be understood of his essential Goodness Which therefore being an essential property as well as the rest he must necessarily act according to it And when he acts in the Scheme of Anger and Severity it is in the behalf of Goodness and when he imparts his Goodness in lesser measures as well as in greater it is for the good of the Whole or of the Universe If all were Eye where were the Hearing c. as the Apostle argues So that his Wisdom moderates the prompt outflowings of his Goodness that it may not outflow so but that in the general it is for the best And therefore it will follow that if the Pre-existence of Souls comply with the Wisdom Justice and Holiness of God that none of these restrain his prompt and parturient Goodness that it must have caused humane Souls to pre-exist or exist so soon as the Spirits of Angels did And he must have a strange quick-sightedness that can discern any clashing of that act of Goodness with any of the abovesaid Attributes Chap. 7. pag. 56. God never acts by mere Will or groundless Humour c. We men have unaccountable inclinations in our irregular and depraved Composition have blind lusts or desires to do this or that and it is our present ease and pleasure to fulfil them and therefore we fancy it a priviledge to be able to execute these blind inclinations of which we can give no rational account but that we are pleased by fulfilling them But it is against the Purity Sanctity and Perfection of the Divine Nature to conceive any such thing in Him and therefore a weakness in our Judgments to fancy so of him like that of the Anthropomorphites that imagined God to be of Humane shape Pag. 59. That God made all things for himself It is ignorance and ill nature that has made some men abuse this Text to the proving that God acts out of either an humourous or selfish principle as if he did things merely to please himself as self not as he is that soveraign unself-inreressed Goodness and perfect Rectitude which ought to be the measure of all things But the Text implies no such matter For if you make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Compound of a Preposition and Pronoun that so it may signifie for himself which is no more than propter se it then will import that he made all things to satisfie his own Will and Pleasure whose Will and Pleasure results from the richness of his eternal Goodness and Benignity of Nature which is infinite and ineffable provided always that it be moderated by Wisdom Justice and Decorum For from hence his Goodness is so stinted or modified that though he has made all things for his own Will and Pleasure who is infinite Goodness and Benignity yet there is a day of Evil for the Wicked as it follows in the Text because they have not walked answerably to the Goodness that God has offered them and therefore their punishment is in behalf of abused Goodness And Bayns expresly interprets this Text thus Universa propter seipsum fecit Dominus that is says he Propter bonitatem suam juxta illud Augustini DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA Quia bonus est Deus sumus in quantum sumus boni sumus But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be a Compound of a Participle and a Pronoun and then it may signifie for them that answer him that is walk anserably to his Goodness which he affords them or for them that obey him either way it is very good sence And then in opposition to these it is declared that the Wicked that is the Disobedient or Despisers of his Goodness he has not made them wicked but they having made themselves so appointed them for the day of Evil. For some such Verb is to be supplied as is agreeable to the matter as in that passage in the Psalms The Sun shall not burn thee by day neither the Moon by night Where burn cannot be repeated but some other more suitable Verb is to be supplied Chap. 8. pag. 63. Since all other things are inferiour to the good of Being This I suppose is to be understood in such a sence as that saying in Job Skin for skin and all that a man has will he give for his life Otherwise the condition of Being may be such as it were better not to be at all whatever any dry-fancied Metaphysicians may dispute to the contrary Pag. 67. Indeed they may be morally immutable and illapsable but this is Grace not Nature c. Not unless the Divine Wisdom has essentially interwoven it into the natural constitution of our Souls that as after such a time of the exercise of their Plaistick on these Terrestrial Bodies they according to the course of Nature emerge into a plain use of their Reason when for a time they little differed from Brutes so after certain periods of time well improved to the perfecting their Nature in the sense and adherence to Divine things there may be awakened in them such a Divine Plastick faculty as I may so speak as may eternally fix them to their Celestial or Angelical Vehicles that they shall never relapse again Which Faculty may be also awakened by the free Grace of the Omnipotent more maturely Which if it be Grace and Nature conspire together to make a Soul everlastingly happy Which actual Immutability does no more change the species of a Soul than the actual exercise of Reason does after the
it is plain that Justice and the execution thereof is for the best and that so Goodness not mere Will upon pretence of having a Supremacy over Goodness would be the measure of this sentencing such obdurate sinners to eternal punishment And this eternal punishment as it is a piece of vindicative Justice upon these obdurate sinners so it naturally contributes to the establishment of the Righteous in their Celestial Happiness Which this Opposer of Pre-existence objects somewhere if Souls ever fell from they may fall from it again But these eternal Torments of Hell if they needed it would put a sure bar thereto So that the Wisdom and Goodness also of God is upon this account concerned in the eternal punishments of Hell as well as his Justice That it be to the unreclaimable as that Orphick Hemistichium calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The fifth and last forcible Argument as he calls them for the proving the Soveraignty of Gods Will over his Goodness is this If Gods Goodness saith he be not under the command of his Will but does always what is best why did it not perpetuate the Station of Pre-existent Souls and hinder us if ever we were happy in a sublimer state from lapsing into these Regions of Sin and Death But who does not at first sight discern the weakness of this Allegation For it is plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an absurd thing and contrary to Reason to create such a species of Being whose nature is free and mutable and at the first dash to dam up or stop the exercise of that freedom and capacity of change by confining it to a fixt Station As ridiculous as to suppose a living Creature made with wings and feet and yet that the Maker thereof should take special care it should never flie nor go And so likewise that the mere making of such an Order of Beings as have a freedom of Will and choice of their Actions that this is misbecoming the Goodness of God is as dull and idiotical a conceit and such as implies that God should have made but one kind of Creature and that the most absolutely and immutably happy that can be or else did not act according to his Goodness or for the best Which is so obvious a Falshood that I will not confute it But it is not hard to conceive that he making such a free-willed Creature as the Souls of men simul cum mundo condito and that in an happy condition and yet not fixing them in that Station may excellently well accord with the Soveraignty of his Goodness nor any one be constrained to have recourse to the Supremacy of his Will over his Goodness as if he did it because he would do it and not because it was best For what can this freedom of Will consist in so much as in a temptableness by other Objects that are of an inseriour nature not so divine and holy as the other to which it were the security of the Soul to adhere with all due constancy and therefore her duty But in that she is temptable by other Objects it is a signe that her present enjoyment of the more Divine and Heavenly Objects are not received of her according to their excellency but according to the measure and capacity of her present state which though very happy may be improved at the long run and in an orderly series of times and things whether the Soul lapse into sin or no. For accession of new improvements increaseth Happiness and Joy Now therefore I say suppose several and that great numbers even innumerable myriads of pre-existent Souls to lapse into the Regions of Sin and Death provided that they do not sin perversely and obstinately nor do despight to the Spirit of Grace nor refuse the advantageous offers that Divine Providence makes them even in these sad Regions why may not their once having descended hither tend to their greater enjoyment when they shall have returned to their pristine Sâ—…tion And why may not the specifical nature of the Soul be such that it be essentially interwoven into our Being that after a certain period of times or ages whether she sin or no she may arrive to a fixedness at last in her heavenly Station with greater advantage to such a Creature than if she had been fixed in that state at first The thing may seem least probable in those that descend into these Regions of Sin and Mortality But in those that are not obstinate and refractorie but close with the gracious means that is offered them for their recoverie their having been here in this lower State and retaining the memorie as doubtless they do of the transactions of this Terrestrial Stage it naturally enhances all the enjoyments of the pristine selicitie they had lost and makes them for ever have a more deep and vivid resentment of them So that through the richness of the Wisdom and Goodness of God and through the Merits and conduct of the Captain of their Salvation our Saviour Jesus Christ they are after the strong conslicts here with sin and the corruptions of this lower Region made more than Conquerours and greater gainers upon the losses they sustained before from their own solly And in this most advantageous state of things they become Pillars in the Temple of God there to remain for ever and ever So that unless straying Souls be exceedingly perverse and obstinate the exitus of things will be but as in a Tragick Comedy and their perverseness and obstinacie lies at their own doors for those that finally miscarrie whose number this confident Writer is to prove to be so considerable that the enhanced happiness of the standing part of pre-existent Souls and the recovered does not far preponderate the infelicitie of the others condition Which if he cannot do as I am confident he cannot he must acknowledge That God in not forcibly fixing pre-existent Souls in the state they were first created but leaving them to themselves acted not from the Supremacy of his Will over his Goodness but did what was best and according to that Soveraign Principle of Goodness in the Deitie And now for that snitling Dilemma of this eager Opposer of Pre-existence touching the freedom of acting and mutabilitie in humane Souls whether this mutabilitie be a Specifick property and essential to them or a separable Accident For if it were essential says he then how was Christ a persect man his humane nature being ever void of that lapsabilitie which is essential to humanitie and how come men to retain their specifick nature still that are translated to Celestial happiness and made unalterable in the condition they then are To this I answer That the Pre-existentiaries will admit that the Soul of the Messiah was created as the rest though in an happie condition yet in a lapsable and that it was his peculiar merit in that he so faithfully constantly and entirely adhered to the Divine Principle incomparably above what was done by others
sent me I came forth from the Father and am come into the world again I leave the world and go to the Father Whereupon his Disciples said unto him Lo now speakest thou plainly and speakest no Parable But it were a very great Parable or Aenigm that one should say truly of himself that he came from Heaven when he never was there And as impossible a thing is it to conceive how God can properly be said to come down from Heaven who is alwaies present every where Wherefore that in Christ which was not God namely his Soul or Humane Nature was in Heaven before he appeared on Earth and consequently his Soul did pre-exist Nor is there any refuge here in the communication of Idioms For that cannot be attributed to the whole Hypostasis which is competent to neither part that constitutes it For it was neither true of the Humane Nature of Christ if you take away Pre-existence nor of the Divine that they descended from Heaven c. And yet John 3. 13 14. where Christ prophesying of his Crucifixion and Ascension saith No man hath ascended up to Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who was in Heaven So Erasmus saith it may be rendred a Participle of the present tense having a capacity to signifie the time past if the sence require it as it seems to do here Qui erat in Coelo viz. antequam descenderat So Erasmus upon the place Wherefore these places of Scripture touching Christ being such inexpugnable Arguments of the Pre-existence of the Soul of the Messiah the Writer of No Pre-existence methinks is no where so civil or discreet as in this point Where he saies he will not squabble about this but readily yield that the Soul of Christ was long extant before it was incarnate But then he presently flings dirt upon the Pre-existentiaries as guilty of a shameful presumption and inconsequence to conclude the Pre-existence of all other Humane Souls from the Pre-existence of his Because he was a peculiar favourite of God was to undergo bitter sufferings for Mankind and therefore should enjoy an happy Pre-existence for an Anti-praemium And since he was to purchase a Church with his own most precious Bloud it was fit he should pre-exist from the beginning of the world that he might preside over his Church as Guide and Governour thereof which is a thing that cannot be said of any other soul beside This is a device which I believe the Pre-existentiaries good men never dreamt of but they took it for granted that the creation of all Humane Souls was alike and that the Soul of Christ was like ours in all things sin onely excepted as the Emperour Justinian in his Discourse to Menas Patriarch of Constantinople argues from this very Topick to prove the Non-pre-existence of our Souls from the Non-pre-existence of Christs he being like us in all things sin onely excepted And therefore as to Existence and Essence there was no difference Thus one would have verily thought to have been most safe and most natural to conclude as being so punctual according to the declaration of Scripture and order of things For it seems almost as harsh and repugnant to give Angelical Existence to a Species not Angelical as Angelical Essence For according to them it belongs to Angels onely to exist a mundo condito not to Humane souls Let us therefore see what great and urgent occasions there are that the Almighty should break this order The first is That he may remonstrate the Soul of the Messiah to be his most special Favourite Why That is sufficiently done and more opportunely if other souls pre-existed to be his corrivals But his faithful adhesion above the rest to the Law of his Maker as it might make him so great a Favourite so that transcendent priviledge of being hypostatically united with the Godhead or Eternal Logos would I trow be a sufficient Testimony of Gods special Favour to him above all his fellow Pre-existent Souls And then which is the second thing for his Anti-praemial Happiness though it is but an Hysteron Proteron and preposterous conceit to fancie wages before the work had he less of this by the coexistence of other souls with him or was it not rather the more highly encreased by their coexistencie And how oddly does it look that one solitary Individual of a Species should exist for God knows how many ages alone But suppose the soul of the Messiah and all other souls created together and several of them fallen and the Soul of the Messiah to undertake their recovery by his sufferings and this declared amongst them surely this must hugely inhance his Happiness and Glory through all the whole order of Humane souls being thus constituted or designed Head and Prince over them all Anâ—… thus though he was rejected by the Jews and despised he could not but be caressed and adored by his fellowsouls above before his descent to this state of humiliation And who knows but this might be part at least of that Glory which he says he had before the world was And which this ungrateful world denied him while he was in it who crucified the Lord of life And as for the third and last That the Soul of the Messiah was to pre-exist that he might preside over the Church all along from the beginning of it What necessity is there of that Could not the Eternal Logos and the Ministry of Angels sufficiently discharge that Province But you conceive a congruity therein and so may another conceive a congruity that he should not enter upon his Office till there were a considerable lapse of Humane Souls which should be his care to recover which implies their Pre-existence before this stage of the Earth And if the Soul of the Messiah united with the Logos presided so early over the Church that it was meet that other unlapsed souls they being of his own tribe should be his Satellitium and be part of those ministring Spirits that watch for the Churches good and zealously endeavour the recovery of their sister-souls under the conduct of the great Soul of the Messiah out of their captivity of sin and death So that every wâ—…y Pre-existence of other souls will handsomly fall in with the Pre-existence of the soul of the Messiah that there may be no breach of order whenas there is no occasion for it nor violence done to the Holy Writ which expressly declares Christ to have been like to us in all things as well in Existence as Essence sin onely excepted as the Emperour earnestly urges to the Patriarch Menas Wherefore we finding no necessity of his particular pre-existing nor convenience but what will be doubled if other Souls pre-exist with him it is plain if he pre-exist it is as he is an Humane soul not as such a particular soul and therefore what proves his soul to pre-exist proves others to pre-exist also Pag. 87.
therefore would not adventure of any so called for the adjudging any matters Heresie But if any pretended to be such their Authority should no further prevail than as they made out things by express and plain words of Canonical Scripture And for other Synods whether the Seventh which is the second of Nice or any other that the Church of Rome would have to be General in defence of their own exorbitant points of Faith or Practice they will be found of no validity if we have recourse to the sixth seventh eighth and ninth Heads Fifthly In reference to the fifth Head This fifth Council loseth its Authority in anathematizing what in Origen seems to be true according to that express Text of Scripture John 16. 28. especially compared with others See Notes on Chap. II. I came forth from the Father and am come into the world again I leave the world and go to the Father He came forth from his Father which is in Heaven accordingly as he taught us to pray to him the Divine Shechina being in a peculiar manner there He leaves the world and goes to the Father which all understand of his Ascension into Heaven whence his coming from the Father must have the same sense or else the Antithesis will plainly fail Wherefore it is plain he came down from Heaven as he signifies also in other places as well as returns thither But he can neither be truly said to come from heaven nor return thither according to his Divine Nature For it never lest Heaven nor removes from one place to another and therefore this Scripture does plainly imply the Pre existence of the Soul of the Messiah according to the Doctrine of the Jews before it was incarnate And this stricture of the old Cabala may give light to more places of St. Johns Writings than is fit to recite in this haste I will onely name one by the by 1 John 4. 2. Every Spirit that confesseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh that is to say is the Christ incarnate is of God For the Messiah did exist viz. his Soul before he came into the flesh according to the Doctrine of the Jews Which was so well known that upon the above-cited saying John 16. 28. of our Saviour they presently answered Lo now speakest thou plainly and speakest no Parable because he clearly discovers himself by this Character to be the expected Messias incarnate Nor is there any possible evasion out of the clearness of this Text from the communication of Idioms because Christ cannot be said to come down from Heaven according to his Humane Nature before it was there therefore his Humane Nature was there before it was incarnate And lastly The Authority of the Decision of this Council if it did so decide is lessened in that contrary to the second Head as was hinted above it decides a point that Faith and Godliness is not at all concerned in For the Divinity of Christ which is the great point of Faith is as firmly held supposing the Soul of the Messias united with the Logos before his incarnation as in it So that the spight onely of Pelagius against Theodorus to multiply Anathematisms against Origen no use or necessity of the Church required any such thing Whence again their Authority is lessened upon the account of the third Head These things may very well suspend a careful mind and loth to be imposed upon from relying much upon the Authority of this fifth Council But suppose its Authority entire yet the Acts against Origen are not to be found in the Council And the sixth Council in its Anathematisms though it mention Theodorets Writings the Epistle of Ibas and Theodorus Mopsuestenus who were concerned in the fifth Council yet I find not there a syllable touching Origen And therefore those that talk of his being condemned by that fifth Coâ—…ncil have an eye I suppose to the Anathematisms at the end of that Discourse which Justinian the Emperour sent to Menas Patriarch of Constantinople according to which form they suppose the errours of Origen condemned Which if it were true yet simple Pre-existence will escape well enough Nor do I think that learned and intelligent Patriarch Photius would have called the simple Opinion of Pre-existence of souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but â—…or those Appendages that the injudiciousness and rashness of some had affixed 〈◊〉 it Partly therefore reâ—…lecting upon that first Anathematism in the Emperours Discouâ—…se that makes the pre-existent souls of men first to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if their highest felicity consisted in having no body to inactuate which plainly clashes with both sound Philosophy and Christianity as if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Rephaim were all one and they were not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 grown cold to the Divine Love and onely gathered body as they gathered corruption and were alienated from the Life of God which is point-blank against the Christian Faith which has promised us as the highest prize a glorified body And partly what himself adds that one soul goes into several bodies Which are impertinent Appendages of the Pre-existence of the soul false useless and unnecessary and therefore those that add these Appendages thereto violate the sincerity of the Divine Tradition to no good purpose But this simple Doctrine of Pre existence is so unexceptionable and harmless that the third collection of Councils in Justellus which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though it reckon the other errours of Origen condemned in the fifth Council omits this of Pre-existence Certainly that Ecclesiastick that framed that Discourse for the Emperour if he did it not himself had not fully deliberately and impartially considered the Dogma of Pre-existence taken in its self nor does once offer to answer any Reasons out of Scripture or Philosophy that are produced for it Which if it had been done and this had been the onely errour to be alledged against Origen I cannot think it credible nay scarce possible though their spight had been never so much against some loâ—…ers of Origen that they could have got any General Council to have condemned so holy so able so victorious a Champion for the Christian Church in his life-time for an Hâ—…retick upon so tolerable a punctilio about three hundred years after his death What Father that wrote before the first four General Councils but might by the Malevolent for some odd passage or other be doomed an Heretick if such severity were admittable amongst Christians But I have gone out further than I was aware and it is time for me to be think me what I intended Which was the justifâ—…ing of my self in my seeming to prefer the Discretion of our own Church in leaving us free to hold the Incorporeity and Immortality of the soul by any of the three handles that best fitted every mans Genius before the Judgment of the fifth General Council that would
have appointed other Laws and indeed framed another Geometry than we have and made the power of the Hypotenusa of a Right-angled Triangle unequal to the powers of the Basis and Cathetus This piece of Drollery of Des Cartes some of his followers have very gravely improved to what I said above of the Whole and Part. As if some superstitious Fop upon the hearing one being demanded whether he did believe the real and corporeal presence of Christ in the Sacrament to answer roundly that he believed him there booted and spurred as he rode in triumph to Jerusalem should become of the same Faith that the other seemed to profess and glory in the improvement thereof by adding that the Ass was also in the Sacrament which he spurred and rid upon But in the mean time while there is this Phrensie amongst them that are no small pretenders to Philosophy this does not a little set off the value and usefulness of this present Discourse of Truth to undeceivâ—… them if they be not wilfully blind Pag. 167. Therefore the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones namely Because a Quadrangle is that which is comprehended of four right lines It is at least a more operose and ambagious Inference if any at all The more immediate and expedite is this That the two internal alternate Angles made by a right line cutting two parallels are equal to one another Therefore the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones P. Ram. Geom. Lib. 6. Prop. 9. Is the reasoning had been thus A Quadrangle is that which is comprehended of â—…our right lines Therefore the three Angles of a Triangle are not equal to two right ones as the Conclusion is grosly salse so the proof had been egregiously aliâ—…n and impertinent And the intention of the Author seems to be carried to Instances that are most extravagant and surprizing which makes me doubt whether equal was read in the true MS. or not equal but the sense is well enough either way Sect. 4. pag. 168. The Divine Understanding cannot be the fountain of the Truth of things c. This seems at first sight to be a very harsh Paradox and against the current Doctrine of Metaphysicians who define Transcendental or Metaphysical Truth to be nothing else but the relation of the Conformity of things to the Theoretical not Practical Intellect of God His Practical Intellect being that by which he knows things as produced or to be produced by him but his Theoretical that by which he knows things as they are but yet in an Objective manner as existent objectively not really And hence they make Transcendental Truth to depend upon the Intellectual Truth of God which alone is most properly Truth and indeed the fountain and origine of all Truth This in brief is the sense of the Metaphysical Schools With which this passage of our Author seems to clash in denying the Divine Intellect to be the fountain of the Truth of things and in driving rather at this That the things themselves in their Objective Existence such as they appear there unalterably and unchangeably to the Divine Intellect and not at pleasure contrived by it for as he says it is against the nature of all understanding to make its Object are the measure and fountain of Truth That in these I say consists the Truth in the Object and that the Truth in the Subject is a conception conformable to these or to the Truth of them whether in the uncreated or created Understanding So that the niceness of the point is this Whether the Transcendental Truth of things exhibited in their Objective Existence to the Theoretical Intellect of God consists in their Conformity to that Intellect or the Truth of that Intellect in its Conformity with the immutable natures and Relations or Respects of things exhibited in their Objective Existence which the Divine Intellect finds to be unalterably such not contrives them at its own pleasure This though it be no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or strife about mere words yet it seems to be such a contest that there is no harm done whethersoever side carries the Cause the two seeming sides being but one and the same Intellect of God necessarily and immutably representing to it self the natures Respects and Aptitudes of all things such as they appear in their Objective Existence and such as they will prove whenever produced into act As for example The Divine Understanding quatenns exhibitive of Idea's which a Platonist would call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does of its infinite pregnancy and fecundity necessarily exhibit certain and unalterable Idea's of such and such determinate things as suppose of a Cylinder a Globe and a Pyramid which have a setled and unalterable nature as also immutable properties references and aptitudes immediately consequential thereto and not arbitrariously added unto them which are thus necessarily extant in the Divine Intellect as exhibitive of such Idea's So likewise a Fish a Fowl and a four-footed beast an Ox Bear Horse or the like they have a setled nature exhibited in their Idea's and the properties and aptitudes immediately flowing therefrom As also have all the Elements Earth Water and Air determinate natures with properties and aptitudes immediately issuing from them Nor is a Whale fitted to fly in the Air nor an Eagle to live under the Water nor an Ox or Bear to do either nor any of them to live in the Fire But the Idea's of those things which we call by those names being unchangeable for there are differences indeed of Idea's but no changing of one Idea into another state but their natures are distinctly setled and to add or take away any thing from an Idea is not to make an alteration in the same Idea but to constitute a new one As Aristotle somewhere in his Metaphysicks speaks of Numbers where he says that the adding or taking away of an Unite quite varies the species And therefore as every number suppose Binary Quinary Ternary Denary is such a setled number and no other and has such properties in it self and references immediately accrewing to it and aptitudes which no other number besides it self has so it is with Idea's the Idea's I say therefore of those things which we call by those names above-recited being unchangeable the aptitudes and references immediately issuing from their nature represented in the Idea must be also unalterable and necessary Thus it is with Mathematical and Physical Idea's and there is the same reason concerning such Idea's as may be called Moral Forasmuch as they respect the rectitude of Will in whatever Mind created or uncreated And thus lastly it is with Metaphysical Idea's as for example As the Physical Idea of Body Matter or Substance Material contains in it immediately of its own nature or intimate specifick Essence real Divisibility or Discerpibility Impenetrability and mere Passivity or Actuability as the proper fruit of the Essential Difference and intimate Form thereof
Psychopyrists Letter Where having plainly proved that God can create an Indiscerpible Being though of a large Metaphysical amplitude and that there is nothing objected against it nor indeed can be but that then he would seem to puzzle his own Omnipotency which could not discerp such a Being the Doctor shews the vanity of that Objection in these very words The same says he may be said of the Metaphysical Monads namely that God cannot discerp them and at that rate he shall be allow'd to create nothing no not so much as Matter which consists of Physical Monads nor himself indeed to be For that cannot be God from whom all other things are not produced and created What reason can be more clear or more convincing That God can create a Spirit in the proper sense thereof which includes Indiscerpibility there being no reason against it but what is false it plainly implying that he can create nothing and consequently that he cannot be God Wherefore that Objection being thus clearly removed God as sure as himself is can create a Spirit penetrable and indiscerpible as himself is and is expresly acknowledged to be so by Mr. Baxter himself pag. 51. And he having created Spirits or Immaterial Substances of an opposite Species to Material which are impenetrable and discerpible of their immediate nature how can these Immaterial substances be any other than Penetrable and Indiscerpible Which is a very useful Dogma for assuring the souls personal subsistence after Death And therefore it is a piece of grand Disingenuity in Mr. Baxter to endeavour thus to slur and obscure so plain and edifying a Truth by mére Antick Distortions of words and sense by alterations and mutilations and by a kind of sophistick Buffoonry This is one specimen of his Disingenuity towards the Doctor who in his Answer has been so civil to him And now I have got into this Digression I shall not stick to exemplifie it in several others As secondly pag. 4. in those words And when I presume most I do but most lose my self and misuse my understanding Nothing is good for that which it was not made for Our Understandings as our Eyes are made onely for things revealed In many of your Books I take this for an excess So Mr. Baxter Let me now interpose a word or two in the behalf of the Doctor Is not this a plain piece of Disingenuity against the Doctor who has spent so great a part of his time in Philosophie which the mere Letter of the Scripture very rarely reveals any thing of to reproach him for his having used his understanding so much about things not revealed in Scripture Where should he use his Understanding and Reason if not in things unrevealed in Scripture that is in Philosophical things Things revealed in Scripture are Objects rather of Faith than of Science and Understanding And what a Paradox is this that our Understandings as our Eyes are made onely for things revealed When our Eyes are shut all the whole visible world by the closing of the palpebroe is vailed from us but it is revealed to us again by the opening of our eyes and so it is with the eye of the Understanding If it be shut through Pride Prejudice or Sensuality the mysteries of Philosophy are thereby vailed from it but if by true vertue and unfeigned sanctity of mind that eye be opened the Mysteries of Philosophy are the more clearly discovered to it especially if points be studied with singular industry which Mr. Baxter himself acknowledges of the Doctor pag. 21. onely he would there pin upon his back an Humble Ignoramus in some things which the Doctor I dare say will easily admit in many things yea in most and yet I believe this he will stand upon that in those things which he professes to know he will challenge all the world to disprove if they can And for probable Opinions especially if they be useless which many Books are too much stuffed withal he casts them out as the lumber of the mind and would willingly give them no room in his thoughts Firmness and soundness of Life is much better than the multiplicitie of uncertain Conceits And lastly whereas Mr. Baxter speaking of himself says And when I presume most I do but most lofe my self He has so bewildered and loâ—… himâ—…elf in the multifarious and most-what needless points in Philosophy or Scholastick Divinity that if we can collect the measures of the Cause from the amplitude of the Effect he must certainly have been very presumptuous He had better have set up his Staff in his Saints everlasting Rest and such other edifying and useful Books as those than to have set up for either a Philosopher or Polemick Divine But it is the infelicity of too many that they are ignorant Quid valeant humeri quid ferre recusent as the Poet speaks or as the Pythagoreans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so taking upon them a part in a Play which they are unfit for they both neglect that which they are fit for and miscarry by reason of their unfitness in their acting that Part they have rashly undertaken as Epictetus somewhere judiciously observes But if that passage And when I presume most I do but most lose my self was intended by him as an oblique Socratical reproof to the Doctor let him instance if he can where the Doctor has presumed above his strength He has medled but with a few things and therefore he need not envie his success therein especially they being of manifest use to the serious world so many as God has fitted for the reception of them Certainly there was some grand occasion for so grave a preliminary monition as he has given the Doctor You have it in the following Page p. 5. This premised says he I say undoubtedly it is utterly unrevealed either as to any certainty or probability That all Spirits are Souls and actuate Matter See what Heat and Hast or some worse Principle has engaged Mr. Baxter to do to father a down-right falshood upon the Doctor that he may thence take occasion to bestow a grave admonition on him and so place himself on the higher ground I am certain it is neither the Doctors opinion That all Spirits are Souls and actuate Matter nor has he writ so any where He onely says in his Preface to the Reader That all created Spirits are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Souls in all probability and actuate some matter And his expression herein is both modest and true For though it is not certain or necessary yet it is very probable For if there were of the highest Orders of the Angels that fell it is very probable that they had corporeal Vehicles without which it is hard to conceive they could run into disorder And our Saviour Christs Soul which actuates a glorified spiritual Bodie being set above all the Orders of Angels it is likely that there is none of them is so refined above his Humane Nature as to
and our Reason certainly informing us as was noted even now that whatever is has a kind of Amplitude more or less or else it would be nothing hence we are confirmed that not Extension or Trina Dimensio but Impenetrabilitie and Discerpibilitie is the determinate and adequate nature of what we call Body and if there be any opposite species to Body our Reason tells us it must have opposite Modes or Attributes which are Penetrability and Indiscerpibility This is a plain truth not to be groped after with our fingers in the dark but clearly to be discerned by the eye of our understanding in the light of Reason And thus we see and many examples more we might accumulate That by the help of our Senses and Inference of our Understanding we are able to conclude not onely concerning like things but their contraries or opposites I must confess I look upon this allegation of Mr. Baxter as very weak and faint And as for his fifth I do a little marvel that so grave and grandaevous a person as he should please himself in such little flirts of Wit and Sophistry as this of the Indiscerpibility of an Atom or Physical Monad As if Indiscerpibility could be none of the essential or specifical Modes or Attributes of a Spirit because a Physical Monad or Atom is Indiscerpible also which is no Spirit But those very Indiscerpibilities are Specifically different For that of a Spirit is an Indiscerpibility that arises from the positive perfection and Oneness of the Essence be it never so ample that of an Atom or Physical Monad from imperfection and privativeness from the mere littleness or smalness thereof so small that it is impossible to be smaller and thence onely is Indiscerpible The sixth also is a pretty juvenile Ferk of Wit for a grave ancient Divine to use That Penetrability can be no proper Character of a Spirit because Matter can penetrate Spirit as well as Spirit Matter they both possessing the same space Suppose the bodie A. of the same amplitude with the bodie B. and thrust the bodie A. against the bodie B. the bodie A. will not nor can penetrate into the same space that the bodie B. actually occupies But suppose the bodie A. a Spirit of that amplitude and according to its nature piercing into the same space which the bodie B. occupies how plain is it that that active piercing into the same space that the bodie B. occupies is to be attributed to the Spirit A. not to the bodie B For the bodie A. could not get in These are prettie forc'd distortions of Wit but no solid methods of due Reason And besides it is to be noted that the main Character of a Spirit is as to Penetrability that Spirit can penetrate Spirit but not Matter Matter And now the Seventh is as slight as the Fifth Diverse Accidents saith he penetrate their Subjects as Heat Cold c. Therefore Penetrabilitie is no proper Character of a Spirit But what a vast difference is there here The one pierce the matter or rather are in the matter merely as continued Modes thereof the other enters into the matter as a distinct Substance therefrom Penetration therefore is here understood in this Character of a Spirit of Penetratio Substantialis when a substance penetrates substance as a Spirit does Spirit and matter which Matter cannot do This is a certain Character of a Spirit And his instancing in Light as Indiscerpible is as little to the purpose For the substance of Light viz. the Materia subâ—…ilissima and Globuli are discerpible And the motion of them is but a Modus but the point in hand is Indiscerpibilitie of Substance To the Eighth I Answer That Mr. Baxter here is hugely unreasonable in his demands as if Penetrabilitie of Spirits were not sufficiently explained unless it can be made out that all the Spirits in the world Universal and particular may be contracted into one Punctum But this is a Theme that he loves to enlarge upon and to declaim on very Tragically as pag. 52. If Spirits have parts which may be extended and contracted you will hardly so easily prove as say that God cannot divide them And when in your Writings shall I find satisfaction into how much space one Spirit may be extended and into how little it may be contracted and whether the whole Spirit of the World may be contracted into a Nut-shell or a Box and the Spirit of a Flea may be extended to the Convex of all the world And again pag. 78. You never tell into how little parts onely it may be contracted And if you put any limits I will suppose that one Spirit hath contracted itself into the least compass possible and then I ask Cannot another and another Spirit be in the same compass by their Penetration If not Spirits may have a contracted Spissitude which is not Penetrable and Spirits cannot penetrate contracted Spirits but onely dilated ones If yea then quoero whether all created Spirits may not be so contracted And I should hope that the Definition of a Spirit excludeth not God and yet that you do not think that his Essence may be contracted and dilated O that we knew how little we know This grave moral Epiphonema with a sorrowful shaking of the Head is not in good truth much misbecoming the sly insinuating cunning of Mr. Richard Baxter who here makes a shew speaking in the first person We of lamenting and bewailing the ignorance of his own ignorance but friendly hooks in by expressing himself in the plural number the Doctor also into the same condemnation Solamen miseris as if He neither did understand his own ignorance in the things he Writes of but will be strangely surprised at the hard Riddles Mr. Baxter has propounded as if no Oedipus were able to solve them And I believe the Doctor if he be called to an account will freely confess of himself That in the things he positively pronounces of so far as he pronounces that he is indeed altogether ignorant of any ignorance of his own therein But that this is by reason that he according to the cautiousness of his Genius does not adventure further than he clearly sees ground and the notion appears useful for the Publick As it is indeed useful to understand that Spirits can both Penetrate matter and Penetrate one another else God could not be Essentially present in all the parts of the Corporeal Universe nor the Spirits of Men and Angels be in God Both which notwithstanding are most certainly true to say nothing of the Spirit of Nature which particular Spirits also Penetrate and are Penetrated by it But now for the Contraction and Dilatation of Spirits that is not a propertie of Spirits in general as the other are but of particular created Spirits as the Doctor has declared in his Treatise of the Immortalitie of the Soul So that that hard Question is easily answered concerning Gods contracting and dilating himself That he does
thence to the Superficies From this form does necessarily and inseparably result the Character of an easie rouling Mobilitie That a bodie of this Form is the most easily moved upon a Plain of any bodie in the world And so from the Form of a piece of Iron made into what we call a Sword Fitness for striking for cutting for stabbing and for defending of the hand is the necessarie result from this Form thereof And so I say that from the intimate and essential Form of a Spirit suppose essentially and inseparably result such and such properties by which we know that a Spirit is a distinct Species from other things though we do not know the very specifick essence thereof And therefore here I note by the by that when the Doctor saies any such or such Attributes are the Form of a Spirit he does datâ operâ balbutire cum balbutientibus and expresses himself in the language of the Vulgar and speaks to Mr. Baxter in his own Dialect For it is the declared opinion of the Doctor that the intimate Form of no Essence or Substance is knowable but onely the inseparable Fruits or Results thereof Which is a Principle wants no proof but an appeal to every mans faculties that has ordinarie wit and sinceritie Seventhly They are not the Form saith he but the Dispositio vel Conditio ad formam Ans. You may understand out of what was said even now that Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie are so far from being Dispositio ad formam that they are the Fruits and Results of the intimate and Specifick Form of a Spirit and that they suppose this Specifick Form in order of nature to precede them as the Form of a Globe precedes the rouling mobilitie thereof In vertue of a Spirits being such a Specifick substance it has such inseparable attributes resulting from it as a Globe has mobilitie And as the Globe is conceived first and mobilitie inseparably resulting from it so the Specifick Nature of a Spirit which is its true and intimate Form and made such according to the eternal Idea thereof in the Intellect of God being one simple Specifick substance or Essence has resulting from it those essential or inseparable properties which we attribute to a Spirit itself in the mean time remaining but one simple self-subsistent Actus Entitativus whose Penetrabilitie and Indivisibilitie Mr. Baxter himself pag. 99. says is easily defendible And the Doctor who understands himself I dare say for him defends the Penetrabilitie and Indivisibilitie of no Essences but such Eighthly If such Modalities says he or Consistence were the Form more such should be added which are left out Ans. He should have nominated those which are left out He means I suppose Quantity and Trina Dimensio which it was his discretion to omit they being so impertinent as I have shewn above in my Answer to his third Objection against the Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie of a Spirit Ninthly Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie are two Notions and you should not give us says he a compound Form Ans. This implies that Penetrability and Indiscerpibility are the Form of a Spirit but I have said again and again they are but the Fruits and Result of the Form A Spirit is one simple Specifick Essence or substance and that true Specifickness in its Essence is the real and intimate Form or Conceptus formalis thereof but that which we know not as I noted above out of Julius Scaliger though we know the essential and inseparable Attributes thereof which may be many though in one simple specifick Substance as there are many Attributes in God immediately and inseparably resulting from his most simple specifick Nature Tenthly Yea you compound saith he Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie with a quite disserent notion life and the faculty of motion which is truly the Form and is one thing and not compounded of notions so difseâ—…ent as Consistence and Vertue or Power Ans. I say agâ—…in as I said before that neiâ—…her Penetrability nor Indiscerpibility nor Life nor Motion are the specifick Form it selâ—… of a Spirit which is a simple Substance but the Fruits and Results of this specifick Form and all these have a proper Cognation with one another as agreeing in Immateriality or Spirituality and how the common sagacitie of mankind has presaged that the most noble functions of life are performed by that which is most subtile and most one as Penetrability and Indiscerpibility makes the consistence of a Spirit to be the Doctor has noted in his Discourse of the true notion of a Spirit Mr. Baxter in reading Theological Systems may observe That Attributes as much dissering among themselves as these are given to the most simple Essence of God Eleventhly You say says he pag. 82. Life intrinâ—…ecally issues from this Immaterial Substance But the Form is concreated with it and issues not from it Ans. I grant that the Form is concreated with the Spirit For a Spirit is nothing else but such a specifick simple Substance or Essence the Specifickness of whose nature onely is its real intimate Form And if we could reach by our Conception that very Form it self it would be but the Conceptus inadaequatus of one simple Substance and be the true Conceptus formalis thereof and the Conceptus fundamentalis to speak in Mr. Baxters or Dr. Glissons language would be Substance in general which is contracted into this Species by this real intimate Form which both considered together being but one simple Essence they must needs be created together according to that Idea of a Spirit which God has conceived in his eternal mind And life will as naturally and necessarily issue from such a Species or Specifick Essence or from Substance contracted into such a Species by the abovesaid Form as Mobility does issue from the form of a Globe From whence it is plainly understood how Life does intrinsecally issue from immaterial Substance nor is the Form it self but the Fruit thereof And as it were but trifling to say that the power of easie rolling every way on a Plain were the very Form of a Globe the word Power or Vertue being but a dark loose general dilute term and which belongs to every thing and is restrained onely by its Operation and Object but it is the Form or Figure of the Globe that is the immediate cause that that Vertue or Power in general is so restrained to this easie rolling so it is in Mr. Bâ—…xters pretended Form of a Spirit which he makes Virtus vitalis a power of living Power there is such a dark dilute term loose and general But that it is determined to life it is by that intimate specifick Form which we know not but onely this we know That it is to the Power of living as the Figure of a Globe is to the Power of easie rolling and that in neither one can be without the other There must be a Specifick Essence which is the root of those Powers Properties or Operations
sufficiently enable them to be Guides to the people especially by adhering in Matters of moment to the Ancient Apostolick and unapostatized Church and presuming nothing upon their private spirit against the same Such questionless will prove able and safe Pastors and will not fail of being approved of by our Lord Jesus the great Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls But if any such as I noted above for that they conceit themselves also dapper fellows at Cudgils or Quarter-stafs shall leaving their Flocks solitary in the fields out of an itch after applause from the Country-Fry gad to Wakes and Fairs to give a proof of their dexterity at those Rural exercises if they shall I say for their pains return with a bruised knuckle or broken pate who can help it it will learn them more wit another time Thus much by way of Digression I thought fit to speak not out of the least ill-will to Mr. Baxter but onely in behalf of the Doctor hoping though it is far from all that may be said that yet it is so much and so much also to the purpose that it will save the Doctor the labour of adding any thing more thereto So that he may either enjoy his Repose or betake himself to some design of more use and moment In the mean time I having dispatcht my Digression I shall return to the main business in hand I think it may plainly appear from what has been said that it is no such harsh thing to adventure to conclude That the Truth of the Divine Intellect quatenus conceptive speculative or observative which a Platonist would be apt to call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Divine Intellect exhibitive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for though it be but one and the same Intellect yet for distinctness sake we are fain to speak as of two does consist in its Conformity with the Divine Intellect exhibitive with the immutable Idea's Respects and References of things there In conceiving and observing them as I may so speak to be such as they are represented in the said Intellect quatenus necessarily and unalterably representing such Idea's with the immediate Respects and References of them In this consists the Truth of the Divine Intellect Speculative But the Transcendental Truth of things consists in their Conformity to the Divine Intellect Exhibitive For every thing is true as it answers to the immutable Idea of its own nature discovered in the Divine Intellect Exhibitive To which also the same Divine Intellect quatenus Conceptive Speculative or Observative gives its suffrage steadily and unalterably conceiving these immutable Idea's of things in their Objective Existence what their natures will be with their necessary references aptitudes or ineptitudes to other things when they are produced into act From whence we may discern how that saying of this ingenious Author of the Discourse of Truth is to be understood Where he writes It is against the nature of all Understanding to make its Object Which if we will candidly interpret must be understood of all understanding quatenus merely conceptive speculative or observative and of framing of its Object at its pleasure Which as it is not done in the setled Idea of a Sphere Cylinder and Pyramid no more is it in any other Idea's with their properties and aptitudes immediately issuing from them but all the Idea's with their inevitable properties aptitudes or ineptitudes are necessarily represented in the Divine Intellect Exhibitive immutably such as they are a Triangle with its three Angles equal to two right ones a right-angled Triangle with the power of its Hypotenusa equal to the powers of the Basis and Cathetus both put together Which things seem necessary to every sober man and rightly in his wits our understanding being an Abstract or Copy of the Divine Understanding But those that say that if God would he might have made the three Angles of a Triangle unequal to two right ones and also the powers of the Basis and Cathetus of a right-angled Triangle unequal to the power of the Hypotenusa are either Bussoons and Quibblers or their Understandings being but creatural huffiness of mind and an ambition of approving themselves the Broachers and maintainers of strange Paradoxes has crazed their Intellectuals and they have already entred the suburbs of down-right Phrensie and Madness And to conclude Out of what has been insinuated we may reconcile this harsh sounding Paradox of our Author that seems so point-blank against the current doctrine of the Metaphysical Schools who make Transcendental Truth to depend upon the Intellectual Truth of God which they rightly deem the Fountain and Origine of all Truth whenas he plainly declares That the Divine Understanding cannot be the Fountain of the Truth of things But the seeming absurdity will be easily wiped away if we take notice of our distinction touching the Divine Understanding quatenus merely conceptive speculative or observative and quatenus necessarily through its own infinite and immutable pregnancie and foecundity Exhibitive of the distinct and determinate Idea's or natures of things with their immediate Properties Respects or Habitudes in their Objective Existence representing them such as they certainly will be if reduced into act His assertion is not to be understood of the Divine Understanding in this latter sense but in the former But being it is one and the same Understanding though considered under this twofold Notion our Author as well as the ordinarie Metaphysicians will agree to this truth in the sense explained That the Divine Understanding is the Fountain of the truth of things and that they are truly what they are as they answer to their Idea's represented in the Exhibitive Intellect of God How the Author himself comes off in this point you will better understand when you have read the fifteenth sixteenth and seventeenth Sections of his Discourse Let this suffice in the mean time for the removing all stumbling-blocks from before the Reader Pag. 168. Nor the foundation of the references one to another that is to say The Divine Understanding quatenus Conceptive or Speculative is most certainly not the Foundation of the references of things one to another but the Divine Understanding quatenus Exhibitive that represents the Idea's or natures of things in their Objective Existence such as they would be if reduced really into act represents therewith all the references and habitudes they have one to another Which habitudes are represented not as flowing from or arbitrariously founded in any Intellect whatsoever but as resulting from the natures of the things themselves that respect one another and are represented in the Exhibitive Understanding of God Which is the main thing that this ingenious Author would be at and such as will serve all his intents and purposes Pag. 168. It is the nature of Understanding ut moveatur illuminetur c. namely of Understanding quatenus Conceptive or Speculative not quatenus Exhibitive Pag. 169. No Idea's or Representations either are or make the things they
and unalterably with their Respects and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 represented so are all Idea's else Physical and Moral as I have noted above And the nature of Justice Mercy Faithfulness and Goodness are with their habitudes and respects as fixedly determinately and unalterably represented in their Idea's as the Sphere and Cylinder or any other Form or Being whatsoever Sect. 9. pag. 178. For we are to know that there is a God and the Will of God c. That is to say If there be no setled natures and respects and habitudes of things in the order of Nature antecedent to any Will whatever Meditation or Contrivance nor there be any certain nature respects habitudes and connections of things in themselves it will be necessary that we first know there is a God and what his Will is touching the natures respects and habitudes of things Whether these which we seem to discern and do argue from are the same he means and wills or some other And so there will be a necessity of knowing God and his Will before we have any means to know him or which is all one we shall never have any means to know him upon this false and absurd Hypothesis Sect. 11. pag. 181. Then it infallibly follows that it is all one what I do or how I live c. This as the following words intimate is to be understood in reference to the pleasing God and to our own future Happiness But it is manifest it is not all one what I do or how I live though I did suppose there were no real distinction betwixt Truth and Falshood Good and Evil in the sense here intended in reference to this present condition in this World where the sense of pain and ease of imprisonment and liberty and of the security or safety of a mans own person will oblige him to order his life in such a manner as hath at least the imitation of Temperance Faithfulness and Justice Sect. 12. pag. 183. If the opposition of Contradictory Terms depend upon the arbitrarious resolves of any Being whatsoever The plainness and irrefragableness of this Truth that the opposition of contradictory Terms is an affection habituâ—…e or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betwixt those terms that no power in Heaven or Earth can abolish methinks should assure any that are not pure Sots or crazie Fantasticks that there may be many other such unalterable and immutable habitudes of Terms Natures or Things that are every jot as unabolishable as this Which is no derogation to the Divine Perfection but an Argument of it unless we should conceit that it is the height of the Perfection of Divine Omnipotence to be able to destroy himself And truly to fancie an ability in him of destroying or abolishing those eternal necessary and immutable habitudes or respects of the natures of things represented in their Idea's by the Divine Intellect Exhibitive is little less than the admitting in God an ability of destroying or abolishing the Divine Nature it self because ipso facto the Divine Wisdom and Knowledge would be destroyed as was shewn in the fifth Section and what a God would that be that is destitute thereof Wherefore it is no wonder that those men that are sober and in their wits find it so impossible in themselves but to conceive that such and such natures are steadily such and no other and betwixt such and such natures there are steadily and immutably such habitudes and respects and no others Forasmuch as the Intellect of man is as it were a small compendious Transcript of the Divine Intellect and we feel in a manner in our own Intellects the firmness and immutability of the Divine and of the eternal and immutable Truths exhibited there So that those that have their minds so crackt and shatter'd as to be able to fancy that if God would he could change the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or common notions into their Contradictories as The whole is less than its Part c. must have very crazy Intellectuals and have taken their lodging at least in the suburbs of downright dotage or Phrensie as I noted above Pag. 184. If any one should affirm that the Terms of common notions have an eternal and indispensable relation to one another c. That this priviledge is not confined to the common notions they are abundantly convinced of that have bestowed any competent study upon Mathematicks where the connection of every link of the demonstration is discerned to be as firmly and indissolubly knit as the Terms of a common notion are the one with the other And it is our Impatience Carelesness or Prejudices that we have not more conclusions of such certitude than we have in other studies also Sect. 13. pag. 184. For if there be Truth antecedently to the Divine Understanding c. This Objection of the Adversaries is framed something perversly and invidiously as if the other party held That there were Truth antecedently to the Divine Understanding and as if from thence the Divine Understanding would be a mere passive Principle actuated by something without as the Eye by the Sun But it is a plain case out of what has been declared that the Divine Understanding though there be such eternal Natures and unchangeable respects and habitudes of them represented in the Idea's that are in the Exhibitive Intellect of the Deity that it is I say before any external Object whatever and yet always had exhibited to it self the eternal and unalterable natures and respects of things in their Idea's And it was noted moreover that the Truth of the external Objects when brought into act is measured by their Conformity to these Idea's Besides the Divine Understanding being before all things how could there be any Truth before it there being neither Understanding nor Things in which this Truth might reside Or the Divine Understanding be a mere passive Principle actuated by something without as the eye by the Sun whenas questionless the Divine Intellect quatenus Exhibitive is the most active Principle conceivable nay indeed Actus purissimus the most pure Act as Aristotle has defined God It is an eternal necessary and immutable Energy whose very Essence is a true and fixt Ideal Representation of the natures of all things with their respects and habitudes resulting eternally from the Divine foecundity at once How then can this which is so pure and pregnant an Energy be a mere passive Principle or be actuated by any external Object when it was before any thing was But a further Answer is to be found of the Authour himself in the Fifteenth Section Pag. 185. Which is to take away his independency and self sufficiency Namely If there be mutual and unalterable Congruities and Incongruities of things as if they would determine God in his actions by something without himself Which is a mere mistake For the pregnant fulness of the Divine Essence and perfection eternally and necessarily exerting it self into an Ideal display of all the natures
properties respects and habitudes of things whether Congruities or Incongruities and these fixt immutable necessary and unchangeable in their Ideal or Objective Existence And in time producing things according to these Paradigms or Patterns into actual Existence by his Omnipotence and ever sustaining supporting and governing them by his unfailing Power and steady and unchangeable Wisdom and Counsel I say when all things are thus from God sustained by God and regulated according to the natures he has given them which answer the Patterns and Paradigms in him how can any such determination of his Will any way clash with his Self-sufficiency or Independency whenas we see thus that all things are from God and depend of him and his actions guided by the immutable Idea's in his own nature according to which all external things are what they are and their Truth measured by their Conformity with them But there is a fuller answer of the Author's to this Objection in the sixteenth and seventeenth Sections Sect. 14. pag. 187. And to fetter and imprison Freedom and Liberty it self in the fatal and immutable chains and respects of things c. This is a misconceit that savours something of a more refined Anthropomorphitism that is to say Though they do not make the Essence of God finite and of an Humane figure or shape yet they imagine him to have two different Principles in him an extravagant and undetermined lust or appetite as it is in man and an Intellectual or rational Principle whose Laws are to correct the luxuriancies and impetuosities of the other and to bridle and regulate them But this is a gross mistake For there is no such blind and impetuous will in God upon which any Intellectual Laws were to lay a restraint but his whole nature being pure and Intellectual and he acting according to his own nature which contains those Idea's and immutable respects Congruities and Incongruities of things there eternally and unalterably represented he acts with all freedom imaginable nor has any chains of restraint laid upon him but is at perfect liberty to do as his own nature requires and suggests Which is the most absolute liberty that has any sound or shew of Perfection with it that can be conceived in any Being Sect. 15. pag. 189. And does as it were draw them up into its own beams This is something a sublime and elevate expression But I suppose the meaning thereof is That the natures and respects of the things of this lower Creation the Divine Understanding applies to the bright shining Idea's found in his own exalted nature and observes their Conformity therewith and acknowledges them true and right as they answer to their eternal Patterns Sect. 16. pag. 189. To tie up God in his actions to the reason of things destroys his Liberty Absoluteness and Independency This is said but it is a very vain and weak allegation as may appear out of what has been suggested above For reasons of things and their habitudes and references represented in the eternal Idea's in their Objective Existence which is the Pattern of their natures when they exist actually is the very life and nature of the Divine Understanding And as I noted above the most true and perfective libertie that can be conceived in any Being is that without any check or tug or lubricity and unsteadiness it act according to its own life and nature And what greater Absoluteness than this For that which acts according to its own nature acts also according to its own will or appetite And what greater Independencie than to have a power upon which there is no restraint nor any modification of the exercise thereof but what is taken from that which has this power For the eternal and immutable reasons of things are originally and Paradigmatically in the Divine Understanding of which those in the Creatures are but the Types and transitorie Shadows The Author in this Section has spoke so well to this present Point that it is needless to superadd any thing more Sect. 17. pag. 191. In this seventeenth Section the Author more fully answers that Objection As if Gods acting according to the reasons of things inferred a dependency of him upon something without himself Which he does with that clearness and satisfaction that it is enough to commend it to the perusal of the Reader Sect. 18. pag. 193. Truth in the power or faculty is nothing else but a Conformity of its conceptions or Idea's unto the natures and relations of things which in God we may call c. The Description which follows is though the Author nowhere takes notice of that distinction a Description of the Divine Understanding quatenus Exhibitive not Conceptive or Speculative The Truth of which latter does indeed consist in the Conformity of its Conception unto the natures and relations of things but not of things ad extra but unto the natures habitudes and respects of things as they are necessarily eternally and immutably represented in the Divine Understanding Exhibitive which is the Intellectual World which the Author here describes and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the vast Champion or boundless field of Truth So that in those words unto the natures and relations of things which in God we call an actual steady immoveable eternal omniformity c. Which is to be referred to the Natures and Relations of things as is evident to any that well considers the place And with this sense that which follows the description is very coherent Pag. 194. Now all that Truth that is in any created Being is by participation and derivation from this first Understanding that is from the Divine Understanding quatenus Exhibitive and Fountain of Intellectual Light That is according to the Platonick Dialect of those steady unalterable and eternal Idea's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the natures and respects of things represented there in the Divine Understanding Exhibitive in their Objective Existence In conformity to which the Truth in all created things and Understandings doth necessarily consist Pag. 195. Antecedently to any Understanding or Will c. That is Antecedently to any Understanding Conceptive Observative or Speculative whatsoever or to any Will but not antecedently to the Divine Understanding Exhibitive For that is antecedent to all created things and contains the steady fixt eternal and unalterable natures and respects or habitudes before they had or could have any Being I say it contains the Truth and measure of them nor can they be said to be truly what they are any further than they are found conformable to these eternal immutable Idea's Patterns and Paradigms which necessarily and eternally are exerted and immutably in the Divine Understanding Exhibitive And of these Paradigmatical things there what follows is most truly affirmed Pag. 195. For things are what they are and cannot be otherwise without a Contradiction c. This was true before any external or created things did exist True of every Form in that eternal Omniformity which the Platonists