Soul lets it self out into the World or lets the World into it Now espying through the Eye and perhaps a hear-say would work the like effect a covering of the same mould over another but withall attended with Riches Honours Dignities Power Place Authority or any outward worldly pomp or vanity whatsoever from this sight it may be with some little present concurrence of the imagination is the concupiscible part of the Soul irritated and stimulated and somewhat bent and inclined The imagination from them again which perhaps otherwise would be quickly at work in Eutopia and do little good or harm there is stayed from its present pursuit to attend them and being over-apt to gratifie the affections to the full presents them again with a false beautiful glass and it may be some such like inscriptions as these Haec omnia vobis dabo or bonum est esse sic in the room of hic From hence again the concupiscible part of the Soul becomes so inflamed that it awakes and rouzes all the other affections ready for its attendance though often from its very Brethren it meets with obstructions For if this spectacle be introduced to some Soul though the desire therein may be as great and as large and extensive as in another yet fear and care of the Body and a number of anxious thoughts and doubts frame a Lion without because there is a Hare within The man would move his hand out of his bosom but it grieveth him to do it and his very desire as Solomon says slayeth him His desire is for the glory of his Body and the rest of its fellow-faculties being for the Body too they fight for the ease of it But if a vigorous active Spirit become once infected with an itch from this prospect admitting the itch not natural then besides the imagination ready at all turns to project design and contrive all the ways and means imaginable as we say all the other passions run full cry after this desire now Hope and Assurance now Fear and Distrust now Heaviness and Displeasure Ahab's case when he coveted Naboth's Vineyard now Anger threatens and strikes now Dissimulation courts c. and together without notice of Friend or Foe they endeavour and agree to run down every obstacle in the way and the Will is carried along with them as a Captive or Slave which indeed is the proper subject of right Reason And in this career I cannot but say Reason bears a part and is one in the company but yet blinded and as it were a Captive under dominion for the present It moves indeed as Reason weighs every circumstance convenience and inconvenience but yet is for the Affections interest and at their beck and becomes like the General of an Army in a great Mutiny ready to gratifie them in whatever they demand Yet withall 't is never such an absolute Slave in man though it goes along with the Affections and serves them sometimes for as I have already said and it must be ever observed that in every action properly Humane although there be a kind of dissention too yet there is some kind of concurrence of all the faculties of the Soul and no one faculty is wholly and fully excluded as not to have a Negative voice and some power left to use its exhortations at peculiar times 'T will be now and then trying to reclaim the disorders in the Soul and shew it self fitter for Conduct than Vassallage point out and lay forth the falsity and circumvention of the Imagination in the first rise or beginning the false bent and foolish inclination of the Affections the captivity and slavishness of the Will I and it self too for the time passed hold forth to it self and the whole Soul prospects at some further distance make us see the uncertainty instability mutability and vanity of all Earthly enjoyments the certainty of death and withall that as with the enjoyer there will be no remembrance or thoughts of them in the Grave so neither will there be any remembrance of them who now enjoy them by those who come after That above the present necessary support of the Body there is no need or use of any worldly things that they add nothing of real worth to any man that there are always necessary troubles and vexations attendants on them that in a mean and private path we are least subject to affronts and justling that the Creator of the Universe cannot but be just and a wise dispenser of all things and that we shall never want things necessary for our journey that there is a possibility of the Souls existence after separation from the Body and then by consequence there is as much necessity for the imploying its faculties in the well-governing it self and laying up some treasure or provision for it self which can neither be of things here nor properly laid up here And besides this it will sometimes forthwith get the assistance of the Memory to its aid to shew us instances and examples of other men some failing in their attempts when they were got to the uppermost round of their aspiring Ladder others crushed down and ground to pieces with the weight they drew upon themselves and on the other side others weary of their very acquisitions and casting them behind them others joyful happy and quiet in a very mean and low estate and condition And happy were it for us if Reason could in any time or for any space win the Imagination to take part with it too and so leave the common Rout without any Officer to side with them in which desertion their heat is soon allayed and cooled For this cogitative or conceptive quality is of ability in some sort to work even upon Reason's account alone and can imagine there may be a happiness beyond all bodily sense and then forthwith all its former glasses become but painted Paradises and formal nothings I say though Reason sometimes runs and works from the Eyes of sense it has Eyes of its own and sees far beyond the capacity of the Bodies Eyes and what can never be introduced through them only and so St. Paul not improperly mentions to the Ephesians the Eyes of their understanding Nay such is the strange and admirable frame of man's Soul that as the understanding has Eyes to see and power to direct in some measure so have those inferiour faculties the Affections Ears to hear and hearken to its direction and call what is the meaning else of those words He that hath ears to hear let him hear if the Affections moved not sometimes upon some inward stroke or noise No man ever made doubt but all those to whom our Saviour then spake had bodily Ears and yet he concludes his Parable with that saying being about to move the Affections and keep the heart from being rocky stony or thorny and make it good ground telling us in the explanation that the good ground are they which in an
very young upon their approach to their presence many years after unknown have had a secret joy within themselves without the least seeming precedent imagination of their being such I cannot say how much of truth there may be in the affirmation but if there be then that blind faculty of the Soul as we sometimes term Affection may move without the precedent assistance of its fellow faculties And it would seem no wonder to me if the imagination set on work thereupon after some search should at length pitch upon some such cause but certainly the imagination more or less must necessarily be set on work therein The two who journied to Emaus mention the burning of their hearts within them upon our Saviours talking to them without the least precedent imagination that I can collect that it was he who talked with them Nay the Text says their eyes were holden and sense is the ordinary inlet upon which the Imagination presents to the Affections That they should not know him And he calls them Fools and slow of heart to believe thereupon As if belief might arise from the motion of the heart without the precedent work of the Imagination from sense And truly Sir since I am verily I hope perswaded That every faculty in mans Soul is Divine and different from that of Beast which work only from sense I do not or can rationally think that the Affections motion depends solely upon the Imagination's presentation but that the Imagination is often irritated upon the Affections first Motion or strugling or otherwise through the good will and pleasure of some insensible power immediately working in us the one or the other is strangely set on work I must confess of Beasts I do think that Sense being the only port and inlet of the Soul and a thing through which every object makes its stroke the first Spiritual Motion is necessarily upon the Imagination Nay that Imagination is no other in them than some more refined curious part or quintessence of the Blood lodged immediately over those doors and cells of the Body which raises and creates some such kind of thing as will and affections in them rather than inclines any will or affection in them before created or inspired Because we never find such kind of Motion in them as either to affect or will above the reach of sense or contrary to sense But that through sense only from the Imagination there is raised in them an appetite to or aversion from such and such object And thereupon it is that they are neither misled or misguided by their Imagination neither is there any great or lasting Disease of the mind but what raised through sense only may be soon allayed and quieted therefrom First their Imagination misleads or misguides them not for having its dependance only thereon and working thereafter and not capable to work upon the impulse of any thing but what as of it self penetrates through Sense It receives every object in its more proper exact Nature Figure and Form than ours And it being most certain that their sense is generally more open and clear to receive than ours they mistake not or misapprehend not as we do Hence it is that they are seldom mistaken in the face of the Heavens in which we are so often of our selves deceived and that our Prognostick from their sense and their motion and contrivance thereupon is generally truer than what we can make from our own The hastning home of that little Creature the Bee by multitudes into their Hives is a more infallible sign of an ensuing storm than we are able to espy by the best help of our intellectual faculties sometimes otherwise imployed than from sense through a weak and disturbed sense and which the strange work thereof does not seldom disturb Indeed hence it is that a Beast if not stopped by force or by some more pleasing Imagination raised from present sense is able of it self which man cannot do to return to its ancient place of abode at a great distance how strangely soever or through what mazes soever conveyed from thence And we may observe in its ordinary motion it will return more directly I may say more knowingly by the paths it went and came than the wisest of men nay a Fool will do this much better than a Wise man because though his Imagination be subject to be recalled from attendance on Objects offering themselves through present sense and imployed on others by some sordid affection yet it is generally obedient to present sense and is not so much in subjection to reason as to assist that faculty or taken up by that in help of revolving or weighing of things past or future and the causes thereof I could never yet collect from the narrowest observation I could make any power or ability in Beast to revolve a thing in the mind without the help or introduction of present sense no nor any affection raised in them to work or recall the Imagination from its present work without its help I must confess lust or itching of the flesh or rather appetite a thing below an affection and inherent in Plants may and does seem to recall their Imagination in them sometimes and with a neglect of present sense set it on work so as to contrive for their prey or food or the like But for any Affection of it self an affection to do it I cannot observe Sense shews the female only the product of her body and thereupon the Imagination is stirred to raise and create a kind of affection to it which we call love so as in defence thereof anger may be kindled and in deprivation thereof sorrow may arise but the Imagination works for neither of these of themselves nor do they continue to be as I conceive longer than some Object makes the impulse through sense And therefore we shall observe there is no bleating or lowing but from bleating and lowing or the approach and beholding again the place where they usually fed or nourished their young or the like stop or divert that and their love or sorrow is at an end Darius his Horse as I have mentioned could neigh when he beheld the place where his lust was first raised but I question much when the impress the Imagination has made in such Creature is once wiped away for the present through some new introduction of sense whether it can be raised again without the fresh stroke of some Object relating thereto through sense Or whether the Horse were capable to revolve that act in his mind at any time without such means to introduce or raise a thought Now if the Imagination in Beast work only immediately upon Senses introduction as we have reason to conceive it does and that thereupon their affections are raised only their Affection necessarily attending their Imagination changes according to the change of Objects through Sense For what is created or raised by and through that merely may be fully satisfied through that
them But there is none I suppose that ever admitted them so far rational or indeed so far imaginative as to search after the ground of their Imagination whether Sense barely or somewhat more or once to imagine or think after what manner they thought Now surely these thoughts arise in most of us as of themselves and if that proceed from any stroke through Sense barely I have no Reason and could I not fancy to my self there were existent that which eye never saw nor ear ever heard c. I wanted human Imagination and such an Imagination barely can never proceed from the Body Well Imagination in us alone revolved is a thing that most certainly declares our Divinity and extraction for it shews it self penetrable otherwise than by Sense Nay it appears being revolved to be made to work and lead the Will and consequently some Affection in direct opposition to Sense How were it else possible good men should be willing to die and leave this World 'T is not Reason alone and by it self can model and frame a more pleasant state 't is not all the bare telling us there is such will do it How were it possible as I have touched before that an evil man should be so weary of his life here as to let out his Soul with his own hands or by any voluntary act which Beast never did 'T is not any stroke through Sense alone can render his life more miserable to him than all others there is nothing but self-preservation and self-existence offers it self through Sense The Imagination alone is the cause It is wrought upon divers and sundry ways as Divine not subject to strokes through fense only but some way else and from somewhat else than corporeal We are assaultable divers ways and in sundry faculties of our Soul and I deny not but supernatural power not tied to order may work its effect originally in Affection or the Will but I do think this facile pliable restless and ever working faculty the Imagination is oftnest directly and particularly assaulted from insensible powers and the work of our conversion as well as destruction not seldom begun there The Imagination ever meets with somewhat Divine in its own work admit there were no other faculty apparently in conjunction with it at first It is commonly said that that man is of very weak parts or ordinary capacity or in an evil condition who cannot entertain himself with his own thoughts Now if he do but that first and no man can but do it sometimes that is think of his thoughts he will have Affection and Reason attendant and then he must needs see and be inflamed therewith that these thoughts of thought arose from somewhat more than Sense no Sense could lead him back to think of thinking or be the direct occasion thereof and proceeding further to weigh and consider the manner of his thoughts together with his sometimes strange Affections he will by a kind of necessary consequence observe that Imagination in man is not merely actuated through Sense and that by these two consequents First there will appear to him there was no certain method or order in the motion of the several faculties of his Soul but that sometimes the Affections seemed to move from the Imagination sometimes the Imagination from the Affections Next there will appear an independence and direct breach of his thoughts at peculiar Seasons and that without any new stroak through Sense for though there be generally as I have touched a concatenation of mans thoughts as certainly there is always in Beast until that link be broken by a stroke through Sense yet upon due examination man will find it otherwise at some time in himself I. That there is no direct approach from one human Soul unto another but through Sense I confess and agree and that he who would inform or rectify our Reason or Judgment and bend and incline our Affections to or from that thing it already stands bent or inclined must necessarily enter that way that is by Sense and thereby consequently first make some slight touch upon the Imagination So as the Soul seems generally to work from Sense first by the Imagination with the assent or allowance of Reason and next the Will and Affections and yet even in this manner of its work there is so suddain a stroke upon all of them as it were together that no man can directly affirm priority or posteriority in the work of either of those faculties of the Soul or that one is in time before or after other But when we are sometimes alone and the Soul works as it were of it self though indeed not of it self without any apparent stroke through Sense it may be nay appears upon a serious retrospect and consideration otherwise Do we not or may we not observe there has been sometimes a burning within us our Affections on the suddain kindled and inflamed in a kind of expectancy we well know not how or of what and so as it were creating thoughts in us divers from what we ever had or perhaps otherwise would ever have been Sometimes we find Reason suddainly enlightned to the disallowance and correction of our present as well as past thoughts Will and Affections whereby there is a strange mutation wrought in the Soul Sometimes we find such a thing as a Will wrestling and struggling in us to change and alter our present thoughts and Affections and they have been changed But more often may we observe a suddain irresistible thought arising in us without any help or assistance of Sense that we can perceive or observe nay sometimes in a direct opposition to Sense as it were we know not nor can find whence or how whereby our other faculties subjected as it were thereto some work is wrought tending in the conclusion to the glory of some all-powerful irresistible Will as we conjecture by the consequence and shall most certainly find in the end Now if the course and manner of the Souls work be not always the same but so various and seeming preposterous so alterable mutable or changeable in its work and yet that alteration is not made by any stroke through bodily Organs neither is there any apparent cause to be found why the Affections should be inflamed or Reason enlightned on the suddain in opposition to an evil or false Imagination or an Imagination suddainly raised in opposition to delectancy through present Sense then is the Soul in every part a thing most certainly Divine capable of insensible influence and not extracted from the Body For if it were of the Body and so necessarily required for its motion or agitation a stroke through bodily Organs the course of its motion would always be regular and continue after one and the same manner Man must see and feel and hear c. and perfectly conceive by his Imagination through Sense before he be affected and then I should be ready to grant the Imagination to be the Principal
this Love it obtains its denomination from the World If it be chiefly center'd in any man from the good opinion he has of himself we call it Pride if it chiefly run after the applause of men we call it Vain-glory if the common vain pleasures of the World Voluptuousness or Epicurism if Women Amorousness if we lodge it in our Children Fondness or Dotage if in Riches Covetousness and so for the like Now if this Love be exercised in the obtaining then it is termed Desire if in the fruition Joy if in the losing Fear if in the loss Sorrow For why does a man desire any thing but because he loves it or why does he rejoyce in the fruition but because he loves it why does he fear the losing it but because he loves it or why does he sorrow for the loss but because he loves it This one thing Love is the primum mobile as I may call it of all the other passions are but its necessary Attendants and whatever definitions are made of our Animal faculties 't is this like the principal Spring in a Watch that sets them all on going and whatever evil happens to us is from the ill motion or ill setting of the Spring for want of reason for as our Love is good or bad so are its Attendants If we chiefly place it on God and goodness it has its desires its joys its fears and its sorrows from which Philosophy need not exclude a wise man Surely a man may with St. Paul desire to be dissolved he may desire to persevere to the end and receive the crown of his warfare he may rejoyce in hope he may fear to offend he may sorrow for sin and all this without committing evil or folly for affects arising simply from the love of good cannot have any thing of evil in them These good affects or passions we see in the man according to God's own heart His soul brake out for very fervent desire he rejoyced as one that found great spoils his flesh trembled for fear and he was afraid of God's judgments he was horribly affrighted for the ungodly that forsook God's Law his soul melted away for very heaviness he was troubled above measure his eyes gushed out with water because men kept not God's Law trouble and heaviness had taken hold on him it grieved him when he saw the transgressors And all this proceeding from Love as it appears by the often expression of it in word in that excellent 119 th Psalm the title of one part whereof is Quomodo dilexi wherein he professes what he loved above gold and precious stones and what was dearer unto him then thousands of gold and silver But if our Love be chiefly placed on other things and too much wander and stray from the chief good though it take along with it the same concomitants of Desire c. yet they are in an amazed distracted and uneasie dress and can own nothing but a misguided Love to be their principal Captain and Leader For although as I said before Love may take its denomination from the thing it pursues yet still its proper attribute and name is Love And not only the Poet in case of Covetousness cries out Amor nummi but St. Paul himself gives it its true and proper definition for the root of all evil he plainly terms the love of money and when he reckons up a number of the greatest Vices Pride Blasphemy c. he begins them thus men shall be lovers of their own selves and concludes with these words lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God as if some sort of love were the mother of all Vices Indeed when any one Worldly thing has taken possession and as it were monopolized a man's heart it brings with it a number of disquiet Inmates as solicitous cares and fears c. and amongst the rest sorrow shall never be wanting For in that case of love of money as it causes men to err from the Faith by St. Paul's rule so it causes them to pierce themselves through with many sorrows and he might well say many for even in its first desire of obtaining besides what attend it in the fruition and loss sorrow often goes along with it as may be instanced in Ahab whose heart was sad and he could eat no bread in the very primary effect of this covetous Love viz. desire of Naboth's Vineyard And I think we may affirm vexing sorrow never yet entred into any mans heart without some precedent love to usher it in For take sorrow in both St. Paul's sences Worldly and Godly sorrow apart or both together the rise thereof is from Love for if we are first sorrowful for our sins it is because we shall one day feel the smart of them that proceeds from the love of our selves and then if we be further sorrowful that we have offended a gracious God though there were no punishment attending sin that proceeds from the love of God so as Love is the motive of all and we cannot but conclude that sorrow has its being and existence from Love But herein as to a vain sorrow from a misguided Love whether the inferiour and more brutish part of man the sensual appetite or the will which is in some sort in Brutes for they have choices as well as we though those choices are necessarily determined by their appetite for want of reason or the understanding be most to be blamed is to be enquired into Whereabout we must first acknowledge that the three prime faculties of the Soul to wit the Understanding the Will and the Affections do all concurr in every fault we commit yet so as though they be all faulty the chief obliquity springeth most immediately from the more special default of one of the three As in the present case of sorrow however the other faculties may be concerned yet the understanding is most to blame and this our error is through ignorance Indeed our ignorance is so far wilful that there being imprinted in us the common principles of the Law of Nature as well as the written Law if we had but carefully improved them we might in right reason have discerned that our Love ought more chiefly to tend to our Creator and Governour than our own natural product but yet I think no man will arraign the Will as principal unless in that case of noluit consolari where notwithstanding a mans reason inform him he ought not yet he is resolved like Iacob he will go mourning to his grave Neither are the affections chiefly to be blamed because Love of it self is good and only misled through ignorance and sorrow as I have said is but the consequent of a misguided Love Now then towards the cure our ignorance is to be discussed and our understanding cleared that so our wills and affections may become obedient and follow its dictates This right understanding is indeed an immediate influence of the Almighty by whose powerful rays
delirium dotage or frenzy whereas in all other creatures their life terminates quickly after the beginning of any visible delirium in them or decay of their native or natural homebred intellect as I may call it SECT IV. The Immortality of the Soul of man illustrated from the manner of its acting in the inferiour faculties similar with Brutes THe Soul of man does in many things shew its different Original and Extract from that of other creatures not only by its extent and contraction but by its manner of working in those very faculties wherein they are similar and which are proper and necessary both for Man and Beast For though Beasts see as we do hear as we do tast as we do c. and have the like passions of desire and joy fear and sorrow with their concomitants yet their senses may be satisfied and their passions circumscribed within the same Elements from whence they have their Original Ours alone seem to be Prisoners here and of us only it is that Solomon has truly said The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear with hearing and then I cannot reasonably imagine the Creator of the Universe so unkind in his special work of Man as to make him with a desire inherent in him so capacious as never to be filled or satisfied and thereby allow a vacuum in the Soul of man which we admit not to be in Nature but must acknowledge and conclude that there is a possibility these very inferiour faculties of our Souls may be allayed and comforted with hopes at present and satiate hereafter with some fruition or else in their working we were of all creatures most miserable For I find no sufficient ground to think or believe that Man is endowed with two Souls the one consisting of motion sense passions or affections and natural the other rational supernatural and Divine For though while annexed to a Body here it shews its divers faculties whereof in another World it may not make the same use and some of the senses will need no imployment about such objects as they receive into them here yet so far forth as they can add any thing to our happiness hereafter we may imploy them and they are an essential part of this Divine and never-dying Soul and that in some sence and manner we may tast and see how good and gracious our Lord and Maker is We often term the inferiour faculties of the Soul brutish sensual and filthy not that they merely arise from the flesh but for the like reason as St. Paul calls Envy and Pride c. works of the flesh which yet are inherent in wicked Spirits as well as men as they are amongst men excited by carnal and sensible objects and are also perverted and turned aside by them from others of a more noble kind which they are capable of being affected with But they are still faculties of the Soul and as such are neither extinguished in the regeneration of it here nor as far as is consistent with the perfection of it and its state of separation in glory hereafter I think the Soul of man to be an Host or Army always in its march for the recovery of its proper Country in which march though some of the Rascal multitude will be laggering behind and be busie to make provision for the flesh yet they are accounted as part of the Army and triumph with the rest after Victory and acquiring their native Soil or else suffer with the rest upon an expulsion Undoubtedly we may love and joy and I know not why one kind of fear may not consist with great joy if we attain our end and the mark that is set before us and we shall have fear and sorrow shame and confusion of face weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth which are effects of passions if we miss that end Now because the very restlessness and inconstancy of the senses and affections here shews them part of a Soul that will have being and continuance after death I will therefore a little behold man in comparison with other creatures and try first how far our very senses and affections differ from those of Beasts and after see what more noble kind of faculties there are in us which they want SECT V. The Immortality of the Soul of man illustrated from its different operation in different persons WE differ in respect of our senses and passions not only from all other creatures but even from one another so much as might make a quaere whether they were not hunting after somewhat that no man could ever yet find out in this World There never was yet any one object grateful to any one sense of all men nor equally and alike to any two There are to be found those men who would not move out of their Cottage or be any whit pleased with the sight of the most glorious Pageantry the World affords One colour seems more beautiful and pleasing to one mans eye and another to anothers no one prospect is pleasing to all men some men will swoun at the sight of particular things That which we call Musick is harsh and grating to the ears of some men several men are taken most with peculiar Musicks some had rather hear the noise of the Cannons than the voice of the Nightingale and so è contra So that if that which is fabled of Orpheus his Art had been real and amongst the Beasts and Trees he had had several Men auditors the first might all have followed him but some of the latter would have staid behind Some men abominate Sweets as we call them and are ready to faint at the very smell of them and delight in what is generally termed stinking and noisome The tast in men is so different that it has raised a proverb and that varies in the same man several times in an Age. Our affections are various and wandring that which delights us to day may happen to vex us to morrow what we desire sometimes earnestly we presently spurn at like little Children What pleases at one time pleases not at another so as there is become a proverb of pleasing too Nay this pleasing and delight were it settled and fixed in men where it once takes hold and were there a calculation in this present Age besides that Ages differ of every Worldly thing some particular men did chiefly affect or principally delight in the things would not be concluded in a short Ode as I have touched but a Poet might run himself out of breath and be weary before he came to Me doctarum hederae c. Me gelidum nemus c. We have our Pannick fears and terrors or as the Text says are afraid where no fear is and we have flashing joys upon as small visible grounds and in short we are the only ridiculous creature here on Earth On the other side take the Beasts of the Earth the Fowls of the
it than otherwise and are not to be trusted too far in that pretence And according as the Affections and Reason have gone along with the Imagination to make that impress so it is still more durable and less subject to be worn out He who has ever been terribly affrighted will scarce ever forget the object and circumstances of his fear neither shall we easily find out a man that ever forgot the hiding of his Treasure being a work that his affection led him to So that as the quick and lively inlet of the senses strengthens the Imagination so the strength of the Imagination is generally that which makes and fortifies a Memory And when it treasures up things springing from the proper strength of our own imagination or invention well ruminated by Reason and having the concurrence of well-governed affections it helps again to incite and strengthen them seeming to be a faculty as well active as passive and so is a more proper and fit Nursery for our own off-spring than a strangers For when it only or chiefly is a treasury by sense viz. reading or hearing let it be never so vast and spacious 't is not of so great use or profit it being hard to find a wise or good man so made from other mens documents though from the largeness or capaciousness of his memory he were able by once reading to repeat over the whole Works of the most voluminous Author And therefore as he that is affected with what he knows is ordinarily sure of a good Memory so that Memory is always best most useful and likely to hold which is the fruit of our own conception imagination and observation SECT VI. Of Reason REason is the Humane Touchstone of good and evil right and wrong truth and falshood c. the Superintendent Vicegerent under God Moderator or Monitor of all the other faculties of the Soul though not always of power yet at all times ready to curb the Imagination and Affections in all their extravagancies and reduce them under its dominion and government Right Reason that Divine gift and Humane enjoyment is a thing which does or may bear or produce many Leaves and some most excellent both Flowers and Fruit as Temperance Justice Prudence and the like and besides such its natural Fruits as I may call them I hope I may without offence think too it is on its proper Boughs and Branches only though it is impossible they should naturally spring from thence that saving Graces are ingrafted For he who has his Faith only placed in a light and airy speculation or imagination and not inclosed and held fast bound within the verge of his Reason or otherwise some way imbraced or allowed by his Reason will find it upon every occasion apt to fade of it self as well as to be loose and blown away with every wind of doctrine but this requires another place Here if we seriously behold it in our selves as natural men and view not what it is capable to imbrace and nourish but what by good husbandry 't is able to produce of it self we may and do find and now and then undoubtedly tast most excellent pleasant Fruits from it but then we must esteem them as gifts or else they quickly lose their savour Reason in us may be likned to some Plants of the Earth which in the shade grow rank enough and increase to a sufficient magnitude or dimension yet have no pleasant tast or relish nor ever bear good Fruit though large they may and therefore it is good to have it ever in the light of the Sun tending and looking that way and then never fear increase will hurt us SECT VII Of the Will THe Will I take to be An assent of the whole Soul to any present moving or ruling faculty thereof in intention or act and therefore can assign it no peculiar place of the Body more than other for its regal seat as we do the Heart for the affections and the Brain for all faculties of the intellect but that there is a concurrence of all parts of the Soul which indeed possesses the whole Body to this Fiat or at least the major or stronger part whereto the others though not silent give place I look on my own Will as I sometimes do on my self in general whilst I am at home within doors and look no further then do I take my self to be some petty Prince without controul but whensoever I look abroad into the World then do I find my self restrained as a common Subject to act no further than the Laws of my King permit cease that Law and my power ceases My Will may be free respecting my self but 't is sure dependent respecting God or else I must by exempting my Will think his power finite which God forbid Such a thing there may be in us from his Eternal wise disposition as is sufficient to render our actions good or evil and yet that sufficiency is involved in the whole Creation subject to Divine power What power we have let us endeavour to use well without questioning the extent or utmost bounds of our Commission 'T is said to be the perfection of Humane Nature to know good and to will it For the first we all agree that we are for the present imperfect in if we can do the other let us always do it and which is good let us ever pray His will be done without enquiring farther or beyond what is plainly revealed to us of his Will or of our own Will in us does seem much to exceed that of Brutes and to be of another extract than theirs as all other faculties of our Soul do for though I cannot behold them as meer Machines or Engines yet I cannot rationally perceive or conjecture that there is any Will in them other than such as receives an immediate impression from sense or that has its rise barely in and through sense such a Will as necessarily springs from or follows their thoughts not such an one as is able at any time to correct or put a stop to their thoughts neither do I believe there is so much as a Wish in them at any time that their thoughts were other than they are But such a kind of corrective Will most of us now and then perceive and find in our selves and yet we cannot but conclude that such as it is it wants a special Divine assistance to co-operate with it even to make it ours Howsoever when we find or perceive a desire or a will be it what it will in us that our thoughts were other than for the present they are it may assure us our Soul is not part of our Body or naturally extracted out of our Body for then it would not be prone and apt to resist and controul such thoughts as while they were travelled to please the Body SECT VIII Of Conscience COnscience is a Latine word from con scire to know together and I think the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
any of the four things mentioned by Agur and I may confidently speak in the words of Solomon to any such diver As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit nor how the bones do grow in the womb so thou knowest not the work of God who maketh all 'T is not a thing I dare undertake to discover nor a thing I have absolutely desired to know But only to quiet and satisfie my self I have endeavoured to make some little search or enquiry which of the faculties of the Soul may seem a visum est only primary or most potent in operation not which in truth are for that shall never man certainly define And therefore let no man till he be able to find out himself the circulation of the Soul and the origine of that circulation and be assured to convince others in reason of that his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blame me of sloth or ignorance but allow me something of intellect if it be but in finding out my own defect therein And yet because I am willing in some degree to satisfie my self and others too but not wade herein further than some light from Scripture which I believe to be the true proper light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world may seem to direct and mark out I shall set down somewhat of my thoughts concerning the priority precedency or prevalency in the faculties of the Soul one before or above another Whereabout though I may seem to dissent from the received opinion and learning of the World and therein be exploded by some yet I trust and hope I shall in no wise wrench or screw that Sacred Word for my purpose nor much swerve from the true and genuine meaning of that which I alledge to be the principal if not the only ground of my opinion I am not able to find out any great ground of contest to arise between any faculties of the Soul for priority or precedency that is any dispute or question thereabout unless between the Imagination and the Affections barely Now that which we call the Imagination or cogitation in the Soul of man we find to be an unconstant fluttering as well as a restless faculty which at no time can be found settled or made to fix long nay much or often upon any one single object unless some affection do first seem to draw it and set it on work and in a manner fasten it as its attendant for a time though then also it have some momentary flyings out and extravagancies And though it be a thing undeniable that the imagination may often move or rouze some affection which was quiet before yet it is a thing as undeniable that the imagination or cogitation never created or made any affection more than any affection ever created that for we must agree they are contemporary in the Soul and so neither hath the precedency But yet where one seems to work more often in obedience and to some ends and designs or safe lodging or pleasing of another we may allow that other some kind of excellency and so priority And this I am ready to afford to some affection lodged in the center of the Body or innermost place of recess for the Soul there secretly fixed by its Creator with some reason to direct and guide as well as imagination to whet it Indeed the imagination and the affections when they are orderly or regularly working if not at all times and seasons do whet and as it were give edge to each other but surely as the Love of God far exceeds the thoughts of him so the Soul being an emanation at first from that Spirit of Love Love of him may be said to be a cause of thoughts of him and that if the Soul were not naturally capable to love and tend some whither we could not so much as think Sense must be agreed while we live in the Body to be the chief though not the only inlet or Port to the Soul and that every object by and through sense has some touch in its entrance upon the imagination or else we shall make a strange Chimaera of the Soul But not barely resting upon sense we may allow some prior inherent quality upon which by sense the imagination may seem attendant and in subjection to And though at some times the imagination do appear as the usher of the affections yet the least affection once kindled and something there must be allowed to be kindled whether of it self bursting out into flame or however inflamed or kindled will often hale the thoughts to the object without any farther help of sense But many things are presented to the imagination by sense upon which no affection seems to stir or move that we are able to discern and thereupon we may allow the imagination's work or motion to be chiefly from something occult whatever use it sometimes makes of sense to which it is or may be in subjection and not prior but rather posterior SECT II. That it seems to be in the Affections rather then any other from Scripture THere is a common saying how true I know not that life is first and last in that part of man's Body which we call the Heart and it is generally agreed and believed and I find no reason to dissent much from that opinion that there is the principal seat of the affections and that That is the Cell wherein they chiefly move and work Now nothing is so much called upon in Scripture as the Affections nor any part of man's Body so often named as the Heart the chief and principal seat thereof as if that part were taken for the whole and the content for the contained and whole man Soul and Body were included in that one word Heart and no act or thought of man were significant without affection or did arise or work but from an affection I shall not in this place going about to shew some peculiar prerogative the affections seem to have over the other faculties of the Soul scrape up together and cite the multitude of Texts wherein God by his Prophets and Apostles seems to strike only at the root of the affections the Heart and call upon that particularly to be given him or inclined or bent towards him they are obvious enough and I believe a thousand such are readily to be found But I shall only mention some peculiar places occurring at present to my thoughts which seem to allow not only a native or dative power in the affections over the whole intellective faculty whether Imagination Memory or Reason but also some primary influence which they have upon them all or as if the other faculties had their rise or spring from them Thus generally whensoever the intellect is mentioned in Scripture it is coupled with the seat of the affections and taken for them as if from thence it rose and had its influence For if the very imagination had any motion of it self or by sense
them at least question a Deity and divine retribution from the like passion they say others believe one viz. Fear And if they are sensible of something invisible to be feared under some notion of justice and like Metrodorus I think the name is in Cicero fear what they deny there needs no conviction of opinion but rather extortion of confession which is the peculiar work of a Deity by distress affliction or the like If I could once prevail with any man to ransack as I may say his own Soul seriously to consider and observe the strange motions tendencies operations and sudden alterations therein I should have greater hopes of some clear manifestation to that man of an eternal wise working spirit in and through the same than from any outward prospect and beholding its work under what notion soever Atoms c. in and through the whole Universe beside Certainly God would shew himself to any one who did but seriously and humbly behold view and consider himself which we can never shew a man by any outward demonstration That sight must arise from within How some endowed with so great perfection of Intellect beyond the ordinary sort of men and able to discern a vast disproportion or difference of spirit and yet none of body between themselves and others should not fall into some admiration at some time or other with a kind of thankfulness to somewhat or other is to be wondered at Every mans Soul is not only an image of God but looked into of its self is the clearest glass to represent the most perfect shadow that can be of that Original There is some spark of fire in man beyond the reach or finger of chance which if he might be prevailed with to uncover and view himself would afford some light which all the raking or blowing from another cannot do God himself can and will shew himself so far as he sees good and none else can shew him to that person who will not vouchsafe humbly to look into himself If there be any such thing as a beast in the likeness of a man and one should fight with it I may ask St. Pauls question What advantageth it I begg your pardon and others c. for such an expression besides the meaning of the Text I am not prone to impose such a title or attribute upon the meanest human creature but surely if we once come to that pass as to reject an infinite wise just eternal Being a Reward and punishment hereafter and disclaim our own immortality our prerogative above beasts is very small and I am sure we may not improperly take up the subsequent words Let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye for which ends and purposes t is to be feared some men have owned though they have not been fully convinced of that opinion The world did and do's and will abound with Atheists that is persons living as without a God in the world or duly weighing divine retribution But whether those on whom we most commonly fix and impose that title best merit the same is some question There is no great distinction to be made between men denying God in constant daily works yet owning him in words and denying him in words yet owning him in some measure by works unless we should term the first sort real Atheists and the other professed ones only and conclude the latter are of more evil consequence because the first sort or kind require the intellect to discern or espy them and the latter only sense forasmuch as the tongue which is such an unruly member infects even through sense but actions do it not so readily but require the intellect to judge and discern whether the party be an Atheist or no. Had I not in beholding the Soul in an human body happened to consider that admirable power it has to frame an articulate noise given chiefly to magnify its Maker and withal how it is otherwise imployed I had not first so much as mentioned such a thing or called one Atheist and Davids dixit insipiens in corde I cannot intend much further For however it be spoken from the heart that is voluntarily and with some kind of affection going along with it yet I do verily think there never was man so confident or that ever so assuredly believed there was no God as I and thousands others do that there is one and that seeming negative opinion were at an end if every man would permit his tongue to declare his belief or at least his doubt and not use it to obey some appetite of being singular and thwart the general received opinion of the world from some desire to be esteemed wise or learned Methinks this question were enough to convince any man that he is not an Atheist in belief Why is he or how comes he to be at any time just and faithful Why a lover of truth Why do's he regard his promise and sometimes perform it to his disadvantage If he will not own this belief of a God by word others may espy it in him for I dare say never any man was yet able so to obliterate the image of God in himself but some mark or impress thereof might at some time be observed by another and therefore let us condemn nothing in man but that unruly member set on fire of Hell over which too there is now and then a kind of fatal necessity of contradicting it self in these reputed Atheists none sooner or more readily unworthily invocating that name they deny than they I have yet that good opinion of many professing or rather saying there is no God That they are actually in some measure just merciful liberal and charitable which is some owning him in their work however it happens they deny him with their lips and they must necessarily secretly own and confess the belief of a Deity from themselves and some of their own actions unless they are able to demonstrate to me or others how these excellent extracorporeal qualities as I may term them as justice mercy c. or a goodness of mind universally inclined or inclinable to all beyond and quite out of its individual self or progeny can possibly arise from a bare concretion of Atoms We have lived in I hope passed an age when generally the tongues of men owned a God publickly enough and might seem to have been a little too familiar with him given him high and excellent Attributes enough called on his divine providence and summoned it down for the justification of every wicked action When Reason God's vicegerent in the Soul seemed quite abandoned and Conscience was defined a new light from above to gratify the affections of some and the fancies of others And t is no great wonder if upon a sudden change and alteration some men run into the contrary extream That when reason begins to take place again there start up a philosophical generation of men upon the stage some say the world
led into the paths of truth and righteousness and become acquainted with his will And this we look upon as effected by his Holy Spirit through his Word one God blessed for ever Such new accession of light and such a blessed gift as this were the Writers of Holy Scripture no doubt endowed withal whose words and actions were in demonstration of the spirit and with power the effects whereof we have heard and beheld and felt in a great part of this visible world Now for that we have a promise this admirable strange effect in man shall not wholly cease but that God will be with us to the end of the world and we talk much now a days of the light of the Holy Spirit It may not be amiss since we have a caveat Not to believe every spirit and withall authority given us to try the spirits whether they are of God for every man to try his own spirit at least and see whether that of it self already sent be not the spirit only which he often mistakes and vouches for the immediate dictates of the Almighty and calls it a new light the spirit of God within him and so becomes a little too bold with the Almighty I am afraid it has in some men and that many a man has so little understood himself and less his Maker that he has mistaken the suddain and strange flashes of some kind of lightning from his own inherent affections for another spirit which feeding with conceit he has brought to such a flame in himself that at last his reason has given place and approved it to be something more than what is under its regiment or correction even the light of that spirit of truth whereas did a man by his reason keep a narrow watch over his affections it might observe every the most ordinary affection able to raise its peculiar spirit that is such a flame in the soul as with the assistance of the imagination shall hurry it with the body in obedience to it and force reason into a belief for the present that its motion is from the light of truth of which in time it may stand convinced to have been mislead and misguided We do not improperly call the product of that predominant affection in man Pride the spirit of pride and the consequent thereof the spirit of contradiction and these may be the spirits which for the present enthral our reason and make us believe better of our selves than others do of us and think God worketh in us immediately and of his gracious dispensation that which is effected by our own spirit through his most just and wise providence To exclude God that is One eternal omnipotent wise working spirit out of any action especially that which is good might prove of evil and dangerous consequence Yet since his way is in the sea his paths in the great waters and his footsteps are not known as is expressed We may be too presumptuous in being too confident of the knowledge of his present manner of working in our selves I do own it is he that hath endowed us all with an intellectual mind or Soul and given some of us that strength of reason which is in some measure capable to search after him and behold some of his ways and doubtless many of the heathen were not excluded from such a sight and he has enlightened others by his holy spirit to declare unto us his good will and pleasure which we call his Word And to others of us has he by that Holy spirit with which those holy Writers were inspired given grace to lay hold on that word and all the promises therein Notwithstanding which and a saving faith at the last we may not for the present safely challenge that good spirit of God to be the sole or chief guide of all our thoughts and actions for if it were so then were it impossible for us to err as I conceive which daily we do and grieve that Holy spirit as is expressed by which we are sealed to the day of redemption There are as I of my weakness am best able to conceive for I never saw or searched Writers on such subject either towards the enlightning or confirming me therein four more especial ways by which God worketh over us and in us 1. By his common and ordinary Providence 2. By his merciful Providence 3. By his liberal and bountiful Providence 4. By his Spirit His ordinary providence I call that which extends over all the works of his creation as well irrational as rational which though irrational bodies are no ways sensible of or its working yet has he therein an eye over them in their bodily preservation and feedeth the young ravens that call upon him And within this care or eye of his are we comprized too and no way excluded By his merciful providence I mean his withholding us from committing those enormous crimes to which we are prone by nature through the lusts of the flesh even against the very light of reason which thing perhaps you will term his common restraining grace and this he extends to Heathens as well as others as may be observed in the story of Abimelech and his withholding him from touching of Sarah By his liberal and bountiful providence I mean this That God having endowed our souls with that more than ordinary gift of reason by which we seem originally capable in some degree or measure to discern good from evil He more especially overlooks that gift of his and more especially worketh therein towards the enlightning thereof So that of his bounty and goodness alone it is that our humane reason is at any time brought to a clearer sight than ordinary of justice mercy temperance patience or the like and beholds the beauty thereof above their contraries whereby we imbrace them with our affections and this I hope I may without offence allow the name of his Common renewing grace to In which sence or notion if any shall alledge his capacity of coming to the knowledg of the present work of the spirit of God in him I mean not to contradict him because I behold every mans reason his rational soul to be in some sence the spirit of God which being enlightned from him a-new for the inclining the affections to imbrace that which is morally good we may more properly say then 'T is the spirit of God that worketh in us But many Heathens as well as Christians have doubtless in great measure participated of this grace for so I call it now it being from the mere good will and pleasure of God without any motive or inducement from man and owned the same to be his good work in them and yet never otherwise enlightned missed of the truth and could not be said to have any light from his Holy spirit but to err even to perdition notwithstanding the aforementioned grace I and justly to perish too For such is the wise just disposition
only neither can there be ease or disease pleasure or displeasure in the Soul longer than Sense affords being to such Affection and this I think to be the case of Beasts because we never see them disquieted long or above measure nor refusing any grateful Object if some disease of the body resist it not we observe not their Imagination heightened by their lust nor their lust inflamed or raised from their Imagination but at such time only as Objects offer themselves through Sense and the one abstracted the other seem to vanish And surely were our degenerate lust and affections of the same extract it were impossible for us to be hurried away to that excess of any vile or base passion as to imploy our thoughts nights and days about a meaner or more sordid Object than Sense it self usually affords every moment But Affection in us is of another extract able to desire and imbrace what Sense cannot afford our Imagination of another capacity and reach penetrable and malleable as I may say otherwise than by sensible Objects Our Will and all other our animal Faculties subject to supernatural influences and that is the reason there is such daily combat between them and sometimes such lasting agony For the Imagination rowsed and called upon as it were from divers and sundry quarters and not able through Sense to work so as to satisfie one single affection It sometimes opposes Sense and raises a thousand Chimaera's to the astonishment and amazement of it self to the conclusion and distraction of the Affections and to the disquiet of the whole Soul so as whatsoever original cause we impute elsewhere the present apparent cause of our disease we may rightly impute to the Imagination and the rectifying thereof must needs be the readiest way towards a cure which I shall endeavour to speak of in the end of my following Discourse Do we not find our Imagination allured or inticed to work from the restless strugling of some affection Do we not again find it recalled by Reason arrested by our Will wrested at length by some foreign power from subjection to either and forced to work as we observe by consequence in obedience to some eternal decree leading all the others as captives And all this while Sense one and the same in all men might seem to offer it other subject matter for its present work Do we not or may we not observe in our selves at special seasons some mounting in desire to imbrace or lay hold on somewhat above the reach of Sense And would we not our Imagination could invent or find out some such thing Is it not thereupon set on work And though it cannot fully comprehend mere insensible things by any investigation yet is able to imagin or conceive there is something more glorious more pure more perfect c. that it can conceive whereby the Affections are a little quieted for the present and rest in a kind of hope and to this Reason freely consenting there is begat a kind of faith I would fain know how it were possible our own thoughts should be set on work in relation to what others thought of us or in what state we were in the eye of any righteous all-knowing Judg or argue and weigh or will in relation thereto or be concerned or troubled thereabout with fear or dread or ioy if sense were the only inlet to the Soul I am sure it cannot hurt us at present but from our desire to know and our imagination's presentation thereupon so as what our Imagination frames must be chiefly the cause of our disquiet or disease of mind if any happen Indeed as it is sometimes the window by which Heavenly light is admitted so it often proves the Postern-door by which some evil spirit sliely enters and the Key thereof is certainly some corrupt affection It is most subject to be turned about by every wind from within and from without most subject to be deluded and delude and since our Happiness here seems to depend very much upon its work we will endeavour to treat of it here a little more particularly than we have done either of it self or in conjunction with some other faculty of the Soul Indeed the several faculties of the Soul seem not many in number yet the Soul like some instrument of very few strings is capable to render such innumerable various sounds as are able to confound us in going about to distinguish them This we own upon trial to be the admirable work of our Provident Creator and Governour and judg it impossible to set any certain rules or bounds in its manner of work or so much as to fathom or know our own Yet this I think the sweet harmony or jarring discordance in this wonderful Instrument in relation to our selves and whether it renders a sound sweet and pleasant or harsh and grating consists very much as I conceive from the high or low or even straining that one string thereof in it the Imagination The Imagination is a most strange faculty and able to confound us and put us to a stand or a maze while we reflect on it 'T is that various and sometimes false light which puts the colours of good upon evil and evil upon good 'T is that strange resounding echo to the affections that renders their cry double and louder 'T is that which called upon by one affection to its help and assistance often raises and leads with it a thousand furies to disquiet us And if we may affirm as I think we truly may that the heat of the affections sometimes causes its work so also It is that bellows which increases their natural heat double and treble and driving them from their proper Object inflames them beyond all degree and measure to their utter destruction and confusion in the end I deny not but that Imagination in man continually and necessarily working is capable to work from divers causes it is diverted or called upon and imployed by various Objects minutely through Sense as we observe How else could we remember which is but an impress left in the Imagination for any time what we daily hear and see And when those windows of the Body seem shut up 't is often imployed upon such Objects as it formerly received thereby But I cannot but think that its work generally tends to the satisfying or feeding some affection not affection of its own creating from Sense as in Beast but some affection of equal extraction with it self originally pure and undefiled but now corrupt and depraved by its work through the slie insinuation or delusion of some evil Spirit and that from Sense alone the one nor the other nor both together could create in our soul those diseases we find and I may say often see and feel above the Beasts which perish This affection in us how pure soever or howsoever debauched is the thing ever chiefly aimed at in all addresses to the Soul as I have touched already and therefore
as Reason in its greatest strength could not rectify or prevent though it strived to resist Nor are the Affections to be accused justly of any inflammation or disorder through the delusion of Satan or otherwise Neither can we justly think there has been any wilful defect or neglect in the Soul to occasion it Further thus when Pride or self-Love or Covetousness with their Off-spring and Darlings Anger Revenge Hatred Envy and the like distemper the Imagination and cause it to wander without any order or Government raising false and fictitious sights in the Soul the usual resort is abroad and in relation to others vileness or baseness overlooking all that is really or may be espied in Imagination at home and in this case we cannot so well impute the distemper to humors naturally bred in the Body as to the Devil and a wilful negligence in the Soul But when men without any great or visible Errors in the Affections condemn themselves falsly when the Imagination works at home and nothing seems vile or odious to a man but himself to himself I judge the fallacy to arise merely from dark and dusky vapours in the Body nay I cannot see how it should proceed from any unruly or depraved Passion by which the Soul shut up as it were a Prisoner from free communication with other Souls labouring of it self and in travail to be relieved for want of help a consternation is suddainly raised in the Affections and from them again the Imagination suddainly and violently set on work Sense before clouded is almost destroyed it becomes as useless as in a Dream the Imagination becomes without controul from without and is sole Master and will be sole Master till these vapours are dispelled or allayed which is best done as I think by Bodily Physick When I once see men come to Visions and Revelations and pronounce and proclaim them as given or sent to direct and instruct others thereby I shall very much suspect their Soul more nocent or more defective than their Body But if I find nothing but self-censure and self-condemnation in man unless in case of a very apparent wicked life before I have ever been so charitable as to think strange and dreadful seeming Apparitions in the Soul rather to be raised first in the Imagination through some defect or obstruction in bodily Sense than that the Imagination through Affection deludes Sense and that the Soul of it self is purer than we can well judge of through our Senses barely Most certain it is and experience tells us how subject this one faculty in us Imagination is to sudden change and mutation from things meerly Earthly received into the Body how a little Wine will sometimes clear and elevate it how the anointing with peculiar Oyls will dull and infest it how particular Herbs and Plants will presently distract and confound it Neither can we I think rationally observe the sudden alteration of any one faculty of the Soul from any distemper of the Body barely but this I neither cease to love what I loved nor hate what I hated nor believe what I believed nor will what I willed from any sudden fumes of the Body nor indeed until the Imagination by its continued disturbance from thence shall have raised and put on other colours on the Objects and through its influence it has over the other faculties in time subjected them to accept such Colours as true The Imagination is many times suddenly changed and altered distracted and confounded from meer Bodily Diseases and so it being as I have said the Eye of the Soul all the other faculties from thence are led into Error the evil consequents whereof the Body only or chiefly faulty certainly God in Mercy will not look upon as punishable or take vengeance thereof to which I shall speak somewhat more at large in the third place but first declare how far I think the work of this faculty is out of or beyond our power II. It is a common saying with every one of us when any Foreign Power lays a restraint upon our actions We can think what we please or what we list Which if it were universally true might perhaps in some cases render us more miserable than men of themselves can make us by disquieting those Affections which they cannot disquiet but through our own thoughts Which are often strangely diverted and the Soul at better ease than if that faculty were in our absolute power But blessed be God since our will is not generally so good as it should be the Will has no such native power over the Imagination 'T is not the strongest Reason the best Will nor any other inherent gift of a Soul placed in the most healthful athletick sound and clear Body that is able wholly to direct this faculty or guide it in any good or regular course for any space of time Whatever men pretend Indeed I have heard of some men who have so far gloried in their abilities this way and with all their devotion towards God for he is now and then formally brought in when we are minded to glory of our selves as to affirm They have been able to pray several hours in fervency of Spirit without the least wandring or extravagant thought Such are very divine men we may well think and happy were we all if we could be so in some less degree But yet I wish no man deceive himself herein and that through his own Imagination ex post facto as we may say chiefly and so have a belief thereof raised from the immediate work of that faculty rather than grounded on Reason or what indeed is the impress of a right Imagination perfect and sound memory Surely to raise this belief of and in a mans self a man must be in what we so call a Trance Sense must be closed and shut up for a time against all Battery In which case we 'll grant the Imagination to be sole or chief Master in the Soul and then 't is no marvel if it deceive men into such a temporary belief But I dare appeal to any such seeming devout Enthusiast if he has been at the receiving that holy Mystery a Spiritual Banquet whereat men usually are or should be as intent and careful to keep their thoughts from wandring as in any case whether presently after he were not able to tell me the colour of the Bread whether white or brown the fashion of the Chalice or the kind of Metal what Vestment the Priest had on what looks or gesture or action he used in the administration thereof and the like Now if he will confess the remembrance of any such thing which I dare say he cannot truly deny I may be bold to tell him His thoughts somewhat wandred For Memory being no other than the impress of Imagination or a cogitation renewed his cogitation did a little ramble and was through sense imployed about visible Earthly things And so long as we retain our Senses which I pray
never so credible witnesses who should testify upon Oath a call or voice of this Nature to a third person and own as much as is recorded of those who journeyed with St. Paul to Damascus I profess I should very hardly give credit to any such thing now adays For being already sufficiently satisfied and convinced even in Reason that the Reason and necessity of supernatural Oracles Revelations and Miracles since God spake to us by his Son in those last days and the Christian Religion was fully established is at an end and ceased I shall rather believe there were some imposture in the case or the Imagination of those two laboured under the same fallacy with the third by infection from it and by a kind of Sympathy to which way of fallacy some of the learned have subjected this faculty of the Soul and that neither of them in reality heard ought 'T is Imagination only or chiefly which renders men thus bold and familiar with God which makes them so positive and dictating to man Reason is not so towring it is ever attended with humility and fear It is weak in us God knows and it is his Wisdom and Will it should be so yet a faith from thence though weaker and trembling is usually more lasting than from that predominant faculty in man Imagination 'T is Imagination that makes us believe well and highly of our selves and meanly of those whom it might seem in Reason God has placed over us dictating and prescribing forms of Government with a nolumus hunc or hunc regnare But in this very case Affection may rather seem to corrupt Imagination than Imagination to debauch Affection I did once mean to discourse to you of the general deception of mankind herein but I know you see and espy it and God alone is able to prevent it which I trust he will do in some measure and therefore lest I seem to some to be of any party I forbear and to all such as at present hearken to our argumentative as if they had Reason on their side Imaginatists I have only this to say If they have left them but half an Eye a Phrase sometimes used for an ordinary Reason and will but make use of it if they then do not find out and espy some self-Affection aiding and assisting most of our Contrivers Imagination in their Plat-forms and Expedients rather than Reason Let them then swallow down with them this as a good rational maxime That evil may be done that good may come thereon I have ever in my judgment looked on evil Affection and strong blind Imagination always so actually in conjunction together above other faculties to our confusion and so pernicious to our present and future happiness as nothing more I know not which to give the precedency to nor indeed well how to distinguish them in some cases Pride in general the Mother of all evil passion is defined and rightly defined to be nothing else but a good opinion or high conceit of a Man's self Spiritual Pride is somewhat more it is a bold presumptuous arrest of the Deity making him our Inmate to cover and colour our Pride and where that once is and takes possession 't is in vain to knock at the door of Reason If I should admit Reason it self to be wholly out of our power and that we were specially directed in our very judgment I can yet say truly with David Them that be meek shall he guide in judgment and if you who are God's Ministers over us could through his blessing once change or metamorphose that passion in us Pride into its contrary lowliness of mind then should we all see the vanity madness and folly of most of our past inventions then should we be all of one mind then should nothing be done by us through strife or vain-glory then would men obey and withal work out their own salvation with fear and trembling rather than through an exalted Imagination believe God worketh that in them which may be from the insinuation of Satan wherein that you may prevail in some measure God to whom be all Glory crown your labours Amen EPIST. VI. Wherein the Author treats of the various impress of the Divine Power upon each particular created substance more especially upon the Souls of Men And further shews how proue we are to mistake about the case and temper of others and our own and that they generally are not what they seem And thence proceeds to discourse of Friendship and of Love MY good and kind Friend for so I am bold to salute you in this Epistle wherein I mean to say somewhat of that human yet sacred tye Friendship Let a man behold any thing he will or can and search for the original cause of its so being and 't is somewhat a wonder to me he should prove so stupid and senseless not to behold it or at least not to afford it some proper attribute and allow it so much as the title of incomprehensibly Wise or the like since that that his name is near his wondrous works declare Some such different or distinguishable form there is in every visible Body whatsoever upon the face of the whole earth narrowly inspected or observed as that howsoever we generally stile all things the work of Nature our Intellect by and through our Sense is able to espy some Image of an infinite wise Essence ruling in and through that thing we call Nature for she of her self as a blind Goddess like Fortune could never imprint so various a stamp upon every individual unless directed by such a first power as is eternally one and the same and yet able to give various forms unto every created or extracted substance but would produce though not the same yet often some indistinguishable or unperceivable like I do not think it will be denied me by any rational man that amongst all the faces of men not the worst index of a Soul which have been or now remain upon the face of the Earth there never were two Visages as we say so like but that they might be easily known or distinguished from each other or the one from the other And if I should of my self further alledge that there never was one single grain of Corn nay so much as one single medal of the same metal with others and receiving its impress from one and the same stamp or mold but there might be found upon the same by diligent and curious inspection or observation some different form or mark sufficient to distinguish it from any other which could be produced of the same kind or species I should say no more than is true being confident that no man is able to produce two such Bodies together of any magnitude wherein I or some other may not be able to shew him an apparent diversity I would fain know how it otherwise comes to pass that the Bee knows any one of a separate Hive or
the Ant it s own Eggs though I find not that quick inspect in other Creatures as may be observed in the stirring of their several heaps But my meaning here is not to trouble your more serious thoughts about Flies but to let you know mine in reference to the Souls of men chiefly with some grounds and reason thereof They have been these That amongst all the works of Nature or more properly the God of Nature no such great and various dissimilitude is to be found as in that chief and principal work of his the Souls of men whether of themselves or arising from the subject wherein they work shall not in this place be my chief enquiry But since we daily find and observe or may so at least a Soul of a great magnitude inclosed in a narrow Body or Prison and a very narrow small contracted Soul in a large one A vigorous and active Soul in a weak Body A feeble in a strong and well built one A bright and beautiful in a cloudy and deformed one A black and deformed in a clear and beautiful one nay any in any we have no Reason to conjecture that it receives any chief or sole power of its operation from thence much less its strange vicissitudes and changes since Seasons may be observed when though through the Organs of Sense all the most pleasant worldly objects are let into the Soul it will be dismal and sad and sometime notwithstanding all the gastly Spectacles which can be presented to her she will be pleasant and joyful and all this as well at such times as the Body is strong and vigorous as when it is weak and feeble as well sickly as healthful and as well healthful as sickly And that the Body should cause a visible mutation in the Soul when there is none discernible in it self by the very Soul that inhabits it will hardly obtain a rational assent but that they are as they are by original Creation or some external actuation We vary from one another in relation to our Soul 's acting far beyond what any Creature does from others of the same species with it self Some similitude or likeness of the Souls motion is to be found in them but none or very little amongst us And this various and different kind of operation in us as to Intellect and Affection both shews an original dissimilitude for being as much alike one another in Body as any Creature of one species we should act as much alike if the Soul had its being from the Body rather than any accidental or casual one happening from some formation of the flesh Do we not observe all Brute Creatures of one and the same Species though in several Climates to use the same way of policy in point of their preservation Do they not build their Nests alike and do they not express their Intellect alike whether by obedience or disobedience to us whether by their crouching fawning or resistance Are they not alike cunning But are there two men to be found in the World think you who left to themselves without instruction or without a Precedent or Plat-form before them would do as they do in their kind Surely besides the various form of each one would prove a Lucullus and another a Diogenes one would think no dwelling too spatious and beautiful for him and the other would think a mean and plain one were most useful and best became him We differ in the manner of expressing our Intellect legibly equally as in our Intellect Could we behold the formation of the Issues of several mens brains upon any subject matter we should find one mans begun at the head anothers at the foot a third at the middle and none alike but every mans variously One would bring forth his Brat with all its lineaments and features at the first and yet perhaps a weak one another his very deformed with much labour and pains licked into form according to that erroneous Tenet of the Bear and yet perhaps a strong one And were licking or rather correction and amendment of the most perfect and exact piece committed to divers men successively we should find in some space it would prove like Theseus his Ship renewed by planks it might retain the first name but would not have one jot of the old materials remaining We scarce comment or expound alike in any degree or measure that agreement of the Seventy or seventy two Interpreters is related as a wonder and were I assured of the truth of the relation I should so esteem it nay one of the greatest wonders the World ever afforded in story In this great and chief work of the Creation the Soul of man especially wrought and effected for the setting forth the Glory of the Creator wherein there are diversities of gifts and diversities of administrations and diversities of operations and one God who worketh all in all It is no wonder that we are altogether ignorant either in our selves or others of the power and manner of its operation but are inforced to leave that to the Creator and are only able to behold and see the great variety and strange dissimilitude of human Souls beyond those Spirits of other Creatures how unlike every one is to another and sometimes to it self for want of a gracious influence and thereby behold that one single and simple essence darting out its various rayes upon all the World and our selves chiefly It is we alone that may be most like that essence who are most unlike one another by his drawing us to himself and as it were renewing this wonderful Image of his perhaps variously defaced but happily mutable Did ever man yet behold two Souls naturally as we say in common acceptation alike There is one who venturing upon comparisons in the case amongst others brings in Demosthenes and Cicero together and tells us in his entrance upon their lives how fortune might seem to have framed them out of one mold and Nature fashioned their qualities alike and yet in the Conclusion he tells us that as their Phrase differed and the one was grave and harsh the other jesting and pleasant so one of them was sharp perverse froward and sowre of Nature the other complaisant the one modest and bashful the other full of ostentation and extremely ambitious of Glory or vain-glorious the one excessively Covetous even to corruption and the selling of his eloquence the other not so but liberal and just And surely had he been throughly acquainted with their several dispositions he might have found divers other contrary qualities in them and perhaps not two alike in any degree and those mutable too and their tempers so to vary that he might have seen his pleasant man sometimes froward and his froward sometimes pleasant and not been able to give a reason thereof I do agree that a curious Painter is able by his Art to give such a true representation of any face that we shall know it to be meant of such
one and the same man at several times And therefore I am willing to behold it again and say somewhat more of it according to my capacity under the afore-mentioned heads of Love Lust Charity and of Friendship only orderly and in course When there is no motion in the Soul further than for the pleasing it self or the Body it inhabits or it has no other chief respect than to their worldly ease and pleasure only and looks no farther therein than the obtaining Riches Honour Children or the like I call it Lust or self-love When it beholds God alone as the only perfect good and the Author and giver of all goodness and places a trust and repose in him without taking any anxious thoughts or care for worldly things and delights the Soul in the Contemplation of his absolute and complete goodness I call it pure Love or Love in the abstract When from it or with it the Soul beholds all men as Gods special work and pays a just and due respect to every member as his Image howsoever deformed or which way soever defaced without any great respect to persons I call it Charity When it primarily respects and imbraces particular persons for some visible inherent goodness in them and God only secondarily as the Author of all good in man I call it Friendly Love or the inition of that mutual aspect or League we term or name Friendship The first of these is directed and guided by Sense only or Reason captivated the second by Grace the third and fourth by Reason at liberty with some assistance or help of Grace The first of these we may not improperly term Natural the second Supernatural and the third and fourth may be said to participate of or proceed from both viz. Nature and Grace The first works or burns inwardly only the second flames outwardly and directly ascendant the third and fourth flame laterally outward after several ways for the one is more intense upon particulars than the other but both point upward Love in man of it self good I have called and do call here when it greedily catches at or lays hold on any thing before it Lust or Concupiscence Cupiditas effraenata that is Love unbridled for so I take the meaning of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be and withal a greediness in it unbridled to be presently satisfied as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aviditas cibi signifies Reason I have said before is the proper rein of human Affection though there be a hand above which sometimes guides or directs it and when that rein is laid aside as truly it is when we look no further than our present ease and pleasure and Love moves by Sense only or chiefly We may well call it Lust or an unbridled Desire and not Love The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by some often referred to a peculiar fleshly desire but I take it more generally to signify a greedy desire of any Worldly thing whatsoever and so does Saint Iohn seem to make use of it according to my apprehension of his meaning where he opposes the Love of the World and the Love of God to each other Love not the World neither the things that are in the World if any man love the World the love of the Father is not in him says he and then immediately after makes use of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For all that is in this World the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the World and the World passeth away and the lust thereof but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever And St. Iames immediately after his speaking of a Crown of Life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him useth the word Lust as a degenerate Love by which we are drawn aside Which raised in the Soul and coupled to the flesh conceiveth and brings forth sin Now I have called this Lust natural because since our fall Reason being much clouded by the Flesh it is for want of Grace most prone to be led by Sense in every human Soul as well as bestial And because it chiefly respects our selves I have defined it to be an inward burning And truly human love thus pent in and a thing very vigorous of it self although it cannot be satisfied within shall never want any fuel to feed it which Sense is able to bring in with the Devil's assistance But this inward burning generally creates a smoak and a smother in the Soul sometimes visibly to a spectator and often feelingly to the owner and how ere it may sometimes warm or comfort for the present is never delightful or pleasant in the end When this Love in man is pure or purified as we cannot describe the manner so we cannot describe how joyful and delightful a thing it is Neither is any man able so much as to imagine it unless he have in some measure felt it and then perhaps he may cry out with David One day in thy courts is better than a thousand c. I know there is no man but would take it in great scorn to be told he loves not God every one pretends to that however he deal with his Neighbour but sure this kind of Love the most excellent will never be made visible in any to the wiser sort of the World but by some outward clear and manifest demonstration of the two following kinds of Love to our Neighbour and to our Friend And 't were heartily to be wished above all things that self-love did not often colourably set it up and march under its seeming Banner It may and has done so certainly which is so base and treacherous a self-love that the name of Lust or Concupiscence is too good for it neither can any man invent a name for it which may properly refer to man 'T is inhuman and worse than sensual it is Devilish neither can I call it other than Devilish when men once indeavour to open a way to their self ends with a scriptum est Towards our present ease and quiet in the World I have already declared my opinon that the observance or performance of that second great Commandment that is an Universal good aspect or the bearing about one a love and kindness for every individual Image of our Creatour let that Image never so much vary in opinion or fancy from our own we will again set it down in one word as before Charity is that unum necessarium And this is a thing which in my opinion every man might God assisting blow up and enliven in himself by his Reason so as his Love might flame out on every side as I have described But that is not the thing I am now upon neither was the consideration of it or of pure love or of self-love either my chief aim or design herein but Friendship or Friendly Love A thing which though it seem not so