not them wherefore will they be perswaded though one should rise from the dead The Millenar's ephimerides which assures us that Christ shall reign a thousand years with the Saints on earth is as sensual an opinion as that of the Turks who make heaven a bordell wherein we shall satisfie our venerious appetites for the one shews the vain glory and vindictive humour of the Saints as palpably as the other shews the lust of the Mahumetans If Christs reigning som any years be for convincing the world that he is the real Messiah their heresie should have ante-dated his coming and his reign should rather have begun long since when many ages were to be converted or at least it should not have been thrust out upon the selvage and border of time when very few shall remain to be convinc'd and if in this they intend a displaying of Christs glory certainly they are mistaken for what honour can it be for a King to have his footstool made his Throne So that I think these poor Phanaticks have taken the patronage of this error rather by necessity then choice all other opinions and conceits being formerly pre-ingaged to other Authors As I am not able by the Iacobsladder of my merits to scale heaven So am I less able by the Iacobs-staffe of my private ability to take up the true altitude of its mysteries I have travell'd no further in Theology then a Sabbath-dayes journey and therefore it were arrogance in me to offer a map of it to the credulous world But if I were worthy to be consulted in these spiritual securities I should advise every private Christian rather to stay still in the barge of the Church with the other Disciples then by an ill bridled zeal to hazard drowning alone with Peter by offering to walk upon the unstable surface of his own fleeting and water-weak fancies though with a pious resolution to meet our Saviour For albeit one may be a real Christian and yet differ from the Church which sayes that the wise men who come to bow before our Saviours cradle-throne were three Kings and in such other opinions as these wherein the fundamentals of faith and quiet of the Church are no wayes concerned yet certainly he were no wise man himself nor yet sound Christian who would not even in these bow the flag of his private opinion to the commands of the Church The Church is our mother and therefore we should wed no opinion without her consent who is our parent or if we have rashly wedded any it is in the power of the Church and her Officials to grant us a divorce As for my self my vanity never prompted me to be standard-bearer to any either new Sect or old Heresie and I pity such as love to live like Pewkeepers in the house of God busied in seating others without ever providing a room for themselves If there be any thing in this Discourse which may offend such as are really pious it shall much grieve me who above all men honours them most What I have spoken against cases of Conscience and the like strikes not against their Christian fellowship and correspondence but against the apish fopperies of prentending counterfeits It shall alwayes be my endeavour for the future rather to drop tears for my own sins and the sins of others then yrk for their conversion our prayers help such as never heard them whereas these only who read our discourses are better'd by them Abrahams prayers prevailed more with God even for Sodom then Lot's re-iterated Sermons and no wonder that the success be unequal seing in the one we have to do with a mercifull God whereas in the other we must perswade a hard-hearted people I intend not to purchase from posterity the title of Reformer seing most of these have faln under the same guilt and have had the same fate with that curious Painter who having drawn an excellent face as happily as could have been expected from the smoothest mirrour did thereafter dash it afresh upon the suggestion of each intrant till at last he reformed it from being any way like to the Original Divinity differs in this from all other Sciences that these being invented by mortals receive growth from time and experience whereas it being penn'd by the omniscient Spirit of God can receive no addition without receiving prejudice It is most remarkable that our Saviours Prayers His Sermons and the Creed delivered to us by His Apostles were roomed up in farr narrower bounds then these of our times which an hidropsie of ill concocted opinions hath swell'd beyond their true dimensions many whereof have either been brooded by vanity or interest or else ignorant and violent defendents being brought to a bay by such as impugn'd their resolv'd-upon principles have been forc'd to assert these by-blow and preter-intentional tenets and having once floored them have thereafter judg'd themselves concerned to defend them in point of Scholastick honour Some well-meaning Christians likewayes do sometimes for maintenance of what is lawfull and pious think that they may lawfully advance opinions which otherwayes they would never have allowed of and as in nature we see that the collision of two hard bodies makes them rebound so much the further from one another So opposition makes both parties fly into extremeties Thus I believe that the debates betwixt Roman-catholicks and Protestants concerning the Virgin Mary have occasion'd in some amongst both expressions if not hereticall yet aleast undecent Thus a great many Confessions of Faith become like Noahs Ark a receptacle of clean and unclean and which is also deplorable they do like ordinar dyals serve only for use in that one meridian for which they are calculated and by riding twenty miles ye make them heterodox I speak not this to the disparagement of our own Church which I reverence in all it's Precepts and Practices but to beget a blushing conviction in such as have diverted from it and whose conventicles compared with our Ierusalem resemble only the removed huts of these who live a part because they are sick of the plague I am not at a maze to see men so tenacious of contrary principles in Religion for man's thoughts being vast and various he snatches at every offered suggestion and if by accident he entertain any of these many as a divine immission he thereafter thinks it were blasphemy to bring that thought to the test of reason because he hears that faith is above reason or to relinquish it because the common suffrage of his Country runs it counter seing he is taught even by them that the principles of belief must not be chosen by the Pole And seing faith is above reason albeit as I said formerly it would seem otherwise I wonder not to see even the best temper'd Christians think that which is not their own religion to be therefore ridiculous My design all alongst this Discourse butts at this one principle that Speculations in Religion are not so necessary
the clearer splendor snuff it so nearly that they extinguish it quyt and leavs us nothing but the stink of its snuff like some curious Physicians who purge so frequently that they destroy the body entrusted to their cure We in this Island have met with some of these Charletans who I am confident purged oftner both Church and State then Luke the beloved physician would have prescrived if we had had the good fortune to have been his Patients The talest witt is not able to reach heaven albeit I know many disjoint their witts in stretching them too high in the inquiry of its mysteries Neither impute I our short-coming in the knowledge of these mysteries solly to their obstrusness but I believe our meditations are more clouded in relation to these then really they need to be because of their innate frailty for we see that some who are masters of much reason in things humane betray much solly in their devotions wherefore I am induced to believe that it fares with the soul in this as usually it doth with the body whose pulls are proportionally the weaker as the thing grasp'd-after is plac'd above its true reach And so these arrogant Pretenders pull but faintly because they raise their meditations too high on their tip-toes whereby they are disabl'd from imploying all their naturall vigour in pulling at these weighty and sublime Truths which they catch not by that corner which is nearest as meanner witts do and so are more successfull but endeavour a fetch at what in Divinity is highest by which effort their endeavours are fainter then these whose spirit is of a lesser size And these colossus witts become the greatest Hereticks as these ordinarily are most burnt whose fingers oftest stir up fires and as Chirurgians have moe cuts and wounds then any other Mechanicks who handle not so oft these wounding tools It is not fit that mortal man should wrestle too much with these mysteries least his reason like Iacob be forc'd to come off halting Nothing hath more busied my thoughts then to find a reason why the Heathens who were as assiduous and zealous too in the worship of their gods as we Christians did never frequent Sermons nor knew no such part of divine Service whereof probably the reason was because their Governors whose commands amongst them were the sole jure-divinoship of all Ecclesiastick Rites feared that Church-men if they had been licenc'd to harangue to the people would have influenc'd too much that gross body which was the reason likewayes why in the primitive Church as one of their Historians observes ex formula populo praedicabant tantum antiquitas timebat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They preached only approved Sermons so much did antiquity fear these leaders of the people a practice as is reported lately renewed by the Duke of Russia and this seemeth also to have been the reason why all Liturgies have prick't texts for their Preachers lest if they had been left a freedom in their choice they had chose such as might in the letter have suited best with such seditious Libels as are now obtruded upon the people in lieu of pious homilies at remarkable or festival occasions Yet I think that our late Doctors who can find all Doctrine in any text would easily have eluded that canonick designe If we should parallel the homilies which these renowned Fathers have left as Legacies to posterity with these which our age runs after we would find that the first were pointed lessons of mortification which like Moses rod could draw gushes of tears from the rocky hearts of the most obdured sinners whereas many of these last are but State-gazets wherein the people are informed what are the resolves of the civil Magistrate And whereas their first institution made them Ambassadors of glad-tydings betwixt God and His people they have made themselves Heraulds to denounce warres betwixt God's Vice-gerent and His subjects Thus Peter's successors will oft times like himself rather draw the sword then watch for their Master And since our Saviour hath disarmed them as He did Peter and filled their hands with the keyes these who offend them are sure to get over the head with these I confesse God hath not left His Church without some skilfull Pilots to lead in His servants with security to the harbour of Salvation to whom this Discourse and it's Author shall pay all respects Most of all Churches do like coy maids lace their bodies so strait that they bring on them a consumption and will have the gates of heaven to have been only made for themselves and as this nigardliness hath possest Churches so from that root hath stem'd the churlishness of some private Christians who will allow God but a most inconsiderable number of these whom He hath admitted to make up His visible Church Thus some Pastors will only admit two or three to be guests at the Lord's Table allowing no wedding garment but what is of their own spinning and others with their uncharitable hands blut the names of all their acquaintances out of the Books of Life as if they were keepers of His Registers and Rolls and will only have seats kept in the Church triumphant for three or four Sisters who are so srugal of their devotions as to spare them at home to the end they may be liberal in publick But both these should consider that the new Ierusalem is said to have moe gates then one that Iohn in his Revelation tells us that numberless numbers were seen following the Lamb and that it is not probable that the wise Framer of the world made such a spacious dwelling as heaven to be inhabited by so inconsiderable a number whereas hell in the geography of believed tradition is only the small kernel of this small shell the earth I know that many are called and few chosen and that the way is strait and few enter in at it But we should consider that these chosen are said to be few in respect only of these many who are called Which is most certain for ten Parts of eleven are Pagans or Mahumetans and all are called of that elevnth part many are malitious Hereticks and amongst the residue many are flagitious and publick sinners So that albeit the greatest part of the regular members of the visible Church were sav'd Yet the number would be small in comparison of these others The body of the visible Church must like all other bodies be compounded of contrary elements And albeit I am not of opinion that this body should be suffer'd to swell with humours yet I would not wish that it should be macerated with purgations It 's nails though but excrementitious parts should not be so nearly pair'd as that the body may bleed yet they should be so pared as that christians may not scratch one another They should feed not upon blood but milk and they are unmannerly guests who will not suffer others to sit at their Masters table with them It pleases
he carry it upon one shoulder As to my own private judgment which I submitt to my spiritual tutors I think that seing the conscience of man is the same faculty with the judgment when conversant about spiritual imployments as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which imports a knowledge reflexive upon a man 's own self doth abundantly evidence that therefore as there are judgments of different tempers So there are likewise consciences of different frames and which vary as much amongst themselves as natural constitutions do And therefore as the same Dose would prove noxious to one constitution wherein another would find his health So in one and the same act that resolution may be saving to one conscience which may condemn another for seing God hath kindled a torch in each mans breast by whose flame he may see what path he should beat In which sense it is said Prov. 20. 27. That the understanding of man is the candle of the Lord and can that light mislead And seing man must be answerable according to what it prescrives to him doubtless it is fitter that he should hearken to the reiterated dictates of his conscience than to the resolution of any School-casuist and that for the same reason that it is more rational to obey the Law it self than the wisest Lawier who may either be deceived himself or have a design to deceive others For if God hath endued man with every thing necessary for working out the work of his own Salvation with fear and trembling He hath doubtless bestowed upon him an internal touch-stone by whose test he may discern betwixt good and evil seing to command man to walk uprightly and not to bestow on him eyes to see the road were to command a blind man to walk and to punish him if he went astray And as the composure of man's body would be imperfect and manck if he wanted a palate to discern bewixt the tast of what is wholsome or what is putrid So if the soul of man were not able to know its own duty and by the palate of a natural conscience to difference betwixt lawfull and unlawfull certainly the soul might be thought to be but ill appointed Thus beasts are by an intrinsick principle taught their duty and do accordingly shun or follow what is convenient for them without consulting any thing from without And shall man be less perspicacious or more defective then these As also seing man is oftimes by thousands of occasions removed far from the assistance of Chair or Pulpit-informers and in that his retiredness hath most of these cases to be resolved it were absurd to think that he then wants sufficiency of help for their resolution And it is most observable in Scripture that men are oft check'd for quenching the Spirit but never for not consulting Casuists I know it may be thought that when the soul of man rages at sometime in a feaver of lust revenge or some such sin that then the conscience may rave Yet I dare say that albeit the soul out of an inordinat desire to enjoy its own pleasures may set its invention a work to palliat the sinfulness of what it desires yet by some secret knell the conscience sounds still its reproof And I dare say that never man erred without a check from his conscience nor that ever any sinned after an approbation obtained from his conscience of what he was about and when we assent to these Doctors is it not because our consciences or our judgments which are the same assent to what they inform which evidences that our consciences are more to be believed then they by that rule Propter quod unumquodque est tale c. but to convince us of the folly of our addresses to these Doctors It may and often doth fall out that that may be a sin in me which a Casuist pronounces to be none as if my breast did suggest to me that it were a sin to buy Church-lands if thereafter I did buy them it were doubtless a sin albeit my Doctors following the Canons of their particular Church assured me that the sale of Church-lands were no sin in it self I am confident then that this Casuist divinity hath taken its rise from the desire Church-men had to know the mysterie of each man's breast and to the end nothing of import might be undertaken without consulting their Cell perswading men that in ordine ad spiritualia their consciences and consequently their Salvation may be interested in every civil affair And to confirm this it is most observable that this trade is most used by Iesuits and Innovators who desire to know all intrigues and subvert all States whereas the primitive Church knew no such Divinity neither hath its Doctors left any such Volumns It may be urged that seing the conscience is but a reflex act of the judgment that as the judgment is an unsure guid the conscience cannot pretend to be infallible and that the one as well as the other is tutor'd by the fallacious principles of sense and custom And I my self have seen my Lands-lady in France as much troubled in conscience for giving us flesh to eat in Lent as if she had cast out the flesh of a christian to be devoured by dogs and so Atheisme may attribute to custom these inclinations whereby we are acted-on to believe a Deity and may tell us that the Mahumetans find themselves as much prickt in conscience for transgressing their Prophets canons as we for offending against the moral Law And thus the adoring of a Deity might have at first been brooded in the councilchamber of a States-mans head and yet might have been at that time by the vulgar and thereafter by the wisest pates worshipped with profound respects Yet if we pry narrowly into this conceit we shall find in it something of instinct previous to all forgeries possible For what was it I pray you which encouraged or suggested to these Politicians that such a thing as the Deity might be dissembled to their people for their imposing that cheat presupposed some pre-existing notion of it Or how entred that fancie first in their wild heads Or how could so many contemporary and yet far distant Legislators fall upon the same thoughts especialy it being so remote from sense and for framing of which idea their experience could never furnish a pattern Conscience then must be something else then the fumes of melancholy or capricio's of fancie for else roaring Gallants who are little troubled or can easily conquer all other fancies would not be so haunted by these pricking pangs which if they were not infallibly divine behooved to be meerly ridiculous and to want all support from reason or experience There is another fyle of cases of conscience which is a Cadet of that same family and these are such cases as were the brood of these late times which like Infects and unclean creatures may be said generari ex putri materiâ an instance whereof was
not discovered the mystery to us By which things another thing is meant For these two mothers are the two Testaments the one which is Agar of mount Sinai which gendereth into bondage c. I might here relate many excellent allusions to prove this but I shall satisfie my self with one which I did read in one Doctor Everâ—t who preaching upon Ioshua 15. 16. Then Caleb said he who smiteth Kirjath-sepher and taketh it even to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife And Othniel took it c. saith that Caleb signifies a good heart Kirjath-sepher the city of the Letter Achsah the Vision Othniel God's opportunity And so the mystical sense runs a good heart saith that whoever will take in and smite as Moses did the rock the Letter of the word shall have the vision which lurks under it discovered and given to him And God's own time is the only mean for accomplishing this As also it is most remarkable that that City which was called Cirjath-sepher before it was taken in or the city of the Letter was after it was conquered called Debiâ— which signifies an oracle so that the Word or Letter is no oracle till it be once as it were taken in and overcome Since the reading of which Sermon I believe that one may profit more by an hebrew Lexicon then by a thousand English Lectures These who detract from Scripture by attributing the production of miracles to natural causes do not much disparage the power of God but though against their depraved intention cry rather up his omnipotency For certainly if these miracles were produced by secondary causes then doubtless that productive faculty was bestowed upon them by the Almighty and if he can make the creatures produce such strange effects much more is he able to effectuate them himself as it is more difficult for a great Master to form curious and admirable Characters when he leads a schollars hand then when he writes them with his own for such help may be called resisting assistance I cannot likewise but blame many of our Preachers who rather break then open holy Texts and rather make new meanings suiting with their private designes then tell the meaning of the Spirit Who would not have laugh'd to hear a Presbyterian observe from the first chapter of Genesis first verse that whilst Moses relates what God made he speaks nothing of Bishops by which it was evident said Don Quixot's Chaplain that Bishops were not of divine Institution a conceit as ridiculous as that of a Priest who hearing Maria spoken of for to signifie Seas did brag that he had found the Virgine Mary named in the old Testament Albeit I think preaching no part of divine Worship hearing being no adoration yet love I to go to Church were it but to see a multitude met together to confess that there is a God But when I go to hear I care not whom knowing that Christ elected Fisher-men to preach down infidelity when it was in the â—uff of it's pride and that Paul the most signal Trophe of our christian Faith was sent for confirmation not to Peter or Iames at Ierusalem but to Ananias one of the meanest amongst the Disciples And seing our Salvation by preaching is a miracle it is still so much the greater by how much weaker the instruments are When the Pulpit was a mount Sinai from which the Law was thundered or a mount of O lives whereon our Saviour's glorious transformation was to be seen then were Sermons to be honoured but since it is become a mount Calvar whereon our blessed Saviour suffers daily by scandalous railings Sermons are now become unfavoury for the most part I hate to see that divine place made either a Bar whereat secular quarrels are with passion pleaded or a Stage whereon revenge is by Satyres satisfied or a School-chair from which un-intelligible questions are mysteriously debated but amongst all these innovations introduced by our infant Divines I hate none more then that of giving reasons for proving the Doctrine which being Scripture it self can be proven by nothing that is more certain As for instance when the Doctrine is that God loved us freely how can this be proven more convincingly then thus my Text sayes it and that is idem pâ—r idem a most unlogical kind of probation When I then go to Church I should love to spend my time in praises and prayers which as they are the only parts of adoration so are they the natural imployments of the Church either Militant or Triumphant Yet it displeases me to hear our young Pulpitires skrich and cry like Baal's Priests as if God were no nearer them then the visible Heavens It honours much our imployment that God Almighty was the first and great Law-giver and that our blessed Saviour stiles himself our Advocat And it is an amazing wonder that we are tyed only by ten Laws whereof seven were enacted doubtless for our advantage and respect more immediatly the security of the creature then the honour of the Creator and are such restraints as men behoved to have laid upon one another and which nature layes upon us all And albeit I laugh at the jewish Cabala which sayes that the moral Law was written two thousand years before Moses in black letters at the back of a clear burning fire Yet can I not approve Tertullian's wit who endeavours to find all these ten in the prohibition made to Adam There are indeed some sins which scarce a consequence can bring within the verge of these Commandments As for instance Drunkenness Yet these are such as are so destructive to our nature that there needs no Law be made against them So that the Priest hit wittily to whom that sin being confess'd enjoyned as an Pennance their being drunk a second time which makes me conclude that if Drunkenness were to be ranged under any of these Laws it would fal most naturally under that Thou shalt not kill Albeit the fourth Commandment seems to respect only the honour of God and that the creature seems to be no wayes bettered by it Yet our more serious observation will discover that all be-labouring creatures as it were expect an ease the seventh day more then any other Whether it be that nature is by custom framed to that expectation I cannot tell But we see that God choic'd that number to be the year of jubile amongst his own people and that it is the period of all the several consistencies in our life infancie pubertie c. And for this reason Physicians observe that the child born in the seventh moneth is stronger then that which is born in the eight because in the seventh it is come to a knot by passing whereof in the eight it is in a state of imperfection But what the mystery of this holy Climaterick is I refer till we come to that Sabbath of rest whereat we ordinarly arrive after seven times nine years hath snowed upon us We may think that
by that excellent passage Prov. 20. 27 where it is said that the understanding of man is the candle of the Lord. Our soul is God's Image and none can draw that Image but Himself we are the stamp of His divine nature and so can only be formed by Himself who is the glorious Seal From this divine principle that man's soul is made after God's Image I am almost induced to believe that prophesie is no miraculous gift bestowed upon the soul at extraordinary occasions only but is a natural though the highest perfection of our humane nature For if it be natural for the stamp to have impress'd upon it all the traits that dwell upon the face of the Seal then it must be natural to the soul which is God's impressa to have a faculty of foreseeing since that is one of God's excellencies Albeit I confess that that Stamp is here infinitly be-dimm'd and worn off as also we know by experience that men upon death bed when the soul begins being detached by sickness from the bodies slavery to act like it self do foresee and foretell many remote and improbable events and for the same reason do I think predictions by dreams not to be extraordinary revelations but rather the products natural of a rational soul. And if sagacious men can be so sharp-sighted in this state of glimmering as to foresee many events which fall out why may we not say that man if he were rehabilitat in the former state of pure nature might without any extraordinary assistance foresee and prophesie For there is not such a distance betwixt that foresight and prophesie as is betwixt the two states of innocency and corruption according to the received notion which men have settled to themselves of that primitive state of innocency From the same principle may it likewayes be deduced that natural reason cannot but be an excellent mean for knowing as far as is possiible the glorious nature of God Almighty He hath doubtless lighted this candle that we might by it see Himself and how can we better know the Seal then by looking upon it's impression And if Religion and it's mysteries cannot be comprehended by reason I confess it is a pretty jest to hear such frequent reasonings amongst Church-men in matters of Religion And albeit faith and reason be look'd upon as Iacob and Esau whereof the younger only hath the blessings and are by Divines placed at the two opposit points of the Diameter yet upon an unbyassed inquiry it will appear that faith is but sublimated reason calcin'd by that divine chymical fire of Baptisme and that the soul of man hath lurking in it all these vertues and faculties which we call Theological such as faith hope and repentance for else David would not have prayed Enlighten Lord my eyes that I may see the wonders of thy Law but rather Lord bestow new eyes upon me Neither could the opening of Lidea's heart have been sufficient for her conversion if these pre-existing qualities had not been treasur'd up there formerly So that it would appear that these holy flames lurk under the ashes of corruption untill God by the breath of His Spirit and that wind which bloweth where it listeth sweep them off And that God having once made man perfect in the first Creation doth not in His regeneration super-add any new faculty for else the soul had not at first been perfect but only removes all obstructing impediments I am alwayes ashamed when I hear reason call'd the step-mother of faith and proclaimed rebel against God Almighty and such declared traitors as dare harbour it or appear in it's defence These are such fools as they who break their Prospects because they bring not home to their sight the remotest objects and are as injust as Iacob had been if he had divorc'd from Leah because she was tender-eyed whereas we should not put out the eyes of our understanding but should beg from God the eye-salve of His Spirit for their illumination Nor should we dash the Prospect of our reason against the rockie walls of dispair but should rather wash it's glasses with the tears of unfeigned repentance Ever since faith and reason have been by Divines set by the ears the brutish multitude conclude these who are most reasonable to be least religious and the greatest spirits to be least spiritual a conceit most inconsistent with that divine parable wherein these who received the many talents improved them to the best advantage whilst he who had but one laid it up in a napkin And it is most improbable that God would choose low shrubs and not tall Cedars for the building of His glorious Temple And it is remarkable that God in the old Law refused to accept the first born of an asse in sacrifice but not of any other creature And some who were content to be call'd Atheists providing they were thought Wits did take advantage in this of the Rables ignorance and authorized by their devilish invention what was at first but a mistake and this unridles to us that mystery why the greatest Wits are most frequently the greatest Atheists When I consider how the Angels who have no bodies sinn'd before man and that brutes who are all body sin not at all but follow the pure dictates of nature I am induced to believe that the body is rather injustly bamed for being then that really it is the occasion of sin and probably the witty soul hath in this cunningly laid over upon it's fellow that where with it self is only to be charged What influence can flesh or blood have upon that which is immaterial no more sure then the case hath upon the Watch or the heavens upon it's burgessing Angels And see we not that when the soul hath bid the body adieu it remains a carcasse fit nor able for nothing I believe that the body being a clog to it mâ—y slow it's pursute after spiritual obiects and that it may occasion indirectly some sins of omission For we see palpably that eating and drinking dulls our devotions but I can never understand how such dumb Orators as flesh and blood can perswade the soul to commit the least sin And thus albeit our Saviour sayes that flesh and blood did not teach Peter to give him his true Epithets neither indeed could it Yet our Saviour imputes not any actual sin to these pithless causes And seing our first sin hath occasioned all our after sinning certainly that which occasioned our first sin was the main source of sinning and this was doubtless the soul for our first sin being an immoderat desire of knowledge was the effect and product of our spirit because it was a spiritual sin whereas if it had been gluttony lust or such like which seems corporeal the body had been more to have been blamed for it And in this contest I am of opinion that the soul wins the cause because it is the best Orator What was the occasion of the first ill