amazed at the little value of it among men who profess to believe such or like representations of it and will oblige himself to a far higher Estimation of it and care for it there being no other reason to be rendred why so great and worthy a Part or to speak more properly a Mans True self should be neglected but what is to be imputed to extreme madness such as a mans Throwing himself into Seas or Flames or Starving himself contrary to all Laws of Self-preservation would be except that this Soul flies so much from it self as it judges by sense and is so hidden in the body by acting so much not only by it but for it that it appears wholly Body And men being unwilling to put themselves upon severe Reason to be assured of it and very incredulous of Divine Revelation that else gives a more easie and sudden Certainty concerning it they will not believe it is any thing but Body and so with Soul deny Soul preferring Body only because the Soul is most sensible and visible as it acts and inspires that and loves and is pleased with it self most as so active and therefore wilfully consents to its own Eclipse by Body To remove therefore this prejudice I begin with the first part of the Description That the Soul is Invisible and so to discourse it that it may appear that Invisible put into the Souls Character is so far from a derogation to the Soul that it is a great Advancement to its Nature For the most Excellent order and state of Beings is of Beings Invisible Beings not seen with the Eye nor felt with the Hand nor approached to by Sense Beings whose operations give assurance to Reason and Faith they are and of what degree of Efficacy they are an Efficacy far surpassing all visible Agents even to Infinite of which even Sense may and must be witness in multitude of Effects though the Causes themselves and the manner of their working be indiscernible by Sight or Sense And now I am speaking of Things Invisible in contra-distinction to things of Sight and Sense I would use this occasion to make the way fairer to all that may be after said by taking an account of the way by which Sense comes to its cognizance of Things and where it stops and can go no further and how Reason and Faith proceed still and go infinitely beyond By Sense I understand that Power of Soul that moves towards and takes in the perception of Things by the due motion of Bodily Organs fitted thereto the objects of which are Bodily and Material also and though it be the Soul that acts by these Organs and so is the true original and last resort of Sense which appears in that though Body or any part of it be notoriously impressed by Matter yet if the Soul be busie and much taken up elsewhere no Sense follows at least till the Soul is more at leisure and can give attendance to Body or that part of it so imprinted Notwithstanding this yet because the Action spoken of is immediately performed by matter upon matter and Bodily Nature meets in both the knock of the one against the other is so forcible and with such remark to the Soul that dwells within and cannot but take notice as gives us greatest confidence and assurance in the result and nothing seems more Certain and Undenyable than things so attested to us who are so far sunk down into Bodily Nature the Soul as I have already intimated being most satisfied in its own Acts by and upon Body Now Sight is comprehensive of all Sense because Sense turns it self as much as it can to every object by Sight being the most Excellent of Senses and the other Senses quicken and engage Sight as much as may be so that Invisible Beings and Beings unaccountable to Sense are much of the same avail in signification as to what concerns this Case In summ then Things of a Bodily Grossness are those only that fall within the line of Senses Communication and are termed Visible But Reason is a Power and operation beyond Sense it self being the stream of a Pure and Immaterial Fountain it winds it self in where matter that Sense acts by cannot enter and through the outward Rind or Matter it passes into what lies within where Matter hath neither made nor received any Impression yet there it divines by its own proper Sentiments making use and advantage and receiving Service from Sense so far as it is able to go it leaves it where it can go no farther and when it hath searched beyond it it can again compare the fruits of that search with sensible and experimental Evidences and so work by Sense and with it and also above it and beyond it yea and even without it Faith yet far exeeds Reason alone by receiving Oracles from the Highest Reason and Understanding God himself whose infinity of Knowledge leaving our Span of Knowledge at unmeasurable distances behind it gives truest and fullest accounts of all Things and by believing what he reveals we receive the Benefit of his All Comprehending Knowledge This general Premisal being given I come to argue the thing it self That Invisible Beings are not the less because they are Invisible but they are upon true Inquiry found to be the Greatest of Beings and therefore the Greater because they are Invisible Argum. 1 There are many and Great Effects that the Senses every day converse with and because they so easily perceive them and are so well acquainted with them we call them Senses or powers of Perception and yet by the utmost Search and Inquiry Reason can put them upon it cannot find out by them Causes potent enough for these Effects When we survey the whole World and all the Creatures in it and their so Lively and Vigorous and yet so excellently govern'd Motions we are Judges of the Things themselves by Sense and they cannot be denied but Sense can offer no Cause high enough for these effects we must needs therefore conclude by the Suffrage of Reason There is some Cause unseen that is the spring of All. For the Determinations of Reason are that till we come to the first Cause every Thing must have a Cause and that the Cause must be superior to the Effect in that thing wherein it is the Cause of it when therefore there is an Effect to which no seen Cause is able and sufficient there must be some unseen Cause that does produce it If a man should hear from a Tree or Beast the voice of Words and Humane Discourse how readily would he Conceive some higher original of that Speech and those Words than that Beast or Tree If then we observe such a World and Government of it as must needs proceed from a Counsel and Reason a Prudence and Understanding arm'd with a power and unbounded puissance and we see none high enough thereunto we cannot but conclude There must be still some Cause as high as
to highest and truest Beings is inconsiderable though it seem great to us especially those gross and dull ones we converse in or are to converse with and it is in greatest indulgence to us that they stoop down into them as wise men sometimes comply a little while with the fansies and humours of children 4. Their superiority to visible Beings in that they form their appearances with some extraordinaries or do things so great in them as convince them to be of a higher order Now for the assurance of these appearances I especially rest upon the Histories hereof in the Scripture those sensible evidences of the Divine Presence the appearances of the good Angels recorded in it which are so many and so plain as to make up a full proof of invisible Beings and not so much as with any likelihood of truth to be eluded by those who profess to believe those sacred Records The sallies of evil Angels upon the world and the possessions they took of the bodies of men doing things in them beyond the general Laws of Body related also to us in Scripture may be reduced hereunto As additional proof hereof we may entertain those memories of such appearances in common story that are writ with greatest judgment sobriety and arguments of veracity Now all this is applicable to the Souls of men thus far first as it gives a common proof there are Invisible Beings of which order we affirm the Soul to be and secondly seeing the Soul was made in the Image of God and in an allyance with Angels it hath a substantial greatness like them lastly it must as they be independent it self upon matter and have a force much above it though it be for a time subjugated to the laws of a Body and so cannot shew it self in its own nature till it be in a separated state or joined to a Body more suited to its operations If any should say why are not these appearances more frequent and usual The answer is That were altogether unsuitable to the state and majesty of these invisible Beings which like that of the Eastern Princes stands much in retirement and as they were rarely seen and not but upon great occasions when they had weighty designs to manage or when it had been called into question whether they were alive or not because not seen for some space of time Thus invisible Beings good and holy have in visible shapes though rarely visited the sublunary world and for great ends of service to God and also that they might thereby refute atheistick and unbelieving conceipts and give assurance of themselves Unholy spirits chained up by Divine Power appear but at command so often and no oftner than God pleases for it may be supposed the Devil would not thus appear but upon necessity and constraint laid upon him by Divine Providence because his Kingdom suffers so much by the knowledge of Beings removed from sense yet when he must appear it is most agreeable to so insolent a Spirit to do it to excess and with greatest troublesomness if not restrained by God But God for the general in this riper Age of the world and under the settled light of the Gospel teaches mankind by rational and intellectual evidences that are so easily to be drawn into observation by us and by those clear and spiritual documents given us in his Word especially since such a testimony as hath been granted to men of heavenly and invisible powers in a humane body acting with a virtue so divine and miraculous and so apparent to sense For what could be greater than the whole History of the Life and Death the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ our Lord to all that are indeed Christians an invisible power transacting so lively before sense all those so high demonstrations of it self and then framing and propagating a Doctrine every way agreeable to it self and spreading it through the whole world If notwithstanding all this the man of Sense will not apprehend nor accept any proof of such Beings except our Senses were daily Spectators of them he very ridiculously exacts the tryal of those things by Sense which are plainly affirmed to be out of the compass of Sense and all its reach he demands to see and touch that which cannot be seen or felt Now it is certain that which is out of the sphere of any faculty whatsoever cannot be tryed and judged by that faculty any more than the eye can judge of sounds or the ear of colours or light be heard or an excellent noise of musick be seen Sense ought not to be called to sit in judgment upon things that are above it as finite knowledge cannot measure the possibilities of omnipotency Ants may as well be consulted with whether a Palace may be built over their heap or Beasts decide whether there be any reflexes of Reason as Sense be put to judge those things that are only to be discerned by Reason or to measure by an unequal Reason what Faith which is Reason advanced by Revelation can alone give us an account of How liberal an allowance is it to Sense that there is in so many particulars as we have already taken notice of a foundation laid in it for Reason and Faith to ground their further search and assurances upon And as for the great perverseness of such men that would make Sense usurp higher and their presumptions against invisible Beings in the confidence of that the sager consents of wise learned and pious men and the general inclination the universality of mankind have discovered to a belief of such Beings make those presumptions appear no other than a diffidence or distrust in every thing but Sense and is no more considerable than a Scepticks suspicion of other things most assured to other men by sense it self or an ignorant mans difficulty to believe the Sun and Stars any bigger than they seem to be From this Discourse of Invisible Beings Inference very justly arises an expostulation with our selves for our irreligious brutishness and sensuality that we do not more mind these invisible natures and consider God our Souls the eternal state our neglect chiefly arising because they are not seen although we have other great assurances of them As Beasts we are only affected with what strikes our Sense But let us observe every thing the more invisible it is that indeed of the greater force and efficacy it is The Spirits of things lye hid and concealed from the eye till they issue out into operation There are some very few things quick upon the Sense that are also full of power as light fire a flash of lightning and we use by these to express spiritual Beings because they are of greatest separation from dull Body and ordinary gross matter and too mighty for Sense to be too free with But let us consider how worthy these Invisible things are of our thoughts by this plain instance If any of those Beings should make an appearance
THE Great Soul OF MAN OR The Soul in its likeness to God its Nature Operations and everlasting State DISCOURSED By Tho. Beverley LONDON Printed for William Grantham at the Black Bear in S. Pauls Church-yard 1675. THE PREFACE TO THE READER THE Discourse of a Soul may be censured a Nicety by some who think all expence of Time and Pains for the refining Mens Intellectuals in Religious Matters a waste and prodigality either from sloth and stupidity which having seised upon them they lay themselves down upon the first Rudiments of the Doctrine of Christ and resolving themselves to stick there are angry with all that endeavour to go on to Perfection as making too much ado and aspiring to be over-wise not remembring the severe reproof upon those who notwithstanding their standing in the Profession of Christianity are still such as have need of Milk and not of Heb. 5. 12 13 14. strong Meat through the not exercising their senses to discern betwixt Good and Evil. Or else in others it arises from the little love and regard they bear to Religion and a secret favour for Atheism upon which they design to keep all Divine Things under as gross and course Representations as may be that so they may take advantage against them as if they were of the same Leaven with Mahometane or Popish Fictions To this purpose they are carried with great vehemency against the whole nature of Spirit and particularly against the Soul of man as a distinct Being from the Body well knowing the Doctrine of a Future State is both ascertained and ennobled from a clear understanding and assurance of such a Spirit whereas on the other side by wrapping up all in Body that Future State becomes Bodily and Material also and so the Happiness or Misery of it may be blown off as pleasant Tales or frightful Stories for the Body so plainly mouldring into Dust and Rottenness it easily becomes a matter of greatest incertainty whether ever it shall rise again or not Besides how doth it derogate from the Glory and Certainty of the Divine Being when for the denying the spirituality of Mans Soul all things are plunged down into the thick Matter and the Nature of Spirit deemed an aiery and phantastick or downright an incompossible Notion so that hereby all foundations are destroyed But now if the Soul of Man be as particularly as may be understood and reasoned into in its Faculties and Operations if its immortality and continuing life and motion after it leaves the Body be clearly asserted and upon as great moments of Argument as can be desired be demonstrated if its sentiments of Good and Evil its apprehensions of a Supreme Justice be so illustrated that they may be even felt and perceived within us so that they can be no more denyed than the several impressions made upon the Body if what the Scripture in great condescention vests under such Symbols as that it may strike common Imagination and alarm the most vulgar apprehension be by a Compare of Scripture with it self and the use of manly Reason sublimated to its true spiritual intention there will arise from all this a daily improvement of Divine Knowledge and Vnderstanding a substantial sense and assurance of the Supreme Spirit and his Being liveliest fore-thoughts strongest assurances of a Future State and consequently the most powerful engagements to lay hold upon Eternal life and to fly from the wrath that is to come which are those two immense Globes of the Future State or the World to come To which ends this following Discourse is endeavoured and that it may be blessed by God with success is the Prayer of T. BEVERLEY The omission of distributing this Treatise into several Chapters is supplyed by the following Table The HEADS of this TREATISE THE Introduction pag. 1 Of Invisible Beings and the proof of them 11 Of the Soul a Spirit distinct from the Body 41 Of the Nature of a Spirit precisely considered 76 Of the Souls Activity and Self-Motion 81 Of the Souls Immortality 84 Of the Souls Self-communication and so being an Vnderstanding 96 Of the Souls likeness to God in its Puissance 115 Of Eternity and the Souls participation of it 156 Of the Soul considered distinctly in its Intellectual Powers 184 Of the Soul considered in the Activity of its Powers 219 Of the Soul of Man the true seat of Happiness or Misery present and everlasting 235 Practical Conclusions arising from the whole Discourse 296 A Brief Inference concerning the Resurrection 308 ERRATA PAge 13. line 26. read Rind of Matter p. 57. l. 10. after Beasts read in regard of their Souls l. 12. for thus read that l. 16. for returning read returns p. 229. l. 6. for contracting read contrasting p. 250. l. 7. blot yet p. 225. l. 26. read Cariere p. 275. l. 9. for another read others THE Great Soul OF MAN Job 32. 8. There is a Spirit in Man and the Inspiration or Breathing of the Almighty giveth them Understanding IT is a great Subject The Soul of Man and the whole estate of it Now and for Ever of which we have so dark and confused apprehensions that we can express very little clearly Darkness of Conception issues it self into Darkness of Expression For the forming of the apprehensions of the Mind the Dictates and Results of our Reason into clear and eloquent expression fit to instruct and perswade is a gift of the Divine Wisdom and Goodness in appendage to our Reason and it much follows the state and degree of our Reason Christ the wisdom of God spake as never man spake The Tongue of Angels excels even as the Vnderstanding of Angels Adam understanding the natures of the Creatures and fully comprehending them gave them fit names and such as carried the Images and very presences of things imprinted upon them as some sounds now create the words that signifie them Since so great a ruine of our natures in him as our Reason is much declined and degraded so is also our Eloquence For though words because they are known agreed upon to signifie such and such things call the mind to the consideration of those things and the more advantagiously they are put together the more they prevail yet those words and our contexture of them are as much beneath the primitive Eloquence as the Understandings of men now fall below the wisdom of Innocency Nevertheless still according to the Readvancement of the Understanding so the Faculty of Discourse rises also Solomon in his Wisdom and clear Understanding spoke with Grandeur of whole Nature from the Cedar in Lebanon down to the Hyssope that grows upon the Wall and of all Piety and Morality in words of greatest acceptance and recommendation And proportionable have been the Discourses and Writings of the Men of Great Name for Learning and Knowledge in every Age. But in nothing is the Faculty of Discourse more maim'd and imperfect than in Things of a Nature spiritual and retired from Body
are here in the World in this State of our Souls lies our true Greatness and Worth Some that seem so inconsiderable that no Man looks after them yet being greatly Holy greatly favoured of God Great Spirits all Heavenly the world Hebr. 11. 37 38. is not worthy of them though they wander up and down on montains in sheep-skins and goat-skins and be hid in dens and caves of the earth Others Great in the World and being also truly Good the Back-parts of their Greatness are onely seen Yea even in Bad Men how small or great soever they are in the World yet that they pertain to an Everlasting Condition that they have Immortal Souls this makes them of greatest consideration To convert them to God is therefore a great and excellent Work To save a Soul from death how great is the Service and how great is the Reward They that do it shall shine as the Stars in the Firmament How great a Regard to the meanest or worst of Men should it draw that they pertain to an Eternal Judgment The Consideration of the Soul as a Being Invisible and a Spirit having invited an often mention of its Eternal or Unchangeable Condition to which this present State is subordinate and disembogues it self into it as the Rivers do into the Ocean I come in the next place to make a modest Research into the Nature of Eternity and the Souls Relation to it But in speaking of Eternity I know he alone is able to declare it who inhabits Isa 57. 15. it God himself or the Angels those Blessed Spirits who were early assum'd into larger Participations of it Yet seeing we also are design'd to the same Participations it concerns us as far as we can to understand the Wonder of it Eternity then in its first and highest Sense is not any thing distinct from God but his stable unchangeable Being from everlasting to everlasting There is no other Eternity than this properly and strictly taken from which is cast upon the Mind that contemplates a Being so surrounded with it self and its own invariable Perfection a Notion of Everlasting Duration and that which is comprehended by it because by reason of the narrowness of our Understanding it is conceiv'd in a distinction from the Divine Being it self we in a secondary Sense call Eternity But even as what we term Vbiquity is that which results to us from the Notion or Apprehension of God the Immense Being filling all so much as even Imaginary Space while he himself is the onely true Vbiquity even so Eternity is the Infiniteness of God's Being filling all Imaginary Duration and so filling it that the Divine Being it self is that very Eternity of which Everlasting Duration is but the Shadow that falls from it as Unbounded Space does from his Omnipresence God then the Supreme Eternal or rather Eternity is a Being that must always have been and ever must be It is most impossible to conceive he should ever not have been or ever not be And he is a Being that never could and can never be otherwise than he is So that there are no Marks of Distinction that could ever be taken from his Being or from the State and Condition of his Being He is He was He is to come are all Rev. 1. 8. united into one Eternal Point or Period in him and thus express'd I Exo. 3. 14. A M A Being without any variation Jam. 1. 17. or shadow of turning A thousand years to him are but 2 Pet. 3. 8. as yesterday when it is past and one day as a thousand years And if it had been said Ten thousand millions of Years are but as a Minute when it is past it had been all one in this Case for there is no New Thing to him or in him but all is a Just now For his Being is the most solid substantial Being that cannot possibly submit to any Alteration What is Infinitely Perfect can admit no Change This is the One Just Even Smooth Eternity And understanding God thus we understand Eternity And though it be no where but in himself and where he communicates the Likeness of it yet Eternity in a secondary Sense becomes a distinct Notion or Sense of a Mode of Being in our Minds and it is a changeless Duration of any Being in the self-same State for if there be not Duration there must be Change and if there be Change it is not a Duration on all sides for then there could be no Change Now this Notion of Eternity could never have come into our Minds if it had not been planted there by his Hand who dwells in it on purpose that we might know himself by it nor had there been a substantial Rest for such a Conception if his Being had not given it All else is but Imaginary Duration Eternity then in this our apprehension of it is one great smooth Sea without any Curl of Change or as a vast unmeasurable Plain wherein the Eye hath no bound nor so much as Note of Distinction no Rise no Fall like a great Mountain that all Generations have pass'd and repass'd one hath gone another come and that hath slidden away too but the Mountain hath stood firm It is like a Rock that hath stood innumerable Ages without so much as scaling about which the huge Waters have continually wav'd and roll'd themselves and dash'd asunder by which smaller Vessels have pass'd to and again gallant Ships and Potent Armadaes have sail'd by and sunk or moulder'd away this in the mean time without any variation It is like an Hour spent in highest Pleasure no Moment no Minute of which is so much as felt It is like a deep Contemplation in which the Mind is so lost so retir'd from Body that it reckons not any Motion it keeps no account of Time for it nor observes whether any Time pass'd It is like an undefinable Point of Just now In the next place to give the greater Light to Eternity let us state the Nature of Time And Time to speak substantially of it is nothing but the Coming of a Thing or a World of Things into Being that were not in Being before For this makes a new Note in what we conceive as Duration And therefore when the World was made the Scripture says In the Beginning There was then a new Date because there was something then that had not been before In Whole Eternity there was nothing New All was alike One Now these things coming in by the way of Change viz. the exchange of the State of Nothing for the State of Existency are also every Moment subject to change and in a continual hover up and down and while all these things are performing their Motion in their Changes and Vicissitudes the Mind of Man considering them under such a Mode or Circumstance of their Being there arises a Notion or Representation of that whole Space which putting all together we call Time in the largest sense
is the Favour of God in Christ his Frown Wrath and Rebukes are the most fundamental reason of Misery His Favour and reconciled Face on one side his Wrath for sin on the other We are not able yet to understand the absolute dependence of the Soul hereupon because the present course of Providence allows men in their seeming subsistencies upon the Comfort they receive from the Creatures of this World God himself in the mean time retiring from their Observation But this is certain the smiles of God unexpressibly enliven encourage and bear up the Soul his Rebukes daunt deject and amaze it However these are now for the most part closely conveyed under the appearances of the Creatures for us or against us yet God is indeed under them but it is much more plain and manifest in the more immediate angry or gracious touches of God upon the Conscience and will be far more evident in the state of the World to come His loving kindness is better than life and when he with rebukes corrects Man for iniquity he maketh his beauty to consume away like a moth whatsoever seems most flourishing being so blasted withers immediately All the horrours we have heard or read of have received their sting from this Wrath and all Consolations from his Favour for in his Favour is life the Eyes of all Creatures are upon God Every created Thing in its proper way turns its Eye upon the Creator much more the Soul the Spirit immortal turns upon God the Father of Spirits that it may live It is not consistent with the Glory of God that he should allow any Thing to be Happiness but Himself and his Favour Even all the inward Rectitude of Mind cannot be this Happiness immediately For as if there were a Goodness of which Gods Nature were not the Rule and Measure and that Will which always stands just with that Nature that would be above God and so God would not be the Supreme Righteousness that is Not God So if there were any implanted Happiness in any Creature and that it needed not God as to the Essence of its Happiness God would not be God to it or if its happiness were in any Thing out of it self and not in God that would be a God to it This Consideration presses to this That Happiness is in the Light of Gods Countenance shining out upon the Rational Soul There is nothing necessary as the Fountain of Happiness but God nothing can supply his place In thy presence is fulness of Joy at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore with thee is the Fountain of Life In thy Light shall we see Light but if thou hidest thy Face we are troubled if banished and driven from thy everlasting presence we are for ever miserable for whom can we have in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth besides thee 2. Subordinately to this there can be no peace but in the Heart made truly and inwardly Good besides all storms from without there is an estuation a tide from corruption within full of trouble and vexation Every sin loved and delighted in is a secret hollow where an Earthquake is bred it is a wound that secretly disquiets it All impure Affections Passions of Dishonour in the Soul make it like the troubled Sea that cannot rest Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost make their repose in Righteousness The effect of Righteousness is quietness and assurance Isa 32. 17. for Ever Even as the Favour of God never embraces any but a holy Soul so hath he ordained that the Evil and corrupt Heart should be in it self unpeaceful and full of turmoil within both in regard of the foulness and deformity very horrible to the Thoughts whenever understood as also in regard of the great distraction and horrible convulsion the mind is forced into when it comes to any thing of true Sense 3. The actuation or gracious motion of the Favour of God towards the Soul and the actuation of his Holy Spirit upon the Soul made inwardly Holy and Good are highly necessary for the making the Spirit of a Man truly sound and vigorous in encountring Evil happy and comfortable in it self for else the Soul may be becalmed if these Motions of Grace from God lye still and not able to bear up it self And therefore Men sincerely good are often in great discomposures when God withdraws himself from them In the cloudings of his Face they are troubled in retreats of his Grace not exciting them they languish and cannot stir up themselves to take hold of him and then their sinful Calm ends in trouble On the other side the reasons of horrour and amazement are not seen by senseless and secure Men till Conscience enlightened discovers them and the flamings of Divine Displeasure make them boil up These then are the true substantial solid and natural Reasons of Happiness or Misery rejoycing or tribulation to the Soul and the Soul is plainly the Sense of them And as for the lesser and smaller interests of this present World and the life of it the observation of these two following Principles will determine and state the case of the soul in relation to them and so that it will further appear that all the touches of Good and Evil upon Man are originally and principally in his Soul 1. The first is That if God is pleased to let out his Favour in any of these outward Things and to moderate the desires and motions of the Soul so that there is a proportion between those motions and desires and the condition in which a Man is there is nothing further of necessity to him he is well enough But whenever the desires run out beyond the measures and proportions of his Condition it is with great disquiet and incredible restlesness of Mind though the thing beyond what he has be but small in it self and nothing compared with what is enjoyed When Haman had that abundance of Esth 5. 13. Glory yet his desires running out to a very little thing beyond what he had a very nothing to it the obeisance of poor Mordecai yet it made a nothing of all he had for it all availed him nothing 2. When the goodness of God is pleased to restrain outward Evils in fit degrees and to preserve the mind from ingaging it self by too close reflexions upon any disadvantage or to bend it so close upon better considerations to lessen and make tolerable that disadvantage the Spirit of a Man thus guarded will bear any infirmity but when the Spirit is let out to a continual pondering and aggravating to it self a very small Counter-accident and the Reasons that should abate it are hidden and carryed off from it a very little thing becomes unappeasably vexatious and the Spirit so wounded is it self its own insupportable burden Who can when God gives a sting to such a Cross bear it And when the Spirit of a Man runs forcibly upon it that Man may turn back and
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
Rays about it that have broken out from it self In its Creation in its Native Splendour to allude to that of the Prophet It was an anointed Cherub upon Ezek. 28. 13 14. the Holy Mountain of God it walk'd up and down in the midst of the Stones of Fire and every Precious Stone was its Ornament It was of an Angelical Brightness near to God and Divine Glories and all the Excellencies of Understanding were its proper Lustre and in Eternity it will again rend all its Clouds and shine without interruption and For Ever The Soul of Man is a Light begotten of the Father of Lights and the James 1. 17. Heb. 12. 9. Father of Spirits Lights and Spirits explain one another for Rational and Intellectual Spirits and their Intellectual Accomplishments are all Lights The Increated and All-creating Spirit is the Father of them with whose perfect Light there is no variation nor shadow of turning He is Light as well in that as he is All-understanding as All-pure and in him is 1 John 1. 5. no Darkness at all either of Ignorance or Unrighteousness The Son of God is The Light To the All-knowing Spirit the Light shineth John 1. 7 8. Psal 139. 12. as the Day The Darkness and the Light are both alike to him because Himself is All Light The Angels are Seraphims shining and burning Lights He maketh his Angels Spirits his Ministers a Flame of Fire The Life of the Souls of Men that is their Life of Reason is Light lighted from the Son of God for his Life communicating it self is the Light of Men He is that True Light John 1. 9. that inlightneth every Man that cometh into the World Light then being chosen by the Divine Wisdom as the most easie and familiar Conveyance of the Nature and Excellency of Spirits in general as they are Intellects and particularly of Mans Soul as it is an Understanding Let us consider the principal Sense and Intention avoiding the Notices of lower and collateral Similitude between Light and the Soul of Man That which will best conduct us to our main purpose is the Description the Apostle gives us of Light That it makes manifest For whatever says Ephes 5. 13. he makes manifest is Light To which our own Experience fully agrees for we can make no Discovery nor Judgment of Things but by Light that expounds all things to us and is the first and plainest Commentary upon Nature When we therefore say Man's Soul is a great Light reflected upon it self we speak this Sense The Understanding of Man manifests and lays open and makes known within the Soul and within it self for it self is the Soul whatsoever is known to the Soul or the understanding of man is that which discovers and discloses to it self all that is known to it for thus our Saviour says The light of the body is the Eye because it receives the light and sees by it so the Understanding is the Eye of the Soul and further it is its own light so that it is its own Eye and its own Light but the manner and way how this is to be understood and by which the Understanding discharges this great Function is of further enquiry There can be no doubt of the thing it self for besides the great proofs the Soul of man hath given hereof in those many successful Experiments it hath made in all kinds of knowledge even those that have denyed a Soul distinct from Body and Matter in its Essence yet cannot but acknowledge There is some excellent motion in man by which he understands and perceives more than the Beasts of the Field There is in some sense or other A Spirit in man and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding This then being out of doubt let us consider the infinity of Divine Knowledge and so attain the measures of Humane Understanding in the resemblances of him in whose likeness it was made We read of the Son of God the true Light that he perceived Mark 2. 8. in his own Spirit the thoughts of men The Son of God an omniscient Spirit knows all things in the light of his own Spirit in that infinite understanding essential to him created Spirits the Souls of men having a measure of this perfection a communication of it though not as Christ may also in a degree perceive in and by their own Spirit God then understands all things within himself he being all Eye all Light able perfectly to see into and comprehend all things that either are or are possible to be or that can possibly stand in the place of Object and all this within himself For himself being fully known to himself as an infinitely seeing and self-reflected eye other things that are or may be are also within himself as the original of all Being and Motion And as his own Understanding and Contrivance what they should be and his pleasure they should be what he contrived them gave them being and motion and there is no other way of being and motion thus and on this account and infinitely beyond what we can conceive and express God knows what is what is done by the virtue that is in himself and continually goes out of himself so that by virtue of himself perfectly known to himself all other things are perfectly known to himself also Thus known to God are all his Works from the foundation Act. 15. 18. of the World Even to him who is all Eye all Light all Object and before whose infinite eye all things stand present at once as one single point so naked and open that they are all perfect surface and outside while it self rests on them The Soul made in this Image is in its degree Eye and Light an intellectual Eye an intellectual Light The motions of the reasoning contemplating Soul are like the motions of the Sun an illuminating motion light and sparkles flye out the openings of its faculties are like the openings of the Eye-lids of the morning like some Eyes that see in the dark by their own fire for what can the motions of an Understanding Conscience Reason intellectual Memory be but moral and intellectual Light It s very self is its Eye and its motion it s inlightened air Thus it bears the Image of the Divine Understanding in its visive power And that it may in some lower degrees perceive in its own Spirit we may very rationally suppose there are some fundamental Ideas some Images some Notions or Verities pourtrayed upon and given to the Soul that are as so many rays from the Father of Lights and Truth and make it like the Eye full of Light and it being natural to the Soul to move it self at least assoon as ever it is excited by Object from without it first makes a survey upon things abroad with the observation of which it immediately retires into it self to find what is within and when ever the Soul thus moves through the intimacy of these
of which that in the Revelation of St. John may fitly be understood Time Rev. 10. 6. shall be no more all Change being consummate in the unmoveable State of Eternity And while it considers their particular Flutters hither and thither it takes Measures of the more contingent and unsetled Motion of some by the more setled and stated Motion of others of which the Heavenly Bodies in their constant Revolutions of Day and Night Months and Years are the supreme Standard and faithful Witnesses which the same Divine expresses by Time and Times and Half a Time Rev. 12. 14. viz. as it is generally understood a Year two Years and Half a Year or as it is otherwise spoken Forty two cap. 11. 2 3. Months and A thousand two hundred and threescore days Below these the Founding and Ruine of Monarchies the Birth and Death of Princes make the Publick Epochs and give new Characters to Time which the Prophet Daniel calls the changing of Times and Seasons Dan. 2. 21. Even as these Changes in the Condition of Private Persons make private and particular Distinctions of it in those Places and Families where they are known and taken notice of Of which David speaks not onely as a King but in a general Capacity My Psal 〈…〉 Times are in thy hand If we could suppose all things then above us round about us within us even to a thought standing still and no alteration so much as in a thought where would be the Measure of Time or what would be the account of it or where would it be at all The Being therefore of the Things of Time or rather that project and cast Time as a faint Shade from themselves are made and fitted to move and shift and alter else there could be no Time even as the Being of God always the same gives us Eternity else there could be none but an Imaginary Duration as hath been already asserted If any thing therefore in this World stands faster and longer than other and suffers no Change it becomes a nearer Resemblance of Eternity as the Hills are call'd Everlasting Hills and the Eternity of God condescends it self to our Thoughts by compare with them Before the Hills were Psal 90. 2. brought forth even from Everlasting to Everlasting thou art God Unmov'd Rocks are Rocks of Eternity God himself is stil'd the Rock of Ages Isa 26. 4. or Eternity Now Time however full of Fluctuations it is in it self can yet make no disturbance upon Eternity or at all affect it all its various Shapes can imprint no Change there For whether we consider Eternity as One with God As our Saviour speaks of Abraham Before Abraham was I am so Joh. 8. 58. it may be said of all the Particulars of Time Before them from everlasting God is His Being did not wait their coming into Being nor does it lay down it self when they go out of their present Being Thou Psal 90. 3. O God turnest Man to destruction and sayst Return ye Children of Men The Heavens wax old as a Garment Psal 102. 26 27. as a Vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed But thou art the same for ever and of thy years there is no end Or whether we consider Eternity in a secondary Notion and as we conceive it in Everlasting Duration it is always quiet and uninterrupted in the Divine Being There is Duration without any shadow of change which is the absolute Eternity and gives the most perfect Notion of it and is no where to be found but in God But Time whether we understand it as that space of Duration in which these Changeables are running their several Risques it is incircled and comprehended by Eternity as a Drop by the Ocean above it within it round about it and indeed it is but the same Duration distinguish'd onely by those Chequers and Spots of Change upon it Or if we understand by it the Creatures of Time in those their several Changes they are created and upheld by the Eternal Power He that changes Times and Seasons without any Variety in himself rules and governs them all till at his command they surrender themselves back into that Fixed State his Wisdom and Righteousness disposes them into for For Ever to which their Motion in this incertain State prepares them Thus as all things that move must have some certain and unshaken Bottom to move upon and things not self-subsistent but dependent must have some independent Strength to rest upon so fluid and never-resting weak Time or rather those moveable Beings that give it its Name must be upheld by unshaken and all-potent Eternity to which they pay themselves as their Great End For he by whom are all things is the same with 〈…〉 17. him who was before all things and for whom all things are Yesterday 〈…〉 13. 8. and to day the same for ever Now to collect the Sum of this Explication of Eternity and Time it is this Eternity is stable and invariable as the Divine Being that inhabits it or indeed is Eternity it self Time as it includes what we call Duration is not properly Time for so it falls in with Eternity as Created Being doth with the Ocean of Being Increated but as it is in perpetual Change so it is Time and so it falls in with the mutable Creatures that reside upon it and are indeed in those Motions of Change allowed to them the true substantial Time it self And all this speaks the substantialness of the Being of God and the Nothingness of all the Things of Time For if Things had such a Being as they could like and be contented with and could continue in it when they like it as long as they would they would be always what they are but because they are neither strong enough to chuse their Condition nor to retain it they continue in every Condition whether Good or Evil just so long as is appointed by his Pleasure who keeps Times and Seasons all in his own Acts 1. 7. hand But on the other side the Eternity of God must needs be Blessedness and Happiness For Eternity expressing Absolute Being Perfection of Being Being with all advantage Being and Well-being conspire and meet in one in him even of necessity The Apostle in contemplation of this adores God the onely Blessed 1 Tim. 6. 15 16. and Happy Potentate and subjoyns who onely hath Immortality and dwells in that Light to which no Man can approach It is true Created Beings may be Immortal and yet miserable that is because Created Being doth not as Increated result from it self nor is Absolute Being but is given and upheld and continued at the pleasure of the Creator and so receives variety of Condition according to the Laws he hath set to it while it is yet maintain'd in its Duration and Continuance the Favour or Displeasure of God the Righteous or Unrighteous State of it making vast differences