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 sent 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 vigorous 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 this 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 aleady 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 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
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 Haec 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 Vna 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 Christ because of his two Natures To a Council called after by Philippicus the Emperour and John Patriarch of Constantinople considering Christ as one person there appeared Numerosissimo Orientalium Episcoporum collecto Conventui as Spondanus has it but as Binius Innumerae Orientalium Episcoporum multitudini congregatae but one will and one operation And certainly this numerous or innumerable company of Bishops must put as fair for 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 intimated These things I was tempted to note in reference to the tenth Head For it seems to mean 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 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. 11. 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 left 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 â—rom 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
what joynt soever I shall discover it And yet I must needs say that whoever compares the Texts that follow with some particulars mention'd in the answer to the objection of Scripture-silence will not chuse but acknowledge that there is very fair probability for Praeexistence in the written word of God as there is in that which is engraven upon our rational natures Therefore to bring together here what Scripture saith in this matter 1. I 'le lightly touch an expression or two of the old Testament which not improperly may be applyed to the business we are in search of And methinks God himself in his posing the great instance of patience Job seems to intimate somewhat to this purpose viz. that all spirits were in being when the Foundations of the earth were laid when saith he the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy By the former very likely were meant the Angels and 't is not improbable but by the latter may be intended the blessed untainted Souls At least the particle All me thinks should comprize this order of spirits also And within the same period of discourse having question'd Job about the nature and place of the Light he adds I know that thou wast then born for the number of thy days are many as the Septuagint render it * And we know our Saviour and his Apostles have given credit to that Translation by their so constant following it Nor doth that saying of God to Jeremias in the beginning of his charge seem to intimate less Before I formed thee in the Belly I knew thee and before thou camest out of the womb I gave thee wisdom * as reads a very creditable version Now though each of these places might be drawn to another sense yet that only argues that they are no necessary proof for Praeexistence which I readily acknowledge nor do I intend any such matter by alledging them However I hope they will be confest to be applicable to this sense and if there be other grounds that swade this Hypothesis to be the truth 't is I think very probable that these Texts intend it favour which whether it be so or no we have seen already 2. For the Texts of the New Testament that seem to look pleasingly upon Praeexistence I shall as briefly hint them as I did the former * And me thinks that passage of our Saviours prayer Father Gloriâ—ie me with the same glory I had with thee before the world began sounds somewhat to this purpose The glory which he prays to be restored to seems to concern his humane nature only for the divine could never lose it And therefore it supposeth that he was in his humanity existent before And that his soul was of old before his appearance in a Terrestrial body Which seems also to be intimated * by the expressions of his coming from the Father descending from Heaven and returning thither again which he very frequently makes use of And we know the Divinity that â—ills all things cannot move to or quit a place it being a manifest imperfection and contrary to his Immensity I might add those other expressions of our Saviour's taking upon him the â—orm of a Servant of rich for our sakes becoming poor and many others of like import all which are very clear if we admit the doctrine of Praeexistence but without it somewhat pâ—rplex and intricate since these things applyed to him as God are very improper and disagreeing but appositely suit his Humanity to which if we refer them we must suppose our Hypothesis of Praeexistence But I omit further prosecution of this matter * since these places have been more diffusely urged in a late discourse to this purpose Moreover the Question of the Disciples * Was it for this mans sin or for his Fathers that he was born blind and that answer of theirs to our Saviours demand whom men said he was in that some said he was John the Baptist some Elias or one of the Prophets both which I have mentioned before do clearly enough argue that both the Disciples and the Jews believed Praeexistence And our Saviour saith not a word to disprove their opinion But I spake of this above Now however uncouth these allegations may seem to those that never heard these Scriptures thus interpreted yet I am confident had the opinion of Praeexistence been a received Doctrine and had these Texts been wont to be applyed to the proof on 't they would then have been thought to assert it with clear and convictive evidence But many having never heard of this Hypothesis and those that have seldom meeting it mentioned but as a silly dream or antiquated absurdity 't is no wonder that they never suspect it to be lodg'd in the Sacred volume so that any attempt to confirm it thence must needs seem rather an offer of wit than serious judgment And the places that are cited to that purpose having been frequently read and heard of by those that never discerned them to breath the least air of any such matter as Praeexistence their new and unexpected application to a thing so little thought of must needs seem a wild fetch of an extravagant imagination But however unconclusive the Texts alledged may seem to those a strong prejudice hath shut up against the Hypothesis The learned Jews who were perswaded of this Doctrine thought it clearly enough contain'd in the Old Volume of holy writ and took the citations named above for current Evidence And though I cannot warrant for their Judgment in things yet doubtless they were the best Judges of their own Language Nor would our School-Doctors have thought it so much a stranger to the New had it had the luck to have been one of their opinions or did they not too frequently apply the sacred Oracles to their own fore-conceived notions But whether what I have brought from Scripture prove any thing or nothing 't is not very material since the Hypothesis of Prae-existence stands secure enough upon those Pâ—llars of Reason which have their Foundation in the Attributes of God and the Phaenomena of the world And the Right Reason of a Man is one of the Divine volumes in which are written the indeleble Idea's of eternal Truth so that what it dictates is as much the voice of God as if in so many words it were clearly exprest in the written Revelations It is enough therefore for my purpose if there be nothing in the sacred writings contrary to this Hypothesis which I think is made clear enough already and though it be granted that Scripture is absolutely silent as to any assertion of Prae-existence yet we have made it appear that its having said nothing of it is no prejudice but an advantage to the cause CHAP. XII Why the Author thinks himself obliged to descend to some more particular Account of Praeexistence 'T is presumption positively to determine how it was with us of Old The Authors design in the Hypothesis that
degree of exercise of one faculty are seldom if ever as well provided in the rest 'T is a common and daily observation that those that are of most heightned and strong Imaginations are defective in Judgment and the faculty of close reasoning And your very larg and capacious Memories have seldom or never any great share of either of the other perfections Nor do the deepest Judgments use to have any thing considerable either of Memory or Phancy And as there are fair instances even in this state of the inconsistence of the faculties in the highest exercise so also are there others that suggest untous 3 That by the same degrees that some Faculties fail in their strength and vigour others gain and are improved We know that the shutting up of the senses is the letting loose and inlarging of the Phancy And we seldom have such strong imaginations waking as in our dreams in the silence of our other saculties As the Sun recedes the Moon and Stars discover themselves and when it returns they draw in their baffled beams and hide their heads in obscurity But to urge what is more close and pressing It is an unerring remarque that those that want the use of some one natural part or faculty are wont to have very liberal amends made them by an excellency in some others Thus those that nature hath deprived of sight use to have wonderfully tenacious memories And the deaf and dumb have many times a strange kind of sagacity and very remarkable mechanical ingenies Not to mention other instances for I 'le say no more than I must needs Thus then experience gives us incouraging probability of the truth of the Theorem asserted And in its self 't is very reasonable for as we have seen the Soul being an active nature is always propending to the exercising of one faculty or other and that to the utmost it is able and yet being of a limited capacity it can imploy but one in hight of exercise at once which when it loseth and abates of its strength and supream vigour some other whose improvement was all this while hindred by this its ingrossing Rival must by consequence begin now to display it self and awaken into a more vigorous actuation so that as the former loseth the latter proportionably gaineth And indeed 't is a great instance of the divine wisdom that our faculties are made in so regular and equilibrious an order For were the same powers still uppermost in the greatest hight of activity and so unalterably constituted there would want the beauty of variety and the other faculties would never act to that pitch of perfection that they are capable of There would be no Liberty of Will and consequently no Humane Nature Or if the Higher Powers might have lessen'd and fail'd without a proportionable increase of the lower and they likewise have been remitted without any advantage to the other faculties the Soul might then at length fall into an irrecoverable recess and inactivity But all these inconveniences are avoided by supposing the principle we have here insisted on And it is the last that I shall mention Briefly then and if it may be more plainly the higher faculties are those where by the Soul acts towards spiritual and immaterial objects and the lower whereby it acts towards the Body Now it cannot with equal vigour exercise it self both ways together and consequently the more it is taken up in the higher operations the more prompt and vigorous it will be in these exercises and less so about those that concern the body è Converso Thus when we are very deeply ingaged in intellectual contemplations our outward senses are in a manner shrunk up and cramped And when our senses are highly exercised and gratified those operations monopolize and imploy us Nor is this less observable in relation to the Plastick For frequent and severe Meditations do much mortifie and weaken the body And we are most nourisht in our sleep in the silence of our senses Now what is thus true in respect of acts and particular exercises is as much so in states and habits Moreover 't is apparent that the Plastick is then most strong and vigorous when our other faculties are wholly unimployed from the state of the womb For nature when she is at her Plastick work ceaseth all other operations The same we may take notice of in Silk-worms and other Insects which lie as if they were dead and insensible while their lower powers are forming them into another appearance All which things put together give good evidence to the truth of our Axiom I 'le conclude this with one Remark more to prevent mistake Therefore briefly As the Soul always acts by the Body so in its highest exercises it useth some of the inferiour powers which therefore must operate also So that some senses as sight and somewhat analagous to hearing may be imployed in considerable degree even when the highest life is most predominant but then it is at the command and in the services of those nobler powers wherefore the sensitive life cannot for this cause be said to be invigorated since 't is under servitude and subjection and its gusts and pleasures are very weak and flaccid And this is the reason of that clause in the Principle as to their proper exercises Having thus laid the Foundation and fixt the Pillars of our building I now come to advance the Superstructure CHAP. XIV A Philosophical Hypothesis of the Souls Praeexistence THE Eternal and Almighty Goodness the blessed spring and root of all things made all his creatures in the best happiest and most perfect condition that their respective natures rendred them capable of By Axiom the first and therefore they were then constituted in the inactuation and exercise of their noblest and most perfect powers Consequently the souls of men a considerable part of the divine workmanship were at first made in the highest invigoration of the spiritual and intellective faculties which were exercised in vertue and in blisful contemplation of the supream Deity wherefore now by Axiom 6 and 7 * the ignobler and lower powers or the life of the body were languid and remiss So that the most tenuious pure and simple matter being the fittest instrument for the most vigorous and spiritual faculties according to Principle 2 4 and 5. The Soul in this condition was united with the most subtile and aethereal matter that it was capable of inacting and the inferior powers those relating to the body being at a very low ebb of exercise were wholly subservient to the superiour and imployed in nothing but what was serviceable to that higher life So that the senses did but present occasions for divine love and objects for contemplation * and the plastick had nothing to do but to move this passive and easie body accordingly as the concerns of the higher faculties required Thus then did we at first live and act in a pure and aethereal body and consequently in a
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 Bodies but their Souls in which there is so sudden Eruptions of vitious Inclinations which they had contracted in their former state not repressed nor extinct in this by reason of Adam's lapse and his losing the Paradisiacal body in which he was created and which should if it 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 sâ—â—ms 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 it And it seems so reasonable to himself that he professes himself apt to be positive and dogmatical therein And it might very well seem so to him if there were a sufficient faculty in the Souls of men in this World to command and keep in order the Passions and Appetites of their Body and to be and do what their Reason and Conscience tells them they should be and do and blames them for not being and doing So that they know more by far than they find an ability in themselves to perform Extreamly few there are if any but this is their condition Whence all Philosophers that had any sense of Vertue and Holiness as well as Jews and Christians have looked upon Man as in a lapsed state not blaming God but deploring the sad condition they found themselves in by some foregoing lapse or fault in Mankind And it is strange that our own Consciences should flie in our faces for what we could never have helped It is witty indeed which is alleadged in the behalf of this Hypothesis viz. That the Rational part of man is able to command the lower Appetites because if the superiour part be not strong enough to govern the inferiour it destroys the very being of moral Good and Evil Forasmuch as those acts that proceed out of necessity cannot be moral nor can the superiour Faculties be obliged to govern the inferiour if they are not able because nothing is obliged to impossibilities But I answer if inabilities come upon us by our own fault the defects of action then are upon the former account moral or rather immoral And our Consciences rightly charge us with the Vitiosities of our Inclinations and Actions even before we can mend them here because they are the consequences of our former Guilt Wherefore it is no wonder that there is found a flaw in a subtilty that would conclude against the universal Experience of men who all of them more or less that have any sense of Morality left in them complain that the inferiour powers of the Soul at least for a time were too hard for the superiour And the whole mass of Mankind is so generally corrupt and abominable that it would argue the wise and just God a very unequal Matcher of innocent Souls with brutish Bodies they being universally so hugely foiled or overcome in the conflict if he indeed were the immediate Matcher of them For how can that be the effect of an equilibrious or sufficient Free Will and Power that is in a manner perpetual and constant But there would be near as many Examples one way as the other if the Souls of men in this state were not by some precedent lapse become unable to govern as they ought all in them or about them that is to be subjected to their Reason No fine Fetches of Wit can demolish the steady and weighty structure of sound and general Experience Pag. 9. Wherein he seeth it ten thousand to one but that they will corrupt c. The Expression ten thousand to one is figurative and signifies how hugely more like it is that the Souls would be corrupted by their Incorporation in these Animal or Brutish Bodies than escape Corruption And the effect makes good the Assertion for David of old to say nothing of the days of Noah and Paul
and put into a foul Body but in the other case God onely is a looker on there is onely his Permission not his Action And the vast difference of time he salves it with such a Quibble as this as if it were nothing because thousands of Ages ago in respect of God and his Eternity is not an hour before He might as well say the difference betwixt the most glorious Angel and a Flea is nothing because in comparison of God both are so indeed Wherefore this Anti-Pre-existentiary is such a Trifler that I am half ashamed that I have brought him upon the Stage But yet I will commend his Craft though not his Faithfulness that he had the wit to omit the proposing of Buggery as well as of Adultery and the endeavouring to shew how graceful and agreeable to God how congruous and proportionate it were to his immense Grandeur and Majesty to create a Soul on purpose immaculate and undefiled to actuate the obscene Emissions of a Brute having to do with a Woman or of a Man having to do with a Brute For both Women and Brutes have been thus impregnated and brought forth humane Births as you may see abundantly testified in Fortunius Licetus it would be too long to produce Instances This Opinion of Gods creating Souls and putting them into Bodies upon incestuous and adulterous Coitions how exceeding absurd and unbecoming the Sanctity of the Divine Majesty it seemed to the Churches of Aethiopia you may see in the History of Jobus Ludolphus How intolerable therefore and execrable would this Doctrine have appeared unto them if they had thought of the prodigious fruits of successful Buggery The words of Ludolfus are these Perabsurdum esse si quis Deum astrictum dicat pro adulterinis incestuoâ—is partubus animas quotidie novas creare Hist Aethiop lib. 3. cap. 5. What would they then say of creating a new Soul for the Womb of a Beast bugger'd by a Man or of a Woman bugger'd by a Beast Pag. 12. Methinks that may be done at a cheaper rate c. How it may be done with more agreeableness to the Goodness Wisdom and Justice of God has been even now hinted by me nor need I repeat it Pag. 13. It seems very incongruous and unhandsome to suppose that God should create two Souls for the supply of one monstrous Body And there is the same reason for several other Monstrosities which you may take notice of in Fortunius Licetus lib. 2. cap. 58. One with seven humane heads and arms and Ox-feet others with Mens bodies but with a head the one of a Goose the other of an Elephant c. In which it is a strong presumption humane Souls lodged but in several others certain How does this consist with Gods fresh creating humane Souls pure and innocent and putting them into Bodies This is by the aforesaid Anti-Pre-existentiary at first answered onely by a wide gape or yawn of Admiration And indeed it would make any one stare and wonder how this can consist with Gods immediately and freely intermeddling with the Generation of Men as he did at first in the Creation For out of his holy hands all things come clean and neat Many little efforts he makes afterwards to salve this difficulty of Monsters but yet in his own judgment the surest is the last That God did purposely tye fresh created Souls to these monstroûs shapes that they whose Souls sped better might humbly thank him Which is as wisely argued as if one should first with himself take it for granted that God determines some men to monstrous Debaucheries and Impieties and then fancy this the use of it that the Spectators 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 Vniverse 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
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 Station 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 felicitie 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 conflicts 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 folly 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 properly and essential to them or a separable Accident For if it were essential says he then how was Christ a perfect 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 of his Classis notwithstanding that he might have done otherwise and therefore they will be forward to extend that of the Author to the Hebrews chap. 1. v. 8. Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever the Scepter of Righteousness is the Scepter of thy Kingdom Thou hast loved Righteousness and hated Iniquity therefore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the Oyl of Gladness above thy Fellows to his behaviour in his pre-existent state as well as in this And whenever the Soul of Christ did exist if he was like us in all things sin onely excepted he must have a capacitie of sinning though he would not sin that capacitie not put into act being no sin but an Argument of his Vertue and such as if he was always devoid of he could not be like us in all things sin onely excepted For posse peccare non est peccatum And as for humane Souls changing their Species in their unalterable heavenly happiness the Species is not then changed but perfected and compleated namely that facultie or measure of it in their Plastick essentially latitant there is by the Divine Grace so awakened after such a series of time and things which they have experienced that now they are â—irmly united to an heavenly Body or ethereal Vehicle for ever And now we need say little to the other member of the Dilemma but to declare that free will or mutability in humane Souls is no separable Accident but of the essential contexture of them so as it might have its turn in the series of things And how consistent it was with the Goodness of God and his Wisdom not to suppress it in the beginning has been sufficiently intimated above Wherefore now forasmuch as there is no pretext that either the Wisdom or Justice of God should streighten the time of the creation of humane Souls so that their existence may not commence with that of Angels or of the Universe and that this figment of the Supremacy of Gods mere Will over his other Attributes is blown away it is manifest that the Argument for the Pre-existence of Souls drawn from the Divine Goodness holds firm and irrefragable against whatever Opposers We have been the more copious on this Argument because the Opposer and others look upon it as the strongest proof the Pre existentiaries produce for their Opinion And the other Party have nothing to set against it but a fictitious Supremacy of the Will of God over his Goodness and other Attributes Which being their onely Bulwark and they taking Sanctuary nowhere but here in my apprehension they plainly herein give up the cause and establish the Opinion which they seem to have such an antipathy against But it is high time now to pass to the next Chapter Chap. 10. p. 75. To have contracted strong and inveterate habits to Vice and Lewdness and that in various manners and degrees c. To the unbyassed this must needs seem a considerable Argument especially when the Parties thus irreclaimably profligate from their Youth some as to one Vice others to another are found such in equal circumstances with others and advantages to be good born of the same Parents educated in the same Family and the like Wherefore having the same bodily Extraction and the same advantages of Education what
as the Latin or as the Greek would express it Hypocritical fit of trembling to amuze the populacy as if the Doctor in his serious and solid reasoning had verged towards something hugely exorbitant or prophane The ignorant fear where no fear is but God is in the generation of the knowing and upright It 's plain this Reasoning brings not the existence of God into any doubt For it is no repugnance to either his nature or existence not to be able to do what is a contradiction to be done but it puts the Indiscerpibility of Spirits which is a Notion mainly useful out of all doubt And yet Mr. Baxter his phancie stalking upon wooden stilts and getting more than a spit and a stride before his Reason very magisterially pronounces It 's a thing so high as required some shew of proof to intimate that God cannot be God if he be Almighty and cannot conquer his own Omnipotency Ans This is an expression so high and in the Clouds that no sense thereof is to be seen unless this be it That God cannot be God unless he be not Almighty as he would discover himself not to be if he could not discerp a Spirit of a Metaphysical amplitude when he has created it But it plainly appears from what has been said above that this discerping of a Spirit which is immediately and essentially of its own nature indiscerpible as well as a Physical Monad is implying a contradiction it is no derogation to the Almightiness of God that he cannot do it all Philosophers and Theologers being agreed on that Maxim That what implies a contradiction to be done is no Object of Gods Almightiness Nor is he less Almighty for not being able to do it So that the prick-â—ar'd Acuteness of that trim and smug saying that seemed before to shoot up into the Sky flags now like the flaccid lugs of the over-laden Animal old Silenus rid on when he had a Plot upon the Nymphs by Moon-shine Pardon the tediousness of the Periphrasis For though the Poet was pleased to put old Silenus on the Ass yet I thought it not so civil to put the Ass upon old Mr. Baxter But he proceeds pag. 80. Your words says he like an intended Reason are For that cannot be God from whom all other things are not produced and created to which he answers 1. Relatively says he as a God to us it 's true though quoad existentiam Essentiae he was God before the Creation But I say if he had not had the power of creating he had been so defective a Being that he had not been God But he says 2. But did you take this for any shew of a proof The sense implyed is this All things are not produced and created by God if a spiritual ample substance be divisible by his Omnipotencie that made it Yea Then he is not God Negatur consequentia Ans Very scholastically disputed Would one think that Reverend Mr. Baxter whom Dr. More for his Function and Grandevity sake handles so respectfully and forbears all such Juvenilities as he had used toward Eugenius Philalethes should play the Doctor such horse-play having been used so civilly by him before What Buffoon or Antick Mime could have distorted their bodies more ill-favour'dly and ridiculously than he has the Doctors solid and well-composed Argument And then as if he had done it in pure innocency and simplicity he adds a Quaker-like Yea thereunto And after all like a bold Scholastick Champion or Polemick Divine couragiously cries out Negatur consequentia What a fardle of freaks is there here and illiberal Artifices to hide the Doctors sound Reasoning in the 28th Section of his Answer to the 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. 5â— 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 mere Antick Distortions of words and sense by alterations and muâ—ilations and by a kind of sophistick Buffoonry This is one specimen of his Difingenuity 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 Vnderstandings 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 palpebrae 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 caâ—â—s 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 lose my self He has so bewildered and lost himself 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 have no bodies at all Not to add that at the Resurrection we become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though we have bodies then which is a shrewd intimation that the Angels have so too and that there are no created Spirits but have so Thirdly Mr. Baxter pag. 6. wrongfully blames the Doctor for being so defective in his studies as not to have read over Dr. Glisson De Vita Naturae and says he has talk'd with diverse high pretenders to Philosophie and askt their judgment of that Book and found that none of them understood it but neglected it as too hard for them and yet contemned it His words to Dr. More are these I marvel that â—hen you have dealt with so many sorts of Dissenters you meddle not with so subtile a piece as that of old Dr. Glissons De Vita Naturae He thinks the subtilty of the Book has deterred the Doctor from reading it as something above his Capacity as also of other high Pretenders to Philosophie This is a Book it seems calculated onely for the elevation of Mr. Baxters subtile and sublime wit And indeed by the benefit of reading this Book he is most dreadfully armed with the affrightful terms of Quoddities and Quiddities of Conceptus formalis and fundamentalis of Conceptus adaequatus and inadaequatus and the like In vertue of which thwacking expressions he has fancied himself able to play at Scholastick or Philosophick Quarter-staff with the most doughty and best appointed Wits that dare enter the Lists with him and as over-neglectful of his flock like some conceited Shepherds that think themselves no small fools at the use of the Staff or Cudgil-play take Vagaries to Fairs or Wakes to give a specimen of their skill so he ever and anon makes his Polemick sallies in Philosophie or Divinity to entertain the Spectators though very oft he is so rapt upon the knuckles that he is forced to let fall his wooden Instrument and blow his fingers Which is but a just Nemesis upon him and he would do well to interpret it as a seasonable reproof from the great Pastor of Souls to whom we are all accountable But to return to his speech to the Doctor I will adventure to answer in his behalf That I marvel that whenas Mr. Baxter has had the curiosity to read so many Writers and some of them sure but of small concern that he has not read that sound and solid piece of Dr. More viz. his Epistola altera ad V. C. with the Scholia thereon where Spinozius is confuted Which if he had read he might have seen Volum Philosoph Tom. 1. pag. 604 605 c. that the Doctor has not onely read that subtile Piece of Doctor Glissons but understands so throughly his Hypothesis that he has solidly and substantially confuted it Which he did in a faithful regard to Religion For that Hypothesis if it were true were as safe if not a safer Refuge for Atheists than the mere Mechanick Philosophie is And therefore you may see there how Cuperus brought up amongst the Atheists from his very childhood does confess how the Atheists now-a-daies explode the Mechanick Philosophie as not being for their turn and betake themselves wholly to such an Hypothesis as Dr. Glissons Vita Naturae But God be thanked Dr. H. More
such a sense as Gods Wisdom and Justice are which can do nothing but what is wise and just the asserting I say that it cannot but do that which is the best does neither directly nor indirectly supplant or destroy any Rights of his Power or Dominion forasmuch as he does fully and plenarily act according to his own inclinations and will touching those that are under his Dominion But that his Will is always inclined or determined to what is best it is the Prerogative of the Divine Nature to have no other Wills nor Inclinations but such And as for that in the third place That this notion of Gods Goodness is inconsistent with all his other moral Perfections I say that it is so far from being inconsistent with them that they cannot subsist without it as they respect the dealings of God with his Creatures For what a kind of Wisdom or Justice would that be that tended to no good But I suspect his meaning is by moral Perfections Perfections that imply such a power of doing or not doing as is in humane actions which if it be not allowed in God his Perfections are not moral And what great matter is it if they be not provided they be as they are and ought to be Divine But to fancy moral actions in God is to admit a second kind of Anthropomorphitism and to have unworthy conceits of the Divine Nature When it was just and wise for God to do so or so and the contrary to do otherwise had he a freedom to decline the doing so Then he had a freedom to do unjustly and unwisely And yet in the fourth place he contends for the highest kind of liberty in the Divine Will such as imports a freedom not onely from forreign Violence but also from inward Necessity as if the Divine Will could be no otherwise determined than by its own intrinsick Energie as if it willed so because it willed so which is a sad principle And yet I believe this learned Writer will not stick to say that God cannot tye cannot condemn myriads of innocent Souls to eternal Torments And what difference betwixt Impossibility and Necessity For Impossibility it self is onely a Necessity of not doing which is here internal arising from the excellency and absolute perfection of the Divine Nature Which is nothing like Mechanism for all that Forasmuch as it is from a clear understanding of what is best and an unbyassed Will which will most certainly follow it nor is determined by its own intrinsick Energy That it is otherwise with us is our imperfection And lastly That Beneficence does not oblige the Receiver of it to either Praise or Thanksgiving when it is received from one that is so essentially good and constantly acts according to that principle when due occasion is offered as if it were as absurd as to give thanks to the Sun for shining when he can do no otherwise I say the case is not alike because the Sun is an inanimate Being and has neither Understanding nor Will to approve his own action in the exerting of it And he being but a Creature if his shining depended upon his Will it is a greater perfection than we can be assured would belong to him that he would unfailingly administer Light to the World with such a steadiness of Will as God sustains the Creation Undoubtedly all Thanks and Praise is due to God from us although he be so necessarily good that he could not but create us and provide for us forasmuch as he has done this for our sakes merely he wanting nothing not for his own Suppose a rich Christian so inured to the works of Charity that the Poor 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 Vniverse 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 Vniversa 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 Plaistick faculty as I may so speak as may eternally fix them to their Celestial or Angelical Vehicles that they shall never relapse again Which Faculty may be also awakened by the free Grace of the Omnipotent more maturely Which if it be Grace and Nature conspire together to make a Soul everlastingly happy Which actual Immutability does no more change the species of a Soul than the actual exercise of Reason does after the time of her stupour in Infancy and in the Womb. Pag. 67. I doubt not but that it is much better for rational Creatures c. Namely such as we experience our humane Souls to be But for such kind of Intellectual Creatures as have nothing to do with matter they best understand the priviledges of their own state and we can say nothing of them But for us under the conduct of our faithâ—ul and victorious Captain the Soul of the promised Messias through many Conflicts and Tryals to emerge out of this lapsed state and regain again the possession of true Holyness and Vertue and therewith the Kingdom of Heaven with all its Beauty and Glories will be such a gratification to us that we had never been capable of such an excess thereof had we not experienced the evils of this life and the vain pleasures of it and had the remembrance of the endearing sufferings of our blessed Saviour of his Aids and Supports and of our sincere and conscientious adhering to him of our Conflicts and Victories to be enrolled in the eternal Records of the other World Pag. 69. Wherefore as the Goodness of God obligeth him not to make every Planet a fixt Star or every Star a Sun c. In all likelihood as Galilaeus had first observed every fixed Star is a Sun But the comparison is framed according to the conceit of the Vulgar A thing neither unusual with nor misbecoming Philosophers Pag. 69. For this were to tye him to Contradictions viz. to turn one specifical form or essence into another Matter indeed may receive several modifications but is still real Matter nor can be turned into a Spirit and so Spirits specifically different are untransmutable one into another according to the distinct Idea's in the eternal Intellect of God For else it would imply that their essential properties were not essential properties but loose adventitious Accidents and such as the essence and substance of such a Spirit could subsist as well without as with them or as well with any others as with these Pag. 69. That we should have been made peâ—cable and liable to defection And this may the more easily be allowed because this defection is rather the affecting of a less good than any pursuing of what is really and absolutely evil To cavil against Providence for creating a Creature of such a double capacity seems as unreasonable as to blame her for makiâ—g Zoophiton's or rather Amphibion's And they are both to be permitted to live according to the nature which is given them For to make a Creature fit for either capacity and to tye him up to one is for God to do repugnantly to the Workmanship of his own hands And how little hurt there is done by experiencing the things of either Element to Souls that are reclaimable has been hinted above But those that are wilfully obstinate and do despite to the Divine Goodness it is not at all inconsistent with this Goodness that they bear the smart of their obstinacy as the ingenious Author argues very well Chap. 9. pag. 73. Have asserted it to be impossible in the nature of the thing c. And this is the most solid and unexceptionable Answer to this Objection That it is a Repugnancy in Nature that this visible World that consists in the