the weaker or by the forcibleness of outward impression upon one or more of the ingredients a dissolution of that composure is brought to pass The Heavens and heavenly Bodies being purer and more uncompounded have stood so many Ages with so little alteration A Spirit being simply and entirely it self can neither be forced asunder by feuds within it self nor by violence from without there being nothing in its substance to make any intestine War nor any thing weaker or stronger to subdue or be subdued and therefore it receives all strokes upon its whole self as an Anvile that is beaten closer and more united by all the Hammers that fall upon it All the griefs and troubles and disquiets that rise up in it are only the crosses and counter motions and actions of its sentiments and apprehensions yea the very dismal falls of Divine Displeasure upon it do but awaken and stir up sad and grievous apprehensions in it but do not in the least touch the essence or substance of the Soul to weaken it This is that death the only death of the Soul that it is capable of a darkness in the loss of that Beauty and excellency of holy motion and in the deprivation of happiness and blessedness the favour of God a loss of its perfection without any diminution of Being And though it be now in the Body and seems to be lost in the ruines of that yet it is indeed so perfectly it self so separable in its nature from the Body as I have already discours'd at large so distinct and complete in it self that it is only acquitted from that in death not at all altered or changed in its substantial self So then this simplicity of the Soul witnesses the Immortality of its nature and that it cannot be dissolved like the things of this world that consist in the union of several things that conspire and meet together and afterwards flye asunder but the Soul hath nothing to lose or part from but its whole self being one simple thing One All and All One there can be no dissolution Nay the things of this world although they are several things united and made up so into one as several things can be and when those several things flye asunder that one thing is dissolved yet because the parts still continue to be they become something else for there can be no annihilation or bringing things back to nothing but by the omnipotency that created them so that all the death and dissolution that is in whole nature is but only a continual flux and reflux a perpetual passing out of one shape figure nature into another which because things love to be as they are look for the present like death perishing and the decay of the world it self although the composition for that time being is only brought to ruine and although the parts it may be are meliorated made more beautiful and advanced as when a Vessel of Silver designed for baser use is broken to pieces purged in the Refiners fire and then made a Vessel of honour and the materials of a meaner and decayed Building taken down and laid into a nobler Structure yet while this is doing it hath the appearance of spoil and destruction whereas indeed all even to the very Fragments is gathered up that nothing may be lost not so much as the filth of the Vessel or the dust of the Building We may then thus far derive from lower Nature what may make the Immortality of the Soul an easier Notion to us For we see It is the twisting things together with such unequal strengths of the Parts in motion one against another and the liableness of those Parts to the impression of Forreign Motion that let in the Mortality and Frailty that is in worldly Things that so by the prevalency sometimes of one thing sometimes of another there might be those continual Changes and Vicissitudes that God hath appointed for Purposes most agreeable to the greatness and mysteriousness of his most wise Government and Providence But the simpler and more self any thing is the more hardly it is altered till we come to that which is call'd First Matter and Motion which in the abstract Notion of them and as they are by themselves cannot be chang'd or lost but by annihilation For that we call First Matter or Matter as we understand it unimpress'd by Form or Particular Nature though as it is in Particular Nature it by always dying out of one Shape Figure Nature into another is yet so immortal in it self that it cannot it self perish but by annihilation And that Motion which is us'd by God for the twirling this Matter into so many several Forms and is perpetually flitting from one part of it to another and is even driven and expuls'd by the Contrasts it hath with it self as it is in those several parts of Matter from one to another cannot yet be spent in the Sum or any Degree of it be abated in the Total These two because thus abstracted they are perfectly and intirely themselves have thus much of Immortality that they never take End till an End is put to them by Almighty Efficiency But Matter is laid by God and so lies as a Foundation of his Works that cannot be removed and Motion is the Instrument he hath prepared for the management of those his Works and these in their simple selves have no Jars within nor cannot be touched by any extern Hand but as they are in composition undergo those several Changes and hasten out of the posture into another as it pleased God being still the same in themselves For all that Matter can be squeez'd into is Matter and all that Motion can be overcome into is Motion and so they will be till they are disannull'd by God And thus the Soul it s own Substance it s own Motion receiving both from God in its very Being and so being all Self as an unshaken Rock or First Matter bears and lies under all the disposes of God and as highest Life turns every way with subserves his admirable Administrations upon it self which are all in Righteousness Holiness Justice and Mercy This Spirit I say lies under all possible Impressions that can be made on a Soul and yet it is a Soul still it is always the same It is always the same as to its Essence and cannot be so altered or changed as to become another Thing It must be it self or it must be nothing and all Action upon it can but provoke it to Intellectual Action So it is found and so it is left by every thing that comes near it except God should come to make a final Determination upon its Being There is no change upon the Substance of a Spirit but Annihilation The State and Condition and Quality of it may be chang'd from Good to Evil from Evil to Good from Happiness to Misery from Misery to Happiness the very Being remains unalterable while it is The onely way
Matter to work upon nor work with Infinite Understanding brought forth Matter and stirr'd it as he pleas'd And though there is no comparison between Understanding Finite and Infinite yet by this it appears there is no contradiction for Understanding to produce Matter when there was none nor to move it when it is We know too there must be some way by which our Souls though acknowledged to be Spirits move our Bodies known enough to be gross and material and that meerly by Thought and Consideration what is to be done and that they obey them speedily and with ease although we are not able to expedite all the Questions that may be mov'd in relation hereunto In the sum I think it not to be doubted but that many of the extraordinary and wonderful Atchievements of Men the even prodigious Valours and mighty Prevalencies of some Warriours that have in heat of Fight mov'd like Lightning have been the true and proper Effects and Sallies out of a Soul through the Freedoms given by God to such Persons for the bringing about those Changes he hath resolv'd upon by their Victoriousness and Conquests And to conclude in all those things that have been done by Men not plainly miraculous nor exceeding the Power of Created Spirits I know no reason why the Wonder should be plac'd any where else but upon that admirable Freedom such Souls by especial Grant from God have had to work like themselves and so to exceed the ordinary Operations of Men. And though this doth not equal their present State to nor bring up their Services to the Services of Angels that Order of Creatures God in his Wisdom hath appointed for the greater and more remarkable Expeditions and Actions in the World as being always ready and as we say in procinctu excelling in prepared and unincumbred strength always upon the guard and hearkning to the voice of his word yet in that such great and mighty Works do shew forth themselves in the Soul and there have been so great and wonderful Persons in all Ages of Famous Memory in their several kinds and vertues in whom the Greatness of this Soul hath broken forth it is a marvellous Instance that the Soul of Man is a Great Potent and Excellent Spirit of vast Activities in its own Nature and that it hath a near resemblance of God and Alliance to Angels that however it be for a little time made lower than Angels yet it shall be brought into a Condition wherein it shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal to Angels For though I make no doubt some Men have greater Souls than others as one Star differs from another in Magnitude and as Bodies differ in Strength Beauty and Proportion yet there is the main Excellency of a Humane Body wherein all agree So it is in the Souls of Men the Soul of one Man is a Measure and carries the Pourtraicture of the Souls of Men in their Universal Nature even as Face answers Face in the water so the Soul of one Man returns the Soul of another Man Against all this it lies as a great Objection That the greatest Effects of a Soul we can observe are not great and high enough for such a Being as I have describ'd Mans Soul to be and the great Effects we do see are found onely in some lesser numbers of Men. Let us then inquire into these two things Why the Effects are not greater wherein Souls display themselves and Why we see them not more generally and universally among Men For the first it is to be considered The Soul in the Body is like an Artificer that works by a very dull and unapt Instrument though himself of excellent Skill like a valiant Warriour with a Sword of Lead or as Samson if confin'd to the general Laws of Humane Nature he had fought with the Jaw-bone of an Ass onely or like the Eye though never so quick looking through a dull Glass or in a Dark Room or like a strong and valorous Man in a Cage or close Dungeon or like a Light in a Dark Lantern or like a strong Man asleep All this is the State of the Soul in the Body or like a Prince of Just Authority in Captivity or like a Jewel clos'd up in Clay or a Beauty shrouded under a course Covering To judge of the Soul now and according to such Rules as it acts by in the Body that it shall never be greater and more active than it appears is to conclude the Soul of a Child shall never shew it self greater and more active than it appears while the Child is in Swadling Clothes Or as if the Infant in the Cloyster of the Womb could make a Judgment of it self and think it self in as good a condition or better than it should be in the open Air and that what it is there it must be always The Soul sees now through a glass darkly and is in the condition of a Child and of a Child shut up in the Womb. That the Body is now a great hinderance to the Soul is apparent by the necessity that the Soul must be separated from it and that it must be dissolv'd into Dust or changed and that in the Resurrection our Bodies must be Spiritual Bodies fit to cast the Glories and display the Excellencies of a Soul to discharge the Activities of the highest Elevation of a Spirit But to return to the present State of the Soul in the Body why it is order'd thus that the Body should be such an Instrument out of Tune to the Soul such an excellent Harmonist such a Dungeon to the Mind Princely in its Creation We may give it thus In the very first and most innocent state the Soul was so framed by God that though the Powers of it were much larger than Body and independent upon it yet that they should for a certain season be restrain'd to the Body to govern take care of and act it according to its Nature and Measures according to its Preparations to run along under the Powers of the Soul in their Motion and not be destroy'd by the over-vehemency This Body the Soul was able and fit to act to the utmost of its Capacities and far beyond them and yet it was so moderated as not to over-act them but it could not raise this Body or the Matter of it above its Natural Excellency That was reserv'd in the Creators Power alone as a Reward of the Souls Obedience in that Body for the present time allotted to it The Soul could not make the Body what it would have it be or fit it to all it would have it do when it found it short It could not enable body to all things a Soul had Power for or a desire to For it was but a Living Soul and not a Quickning 1 Cor. 15. 45. Spirit that is It had a Life given it by God and such a Life that it should be always a Living Soul that it should never decay and
have to do with and so straitned by them that they think of nothing further and if they do yet finding no scope or opportunity they repent the Attempt and retreat back again For alas the Necessities of Mankind in these Bodies are so consuming and expensive and the Riches of the Creation hidden deep and removed far from use or else scanty and daily wasted that but some of Mankind can be set out for Glory and their Undertakings equipp'd for Grandeur for what one Man hath and uses another wants the Abundance of that one Man is the Poverty of many about him How few then can make proof of the Designs and Action of a Soul Further there are continual Supplantations and Underminings of Humane Nature and the Virtue of it by it self the Endeavours of some to rise are surpriz'd and counter-wrought by the Jealousies of others who thereupon suspect their own diminution or Ruine The World is full of Suspicion Surmise Envy and ill Apprehension because there is not enough for this Soul of Man whereby to shew it self as great as it is and would fain appear to be This Region is so stinted that every Greater Intelligence in it thinks it could it self enlighten and move the whole and is offended with a Joynt-Light as eclipsing and drowning some of its own Heaven onely entertains an innumerable Company of Glorious Spirits in their full Lustre Their number is Ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands without the jealousie or envy of any one Yet in this very low condition of Souls the Soul it self is not the less but conceal'd as many excellent and most potent Things in Nature A Diamond may be easily cover'd that none of the Beams of it can be seen the sharp Steel lies quiet in the Sheath the Fire that could inflame the whole Course of Nature is hid in the Flint How often is the Glory of the Sun muffled up in a Cloud And to ascend higher not onely the Angelical but the Divine Glory is much reserv'd while it is much seen Verily Isa 45. 15. thou art a God that hidest thy self O God of Israel the Saviour of thy People Now this thing ought not to be to Practical Inference us a Matter of meer Notion or Speculation but of most serious consideration for this Greatness and Potency of our Souls determines it self supremely and finally into an Ability and Power to bear Eternal Happiness or Misery and all else is but accidental and by the By to it It was not made great for any Name of things that is named in this World or call'd Great here how great soever All things that are Arguments of Potency now do but fall in the true intention of the Souls being made so puissant a Being is that it might sustain those weights of Glory Likeness to God Everlasting Enjoyment of him without being fainted or overwhelmed But if it miscarry from this Happiness or fall short of this Glory all this its Might and Puissance enable it still to survive and bear the massie displeasure of God angry for Sin and the most forcible and terrible Recoils of its own guilty and enraged self upon it self Now a Being thus Potent and Great as to subsist in that Everlasting Blessedness or Misery can together and comprehensively do those smaller Great things that are esteem'd so in this World and yet if it should never do any such nor have the occasion of doing them to be created to the Intents and Purposes of an Eternal Condition makes it compleatly necessary it should be made so Great as we have asserted And if it were not so we could make but a very imperfect account to what ends the Souls of some Princely and incomparable Young Men are prepared whose rising and growing Vertue appears onely so long as to spring Heroickly and to give proof of a Divineness in the Bud and then by Death to fade in this World as early as it blossoms and have no opportunity left to ripen In these at once we see both the Greatness of a Soul and that this World is not its proper Sphere or so much as near it for if it were such Souls had been made in vain so Great But the State of Eternity justifies the Wisdom of God in breathing so rich a Principle of Life notwithstanding so little Action here because what is so superabundant now is then all of use and nothing to spare And to press this Consideration further and more generally the State of Eternity reduces the Souls of Men universally to thus much of Equality that they are all alike stripp'd out of the Cumber and Incommodiousness of a Body and brought to the nakedness and simplicity of Spirit which is the greatest Advancement of Being in an abstract Notion of Being that a Creature is or can be receptive of Nor is Spiritual Motion fetter'd or tied up any longer by indigency of subservient Ministeries All have that which is full enough to their State Souls are then at the height of Immortality and Unchangeableness under a Full-sail Activity every way equal to so great a Nature whether it be employ'd in Fruitions or Indurances Let us then expatiate thus into Meditation We that are but of so many Foot of Body and must be lodg'd in so many Foot of Earth the measure of the Grave have Souls whose Capacities and Action are vaster than the whole Creation of Matter We that dwell in houses of clay and Job 4. 19. have our foundation in the dust have yet great and potent Souls If we could perswade our selves we are more than this Hand-breadth of Bodily Condition and present Life we should prepare our selves for so great a State of Being the State that is proper to Souls All we toil and sweat for that we design and care for in the World is Self-preservation Self-enjoyment and Well-being Why then should we not mind these in our largest and most excellent Quality We value our selves in that which is least and throw our selves away in the main and whole Sum. Let us then continually reason with our selves Our Souls are great when we go out of the Body we become Great Spirits However the Soul keep up close in the Body yet it may be dilated beyond all possible Imagination as they say An Angel of Gold may be beaten out to cover a whole Acre of Ground We see to what a vastness Education Study Advancement in the World extends the Souls of some Men that made little appearance at first To how much a more immense Amplitude will the State of Eternity stretch out the Receipt of a Soul and what an abundance of Happiness or Misery will it then take in How little then or how great soever we seem now all will then be resolv'd into this final Condition of our Immortal Souls and the Happiness of these rests in the Favour of God a Likeness to him in Holiness springing out into an Eternal Enjoyment of him And while we
and more especially as they are Divine and relate to God Because the knowledge of the Things themselves is most lost and the Understanding so cramp'd concerning them To be able therefore in such Treaties to speak so as to compare Spiritual things with Spiritual that is to observe the Decorum Spiritual Things require to be spoken with there is necessary the Divine Revelation of Scripture and the assistance of the Holy Spirit For so to speak is that Divine Vtterance or Elocution which the Apostle joins with Knowledge and magnifies as an Act of Grace to Fallen man in order to his Recovery derived from Jesus Christ the restorer of Humane Nature and is in various degrees distributed to the professors of Christianity and conveyed to them in the diligent Exercise of themselves in Sacred Writings 2. The Dulness and Inattentiveness of Hearers makes things hard to be interpreted especially things of great Retreat from ordinary Apprehension We cannot speak them plainly enough to make people conceive of them so as to be affected with them Yet notwithstanding we having so often occasion to converse with these great Sounds A Soul An Immortal Spirit and its Eternal State there is as great an obligation to search the Things as far as we can lest they appear to us no more than great sounds without as great a Substance whereas indeed their Substance and Reality exceeds their Sound how great soever And to encourage us in this most industrious search we are first to oppose to the Difficulty this Consideration That it is not so much the Unintelligibleness of the things themselves as the want of a due Intention of Mind in our inquiries as also an humble application of our selves to the Divine Assistance that makes it so hard to speak and hear of these Spiritual Subjects as Wise men and Christians For Discourses of them made up of such words as the spirit of God teaches jointed and put together by the same Wisdom and then aright received how significant and potent would they be how clearly representative to the Understanding how perswasive upon the whole Soul And seeing in these things we have a kind of natural Knowledge and Experience like Natural Arithmetique and Mathematiques which yet being adorn'd and cultivated by Art are much improved but especially because we have the Word of God so great a light to our feet and lamp to our paths in our Discourse concerning them and the promise of the Blessed Spirit to assist our Inquiries into Truth There is great reason of Confidence the closer our Researches and the more industrious our Explanations of the things are the brighter our apprehensions and the more prevailing our Knowledge of them will grow so as to enlighten and perswade others also Committing then this Undertaking to Divine Assistance I have chosen this great assumption of Elihu concerning Man to rest this Discourse upon There is a Spirit in Man and the Inspiration of the Almighty giveth him Vnderstanding Not that the Soul of Man and its excellent Nature deriving it self in Creation from God inspiring it is precisely and in the first place here intended or the original proceeding of the Finite Vnderstanding from the Infinite But the mighty Vigor and Force of this Spirit stirred up by God and the Understanding acted to the Height by a more gracious inspiration enlivening assisting and setting it on work in some peculiar persons and to some peculiar ends and employment is that which this Eloquent Reasoner immediately means and hath a particular respect to himself in it as notably assisted by God in his following Discourses Yet it plainly appears he alludes to that History of the First Creation the Tradition of which all Wise and Good men had conveyed and assured to them by undoubted Monuments for it very much agrees with and resembles that relation There is a Spirit in man says Elihu a mighty and Gen. 1. 26. excellent Spirit In the Image and Likeness of God as Moses describes it And the Breath of the Almighty giveth him understanding as Elihu speaks Which in the words of Moses is thus expressed God breath'd into his Face Gen. 2. 7. the Breath of Life and Man became a living Soul That Inspiration gave that Soul of Life whose Nature is Vnderstanding or Intellect and its Life Rational and Intellectual And herein rest fundamentally those extraordinary Vigors of which Elihu here speaks when God by a secondary Donation and Grace enables this Spirit and Vnderstanding to act like it self and to appear as it is For all excellent motions of Soul inspired by God into eminent personages are but Fairer Exemplifications of Creation and the Vniversal Nature of mans Soul So that while Elihu intends something further he assures the main position That Man in general hath a Great Spirit or Soul in him and an Vnderstanding or Intellect given him by immediate inspiration from God in Creation To give then a description of this Great Soul of man as a foundation of the whole Treaty concerning it I shall do it under these three following Heads 1. As it is considered in its substantial and Essential Nature and so I describe it An Invisible Spirit and Immortal made in the Image and Likeness of God and nearly allyed to Angels the very Nobleness and Excellency of mans Being above Brutes and Common matter 2. As it is to be understood in its immediate Emanations and Motions of it self and so it is An Intellectual Light indued with all the powers of Rational and Moral Action It is that by which a man breaths in the free and open Air of Reason and Intelligence It is the principle of such Action as is far above sense for if rightly ordered it bears the lofty Characters of Good Holy Virtuous and because it cannot sink upon a Common level if disorderly and irregular it carries the black indeed but Tremendous names of Sin Wickedness Vice 3. As it is to be known in its Resentments and so It is that which tastes and enjoys all Good or feels and endures discerns and perceives Evil and Misery If that be well the whole is well If that be wounded and in Torment there can be no Ease or Remedy And it is prepared to be a Great and Ample Receipt of and a most vehement Agent in its own Everlasting Happiness or Misery This Soul is that which is Eternally Happy or Miserable And though this Spirit be hid in the Body and the Body seems to be All yet it can indeed do nothing nor feel any thing but as the Soul does by it and this Body because as it is now it is an Instrument unfit is laid aside in Death without any prejudice to the Souls Action or Resentment but to the unspeakable Exaltation of it and at last a Body more fit for its use is given to it and which is every way proportion'd to its state whether of Happiness or Misery Now whosoever shall well weigh and consider this Soul will stand
was the habitation of the Spirit or Soul renewed and purged from sin that Spirit or Soul being it self the habitation of the Divine Spirit this Body because it hath still a relation to such a Soul loses its sinful taint while it moulders into dust and is raised a Body incorruptible and spiritual that is a habitation fit for the Spirit now made perfect and is filled thereby with the glory of life and immortality which is eternal life and all by virtue of that Divine Spirit that dwelt in that Soul while it was lodged and dwelt in that Body And herein lying the true substantial sense of this most weighty Paragraph of the Apostle how plainly doth it express the distinction of the Soul from the Body and that the Soul is a substance of it self independent upon Body and Body altogether dependent upon it even while it is most immers'd into Body For first The Soul it self gives all the life to its own impure pleasures and sinful reposes in bodily delights to which else Body is able to contribute no more than Oyl to the Flame which of it self we know always lyes still and dark 2. Spirit it self assisted by Grace retires into spiritual enjoyments and quenches and dryes up its own sensual affections to Body and blasts the satisfactions received from thence even before that Oyl be wasted by the decays of Body or dryed up by death Lastly It self carries its own fate if I may so call it and the fate of the Body along with it into eternity for according to what the Soul it self is so is its own happiness or misery and the Body of necessity follows its condition so that it self is plainly All and the Body only a Cypher attending the state of this principal Figure 3. The distinction of Spirit and Body in death is conveyed to us in very plain and easie terms and such as carry their meaning very open if not disturbed and prevented by ill interpretation Let us take a view of the clearness of Scripture herein First Solomon in his Ecclesiastes having considered with some passion and vehemency the little or no apparent preheminence of men above Beasts in their death that as one dies so dies the other they send out one common vital breath and go all to one place he then casts the account of this into the common heap of vanity and comes to a very warm enquiry Who knoweth Eccl. 3. 21. the Spirit of a man that goes upward and the Spirit of a Beast that goes downward Yet thereby resolving the main case enough viz. that these outward appearances laid so much to disadvantage are but only in the Body and outside the difference between the Spirit of a man and the Spirit of a Beast is still very great as great as between Heaven and Earth and the motion as contrary when they dye as upward and downward but still he complains that this is not possible to be seen by Sense and there are very few that reach it to any purpose by Reason and Religion and this saith he is one of the great points of the vanity of all worldly condition that both so great a principle of Truth and so great a dignity of Humane Nature should lye so far off be so indiscernable Here is then an equality in the outside or Bodies of men a dying and Beasts but a great inequality or excellency of men above Beasts which comes home to what we are asserting And thus Solomon understood of the Spirit of a man as is now explained he makes us more certain when after his travel over all things he comes to describe man in his end and does it thus The Dust returning to the Earth Eccl. 12. 7. as it was and the Spirit returns to God that gave it he allots to the several parts into which he distributes man a several motion and a several rest according to the several originals of each The Dust or Body returns to the Earth from whence it was taken the Spirit survives and hastens back to God that gave it Agreeably the care of holy men at death or in any great apprehensions of danger that presented death to them was to commend their Spirit to God as David Into thy hand I commend Psal 31. 5. my Spirit which words were prophetick of the dying words of our Saviour Father into thy hand I commend Luc. 23. 46. my Spirit and thus Stephen breathed out his Soul Lord Jesus receive Acts 7. 59. my Spirit Now in that Solomon affirms of the Spirit of man in general that it returns to God the Judge of all whether it be the spirit of a good man or a bad man or whether it be for happiness or misery and that thereupon holy persons recommended their Souls into the hands of God as a faithful Creator I know not how any thing can be more determinative of the distinction of Body and Soul in death For such words are not words of meer resignation of life back again to the Fountain of Life but an entrustment and dependent recommendation and not of a life to be secured only for the Resurrection but of a Spirit immediately going to God for else they might with as much care have committed Body to him who weighs the dust of the Earth in a Ballance much more that of the Bodies of men whom he will raise again most of all that of his Saints which he will raise to glory If there were not such an immediate return of good mens Spirits to God why doth the Apostle chuse to be Phil. 1. 23. dissolved or set at liberty that he might be with Christ Or why doth he profess in the name of Christians in general we desire rather to be absent 2 Cor. 5. 6. from than at home in the body that we might be present with the Lord What tolerable account can be given of such speeches for what composition is it that suffers dissolution that some part and what part is that might have immediate being with Christ Or who is it that would be set at liberty Or that is absent from the body or at home in it if not this supreme man the Soul Or why should death be preferred for the sake of a nearer and more immediate presence with Christ if all the man dye with the body Or what man is it that the Apostle speaks of caught up into the third Heaven and makes a doubt whether in the body or out of it Or how could there be such a being in the body or out of the Body if the body were all if there were nothing but body Or lastly why doth our Saviour amplifie the dread of the vengeance of God upon man above theirs that kill the body and have no more that they can do whereas the hand of God destroys Luc. 12. 4 5. both body and soul in Hell For let it be expounded to the greatest advantage of the opinion that encounters the Souls immortality
to sleep the description of an endless and incurable Sloath Prov. 24. 33. If the Body be a Composure more lively and spirituous and apt to overheat the Soul presently finds this and committing it self to the Inclinations of Body such Propensions are promoted and inraged according to the mighty Force of a Soul into the Excesses of Lust Rage and all Intemperance beyond the very Bruitish Nature that hath no such Spirit to act it and thus also the Might of the Soul is lost as the Force of the Fire with the Powder in a crack'd or foul Gun that is scatter'd and recoils with mischief or as an over-measure of Powder taking fire without direction the Effect of which is the slaughter and destruction of all about it So that every way nothing is atchieved worthy the Greatness of this Spirit Thus the Soul is doubly disabled by Matter wherein it is set both because that Matter is subject to so many disorders that can no way be perfectly cured and so it is unfit for the Souls use and also because the Soul crowds up its own Activities into a contentment with what it finds most natural and ready in that Matter with which it is joyned complies with it and troubles it self no further to amend it and the longer things continue so the more stiff and unreformable the Evil grows All which put together is a plain Reason why there are no greater Effects of a Soul in the World and how it comes to pass that the multitude of People in it give no other evidence of a Soul but in a provision of Natural Life and the Sensualities of Life somewhat above the Rank of Beasts Now upon the utmost stretch of this Reason there would be no Examples of greater Vertue or Heroickness among Men But because this State both of the Body and the Soul is below the Graciousness of the first Creation and that there are most merciful Relaxations of the Punishment due to the Sin of Man and many Advantages for the betterment of both Soul and Body vouchsafed by God through Christ the Mediator whose Benefits extend to them that do not know him hence it is that the State of Mankind excells it self in many great Instances For the Soul retaining its primitive Vigour and Life which are its very Nature and Being and Body being capable of Refinement to better use by the care of the Soul in the Sublimation of it even as Art polishes the Rude Matter directs it into the usefulness of any Instrument as Chymistry purifies and exalts it as the Skill of the Apothecary corrects and makes it medicinable so the Soul designing to mend the Body sets the Characters of Wisdom Virtue and good Ingeny upon it formes it to a graceful Mine and Deportment turns and twists the Motions of it to the Curiosities of Artifice chastises and reforms it to the Precepts of Virtue and subdues it to the Industry of Study and Contemplation hardens it to the fearless and resolv'd Actions of War quickens it to Service in greatest Works and Undertakings with whatever else we see in the World worthy of consideration to this purpose being the Inspiration of Mind and the Performance of Body commanded by it Now that which under such Pressures excites the Souls of Men to these Aspirings must chiefly be acknowledged to Divine Impressions awakening some Mens Spirits to the exercise of their richer and worthier Faculties of which Scripture gives abundant Testimony in all kinds And under this they may be ascrib'd to the different Magnitudes of Souls or the more advantageous Bodies Providence hath contriv'd for some rather than for others and then to the Instruction and Examples that fall from such Persons as Influences from the Heavenly Bodies and have their Effects upon many not onely of one Age or Country but of far distant Places and succeeding Times so that there have been still springing up great and incomparable Persons Mirrours of the Greatness and Potency of a Humane Spirit and their Actions as Monuments of it and under them multitudes of others though not of so high a degree yet endeavouring to raise themselves somewhat towards the Excellencies of Humane Nature But why upon these so fair Advantages the Excellency of Mans Soul is not more generally retrived may receive this farther Resolution As the Soul working by Body must have a well fitted and prepared Body to work immediately by so it 's further necessary to its Operations by Body that there be a conveniency and an accommodation of several Instruments and Materials besides and beyond Body for it to employ the Ministeries of Body upon and to work at a distance by that the Action may be memorable and great He that will build must first sit down and count the Charge The King that goes to War must consider the strength of his Armies the number of his Men the Conduct and Resolution of his Captains the sufficiency of his Treasure He that separates himself to intermeddle with all Knowledge must be furnish'd with the external as well as the internal Means of Science else his Success can never amount to Eminency Now the present State of the World is so impoverish'd by the Sin of Man that it can supply but Few in comparison of the Many so that the strait and low Condition the unattempting Education and manner of Life that very many the most of Mankind are confin'd to by reason of Want fore-prizes the nobler Darings of their Mind and plunges them so low that they cannot easily rise The Experiments of this Case have been very notable in sundry Persons whose Souls have been kept low and suppress'd by the lowness and narrowness of as they are call'd their Fortunes but have spread and soar'd aloft when their Sphere of Action hath been made more ample and high by accession of those Fortunes and we need not make any doubt but that if the Train had been laid in their Youth to Generous Employment they would have much more excell'd seeing their Souls have as it were started out in their riper years to worthy Menages being encourag'd by plenty of Means when their Education had been sordid And the same thing is proportionably to be believ'd of very many who yet live and die obscure and conceal'd and their name in darkness through Prejudices of a poor Condition while their Souls are in themselves as great as any And indeed it is not intended by God the degenerate State of this World should be so noble or free as to bear up the true and native Greatness of Souls in a Multitude and at their full extent of Action any more than he hath prepar'd the Firmament for many Suns A World of Personages Great for their Prowess Vertue Learning and Wisdom would exalt this State too high It is therefore so ordered that the Spirits of the most lie still and contracted by the very closeness of their Condition besides other Misadventures and are so diverted upon the little things they
endure one Posture of Misery for ever most adverse to all our Faculties and yet they so rais'd and held up as perfectly to take in and endure that Misery and that Misery so extracted and spirituous as to penetrate them throughout and not coming in by Drops and lesser Rivulets but Eternity being all alike crowds in upon every Moment whereas now either the Torment is dull'd and rebated or instill'd and proportion'd by such a Succession as carries hope of Change or if it be extreme it presently does all it can do for it consumes what it hath to work upon On the other side How great is the Happiness of Eternity One smooth plain undisturbed Blessedness without any diversity For Ever The highest Faculties in their perfectest State gratified with highest Enjoyment Faculties so strong that they cannot flag the Enjoyment so unfathomable that we can never feel Bottom in it One Moment of endless Pleasure A Moment for it hath no Tediousness A Moment for it hath no Change but is all one and yet it is endless and eternal An Eternity the Duration of which we cannot so much as take notice of being in one Ecstasie of Enjoyment When we see miserable Men and Women going up and down the World living and dying without any Observation it damps the sense of these things and who would think that such are prepared for such an unchangeable State But how strange is it that Men hearing so often of Immortality out of the Gospel and that there is so much in their own Souls resounding to it that they are not Men concern'd to lay hold upon Eternal Life and to fly from the Wrath that is to come Let us look upon this great Level Ocean that hath not so much as one Wave of Change rising up in it this huge and vast Champaign swelling with no Hills sinking with no Dales And this know Men may go down to Hell in a moment thinking they die and end together They may perish without feeling it before-hand or so much as a Conceit about it But whoever are sav'd by Christ they perceive themselves Immortal Christ 2 Tim. 1. 10. brings Life and Immortality to light in their Souls and kindles the sense of it within them those to whom he gives Eternal Life they find this Life begin in the apprehensions they have now of Eternity 4. O how vain are those troublesom turmoiling Thoughts and Cares we have about Time and the Things of it Trundling rolling wheeling Time that hath no continuance that is so made on purpose the Things that cast it are so weak that they are restless in their sudden Changes O Wheel as it was cried out in Ezekiel Ezek. 10. 13. O changing Time every Moment something differing Let us onely mind it as it hath reference to Eternity for therein it is onely of moment Eternity that bears it up it self unconcern'd in its changeableness yet receives it into it self and swallows it up in it self 5. How necessary is it to change while we may from Sin to God to take the advantage of Time in the true Conversion of our selves to God seeing Eternity endures no Change To be wicked in our Eternal State is Wickedness unalterable there are no Reviews or Amendments there To turn is the Advantage offer'd to Sinners within Time In Eternity Repentance finds no place On the other side Eternal Life is Love of God Delight in Holiness without end The Motions of Spirits in Eternity are so swift and perpetual one way that there is not the least Moment to design a Change in A Motion that is always one and the same and is a Rest while a Motion Even as the most rapid Motion of a Globe round that is so swift and rapid that it is not discern'd and so even and just that it looks like standing still So is the State of Eternity Action to the height and most unalterable What I have hitherto discours'd of the Soul hath tended chiefly to illustrate it in those things that do immediately concern its Natural Perfections or its very Being and the Privileges it therein hath as it was made in the Image of the Divine Being and its Perfections For that it is an Invisible Spirit Immaterial Immortal of such mighty Operations and vehement Motions is of immediate Relation to its Being simply considered Now these Excellencies of the Soul I have endeavoured so to abstract in the Discourse of them that they might appear so far as is possible in their so abstract and distinct Consideration and yet as the very Thred and Nature of the Thing led me I have taken care to follow their close and inseparable Connexion or to speak more truly their perfect Union or Sameness with Intellect and to observe the Operations to be the same with Intellectual and Moral Operations that flow from an Understanding To which purpose I have laboured in this Assertion That such a Being as the Soul of Man is must be an Understanding and such Operations as those proper to Mans Soul must be Intellectual Operations however clouded and obscur'd while in the Body But I shall now address my self more fully to treat of the Soul as it is this Intellectual Spirit in its Intellectuality or Intelligency it self and of its Intellectual and Moral Operations wherein it is universally acknowledg'd to be made in the Image of God So that the former Parts of the Discourse describ'd what a kind of Being and of what exalted Motion this Intellect or Understanding is and that an Intellect can be no less than such a Being or no less a Being than such a one and of such a Motion can be an Understanding and that such a Being so moving must be can be no less can be no other than an Understanding What now follows shall be design'd more closely to discover what the Intellectuality of this Great Being and its Self-motion are or what Understanding it self and the Motions of Understanding are In which pursuit I will first make some display upon this great Matter in that frequent Resemblance of it by Light the Scripture so much delights to use concerning it The Spirit of a Man is the Candle Prov. 20. 27. of the Lord shining into and searching the innermost parts of the Belly The Soul of Man as it is an Understanding is a great Light reflected upon it self This is the Soul a Beam from the Sun a Candle lighted from the Light of Heaven and the Light of this Candle is ever streaming out and reflowing upon it self like a Diamond always playing with and in its own Light It may be cover'd over and hid it may be masqued with the thickness and grosness of Earthly Vapours from Body but it is inseparable from its Nature to be Light It cannot but in some degree shine and send out it self though its Beams be but pale and wan but when it hath any greater freedom or when it industriously and resolvedly moves it self there is a Circle of
these Effects however it be Invisible to us For when we take account of all the Beings here we easily grant the most Considerable for such Effects is Man his Reason and Providence were most likely to summon things so together and to keep them in their order but we presently find he neither hath a Might nor a Knowledge sufficient Not a Might for the Heavens above him are far out of his Reach or any application he can make to them The Earth under him is too big for any of his Engines to dispose The Waters about him are altogether out of his Grasp and all that he can possibly do in the summ of these is plainly just nothing at all His utmost attempt is to obtain what advantages he can to himself from them according to the nature wherein they are already fix'd and settled And as for his knowledge of them it is but as a span to the Universe he searches and pries and receives but a very little and his greatest Knowledge is to know his own Ignorance so impossible it is he should be either the Author or Conservator of them But oh how prodigious is it to think Things should by some lucky Hit cast themselves as by a Throw into this Order and Harmony For Chance provides not for every circumstance of any thing or if it should hit so well throughout in one Thing in how many would it miss But we see things great and small and without number ordered with so exact a Care and Contrivance and among them very many little Things upon which yet great consequences and conveniencies depend that none but a most excellent Mind could forecast or provide for some very great and designing Architect and it ought to be no prejudice against him that we do not see him When any one stands on a Tower and sees upon the Sea a Ship gallantly Equipped with its Sails Masts and all the various Tackling of it and when by settled observation he finds it moves with Design and Instruction and if he should further know it attends certain and stable Rules though the Pilot and Sailors are not seen nor the Artificer that built it nor the Owner that designs with it yet could he think that there neither are nor were such but that all this is the contrivance of Accident because he sees nothing but the Ship While then Naturalists observe such an Earth floating in the Air and a World swimming in the boundlesness of Imaginary Space and keeping yet those just Rules by which all things move should it be any reason to conclude because he sees none able to guide this Frame There is none Is it not rather to be concluded There is an Invisible supreme Cause If a man were first cast upon a Desert and after should come to a City adorned with Temples Palaces Magnificent Structures all of great Beauty Proportion and Order and should yet find no Inhabitants but what are beneath the wisdom of such a magnificence would he so much as suspect this was a fortuitous convention of the Materials into such an Union and not presently resolve There are or have been personages equal to the work they see although they see not them When a man is in an empty Room sees no man but hears the voice of excellent Reason and Discourse he will conclude A Man however placed out of sight or a Greater than a Man is there And why then should we so much as surmize Effects far greater than these should have been wander'd into by an incertain up and down Rolle or Frisk of Things And if we allow there is so great though an unseen Cause of all those Things we may allow also it is greater than any of those things that are seen not only because it is their Cause but because it hath reached those Effects that none of them can extend themselves unto and have great reason to be assured the Cause is the greater for being seen only in its Effects and not in it self seeing those things that are seen have some such disadvantages upon them whatever they are that they cannot work as this unseen Cause hath done and therefore further we have reason to believe that their very being seen is one of those disadvantages and that which runs through all the rest seeing we cannot find in a whole world of visible Beings any one that can work like this invisible Cause and therefore that it appertains to it to be invisible that it may be a Cause so universal of both which it is no hard thing to conceive the account For that things may fall under sense they must be gross and so are cumbersom shut out of things by their own unfitness for penetration capable of opposition subject to dissolution They must also be of a slow confined restrained nature But things purer and not condescending to sense may be free from these and whatever is the soveraign Cause of all must be so for he must be of an excellency of power perfectly free and dis-incumbred of an infinitely quick motion too high for opposition more intimate to things than themselves for he is over all in all through all and therefore must be also so transcendently pure as not to fall under dull and slow-sighted sense And if there be one unseen Being there may be more and they that are not be the less because they are not to be seen but the greater resembling in some degree the excellency of that super-invisible Being whom no man hath seen nor can see and such a one we affirm the Soul of man to be Argum. 2 When we come to man himself we perceive evidently and undeniably by our senses and those conclusions we make from them as certain as themselves how high and great the effects of Humane Reason and Understanding are what huge and orderly contrivances of all sorts have been accomplished by men what Laws Governments Collections of knowledge have been and are continually extant among them what aspiring of religious and devout thoughts as so many searches and attempts beyond this world and that all these are without parallel among all the rest of the Creatures under heaven Now what is there in man that is seen to the function of which we would intrust these offices and administrations Who can believe the Eye or Tongue or Hand could of themselves contribute to any of these things in the first plot or device of them or if we look into all the inward parts of humane body that Anatomy pryes into which of them can be fit for so great an employment or how can the whole frame amounting from no higher particulars conspire one part with another into so high atchievements How notoriously are all the pretences made for any of them baffled by true Philosophy so that there must be some other Architect of them though out of sight What an excellency is there in man above beasts Their highest motions and such as we admire for their approach to Humane
Reason except such wherein the wisdom of the God of Nature is immediately seen stoop as much below those of men as the faint light of the Moon falls below the lustre of the Sun or as the untuned unmodelled sound of a musical Instrument made by a vulgar Hand or wild Notes come short of the Musick and Harmony of some excellent Artist or as the gamesom leaps and rebounds of wild Creatures differ from the measured and becoming moves of a most orderly Dance And yet the Bodies of men and the Organs of sense in them differ so little from those of Beasts in relation to the main of these great effects that when we consider man in the majestickness of true Reason and Understanding and see so little upon his body more than in theirs we cannot but acknowledge something divine within him that as we may say with reverence to the highest Majesty sits as a God there The Body is a Palace or Temple indeed compared with the bodies of Beasts but this shews it only to be the Residency of so great an Inhabitant and in some peculiarities it may be so framed as to be prepared thereby to be the Instrument of so great an Artist but both signifie as little to the immediate source of Reason as a stately House or more curious Instrument do to the Offices or Discharges of the Master of the House or Art the magnificence and prudence of the one the exactness and curiosity of the other To this we must still recourse There is a spirit in man and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding and teacheth him more than the beasts of the field and maketh him wiser than the fowls of heaven And yet it is hard to perswade any serious considerer that the utmost attempts and endeavours of matter can arise to the performance of the duties of very Sense in these brute Creatures how much less can it to those of Reason in man In man then we see effects that witness enough some great Cause and Original we see not yet still seeing the Effects are plainly greater than we can attribute to any thing that may be seen in man this Cause because not to be seen is not lesser than other things in man that are to be seen but greater and therefore greater for not being to be seen because it is not subject to the inabilities of those parts of man we can see and yet cannot ascribe the Effects to because they are so much above them And yet too we might well expect these great Effects from the visible parts of an Humane Body if any where seeing man is the most excellent of the visible Creatures we know but as we reasoned before in speaking of the first Cause All things that are seen are too impure and unweildy to conduct things to so great ends as those of Reason and Intelligence and so not enough to act in the likeness of the first Cause which likeness we must all along observe as the true Key of the knowledge of mans Soul Argum. 3 To make the entertainment of invisible Beings and their greatness easier to us let us survey the whole state of Beings visible and we shall find It is not any of their outward lineaments shape colour habit figure or apparent motion that makes them what they are but their retir'd Essences A Drug hath not its nature from its shape colour or common circumstances wherein it may agree or be exceeded by other things of less virtue or by those of its own kind that have lost their virtue though they may still have the outward semblances but there is something within that is not to be pored upon by Sense but is pierced to by Reason and Understanding The appearance of Gold counterfeited deceives the Eye but is detected by the Reason that tryes things themselves If any thing be painted so to the life that it cheats the sight and seems to be the very thing that it dissembles yet it is never the more the thing It is therefore an unseen nature from which every thing hath its virtue Hence it appears there is a great retirement of that which is the Kernel of these Beings from outward garbs lineaments appearances and it fairly leads us to the belief of Beings invisible whose whole nature and beings are hidden from Sense but only in their operations wherein they exceed so much as to recompense with that evidence of themselves the retreat of their Beings from fight For if those poorer things whose pretence is small and their effects low and their essence but a duly prepared matter and so must for the most part lye open to Sense have yet a secret of their essence in reserve and made solemn by a vail of secrecy drawn over them how reasonable is it to think the highest operations should have their seat in Beings wholly immaterial and invisible of which the supreme God is known to Sense only by effects and the Souls of men the lowest of them by acting in and by visible and material Bodies indeed yet in their operations and truest nature wholly independent upon them Argum. 4 The appearances like to men in Bodies Invisible Beings have sometimes put on and the great effects they have wrought in such or any other appearances to Sense as demonstrations of themselves to it perswade the reality of their Beings and the greatness of them For by such addresses and such kind of effects as are the most assuring credentials to men as they are now in Bodies they have given to sense and sight great satisfaction and notices of themselves and at the same time awakened Reason to observe they were some unusual and stranger Beings and not familiar and ordinary ones and that they took up a short lodging only in these appearances to put Sense out of doubt concerning themselves For in the mean time to make it plain to Reason that they exceeded the force of all visible things and were not tyed to act by their proportion or so much as by the rule the Soul of man in the body acts by they have always contrived into some part or circumstance of their appearances or the effects they wrought tokens of their spirituality and grandeur they did something wonderful so that while they have descended to sense they have also amazed it and one way or other unriddled their disguise From whence arise these plain characters of Invisible Beings 1. The reality of their Beings notwithstanding their invisibility seeing they can as they please demonstrate themselves by the way of Sense and assume visibility not to make themselves more real but more known to men that otherwise being in body judge at disadvantage of those out of it 2. Their independency upon visibility seeing they could do all out of that visible appearance they do in it and do indeed much more out of it than they do in it 3. Their preference of invisibility to visibility seeing they appear only a short time Body