founded upon Rules and whether those Rules are right or wrong really their being accepted for right makes them obligatory to the Party accepting them so as Offences against Erroneous Rules reputed true are equally burthensome to the Conscience as if they were the most true and rectified that can be delivered to Men and yet they are capable of a more easie Cure viz. by discovery of the Falsity and Errour of them Hence may be inferred that without some sort of Rules and Submission to them the Acts and Power of Conscience are not perceivable which shews they do not flow from the Soul Material or Immaterial but from Education Custom Opinion and Rules to which Actions must be compared for without such a Comparison Judgment cannot be made whether they are right or wrong That Conscience grows as aforesaid appears also from diversity in the acts of it for some Men make a great scruple of Conscience to do things which others think they are bound in duty to do and cannot omit them without check of their Conscience whereas Immaterial Souls pass for all alike And if Conscience were a Natural Efflux from them there could not be such difference and contrariety in the Acts of it I have observed how it grows in Children and Beasts from the effects of their Education made powerful in them by the terrour of a Humane Vengeance expected to follow upon their swerving from the Rules of their Discipline and which the apprehension of Legal Punishments hath often inflicted upon Offenders before Temporal Execution overtook them The Conscience of Sins against God is of a like nature and the Terrour of it grows from Fear that he being offended for the Breach of what Men are perswaded he hath commanded to be done or not done will inflict terrible punishments for the same of unimaginable torment and endless duration as Men are taught to believe and expects by such Rules and Doctrines as are daily represented to them and pressed upon their apprehensions and belief And thus have I summed and shortned my formerly longer Expressions concerning Conscience to which I shall be glad to receive a reasonable Answer either long or short 4. Paragraph You quote the words Whatsoever is not of faith is sin and you say Faith here signifies Conscience My sense of those Words is Whatsoever Men do believing it to be a Sin that is a Sin in them though the Action in it self be good but if it be contrary to those Rules to which a Man hath submitted himself this is a Sin against the Mans Conscience though if there were no accepted Rule against it there would be no transgression in it You express also to think that Beasts cannot be brought by any Education to resist and conquer their Appetites forgetting what formerly I said of a Setting Dog whose Mouth will water and his Chaps move and all his Members and Motions shew a great Desire to be in with his Game and yet he will sit for a long time constrained by the remembrance of punishment to be expected and executed upon his doing otherwise And many instances may be produced of other Bestial Actions in this kind You make it my wonder That Sensual Powers do for much the greater part over-rule the Rational and prevail against it You say I may likely find it often so in my self and I grant it and therefore is that none of my wonder And you demand From whence comer Mens uneasiness of Mind upon such occasions I answer It comes from finding their Actions do not agree with their Rules and therefore not with their Duties for the Failure in which they expect punishment less or more according as their Delicts may seem to deserve not from Powers of Nature in its Simplicity but its Cultivated Capacity under the Conduct of Rules Examples or Opinions to which Men have submitted their Minds and this makes men nocent as the contrary makes men innocent in the judgment of their own Underftanding which is their Conscience 5 Paragr Upon your maintaining That Mans Soul is an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit created each for the Government of each Person I demand Whence it comes that this Soul doth not or cannot so prevail with or over the Person whom it should Govern as to keep it in Rational and Vertuous Ways of Living and Practice but that the far greater number of people follow Vicious Practices contrary to Right Reason and the Desire and Design of such an Intelligent Spirit And the true Cause of my wonder is What that can be in Man which hath Power to oppose and overthrow the Government and Command of this Kind of Soul in him To this you answer You say with St. James This comes from mens lusts which war in their members To you I reply and ask From what Original in Man do such Lusts grow viz. Affections Passions Sensualities Either they grow from the same Originals with Reason and his other Faculties viz. from the Contexture of his Soul and Body or from some other Cause You say I should not wonder at the thing for that universal Experience teaches that so it is This I grant and therefore do not wonder at the being so of the thing but at the Cause and Manner how this comes to pass viz. from what Original in Man this Effect can grow Apparent it seems that Affections and Passions in Man grow from the Contexture of his Soul and Body as all his other Powers and Faculties do and are Natural to him for one that hath them not is not a compleat Man But if their Energy proceed from Mans Soul a Spirit governing this Soul in acting the Affections and Passions so vigorously seems to act blindly and unintelligently or else that it is divided against it self and therefore its Kingdom cannot stand but such Lusts as it self produceth and acteth prevail to overthrow its Government and bring the poor indiscreet Soul under the Pestilent Power of Sin and Satan If thus it be not I desire you will Answer what I Object in this Point which is that Mans Soul acts against reason and its own Interest in so highly actuating of these Lusts or which is far more likely that the Humane Soul is not Intelligent For what you say concerning St. Paul's Text Rom. 9. I hold with you that many places of Scripture do testifie a Power in Man to act for his own Advancement in Piety and towards future Happiness And I assent to that Opinion the rather for that the same is consonant to the reason of Mankind but to agree this Opinion with St. Paul's Text is beyond my Capacity and I should be glad to know your manner of doing it You mention ill effects from the Opinion of the Materiality Omnia tuta timens consonant to the Nature of Zeal and Affection That in your Exhortations you have a great respect to the Resurrection and last Judgment I think to be well done and upon very firm Grounds but for the Immateriality it seems no
maintain the Truth But say you I cannot be sure that the Materiality is a Truth I grant that I am not sure but I would be sure if I knew how to be so and therefore I applied to you for obtaining your chief Arguments against it And I am ready to do so to any other likely Person capable to assist me in searching the Truth concerning it And therefore in my Observations upon Dr. Bentley's Sermon Intituled Matter and Motion cannot think I have requested and even provoked him to perform his promise made in that Sermon viz. that he will make good Proof of the Souls Immateriality from some positive Grounds Rational or Scriptural For that his telling us that God cannot make Men and act them by a Material Spirit nor by any other means but by an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit seems to me precarious erroneus and arbitrary in him And I think I may as well say God can make Man and act him by a Material Spirit as well as he hath done with his inferior Creatures and for ought that hitherto appears to me I think it most likely that he hath so done This finishes my Reply to my Friends Third Opposition after which I received a Fourth Paper of the like Nature Dated 6. Nov. 93 divided into 8 Paragraphs 1. Paragraph Concerned only the intent or meaning of Paul in his term of Nature whether intended absolutely in puris Naturalibus or cultivated by Education Rule or Example 2. Paragraph Was concerning my Expression of making Men trust in a Lye 3. Paragraph I Reply to it You seem to think that God can make Matter Cogitative and will not deny that to be in his Power and we are agreed in that but you think God hath not done so I think he hath done so and this it seems need not be determined but remain a Dissention without making it a Difference the Proof on either side appearing a very great difficulty 4. Paragraph Desiring to shew that there is a Knowledge of what is Morally good or bad Grounded in Nature Unassisted by Rules Education or Institution You Cite an Instance in Cain who you think knew he had sinned in killing his Brother and that before his Nature was assisted by Rules or positive Institution Here I say are Two Assertions First that he knew the Fact to be wicked next he knew this by simple Nature unassisted by any Rule or Institution whatsoever To the First I Answer It doth not appear in the Text that he knew that his Fact to be a Crime You say it appears upon the Margent The Text says My Punishment is greater than I can bear The Margent says Mine Iniquity is greater than can be forgiven Evident it is that the Complaint succeeds immediately to the Sentence pronounced after that Fact which induces me to believe it applicable to the Punishment rather than to the Sin and that therefore the Reading put into the Text by our Translators is more likely to be the true and proper Reading than that upon the Margent But if that which you pretend should be admitted and the Marginal Reading should be accepted Yet it seems the State of Cain at that time was not a State of bare and simple Nature unassisted by Institution or Rules For Adam was Divinely Instructed and probably brought up his Children under Discipline or a directive Education They were Taught the use of Sacrificing and vers 7. God himself gave Cain Directions for his Instruction in Morality and Piety Hence to me it seems your instance of Cain doth not enough prove that Conscience without Rules or Instruction is a Natural Guide to direct Men in their Actions able to make a true Distinction betwixt evil and good Rom. 5.13 For until the Law Sin was in the World but Sin is not imputed when there is no Law And Chap. 7.7 I had not known Sin but by the Law Vers 13. Sin by the Commandment became exceeding sinful viz. until or before the Law bad Actions were Sins but not imputed because not known to be Sins but when Institution and Laws have detected or discovered to Mankind the Sin of such Actions viz. that they are Sins against God and his Laws This knowledge makes that which before was a Sin though not imputed to become by such Revelation exceeding sinful First a Sin in it self and next as made known to the acter by the Law or some other Institution that it is a Sin You give no farther or other Answer to what I had largely spoken concerning the Nature and Operation of Conscience in Man I desired to know your Apprehensions concerning the same and your silence therein seems to admit of my Conceptions thereupon as firm or probable 5. Paragraph You say I desire to know of you whence Humane Affections and their Powers grow You Answer They grow from the Corruption of Mans Nature by the Fall of Adam and the Curse attending it to evince which it seems you should shew what Man 's Nature was before the fall and wherein and how far the same became Corrupted upon that Occasion But that is a thing which I think you neither know nor have means to discover and that therefore we are driven to consider Humane Nature as we now find it so considered It is found and you grant that Affections and Passions have a very great Power in disposing of Humane Actions and the Applications and Practices of the same that they do very often and most commonly over-power and mislead the National Faculty and its Dependencies and drive or draw the Person Soul and Body into very impure and wicked Practices even reclamante Ratione and maugre all the Spiritual Powers which ordinarily they meet with in Mankind And these Affections Ambition Covetousness Lust and the Passions Wrath and Fear are as natural to Man as his Vital and Rational Faculties are All Men have them and one who hath them not is not perfect in his Nature The Beasts have them viz. Lust Wrath and Fear and they act with as much Violence and Power in the Beasts as in the Men And our First Parents had them before the Fall The Woman saw the Tree was good for Food and pleasant to the Taste hereby was her Lust tempted And a Fruit desirable to make one Wise here was her Ambition tempted and by these Affections Satan prevailed as amongst Men of our times he daily doth to draw our First Parents into the ruinous Accomplishments of Sin and Wickedness I say then The Affections and Passions appear to grow not as an effect of Adam's Fall but as a Fruit of Natural Production and from the same Principles and Originals that his Nutritive Generative and other Vital Powers do grow that his other Sensitive and his Rational Faculties do also grow They seem to have one same Original and that they are as Natural to Man as any of the other are and that they have received no more Detriment or Vitiated Quality from the Fall than the other
Beasts haunted towards Houses for relief amongst them was observed one who ran sometimes on two feet and otherwhiles on four the Spectators took him for a Satyr they set the Haunt to take him and took him he was found a perfect Man of wonderful quick Senses especially in Smelling he learned again to speak and was known for the poor Womans Son and then related his manner of living amongst the Beasts accepted as one of their kind and so herded with them living as they did and the People named him John of Liege And this Fact discovers a near degree of Affinity between Man and Beast and so doth the Nourishment of Humane Bodies by the Milk of Beasts and the Support of Humane Bodies by the Transfusion of the Blood of Beasts into their Veins and Bodies which shews even a Consanguinity amongst us Our Predecessors in this Island in Julius Caesar's time and a good while after lived as naked as their Cattel and fed amongst other things upon Wildings Acrons Bollis Sloes Heps Haws c. as both Beasts and poor People divers times feed at this day And to prove That Beasts and Men in puris naturalibus do not greatly differ in the last place shall be cited the Case of Nebuchadnezzar who had for many years as high a place in the Throne of Glory as any other Man whatsoever and we may presume had indulged himself as Men in such Cases and Places use to do till by the Operation it seems of his Phancy his Heart or Inclinations became like those of the Beasts he hearded with the Oxen fed with them and lived amongst them his Skin was his only Covering and was wet with the Showers of Heaven his Hair grew to cover him like the Birds Feathers and his Nails like their Claws and this be was well enough able to endure and it stood with his choice and liking during such distemper of his Phancy the space of Seven years as an Apprenticeship under Discipline And it may serve for an Example and Proof that as Men and Beasts are under the same Genus or Kind of Creatures similar in their Bodies as to the Materials and Parts of them so they shall not be so exceedingly different in the Nature of their Souls as the received Opinion hath made them but more likely it seems That a Soul of such Nature as acts in the Brutes First Their Vital Faculties Digestion Nutrition Generation Secondly Their Passions of Lust Wrath and Fear Thirdly Their Sensitive Faculties Seeing Hearing c. Fourthly Such low Degrees as they have of Perception Understanding Phancy Judgment Will and Memory such a Soul as acts these last Faculties in a low Degree and all the former in as high a Degree as is done in Man such a like Soul should be enough able to act in Man all that his Body and Organs can perform and for which such Organs were first intended and made But against this Conclusion divers have objected and said That Man hath one singular Ornamental Quality peculiar to his Nature and so well fixed to it as the same cannot be separated from it nor be communicated to any Brutal Nature whatsoever and that is a Natural Power of Discerning Honestum from Turpe and distinguishing between them so as to approve the one and condemn the other To this I reply It seems Reason doth not drive Men to consent to this Assertion or to approve the Import of it But they re-joyn The Truth of it is proved Rom. 2.14 Those who have not the Law do by Nature the things contained in the Law having the Law written in their hearts For an help to expound this Text I quote another 1 Cor. 11.14 Doth not even Nature it self teach you that if a Man have long hair it is a shame to him Here by Nature is intended an universal Custom of those Countreys which St. Paul had seen for in them all Men used to wear their hair short and that became amongst them a second Nature as our Proverb terms it Hence I collect for probable that in the quoted Text to the Romans Paul by the word Nature intended a Civilized and Cultivated Nature meliorated by some kind of Education or Institution as all the Nations that he knew were for his words having not the Law points at that of Moses and he seems to account that all who were not under that Law were under Nature and the Guidance of it but such a Nature as had the Cultivation of other Laws or Rules and which generally were much agreeaable to the Letter or Sense of Moses his Moral Laws and made like Impressions upon the hearts of the Gentiles as that of Moses did upon the Jews but that here by Nature he did not intend Humane Nature in puris naturalibus naked and bare of all manner of Institution or Education whatsoever not such a Nature as that of John of Liege the Lybian Jamnites and Sabunks where Men are so few as their converse amongst the more numerous Beasts makes them like one another not like the Caribbee Islanders or the most Northernly Americans or some miserable poor wild Irish have been reported It seems he doth not intend Nature thus naked but under the Cultivation of some Civil Education Now for Man's Natural Faculty of discerning Honestum from Turpe I say First That it is not in his Nature after the manner of his Natural Faculties his Vital Passionate Sensitive or Rational Powers for all these of which the Beasts are also partakers rise out of bare Nature or the Natural Contexture of Soul and Body and exert themselves upon emergent Occasions without any Teaching or Instruction whatsoever this Power of discerning Honestum from Turpe doth not so Adam did not by Nature discern that Nakedness was an undecent Thing or Turpe Who told thee that thou wast naked Discovered to thee that Nakedness was an Indecency in thee Or that thou hast need of any Covering but thy Skin Rom. 7.7 I had not known sin or what actions were sins but by the Law Ver. 8. Without the Law sin was dead seems unperceived Chap. 5.13 Sin is not imputed when there is no Law These prove that there is need of Rules to discern Honestum from Turpe even in the most gross actions for Rom. 4.15 Where no Law is there is no transgression Let us try this by a Case of Shedding Mans Blood viz. Two Men in Pure State of Nature or Savages happen to meet at large and to have view of an Object which they both desire they cannot dispute for want of Language but both seize the Object and fall to the Brutal Way of Contending viz. Violence and Force and in the Contest one kills the other It seems the Killer instead of remorse should glory in this Atchievement and be more encouraged and ready to follow the same Course another time And what otherwise do our practised Duellists but glory in their Shame with apparent disadvantage acting against the Laws both of God
do not make use of their ignorance for the extracting from thence an Unintelligible Extraneous Spirit for the Government of a Humane Body Memory or Understanding The case of the Watch shews the thing moved and made a noise and the Indians did not and could not discover the cause thereof and therefore they concluded it was moved by a Spirit which contains the very Ground of your Argument viz. We understand not how a Material Agent can perform such a sort of acting Therefore there must be an Intelligent Spirit in the case or else such things could not be done yet if you will but make this Grant That a Man doth generate a Man as truly and perfectly as one Horse generates another it will prove like Archimedes his Postulatum of a Ground whereupon to fix his Instrument for thence will apparently follow all that in my Treatise hath been asserted For what is begotten and born of Flesh is Flesh and I would not advise you to venture upon the task of proving any other way of proceeding or framing of Humane Souls 7. Paragraph You pretend to prove an Intelligent Spirit in Man from the Power and Effects of Conscience in him You say no Beasts have it and yet it is very potent and prevalent in Man And I agree that Man hath a Conscience and that it hath a great Power in him and over him But I do not grant the Beasts are without it in a degree sutable to their Capacities and Understandings You say That Conscience in Man is natural to him or slows from his pure Natural Faculties unassisted by Education or Rules But this I deny and assert that Conscience in Man is not derived barely from Nature in such manner as his Vital Powers viz. Digestion Nutrition and Generation are nor as his Passionate Powers viz. his Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear are nor as his Sensitive Powers or the use of this Senses are nor as his Rational Powers viz. his Understanding Phancy Memory Judgment are For all these Faculties are so natural to every Man that he can and doth act them and by them without either Rule Tutor or Example But Speech is not so natural nor is Conscience so natural but they must both be Learned and Directed by Rules Doctrine or Examples and then they may be varied and changed according as things shall fall out or it shall come into the Phancies of Men But without some sort of Education Rule Direction or Opinion there is no more Conscience in Man than in Beasts For take a Salvage Person bred up amongst Beasts he will not know that Killing in a Sin nor spare a Man in his Hunger or his Wrath any more than a Beast And for Adultery he is not capable of knowing it because he knows not what Marriage is And for Incest it is naturally so much unknown as that the first People practised it with Sisters lawfully and it seems Abraham thought it no Crime nor the Princes to whom he avowed it for that it pass'd without Punishment or Reproof from them And for Theft and Robbery it pass'd for a Glory amongst Barbarous People and so it doth amongst Conquerours at this day and it is counted a sufficient Crime for the Vaniquished to defend his Goods or Women from the Conquerour and he will yet be kill'd for so doing without any remorse or sense of Conscience in the Conquerour Nor is the Fact against Nature however Rules may perhaps determine otherwise I say then that Conscience is not an absolutely Natural Faculty in Man but rather is Faculty Complicated of Nature and other Adjuncts and Ingredients the Natural Powers that act in it are the Understanding the Memory and the Judgement and the Effects of it viz. Joy and Grief are also Natural but to compleat the Faculty of Conscience in Man there must be also some Rule for Direction of the Judgment whose proper Office is to compare the Fact and the Rule together and if they be found to agree the Effect is Joyous and Pleasing if they differ the Effect is Sorrow and Fear and the widelier they differ the stronger Effects are produced But say you these Effects are sometimes so potent and violent as they could not be if they did not proceed from an Intelligent Spirit Concerning which I will again quote to you Melanct. dicto lib. pag. 148. There he says Let our Students learn to admire the Wonderful Works of God in Man our Principal Powers and Faculties Vital Sensitive Affectionate Cogitative efficiuntur Spiritu Vitali Animali ideo aliqui dixerunt Animam esse hos Spiritus seu Flammulas Vitales Animales sua Luce superant Solis omnium Stellarum Lucem quod Mirabilius est his ipsis Spiritibus in Homibus piis miscetur ipse Divinus Spiritus and makes this Light in Man more Refulgent Active and Inclinable to apprehend Divine Truths and to practise accordingly And on the contrary When the Devil gets a Possession or but an Entrance amongst them he disturbs and tortures both Heart and Brain and drives them into Cruel Motions and manifest Furies And thus this Excellent Divine instructs us what are the proper Causes of the great and violent Stings of Conscience which you have chosen for a strong Proof of an Intelligent Immaterial Spirit in Man And that Conscience is not barely from Nature but is a Complex of Nature and Rules there are divers Texts of Scripture which may be cited to prove Rom. 2. St. Paul says Men do by Nature the things contained in the Law of Moses this intends a Cultivated Nature ordered and directed by other Rules although they were ignorant of Moses's Law and those other Rules became to them a Law written in their hearts which if they followed their Conscience was satisfied and if they acted contrary to those Rules their Consciences accused them for it St. Paul's Nature in this place therefore intends not Nature in puris naturalibus utterly unpolished and barbarous or salvage and naked of Rules Education and Examples but such a Nature as hath submitted it self to some Rules Education or Example though they be utterly ignorant of Moses's Laws Rom. 5.13 Though sin those acts which are sinful were in the world until or before the Law yet sin is not imputed where there is no Law or Rule to direct the Judgment and therefore without some sort of Rule rising from Institution Example or Opinion as there can no Sin be imputed so no Consciousness of Sin nor Sting of Conscience for it So Rom. 7.7 I had not known sin but by the Law some Rule Education or Example which taught me that this is Sin bare or salvage Nature would not have taught me what was a Sin and what was not John 9.41 Our Lord says to the Pharisees If you were blind purely ignorant ye should have no sin Chap. 15.22 If I had not spoken to them instructed them they had not had sin 1 John 3.4 Sin is the Transgression
of the Law not known to bare Nature And finally Rom. 4.15 Where no Law is there is not transgression so no Conscience accusing or approving And all this proves That Conscience in Man is not an Act purely Natural but a Complex Act of and Educated Nature under the Direction of some sort of Rules You say That Man hath a kind of Natural Expectation of receiving Rewards or Punishments as soon as he departs this Life I grant only Such a kind of Natural as Education and Custom can make Men expect to receive what they are taught and therefore do believe will be given them if taught to believe receiving as soon as they are dead their Expectation will be sutable if taught to defer their Expectations till the Resurrection and Christ's Second Coming to Judgement it will be as easie and natural to expect the Rewards and Punishments at that time as to do it at the time of our Deaths Either of them is enough effective in us to create an Endeavour of Obtaining the Future Rewards and Avoiding such Punishments by the greatest Endeavours that in this Life can be used Knowing that there is no Work nor Device in the Grave whither we go But as the Tree falls so it is like to lie and as Death leaves Men so Judgment shall find them And we are therefore as much concerned to provide for a good departure out of this World in respect to the time of our Resurrection as if we expected an immediate Reward or Punishment from the time of our Death For that once dead in my Sense we are not are no more concerned in time nor the passing of it but shall rise again as if we had lain down but the hour before You say You cannot believe that the Primitive Martyrs would have died so cheerfully had they not thought that they exchanged this life for a better immediately But I believe they might do it in expectation of a Crown to be given them at that day the Great Day of General Doom or Judgement and so says Peter Martyr in his Common Places This is the consolation of the godly afflicted in this world they have an eye to the Resurrection and thereupon quiet themselves And again Martyrs in death were comforted by belief of the Resurrection And Heb. 11.35 Martyrs were tortured not accepting Deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection So 1 Thess 4.15 Paul comforts them is sorrow for their dead Friends not by giving them assurance of their being gone to Heaven but by assurance of the Resurrection the manner of which he there describes to them You say You have known some die with great chearfulness and in full expectation of an immediate transportation to Heaven by the ministry of Angels And I doubt not but your Assertion may be true for Men learn to believe and practise as they are taught And I doubt not but the Jews Turks Hereticks and the Old Women before-mentioned may be found dying some of all sorts with great Constancy and a good Assurance and Expectation of Future Felicity each of them in their own Way but my Opinion is that God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the World by the Man whom he hath ordained and that it is appointed for Men once to die and after that the Judgment at which all must appear and give account for their own Works The happiness which I desire before that day is that it may be said to me as to Daniel Go thy way Leave this life and wait till the end be for thou shalt rest and stand in the Lot at the end of the days the assured hope of a joyful Resurrection Paragraph 8. You grant that there do not occur in the Scriptures the Terms or Words of a Separately subsisting or Immaterial Soul I had said also not that of Immortal Soul and you might as well have granted that too for that neither you nor I can find it there You say I take the word Soul in Scripture very often to signifie Life or Person and you grant that in Hebrew it doth so But say I we find the like in Greek also for in St. Paul's Shipwrack there were in the Ship two hundred seventy six Souls alias Persons You say That in my Opinion I follow my friend Mr. Hobbs I say I follow nothing but Common Sense and Reason in it and that if Mr. Hobbs have said the same things I see no reason to think that strange but proceeding in both from one Common Principle which makes our Construction obvious to the Reason of Mankind If I had ever had the knowledge of Mr. Hobbs his Opinion or Writings I know no cause to reject or refuse the owning of it but for Truth 's sake I tell you that I never saw the Man but once and that without changing one word nor did I ever peruse any of his Writings to my remembrance nor have I received any light proceeding from him and you are the first Discoverer to me and the only that his Sense and mine agree in it Paragraph 9. You examine Solomon's Expression The dust shall return to the earth as it was and the spirit to God who gave it Concerning this Expression my Treatise shews That Spirit and Breath are often used in the same signification and may pass for Synonyma's Gen. 2.7 God made Man of the dust and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and Man became a living soul viz. a living person Ante. Roccius in his Book De Anima page 20. says The Souls of Animals or Brutes had a like beginning to those of Men quamvis per Emphasin ob majorem Animae Humanae dignitatem de ipsa id exactius exprimitur Very probable it seems that God gave to Brutes the Breath of Life as well as to Men Although as he says Moses hath not exprest it that by Spirit here may be intended the Breath and Life or the Breath of Life seems to me not unlikely And whatsoever the Sense may be or whether spoken by Solomon according to common conception or that he spake it as you take it for the last result of his Judgment I mean thereupon to follow Sir Walter Raleigh's Direction viz. In all dark and hard Questions the most easie and best end of them is to say I will not dispute that So I will not farther dispute the intent of Solomon in this place but willingly leave you and all men at liberty to think thereof as their Reason or Phancy shall direct and I hope for a like permission from other Men. Paragraph 10. You quote St. Matthew Fear not them who can only kill the Body but not the Soul Also St. Luke's Text in the same point which names not the Soul at all And you say We may perceive that the substance and intent of Christ's Doctrine was the same in both places viz. That the Body being mortal may be killed but the Soul not so Whether this your Assertion be true or
in the Law and have a Law written in their Hearts and are a Law to themselves In Answer to this I quote as a parallel Text 1 Cor. 11.14 Doth not even Nature it self teach you that if a Man have long Hair it is a Shame to him I say this Text seems to expound what he meant by Nature in the former Text viz. that second Nature arising from Education and the general Customs practised and observed amongst Men. In all the Countries of St. Paul's Progress and Travels Men used to wear their Hair short and thence it look'd to him like an unnatural thing to do otherwise and yet at that Time both in Germany France and England those Nations had a general Custom for Men to wear their Hair at as full a Length as the Women especially those who were of a Superior Quality amongst them Hence I would infer St. Paul's Nature by which Men do the Things contained in the Law intends a Nature cultivated by Education acting though not by the Rules of Moses's Law not known to them yet by other Rules parallel and equivalent and according to the Direction of their several Educations and such Rules as happened to be taught them and they believed themselves obliged to obey Men so educated and informed acted by Force of such their second Nature according to their accepted Rules and Customs the Moral Duties positively expressed in and commanded by the Laws delivered by Angels unto Moses Capacities of Humane Nature could and did attain to such Perfections by Rules Education and Custom as led them to the Performance of those Actions which Moses commanded As Men by Custom and Education are taught to mannage Armies and Treaties to Argue and Infer to Dance Sing c. All which and infinite other Thoughts and Things do very fat exceed the Powers and Practice of an Humane Nature in its naked Simplicity as of one Born or exposed in a Wilderness or Desert without Education or Company of any but the Beasts The best amongst the Heathens did as you say conquer Vices assisted and directed by good Rules Education Imitation and Practice but never by Powers of Nature uncultivated naked and simple as in some Men it may have been found You say Such Heathens governed their Inclinations by the Prevalency of their Reason above or over their Sensual Desires And I grant That assisted by Rules Education and Examples of others who instructed them their Reason did prevail to rectifie or controle the common inordinate and irregular Desires of their Appetites and Passions You told me before One Swallow makes not a Summer And I say now of these Heathens Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto an exceeding small Number of them if compared with the vast Multitudes of those who acted otherwise They were Men composed ex meliori luto factâ— ex ligno quo sit Mercurius assisted and elevated by an happy Education good Rules commendable Examples which themselves improved by Consideration and Study and made them habitual to themselves by Practice I say that such a Conduct is no more natural to Humanity than it is to Speak Read Write build Forts play upon the Lute or any such like Practices There are Capacities in Humane Nature able to attain to all these and very many other Acts and Practices but not without the Assistance of Education Rules Examples Labour Exercise and Practice So by Nature thus cultivated these high Heathens acted to great Degrees of Goodness and became a Law to themselves not from simply natural Inclinations or the Notices of a Humane Soul in its naked Naturals or any Power growing out of it as from a Proper Internal Original like to those of the Senses Appetites Affections Passions the Understanding Invention Memory Judgment Will for these proceed from Internal and Natural Originals viz. the Contexture of the Body and Soul in Man and act of themselves in that Compositum without needing to be taught or learnt and they form the Capacities of Man's Learning ready and fit for all Mens Performances apt to be advanced directed and perfected by Education Rules and Examples and made so easie as to appear in some measure Natural by the Custom and Practice of them as we may perceive in a Practised Lutinist who plays with such apparent Ease and Readiness as if that Faculty were Natural to him and had come of it self upon him And thus the good Deportment of Heathens became and might be esteemed and spoken of as Natural to them not simpliciter sed secundum quid mediantibus the Education Rules Imitation Practice and Custom and from this acquired Nature in Man it seems his Conscience discerning the Sinfulness of Homicide Adultery Theft and Covetousness are derived and not from an Internal or meer Natural Principle or as an Effluvium emanant from his Immortal or Immaterial Soul Paragraph 4. You tell me That in considering the great and generally prevalent Power of Sensuality in Man I ought to take in the Struggles of Reason against it And I agree that I ought to do so and say that I have done so in all my Disquisitions concerning that Matter I have said That in Contests between Sensuality and Reason they both plead before the Judgment arguing each according to their several Conceptions the one Side for a present and certain Pleasure or Satisfaction the other for a Future or more remote and less certain Good to be obtained or Suffering to be avoided according as Men have been taught by their Education the Rules and Examples of others their own Experience or such Conceptions as they have submitted themselves unto I had said that an Intelligent Soul in Man whereby he lives and is goern'd should probably be able to compel the Obedience of the Sensual Faculty You boggle at the Word compel and change it into effectually perswade and I am content to agree to your wording of it But evident it is that the Rational Soul or Faculty is not able effectually to perswade the Sensitive Faculties to submit themselves to the Directions of Reason or Piety but in more than a hundred for one or more likely a thousand for one it comes to pass that this Rational Soul or Faculty instead of prevailing over Sensual Inclinations and Forces it is by them overborn and baffled to that Degree as to be hurried with them into a greedy Accomplishment of such Desires as are contrary to the Dictates of such Soul or Rational Faculty even when strengthened with all its Assistances of Education Rules good Examples Exhortations and Conscience To this you answer That the Prevalency of Sense against the Rational Soul grows not from Humane Nature but from the Depravation of it occasioned by the Sin of Man and the Curse thereupon ensuing This Depravation you say doth very much encline Men to follow the Violent Bent of their Sensitive Appetites and Passions against the Struggles of Reason the Effects of Grace which though sufficient may for want of being attended unto
Election must stand So as the willing or running of Man viz. Humane Industry should be of no great Avail to such Purposes I am apt to conceive that our Apostle might have learned and accepted this Doctrine de Faro from the School of Gamaliel Acts 22.3 He was taught according to the perfect Manner of the Law of the Fathers which I take for the Rabbinical Traditions And this I the rather conceive because I meet with no other Scriptures concurring with this Opinion but his Writings only And whether in the delivering this Doctrine he speak and not the Lord or not he but the Lord I will not take upon me to determine But I am ready to proceed with you upon your own Ground viz. that Men fall not into Vice and Sin contrary to their Consciences without a Failure in the Management of their own Powers In my First Treatise I declare That in all Contests betwixt Sensuality and Reason the Matter is examined at the Bar of the Judgment and there determined before the Will proceed to Execution one way or other and that the Will hath no Choice in it self or of its own but is directed and determined by Result of the Judgment and is thereunto naturally and therefore easily obedient as freely and aptly executing the Judicial Directions as the Judgment it self is naturally obliged and ready to approve and chuse that which it is perswaded is most for the Good of the Person acting all things then appearing considered Hence whensoever a worse Choice is made upon a full and true Information the Failure is imputable to the Judgment and not to the Will And the Judgment of by far the greater Part of Men is very apt to chuse and prefer a near and certain Pleasure before a future and less certain Consequence of obtaining Rewards or avoiding of Punishments although in Estimation or Value they very far exceed the Pleasures of Sin for a Season Thus appears a Capacity in Man naturally to govern his Actions viz. by the Power of his Judgement whose Decrees are executed by the Will for that it is directed by the Judgement naturally aiming at the Good of the Person and in the highest Degree that it can reasonably expect to attain unto Hence all Vices and Sins spring either from Ignorance or Errour of the Judgement the Supream and Ruling Power in Man naturally And when the Judgement chuses or consents to Sensuality or the Pleasures thereof it is because it conceives them more conducing to the good of the Person all things then appearing considered then what Reason or Future Casualties can alledge to the contrary The Causes of Differences in Humane Judgements are First Soundness or Weakness of the Organ or Materials in their Constitutions Secondly The great Diversities of Rules Customs and Parties and even of Conceipts or Opinions amongst Men. Thirdly The Natural Violences of Affections and Passions more Extream in some Persons than in others and more so in the same Person at one time than at another Violent Passions surprize and blind the Judgement so as not to have a right Estimation but as led to think that a most good to the Person which gratifies a present Desire in asswagement of such Disturbances as are then upon him come of it what will in the future Upon all this it seems consequent that Men are not vicious but in defect or default of their Judgements either by Natural Infirmity or Ignorance wanting Instruction or by adhering to wrong Rules and false Teaching or by extream Violence of Passions and Appetites or by bad Example Practice or Custom Some of these Faults or Failings Men may help and some they cannot help and for what Man cannot help it seems he shall not account And thence grows a sufficient Reason for Men to forbear the judging of others whose Capacities Temptations Prejudices Misinformations and Educations other Men cannot know or consider But if we shall conceive a Man to be of a Naturally Sound Judgment a good Education under the Guidance of true and good Rules naturally Temperate Affections having his abode amongst People commending and practising Vertue If one thus qualified and assisted chuse a Vicious Course his Guilt will be apparent to Men as well as to God and he will find no Excuse sufficient his own Heart will condemn him and the Judgement of his own Conscience will torment him and drive him either to a Sorrowful Repentance or into a State that will be miserable likely in this World and certainly at the day of Mans Last Audit or Account And all this may be well maintained from the Power of Reason and Judgement adherent to Mans Nature acted by the same Soul that the Affections and Passions are even as the same breath in an Organ acts the Pipes to a great Variety of Sounds but every one to that peculiar for which the Artist made it And I take it no way Dishonourable to Man that he should be counted a Machine of Gods making since the World is so and all that therein is You say I pretend to make Man an Involuntary Agent whereas you cannot but know that I both assert and prove the Brutes to be knowing of what they do and voluntarily chusing one thing before another And this Truth is a full Answer to all your mistaken Surmises in the rest of this Paragraph 6 Paragr You say You are verily perswaded That the Opinion of the Souls Materiality is an Errour And I do easily believe that you are so perswaded But that this Opinion is destructive of True Faith or of Christian and Good Practice I take leave to deny or that it tends to supplant Morality or gives Men leave to indulge their Passions or imboldens them in that Practice If as you say Men would not trouble themselves about thoughts of Eternity c. it will be the Ministers part to press upon them the Resurrection the horrour of an unhappy one the terrour and danger of a last and final Judgment and the Execution thereupon consequent And I suspect that where these Arguments cannot prevail people will not be perswaded though others preach up the Immortality never so much Those who will not hearken to Moses and the Prophets viz. to Arguments true and clearly provable neither will they be drawn by the Doctrine of the Immortality of Souls although one of them came from the dead to give them assurance of it 7 Paragr You put the Case That if the Opinion of the Immortality should prove a mistake or be granted an errour yet it would be an innocent errour and could do no harm to Religion I answer That the teaching this Errour for a Truth makes the Auditors trust in a Lye and would prove a Deceipt to their Expectation and that I think to be a great Offence 2. It will have the same Inconvenience with all other Errours viz. Dato uno errore sequuntur mille It may serve to ground other Erroneous Opinions upon and to maintain them and hath served