imago Dei forma servi My Soul is athirst after Christ my Saviour O when shall I come and appear before him Grant holy Jesu I may so behold thee though veiled here that when this earthly tabernacle shall be dissolved when it shall turn to the Lord and be clothed upon with our horse of immortality and glory which is from heaven the veil which to this day is upon my heart may be taken away and I may with open face behold the glory of my Lord being changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Amen Christ in the blessed Eucharist is the object of our Ears speaking unto our hearts both in secret whisperings and in shriller notes and holds a familiar conference with us he is an audible Voice and a speaking Word the sound whereof is gone to the ends of the world that Word which in the beginning was with God and was God but was made Flesh and dwelt among us God made Man the Son of God the Son of Man unicus patris filius hominis verbum quippe caro factum this Word incarnate is that Bread of God which cometh down from Heaven and giveth life unto the World This Word is not onely audible to the Ear but penetrable to the Heart piercing like a two-edged sword to the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit and of the marrow and the joynts Those reverend thoughts and meditations we have of Christ especially in this Sacrament are nothing else but so many words of his spoken to our Soules though all our cogitations are not Christs locutions nor all his communications our meditations cum enim mala in corde versamus nostra cogitatio est si bona Dei sermo est illa cor nostrum dicit haec audit our good thoughts are Christs words our evill thoughts are our own words The fool hath sayd in his heart there is no God there 's our own words The Lord speaketh peace unto his people those are Christ's one is spoke from the heart the other is to the heart Our own words again are twofold or have two wayes of proceeding one from Natures corruption another from Satans suggestion but of all these bitter fruits and sinfull effects proceeding from within us it is a hard matter to assign a proper cause and author to demonstrate which are the works of the Devill and which be the fruites of the Flesh we are not able so exactly to distinguish inter morbum mentis morsum serpentis inter malum innatum malum seminatum inter partum cordis seminarium hostis only we may know they both are evill and proceed from evill both in the heart though not both from the heart this I know most assuredly though which to ascribe to my heart which to Satan I know not But for my good thoughts since all our sufficiency is from God I doe undoubtedly believe they are the very words of that very Word verba verbi Dei written in my heart by the finger of his blessed Spirit This is that Word which is not sonans onely but penetrans non loquax sed efficax non obstrepens auribus sed blandiens affectibus Happy art thou O my Soul if when thy God calleth thou answerest with Samuel Speak Lord for thy servant heareth or with holy David repliest I will hear what the Lord my God will say unto me Christ is the object of our Sense of Olfaction sâ—nding forth most sweet perfumes he is sweet in his Name Christ Jesus Christ i. e. Annâ—inted so much the name imports Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth he is sweet in his name Iesus a Saviour there is no other name given under heaven whereby we shall be saved neither is there any malady of Mind any disease of the Soul which this precious balm and ointment cannot cure Erit tibi sapor odor in medicinam salubrem morbos si qui fuerint repellentem venturosque caventem He is sweet and pleasant to God the Fath r he is his beloved Son in whom he is well pleased and the smell of his Son is like the smell of a field whom the Lord hath blessed he is that Lamb slain from the foundaâ—ions of the world whose bâ—dy and blood being offered as an Holocaust unto God the Father smelleth a sweet smelling sacrifise unto him and from whom issueth unto his Spouse the Church to every particular Member and to every worthy Communicant partaking of his Body and Blood such streams of precious ointment and oyl of the Holy Ghost runing down not onely to the beard of Aaron that is as St Bernard expounds it to the Apostles and Ministers of Christ but unto the very skirts of his clothing that is to the meanest of his Members in infima membra Ecclesiae quae est tanquam Christi vestimentum that even these vile bodies and soules being offered an oblation smell also a sweet-smelling sacrifise to God through Christ holy and acceptable we are anointed with oyl of gladness but Christ with holy oyl and oyl of gladness above all his fellows It falls first upon Christ the Head so runs down to his beard so descends to the skirts of his garments the meanest member in hi Church the smell of Christs garment is like the smel of Lebanon but the smel of his ointments super omnia aromata is better than all spices Christ is the object of our Spiritual Tast and that food of Saints and Angels in Heaven of which it hath pleased God to give a tast to his Saints on earth feeding them with the bread of Heaven the food of life which comes from Heaven that Heavenly Manna and food of Angels the Prophet speaks of more pleasant and sweet to the tast than honney or the honney-comb But that we might eat Angels food Christ was Incarnate the Word was made Flesh so all are partakers of Christ the Saints on Earth as well as Saints and Angels in Heaven onely with this difference Comedunt Angeli verbum de Deo natum comedunt homines verbum faenum factum pane suo vivunt Angeli in caelis beati sunt faeno suo vivunt homines in terris sancti sunt Yet doth not every man tast of the food that partakes of the outward Elements the Natural man hath no sense or tast no fruit and benefit of this Sacrament because it is spiritually discerned it is food eternal not temporal spiritual not corporal for supernatural nourishment unto Eternal life not for physical and natural which accomplisheth its ends in this life pereat hic physicale nutrimentum cibis iste non ventris sed mentis we feed on him in our heart by Faith and Thanksgiving My Body is nourished with the outward Elements of Bread and Wine my Soul is 2nourished with the inward Graces the Body and Blood of Christ not with the Bread of Affliction the corn arising from the earth but
three persons be Coeternal together and Coequal So that in all things as is aforesaid the Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity is to be worshiped He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity CHAP. V. Of the Vegetative faculty with its operations and effects THE Vegetative is the meanest but the most common of all the other faculties for this is the Nature of them that the Inferior may subsist without the Superior but the Superior cannot be without the Inferior faculties therefore where the Intellectual facultie is there must needs be the Vegetative Sensitive but where the Vegetative or Sensitive is it doth not necessarily follow the Intellectual faculty should be therefore is the Vegetative more common than the Sensitive and the Sensitive more common than the Rational faculty Vegetation is to Plants Beasts and Men common Sense to Beasts and Men but not to Plants Reason is onely proper to Man not to Plants and Beasts We will begin with the lowest and most common so in order upwards to the highest and most special The Vegetative faculty is the begining of life so hath it been defined principium quo primo vivimus but here it s also principium motus and hath three Operations peculiar to it self of Nourishment Growth Of Nourishment Augmentation and Generation which are the several kinds of Motion Mutation Nutrition and Augmentation are indeed one and the same Operation though diversly considered for that food which by Concoction is turned into blood and that blood into flesh is both Nutrition and Augmentation onely is called Nutrition as it preserves the Animal who hath a continual wast and consumption upon him and needs a new restauration and recovery by this nutriment and new converson of food into blood and blood into flesh and in as much as the Body or compositum hath regained by this operation of the Vegetative Faculty what it had lost it is called Nutrition but in as much as more is gained than was lost it is called Augmentation as they are one in operation so they are in the end for which they operate they both tend to one and the same end viz. the perfecting of the creature so nourished and augmented which when it is consummated those operations cease the other motions of diminution and alteration come in their room and herein they differ from the Generative operation which looks not to the conservation of the Individual in which it is resident so much as the begetting of another like Individual by which Propagation and continued series of succeeding Individuals the Species and forms of them may be preserved Of Generation or Precreation The Generative operation is more noble and divine than either of the other because thereby living creatures come nearest to Immortality and Eternity for thereby though the Individuals perish for quic quid oritur moritur and quic quid generatur corrumpitur yet are they in their forms preserved from corruption the Species remain and abide as it were in a surviving kind of Immortality amidst the divers mortal and succeeding Individuals for there is an innate desire and appetite in every living creature to Eternity a Deity they all aym at and since they cannot attain thereto in the singularity of Individuals for they are all subject to corruption every Individual hath in it this faculty to procreate and beget another like it self whereby the Species is the same and continued as it were unto Eternity the end then of this faculty is to beget an Individual like to it self as the Generative faculty in Man is to beget a Man and one Horse begets another Hence may be noted three things Note 1 First that these various motions and mutations before mentioned viz. of Generation and Corruption of Augmentation and Diminution of Altricion and Alteration are not in respect of the Soul but the Body or compositum 't is true the Soul is the cause and beginning of motion and so may be said to nourish to increase to diminish to alter or the like but it is the Body is nourished augmented and diminished for that is onely capable of dimensions the Soul not so for that 's a simple and incorporeal Essence and falls not within the predicament of Quantity I speak of the Soul of man as hath been elswhere sayd Every thing procreated is by nature Note 2 corruptible and what may be augmented may also be diminished Every like begets its like this is a Note 3 property in the Generative Faculty of all perfect Animals a Man begets not a Beast nor a Beast a Man in the course of nature but Man begets a Man like to himself and a Beast one like to it and so every creature is preserved in their form and likeness though not in the same Numerical body There is a twofold Vegetative faculty in man the one Temporal and caduce because in a body sinful mortal and corrupt the other Spiritual and Eternal because in a body sanctified and tending to a state of Glory and Immortality the one thou hast O my Soul by Nature that Philosophy teacheth the other thou hast by Grace that Divinity Yea and this faculty of the Soul in a Spiritual estate hath all the operations of Nourishment Augmentation and Generation which are in the natural and carnal condition and that in a more eminent manner In what stature and age Adam was created whether in full age in a perfect natural condition needing no accrescion being created in that full augmentation of parts which God and Nature hath prefixed unto man and in which whether he had continued without diminution or declination to old age but should have been supported by those supernatural abilities in which he was created had he continued in his integrity I shall not here determine But certain it is and Christian Religion so teacheth that since the Fall death hath passed upon all men death natural as an effect of sin and man cometh into this world as by the course of nature he is to goe out of the world in a weak and feeble estate tender infancy brings us into the world decrepid old age leads us out and during the time of our abode here we labour under those various changes and counter-marched of Generation Corruption of Augmentation and Diminution of Altrition and Alteration from our womb to our tomb from the day af our birth to the day of our death toiling and spending our selves in a circular motion till we are reduced to our first matter Sir Walter Raleigh his History of the World lib. 1. c. 2. sect 5 we pass over our Generation from Infancie to Youth from Youth to Manhood in those purer motions of Nutrition and Augmentation whose ends are to bring the Body to that determinate perfection of Magnitude which Nature hath allotted it From our vigorous estate of Manhood we decline to Old age then to Dotage this closeth our eyes and layes us asleep in death and
this sleep brings us to our bed the grave and this part of our life is attended with those impurer motions of corrupt Nature Diminution and Alteration whose ends are to bring us again to our original our first Parents viz. Corruption our Father and the Worm our Mother and our Sister and thus we tread the Maze and run the round like the Suns yearly course in the Zodiack ascending from the lower most House in Capricorn through those two seasons of the year Spring and Summer to the highest House the Tropick of Cancer and there 's the Solstice where the Sun is got to that height that higher it cannot but turns retrograde and down it descends through the other seasons of Autumn and Winter to its Vertigal point the Tropick of Capricorn from whence it came the four Ages of man to wit Infancy Youth Manhood Old age being like the four seasons in the year viz Spring Summer Autumn Winter or like the Suns Diary course in the Firmament Psalm 19. which goeth forth from the uttermost part of heaven and runneth about unto the end of it again or like the Winds or like the Floods to all which the Wiseman compares the travels of man upon earth saying Eccles 1.4 5 6 7. One generation passeth away another cometh but the earth abideth still the Sun ariseth the Sun goeth down and returneth to his place that he may there rise up again The Wind goeth towards the South and turneth unto the North fetcheth his compass whirleth about goeth forth and returneth again to his circuits from whence he came All Floods run into the Sea and yet the Sea is not filled for look into what place the waters run thence they come to flow again And this is the Felicity that miserable man laboureth for under the Sun and here 's the fruit of all viz. Death for the end of all things is Death And thus much of the Vegetative faculty in the state of corrupt nature There is to answer this sinfull Generation and Procreation by our Parents in the flesh by which we are made corruptible mortal subject to a transitory short and miserable life but to an endless everlasting death For all flesh saith the Apostle is as grass Pet. 1. and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass the grass withereth and the flower thereof sadeth away So doth the Psalmist compare the transitory life of man to the grass Psal 90.6 which in the morning is green and groweth up but in the evening is cut down dried up and withered to answer this I say there is a Spiritual Generation a new Birth and this is not of corruptible Seed but of incorruptible by the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever But it is with the Christian as it is with the Natural man in this that none are generated and produced in their full and perfect stature but in the tender age of Infancy there are Babes in Grace as well as in Nature which before they can attain to the stature of a man require daily food and nourishment and much growth and augmentation of parts much is required for the perfecting Eph. 4.13 for the increase and edifying of the body of Christ before any Christian come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ these operations after our Generation then of Nutrition and Augmentation are requisite to bring up a Christian from his Infancy to his Youth and riper years and these continue with us to the day of our departure hence because none attains to full age here our perfection is hereafter But we now begin our growth here after our conversion and new birth first in Childhood and Infancy and in this state we continue so insinuates the Apostle calling us children as long as we are tossed to and fro Ibid. ver 14 and carried about with every wind of Doctrine from Childhood we skip not straight to perfect and full age but by Youth and middle age for after we are born to Christ in Infancy debemus adolescere saith Calvin upon the place we must not stay in Childhood but Youth-out our time here grow on to middle age and be no longer Children in understanding and this stronger and riper age of a Christian the Apostle seems to exhort to where after his dehortation from Childhood Be no longer children he adds but speaking the truth in love grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ and in this age we pass the time of our sojourning here Hitherto this twofold Vegetative faculty by Nature and by Grace have been examined and agree in their operations but now we shall shew a difference and that a vast one 'twixt the workings of the one and the workings of the other and first in the first note of the natural operation in this Chapter observed The Soul in the Natural state cannot be said to be subject to The first difference or passive in those several motions of Generation Corruption Augmentation Diminution c. because it is impatible incorruptible indivisible but the body or compositum onely properly is generated corrupted augmented diminished and the like but in this Spiritual condition the Soul as well as the Body is capable of some of these motions and may be sayd to be begotten nourished increased * Necesse est animam cresci dilatari ut sit capax dei porro latitudo ejus dilectio ejus nam anima minime cum sit spiritus corpoream recipit quantitatem tamen confert illi gratia quod negatum est natura crescit quidem extenditur sed spiritualiter crescit non in substantia sed virtute crescit in gloria crescit denique in virum perfectum in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi crescit etiam in templum sanctum in domino ergo quantitas cujusque animae aestimetur de mensura charitatis quam habet ut verbi gratia quae multum habet charitatis magna est quae parum parva est quae vero nihil nihil Bernardus fol. 30 16. 30 17. F. G. Item super Cant. sermo 27. fol. 647. l. K. to grow as well as the body groweth in a spiritual and intellectual sense for here it is quanta as all abstracted Essences and Intelligences viz. the Angels and Heavens be quantae for as much as they be finite and so fall within quantity but not quantitatem praedicamentalem sed intelligibilem onely within an imaginary intellectual not a predicamental a metaphysical not a physical quantity as hath been said The second That compositum which is generated may be corrupted and that which is augmented may also be diminished this in Nature but otherwaies in Grace we are begotten and born not of corruptible seed but incorruptible which endureth unto eternal life without corruption without putrifaction
As for the Sense of Touching there is no difference amongst Divines nor indeed can be any doubt but that it hath its Operations in this blissful state since the gloried bodies may be felt and touched as all other true and lively bodies may and as our blessed Saviours was after his Resurrection as well Palpable as Visible not miraculously but according to its own Nature handle me saith he and see for a Spirit hath no flesh and blood as you see me have Thus much of the Senses Corporeal External and those parts of the body which are Instrumental and serviceable in the state of glory to the Humane Nature as they were to her in her Natural condition onely with these exceptions and limitations 1. From hence is banisht all sensual lusts and carnal Concupisence the Eye hath no lascivious looks the Ear 's infected with no blasphemous breath or impious sound nor this Sense deflowred with any adulterous touch here is no lust or desire of generation no respect of blood they neither marry nor are given in marriage this grosser acquaintance and pleasure is for the Paradise of Turks not the Heaven of Christians here is as no mariage save betwixt the Lamb and his Spouse the Church so no Matrimonial affections 2. Banish we likewise from hence all Impatibility of Sense sensus non fallitur nec laeditur circa proprium objectum no vehemencie of Object can destroy the Sense in their Natural estate their objects many times confound and wound them too great a light may make a man blind too great a sound may make him deaf we may not long gaze upon the Sun without blemish to our eyes otherwaies here for the Senses are blessed and glorious and so made Impassible and Immortal he who strengthens the Eyes of the Soul with such a measure of light and glory that they may see God face to face and yet not be dasled and confounded with his glory doth also so confirm and strengthen the Eyes of the body that without any hurt or damage to themselves they may behold not one but infinite Suns and Illuminated bodies though in themselves never so glorious 3. All Acts of Necessity are hence excluded the Soul doth not exercise her Sensitive Faculties Necessarily but freely and rules with the body and bodily Organs when she pleaseth and when she pleaseth the Soul rules alone For she hath other waies of Operation out of the body more Excellent and Noble the Senses are Secundary means for acquiring Knowledge not the Primary only subservient and at command of the Soul In the Natural estate the Sensitive Knowledge precedes the Intellectual nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuit in sense and without Sense there is no intelligence Not so in the Resurrection the Soul knoweth all things as fully and infallibly by Intuitive Vision and Inate Forms at once unico intuitu by one single aspect as by those various multiplyed Forms imprinted from sensible Objects under so many several notions and conceptions the Understanding stands not need of an Eye or an Ear or other bodily Organ to evidence the truth of what it apprehendeth it is not subject to Sense but Sense to it not the Soul to the Body but the Body to the Soul for the Nature of a glorified body is to be Spiritual that is subject to the Spirit not that it hath no flesh and bones but that it is so subject to the Spirit that at the beck and command thereof without any pains and difficultie it moves most swiftly Ascending Descending Coming Going and through every place penetrating as if it were not a body but a Spirit Ad hoc autem quod sit omnino corpus subjectum spiritui requiritur quod omnis actio corporis subdatur spiritus volunâ—ati saith Aquinas and therefore it is in the Power of the Soul to see or hear or the like to use or not to use these bodily Organs when and as often as she pleaseth without which in her Natural condition she could not Operate or reduce all her Faculties into Act. This is the state of that Church that part of Christs Body triumphant whose Organs and Senses are Spiritualiz'd to whom that part of Christs Church militant here doth hold resemblance the like Analogy and proportion bearing every Member one to another they on Earth to those in Heaven as every one beareth to Christ the H ad as the Spiritual Body in Heaven is Organiz'd so is the Organical Body on Earth Spiritualiz'd and hath five Spiritual Senses Senses refreshed with Spiritual Objects This I can assure thee O my Soul being a Member of that Mystical Body whereof Christ is the Head thou art entitled to yea and refreshed with such Sensitive Objects as the Saints in Heaven are refreshed and delighted with Objects for thy Eye thy Ear thy Nose thy Palat thy Hand as Form Sound Odor Sapor Spissitude but these made Spiritual and are so to be received I speak of Christ in the Eucharist who is made the Object of every Sense that the excellencie of the Knowledge of Christ may more fully be evidenced to us from him of whose fulness we all receive Christ is Visible to the Eye Audible to the Ear Sweet and fragrant to the Smel Savory to the Tast to the Nose Palat Hand sensible he is meat to the hungry and drink to the thirstie Angels food and mans repast Christ in the Sacrament is the Object of our Eyes and as real y present here as in Heaven and is as really exhibited to us who spiritually discern him though under other Forms hic ibi veritas sed hic palliata ibi manifesta he is palliated here but unveiled in Heaven here we see him darkly through the instrument of Faith for we walk by Faith and not by sight his real presence is believed our Corporal Eyes do not behold him otherwaies than veiled under those outward signes of bread and wine the eys of our Body seeth the signes the Eye of our Faith the thing signified aliud latet aliud patet what we see is Bread and Wine what we believe is the Body and Blood of Christ what our Souls cannot reach with Corporal Eyes it may discern by an Eye of Faith Faith is a director of the Soul or prospective to the Eyes to bring to their sight such things as are not discernable without in this Vale of tears through the prospect of Faith is Christ Visible to us though the Saints in Heaven have a cleaâ—er Viâ—ion of him seeing him face to face 〈◊〉 as they are seen This is but a glimpse of that beatifical Vision the glorified bodies have of Christ here per aenigma there facie revelata here veiled there revealed unde preciosior dicitur faciei visio quam speculi frequens imaginatio non enim pari omnino jucunditate sumitur cortex sacramenti medulla frumenti fides species memoria praesentia aeternitas tempus speculum vultus
ΨΥΧΟΣΟΦΊΑ OR NATURAL DIVINE CONTEMPLATIONS OF THE PASSIONS FACULTIES OF THE SOVL OF MAN In Three Books By NICHOLAS MOSLEY Esq 1 PET. 2.11 Dearly beloved I beseech you as Strangers and Pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the Soul Ignat. Epist ad Philip. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed for Humphrey Mosley at the Prince's Arms St. Paul's Church-yard 1653. TO My Honoured Kinsman ROBERT BOOTH Esquire T Is not dear Nephew Blood 't is not Consanguinity those several ties and relations of Nature more than a virtuous Mind and understanding Soul those Powers and Faculties of your Soul which I have known from your Childhood Active and Industrious and now find crown'd with Habits Intellectual These have layd an Obligation upon me of a more sacred civill reverence and respect unto your person such Homage will I ever owe to the man where these are seated for though I my self fall very short of such perfection yet is it not the least of my comfort here that I am a Philosopher a Lover of Wisdome and Learning where ever I find it my hand and heart is for it to no petition against it or the Nurseries thereof for which cause I have entred my self a Student in the School of Nature and of Christ there to find out this noble Science of the Soul what I have met with here and there dispersed I have endeavoured to recollect and compile into this Volume It is not therefore my own I am no discoverer of New Lights no teacher of Strange Doctrines I challenge in this Piece nothing but the Composure the Substance or Matter you may find in the old and beaten path of Faith and Truth which our Forefathers have trod and whose Footsteps we may securely follow To you then as no affecter of Novelty but a lover of Truth doe I dedicate these my labours as a pledge of my Love and part of that Debt owe you accept then of these from him who shall ever remain Sir Your obliged Uncle to serve and honor you NICH. MOSLEY The Epistle to the Reader EVery man naturally desires to know 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristotle it is the ground the Philosopher hath laid and placed in the very frontispiece of his Metaphysicks this innate desire to knowledge comes with the Soul of man even that which Forms him and distinguisheth him from beasts and makes him like unto God which is the Reasonable soul immortal and intelectual for when God said Let Vs make man in our own image after our own likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the foul of the air and over the cattell and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth man is not Gods Image in respect of his Body but his Soul which is a spirit as God is and the Image of God in man consists in that wherein man excells and hath dominion over other creatures now man excells not nor rules over Beasts in the parts of his Body which are far stronger in many beasts than in man but in the faculties of his Soul having a minde endowed with reason will and understanding which the soul of a beast is not capable of This Intellectual facultie of the human soul hath one property viz. that it is capable of all knowledge and herein is the excellency of our soules again manifested that nothing is able to know all things besides God the Angels and humane Intellect But forasmuch as human understanding is ignorant of many things and yet the Arch-philosopher saith it understands all things we must distinguish twixt the power and act and then there will be no contradiction the Understanding knoweth not all things actually that is proper to God the Understanding knoweth all things potentially this is true of the humane Intellect thus is Aristotle to be understood This Soul of man hath an innate desire an aptitude and ability of knowing all things which kindles a desire of knowing all things actually and makes the Intellect practick and to be in action Hence are found out so many arts sciences of all sorts the arcana naturae the very depth and secrets of nature comprehended within that general division of Moral Natural and Metaphysical as for that Theological science how hath it been enlarged and exemplified by writers on all points thereof yea upon the deep mysteries of Divinity of the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity of the two natures of Christ of the incarnation of the Son of God and the like all which shewes that even to this day the Tree of knowledge still workes in all men as well Christians as Heathens we still account the attaining of knowledge a thing to be desired and be it good or evill we love to be knowing all the sort of us In this ensuing treatise thou hast Gentle Reader for thy benefit intended what in my Meditations for my own behoof I had digested a discourse upon the Soul of man a Science than which of all that ever were or can bee attained to by the strictest disquisition of humane learning none more necessary as being most excellent most profitable most pleasant and therefore none more desirable if thou beest inflamed with a desire of knowledge learn to know thy own Soul By the knowledge of the Soul we come to the knowledge of our selves which how necessary it is the very Heathens may convince us Christians of by that notable famous sentence which was engraven upon the door of the Temple of Apollo at Delphos and said to descend from Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 know thy self for a vain and foolish thing it is to understand other things and to be ignorant of our selves to bend a mans studies to know the Heavens Elements and other things and not to know himself is the part of a fool and not of a wise man Zabarell de mente humana saith the Philosopher But we come not to the true knowledge of our selves but by the knowledge of our Soul with its faculties and operations for then wee are said to know our selves when we know our Soul more than our Bodie Especially the Intellectual facultie of our Soul by which we are that we are by which we are distinguished from beasts by which we are made like unto God In one part of this discourse is handled the state of the Soul in the body of man not somuch before the fall of our first parents as in his lowest and weakest condition cloged and pressed down with the fetters of Original sin and depraved Nature inclosed and intombed in these bodies of ours which carry about them a body of sin And thus the Soul is considered as the Formal part of a Man Form and Matter making one Compositum And this takes up the first Book being of the Physical Science of the Soul In another part is handled the state of the Soul of Man not so much in its essence
and Form cloged with the weight of misery and body of corruption as in its Operations and Faculties abstracted from Matter and use of the body which is a more Spiritual and Divine condition and this is the subject of the second Book whether we consider the Soul abstracted from the body in those purer workings of the Intellect the Soul still quickning and remaining in the body or consider it as the body lying in the grave and the Soul totally and really separated from it In another is touched the state of the Soul after death in a body glorified when this corruption shall have put on incorruption and this mortal have put on Immortality wherein as the Body so the Soul is in the highest pitch of bliss and glory that ever it was or can be capable of which is infinite therein being restored to the likeness of his Maker not onely by that Righteousnes Freedom of Wil and clearness of Understanding in which it was first created but in a far more eminent manner resembling his Maker in endless glory bliss and happiness we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is not in a glass darkly but then face to face And this Beatifical Vision of God is also a full Fruition of him who is our summum bonum the final cause of our Creation the Intrinsical end thereof viz. our perfection of state which consists in the full Fruition of God who onely is our summum bonum The first Book then is Natural or Physical the second is Metaphysical the third is Theological Consider we our Souls under the first Notion and as by a ladder whereof this is the first or lower most step we may raise up our selves in an orderly ascent into Heaven till we come to see God not onely as far as is possible to behold him in this Vale of tears and Veil of Flesh but till we come to be transformed into his Image to enjoy and see God even as he is If thou desire Knowledge the study of the Soul is most useful for thee what Science soever thou most affectest or what manner of Person soever thou art Bee'st thou a Philosopher it is necessary for thee for if thou addict thy self to Natural Philosophy and to know the causes of things the Soul is a subject for it it is principium animalium that which gives being to al living creatures so saith Aristotle is it the Mathematical Science which for certainty and plain demonstration thou desirest this thou hast in the Soul the Soul of Man gives this demonstration is it Metaphysicks thou affectest for the Nobleness of the subject therein handled Spirituall and abstracted from matter the Soul of man is spiritual immortal impassible abstracta à materia saith Aristotle so a Metaphysical subject Nay higher yet Art thou a Christian wouldst come to the knowledge and fruition of God the Soul of man runns through the whole body of divinity poynting and leading thee all along through the same Mistake me not I doe not judge it possible by any humane art and Science only to attain to true wisdome by any light of Nature to reach to saving grace or to that true light which lighteneth every man that commeth into the world by the eye of sense to come to the eye of faith I have not so learned Christ yet as Philosophy is said to bee hand-maid to Divinity and the Law a Schoolmaster to bring us to Christ so must the Reasonable soul be judged a necessary instrument towards the attainment of supernatural gifts for as natural Reason without Grace can never find the way to Heaven so Grace is never placed but in the Reasonable soul and proves by the very seat which it hath taken up that the end it hath is to be spiritual eye-water to make Reason see what by Nature it only cannot but never to blemish Reason in that which it can apprehend Grace hinders not the work of Nature wherein it is able to work nor faith blemish the eye of Reason in that which it can see and comprehend and doubtless that is very far even to the eternal power and God-head which makes the very heathens inexcusable where Nature is weak and cannot see Grace affords an helper and instrument to the eye of Reason to bring to its sight those things which for want of due requisites as convenient distance c. it was not of it self able to discern such are all the Mysteries of Divinity as the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity the Hypostatical Union the Incarnation of the Son of God c. all which are supra captum humanum Mans Reason cannot attain unto here Faith comes in and supplies this defect through the prospect of Faith Reason looks and without Reason Faith is useless here Faith perfects Reason and where it is wrong sets it right never undermines it may be above it but not against it nor without it So then is it Grace is it Faith thou seekest thou findest it in Humane Nature in a reasonable Soul This is a gift of God proper to man onely and to no other creature the meer Sensitive creatures have not this gift of Faith their nature is not capable of Faith they are below it this prospect of Faith would nothing avail the eye of Sense The meer Intellectual creatures as Saints and Angels in Heaven they have not need of Faith they are above it their Intuitive intellect needs no glass to see him whom they behold face to face onely to Man this glass is given this glass of Faith to the eye of Reason to make the soul see what by nature it cannot whilst it is veiled and imprisoned in this mortall and fraile body but after death Faith ceaseth then whether in the body or out of the body viz. before the Resurrection whilst the body sleeps or after the Resurrection when the body is raised to glory and both are reconjoyned we shall not need any help of Faih but shall see him even as he is know him even as we are known and be as the Angels in Heaven Reader being too conscious of my own weakness the importunity of my friends prevailed not with mee to make these papers publique till I had received encouragement herein from some more knowing men who took the paines to peruse them and then to return use this account ensuing MOSLEIO suo generoso Pietatis Philosophiae vindici ἘΥΧΆΙΡΕΙΠMUlta voluptate vir mihi charissime scripta tua quae pridiè hujus diei ad me dederas recensui ne dignitati tuae pro necessitudine nostra defuisse viderer quid de instituto tuo sentiam Doctissimo viro tuique amantissimo RUTTERO nostro palam feci omnia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gravia arguta 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ita mihi apparent ut Sacramento quod ait Orator contenderim tua esse nec vero quicquam scriptione hac tua video quod non utile sit antiquae
sobriae pietatis Christianos videre certò sciam Eaes in philosophicis mente quam ratio veritas praescribit ea in divinis quam pietas Ecclesia Deus suaserit tam amico foedere Ecclesiam Scholam Sociasti ut planè in Philosophicis Theologum egeris in Theologicis Philosophum Aristotelem ipsum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christianum autem bona mente Stagyritam Consilio tuo quote usum scribis facilé cedo tanta enim perturbatione confusione rerum cum perculsa prostrata jacent omnia nulla res alia levare animum molestiis potest nisi Deo animaeque vacare Rectae voluntatis conscientia constansque in Deum pietas maxima est rerum incommodarum consolatio perditis rebus omnibus ipsa se sustentat virtus ad bene vivendum satis est recte facere atque animarum saluti consulere Quod reliquum est festination meae ignoscas velim nec eos qui te non admirentur invidos nec qui laudent assentatores arbitrere Macte pietate tuâ atque optimarum artium scientiâ ut bono reipublicae statu meritam tibi reliquiae vitae dignitatem acquiras Qualem me tibi semper fuisse existimes velim futurum esse confidas Pietatis tuae Eruditionis cultorem R. BRIDE-OAKE Amico literarum meo NICHOLAO MOSLEYO Bene audire Cum optime meruerit ITa precor animitus istis precibus opus esse nunc dierum qui non nôrit similis tui parum est De fama tua modo recte fama nuncupetur quae abore praesentis seculi pendet periclitatus es valde apud nostros enim qui maxime sapiunt quam desipiant maxime vident omnes qui quicquam vident quò à veterum sententiâ longiùs i ur eò ad veritatem accedere proprius videntur hujusce aetatis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eo enim honore Blaterones istos Athenis dignati sunt quasi inventis vix dum triduanis nugari id demum Philosophari sit At tu MOSLEIE mi veritatis simul vetustatis Cultor Philosophiam omnem quam peperit Natura perfecit Theologia ita falebris suis exutam nobis reddidisti ut à vulgo certe metuerim ne libris tuis evolvendis saperent nimis ni probè scirem vulgus esse cui sapere à querelis à litibus nondum vacat Quam male tibi scriptisque tuis ominer vides at illud mihi semper solenne amicis integrum me dare Ita est mi MOSLEIE Philosophiam tuam ex ipsis sapientiae penetralibus depromptam ad gustum aegrotantis aevi fore si sentirem nae ego famae meae minus quam tuae consulerim quare cum quod olim Seneca posterorum negotium egeris decus illud quod viventi tibi atque sentienti debetur persolvant posteri Plura post BRIDE-OAKIUM meum ut quid ego cujus tu judicio fretus candore popularis censurae quasi Syrtes praetervectus enatare poteris SA RUTTER Natural and Divine CONTEMPLATIONS Of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man In Three Bookes THE FIRST BOOK The Physicall part CHAP. I. Of the Soul's original MAN is a creature specifically distinct from all others and that which gives him this difference is his Soul both Man and Beast agree in their genus for not to speak of that Soul which is in Plants and Trees as well as other creatures a Beast is defined to be animal so is man yea animal sensibile so is man yet that is the full and perfect Definition of all Brutes and that which gives them hoc esse Chap. 1. Book 1. and therein they fall short of the excellency of man's constitution for that form which constitutes a man is his soul not Vegitative which denominates him vivens nor Sensitive which denominates him animal but that which makes man to be man and denominates him so is his Reasonable soul this gives the specifical difference anima rationalis est forma hominis is the current opinion of all Philosophers Since man is made so excellent a creature so above the excellency of all other terrestrial creatures that the Psalmist in the deep consideration thereof cryeth out Psalm 8. Lord what is man that thou art so mindfull of him or the son of man that thou shouldst so regard him thou hast made him paulisper inferiorem Angelis something lower than the Angels but all creatures else are brought into subjection under mans feet and that this excellency and dominion of man is not in respect of his frail and mortal body many brute beasts excelling man in strength of body but in the indowments of mind It is a thing worthy our greatest pains and industry seriously to search into the nature and quality of this soul this which is formae informantis hominem whereby man is so distinguish'd from other creatures We come to the knowledge of things two wayes by their Causes or by their Effects the effects are nobis notiores and therefore we many times judge of things by the effects which is a nearer knowledge as to us but not so sure to judge by the cause is the surest though more difficult to us because more remote for scire est rem per causam cognoscere For a more Mathematical demonstration and certain science of the soul we shall begin our examination of the soul from the souls beginning from the cause and Original of the soul and so proceed to the effects Every soul hath an external and caelestial productive principle so saith Aristotle in his Book de generatione misti Lib. 1. which though it be true in one sense of the vegetative and sensitive as wel as the Rational for all living creatures which are begotten per propagationem and generated ex semine have not onely an elementary internal principle for such hath the inanimate creatures but an external and caelestial principle also Yet the humane soul hath it in a far more eminent manner the soul of beasts is produced from a caelestial cause yet so as by and from the power of the matter the soul of man is produced from above without any power of the matter concurring or intervening the matter indeed is fitted and prepared to receive the form but doth not at all produce it that comes immediately from God therefore saith Aristotle in the same place sola mens humana est divina viz. Lib. 2. Gen. anim ca. 3. In another place Restat ut mens sola extrinsecus accedat eaque sola divina sit not comparatively in respect of others onely but because it proceedeth immediately from God without the concurrence of secondary causes whereas others are drawn out of the power of the matter per media agentia naturalia Fol. 975. saith Zabarella de mente humana Nor is it natural Philosophy that teacheth this but Reason and Religion confirm and back it Let me reason with thee my soul as a learned Cardinal did
with his about this very point of the soules creation I demand of thee O my soul who gave thee thy being since thou hadst it not from eternity thou wast created in time and lately it was that thou hadst not a being certainly it could not be thy parents in the flesh for what is sprung from flesh is flesh but thou art spirit neither did Heaven or Earth or Sun or Stars produce thee for these are corporeal thou incorporeal neither could Angels or Archangels or any other spiritual creature be the authors of thy being for thou of no matter but meerly of nothing wast created and none but a power omnipotent can create a thing out of nothing therefore God onely without any companion or helper with his own hands which are his Wisdom and his Will when it seemed him best did create thee Again a little after Besides the conjunction of soul and body which is a principal part in the making of the humane nature can be made by none but a workman of an infinite power for by what art except divine can the spirit be joyned with the flesh in so close a bond as to become one substance for there is no likeness and proportion 'twixt the flesh and spirit therefore he onely must doe it who onely doth great wonders Consider then O my soul from whence from whom in what manner and into what thou art come First From whence From heaven thou art descended a pilgrim and a stranger here for a time thou art not here to continue and dwell thy country is above thither then aspire from whence thou camest mind not earthly things but seek those things which are above that when this my earthly tabernacle shall be dissolved thou be not pressed down lower with the weight of carnal l sts into the lowermost hell but maist have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens Secondly From whom From God thou camest thou art the spirit and breath of God in men O then breath again out of man to God whilst thou art in this prison of flesh send out thy hot breathings to God and draw in those cooler breathings of the Spirit from God thy hot sighs and zealous prayers to God his cool and gentle refreshments of love and pity from God that when I shall have payd all my rights of nature unto death and am gone into my silence though my body lie in the dust for a time my spirit may return to God that gave it Thirdly In what manner Not per media naturalia by any ordinary means but immediately and modo extraordinario without any companion without any helper 1 Learn then this O my soul that as God hath used no naturall meanes or secundary causes in the work of thy Creation so thou relie upon none in the work of thy salvation thou maist safely and boldly approach the Throne of grace without the mediation of Saints or Angels there is but one Mediator unto us who is both God and man Christ Jesus 2 Since God hath put nothing betwixt thee and him beware that thou thy self interpose nothing sever not what God hath not disjoyned let not thy sin be a Wall of separation twixt thee and him nor the mists and foggs of Carnall concupisence eclipss the Sun of righteousness from thee from whom thou borrowest all thy light and without whom thou art but Cimmerian darkness Fourthly consider whither thou art come into a Humane body a Humane nature fitted and prepared to receive thee but how not as a Subject but as a Prince thou to rule as a Queen it to obey as a Subject Therfore know this O my soul by the concurrent opinion of all Philosophers man is of a midle nature twixt mortal and immortal twixt terrestrial and caelestial things and some way resembles both participates of both in that man is indued with Vegetative and Sensitive faculties he is like unto brutes and ignobler creatures but in regard of his Intellectual faculty especially that which consists in speculation he is most like unto God twixt these two the Humane nature is sâ—ated and in a kind participates of both in this nature the soul sits as Emp ess if Sense rules here man lives as a beast degenerates into a brute if Reason and understanding rule especially the speculative Intellectual faculty man lives as God suffer not then O suffer not my soul thy vassals and slaves Sense and Appetite those ignobler faculties of thine to rule and reign over thee and so to transform the whole man into the nature of beasts but rule and govern thou by those more noble and Diviner faculties of thine Reason and understanding by which man resembles his Maker is made like unto him Lâ—stly consider O my soâ—l this mysterious conjunction of soul and body to become one man flesh and spirit one substance which cannot be but by a power Divine and thou wilt cease though not humbly to admire yet curiously to search into that sacred Mystery that Article of Christian faith touching the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ he Hypostaticall Union of the two natures in Christ St. Athanasius proves it and explaines it from this Union of the soul and body in one man saying The right faith is this that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God is God and Man God of the substance of the Father begotten before the World and Man of the substance of his Mother born in the World Perfect God and perfect Man of a Reasonable soul and Humane flesh subsisting Equall to the Father as touching his God-head and inferior to the Father touching his Man-hood Who although he be God man yet he is not two but one Christ One not by conversion of the God-head into Nan but by taking the Man-hood into God One altogether not by confusion of substance but by Unity of person For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man so God and man is one Christ The conjunction of soul and body is a secret and hidden thing but the Incarnation of Christ the Union of the God-head and Manhood far more secret for without doubt great is the mystery of godliness God manifested in the flesh and if it be so difficult a matter for man to find out the hidden things of this visible World that none as Solomon saith can comprehend the works thereof from the beginning to the end no not the workings of God within a mans self how shall man attempt to search out those invisible things of Heaven the hidden mysteries the unsearchable things of God therefore if thou beest wise O my soul seek saving knowledge and embrace the wisdom of the Saints which is to fear God and keep his Commandements delight more in supplication and prayer than in vain janglings and disputations in charity that edifies than knowledge that puffs up for this is the way that leads to life the Kingdom of Heaven where shall be
given to us little children humbly ignorant here an equality of knowledge with the Angells which alwaies behold the face of their heavenly Father therefore sing thou with the Psalmist Lord I am not high minded I exercise not my self in things too high for me Psalm 131. But I refrain my soul and keep it low like as a child that is weaned from his mother Yea my soul is even as a weaned child CHAP. II. Of the Attributes of the soul Chap. 2. Book 1. AFter the Original of the soul it will not be amiss before we come to its Definition to treat of the Attributes of the soul viz. the Immortality and Eternity the Indivisibility impatibility Separability and Impermixture of the soul not but that these are more properly touched in the second Book the Metaphysicall science of the soul as it is abstracted from bodily Organs only here to shew as I have already done the Divine principle of the soul how far these properties of the soul have been or may be evidenced by the light of Reason by the truth of naturall Philosophie and first with the last of the soules Separability and impermixture from the body and so in order upwards The Separability and immixture of the soul The soul of man is inorganical and hath its operations out of the body and therefore it is separable from the body separable I mean not as it doth subsist after death without the body as some of the antient Plilosophers onely held but even in this life also whilst it is in the body it is separated from it so the Modern and most of the antients maintain Lib. 3. de anima cap. 5. 6. Aristotle every where affirms it to be a property of the whole Intellect as well the patient as the agent and from this property of the soul is gathered arguments of the souls Immortality by Scotus Piccolomineus Alexander Aphrodiensis Vicomeratus Julius Pacius and others Art thou maried to this weak and frail body O my soul seek not a divorce in any unwarrantable unnatural way for though it be better to be dissolved and to be with Christ yet but for the cause of Christ thou maist not put her away not kill her or hate her but love her as a Wife cherish her as a weaker Vessell yet if she command obey not if she intice consent not let not thy Affections overcome thy Reason to cap ivate thy love to her lust in this case separate thy self from her not in affection but action let thy Diviner faculties Reason and understanding be thy Counsellors and rule thou in her yet above her and without her The Impatibility of the Soul The soul of man is Impatible it suffereth not for the rule is quicquid patitur corrumpitur as the wood suffers by the fire till it be consumed of the fire the soul of man not so it receives Objects and Species yet no way suffers or is hurt by what it receives Object But this property you will say the Sensitive soul hath as well as the Rational for even as the Intellectuall faculty receives intelligible forms yet doth not thereby suffer viz passione corruptiva so doth the Sensitive also receive its forms and Objects and is not hurt by them and therefore saith Aristotle sensus est impaâ—ibilis To this I answer that though this property agree with the Sensitive as well as the Rationall faculty yet with the Rational in a higher and much more eminent manner the Sense is not hurt by any Objects nor suffers any detriment so long as the Objects are presented in an orderly manner and due proportion there the Sense in no sense is patible viz. passione corruptiva but if a due proportion of the Objects be not observed for quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis the Sense is destroyed of its more vehement Object for he that saith sensus est impatibilis meaning in the former sense saith also vehemens sensibile destruit sensum and this vâ—hemens Objectum corrumpit sensum as too great a sound makes a man deaf too great a light will make a man blind But this cannot be said of Humane intellect since there is no such vehement Object which can corrupt it yea rather perfects it for after we have understood the highest and difficultest matters we are not made incapable of understanding easier as with gazing upon the Sun our sight will be so dazled with the light thereof that we cannot presently see lesser lights but much more capable to understand them than before and herein is an argument of the Divinity and immortality of the soul For were it mortall it would certainly be destroyed or wounded by its more forcible Object but vehemens in elligibile perficit intellectum ergo intellellectus non debilitatur in operando so incorruptible so immortall 'T is Scotus his argument for the souls immortality Behold how sin overthroweth as it were the whole Fabrick of Heaven God hath created the Humane soul of an impatible nature not subject to pain or punishment sin enters the soul and makes it liable to greater grief and torment than is imaginable evill of sin begets evill of pain pain privative and pain positive paenam sensus and paenam damni pain of loss the privation of eternal felicity banishment from the heavenly Country loss of the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven absence of God and want of the vision of him and an utter exclusion from all good things for ever this is the privative pain which is more bitter to me saith Saint Chrysostom than the positive torments of Hell nor is it any wonder if this loss cannot be expressed for we have not yet known the beatitude of those things that are reserved for us how then shall we apprehend our misery in the loss of them but besides this pain of loss there is a pain of sense a worm that never dieth a fire that never goeth out nor can any tongue express or heart conceive this pain but such as know them experimentally but a general torture it is in all the parts of the body in all the faculties of the soul the soul as well as the body is passive a passion worst of all passions a passion voyd of corruption voyd of consumption the wood suffers in the fire till it be totally consumed by the fire and well were it with the damned had they such pains which might at last consume them but as the widdows barrel of meal should not waste nor her cruse of oyl be spent so though in a different sense hers in mercy these in judgement the worm shall continually gnaw and eat but they not wast the bush shall burn in the fire and the fire not consume the bush for ever These things are writ for thee O soul that thou come not into this place of torment that if thou canst not patiently abide the eternall fire of hell hereafter thou maist not so patiently suffer sin here but
fly from it as from a serpent and if with any sin thou chance to be overtaken that thou maist mourn and weep for them here that so thou maist avoid this place of sorrow where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth for ever For he that saith Wo unto you that laugh and rejoice now for ye shall mourn saith also Blessed are they that mourn now for they shall be comforted and the Psalmist They that sow in tears shall reap in joy He that now goeth on his way weeping and beareth forth good seed shall doubtless come again with joy and bring his sheaves with him The Indivisibility or impartibility of the soul The soul of man is a simple essence and is not to be found except pâ—r accidens in the Predicament of Quantity Continuum non constat ex indivisibilibus sed in semper divisibilâ—a est divisibile cum enim ex eis constat in ea resolvetur Sennert lib. 1 cap. 4. Corpori suo modo coextenditur quamvis ex parte anima extensionem non habet Suarez disp 15. sect 3.11 fol. 251. therefore it admits not of fractions and parts is not capable of division If it were corporeal it would be quanta and so divisible as quantity is in semper divisibilia but being a spirit it is simple incorporeal immortal and so an indivisible substance That souls Rational are multiplied according to the multiplication of the Individuals I shall not deny to stand with Christian Religion as well as Philosophical verity but that the soul is divisible or extensible ad extensionem corporis I deny to stand with either the soul of Beasts and Plants is material and corporeal extensible as the body is extended so as part of the soul is in part of the body and the whole in the whole body but the Humane soul which is a spirit indivisible in a most wonderfull manner is tota in toto tota in qualibet parte so saith Philosophy And though it fill the whole body Bellarm. de ascensione mentis in deum c. grad 8. fol. 179. and 180. it takes up no room in the body it increaseth not as the body increaseth only begins to be where before it was not and if the body decrease if any member be cut off or wither the soul is not diminished or dried up onely ceaseth to be in that member it was in before and that without any hurt or blemish to it self Replet non occupat totum corporis locum nec etsi corpus hunc locum jam ante occupaverit impeditur quo minus ipsa in omnibus corporis partibus ad sit videmus eandem formam quae primo infantis corpus replet illud ipsum corpus nihil auctam ubi in vastam aetate virili molem excreverit repleris Sennertus lib. 1. cap. 4. And herein O my soul art thou a lively Character and Image of God a resemblance of thy Creator in his infinite being and omnipresence for God is a Spirit indivisible filling all the World and all the parts thereof yet taking up no room there nor may it be so imagined that God so fills the World as part of God is in part of the World and whole God in the whole World for God hath no parts cannot be divided but as thou art in the litle World Man so he in this great universe whole in the whole and whole in every part of the World and so is every where present with his omnipotencie and wisdom and when any new creature is produced God begins to be in that creature though the same from eternity and when any creature is destroyed or dieth God dieth not nor is destroyed onely ceaseth to be there yet without variation or shadow of change thus far the resemblance holds though thou must ackowledge O my soul Gods Indivisibility infinitely to surpass thine 2 Chron. 6. his omnipresence and illimiâ—ed greatness is such as Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain and truly for if another World were created God would fill it if more Worlds yea infinite Worlds God would fill them all and where he should not be there should be nothing The Immortality and eternity of the soul Touching the Immortality of the soul the Grand Philosopher not onely sets it down as of opinion but with many reasons proves the same I do not say all the operations and faculties of the soul or the soul according to all its faculties and operations Arist de gen anim c. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. i. e. restat ut mens sola extrinsecus accedat eaque sola divina fit nihil enim cum ejus actione commmunicat actio corporalis which cannot be spoken of the soul were it mortal and therefore I must needs be of Paulus Benius his opinion who saies plainly and proves it too turpiter affixam à quibusdam Arist mortalitatis animae opinionem Benius in Timaeum Platonis Decad. 2. lib. 3. See further Bishop Lawd against Fisher pag. 16. Num. 34. pun 7. fol. 113. in margin did Aristotle hold to be immortal a Christian may doubt of that and not be counted Heterodox since whether the operations of the Sensitive soul as seeing hearing smelling tasting touching remain in the body glorified and in what manner hath been is to this day a controversie in the Schools and as for the Vegetative facultie since there is no accretion or diminution in that state of glory it is perished or altogether useless But that all the operations faculties of the soul which are Essential as to understand c. are immortal that he boldly affirms saying hoc solum est immortale not understanding as Pacius observes the word immortal in that large sense as Plato did to prove every soul to be immortal the soul of Beasts as well as the Humane soul because every soul is life and no life can be the Subject of death therefore every soul is Immortal which argument proves not the Immortality of the soul and to remain after the body onely proves that the soul is not the Subject of death which is true for when any brute beast dieth it is not the soul but the animal or compositum that dieth but Aristoile to shew the Rational soul to be altogether Immortal and to remain after the death of the body he adds the word aeternum adds Eternity to Immortality saying hoc solum est Immortale aeternum not but that the soul had a beginning not Eternal à parte ante but because it never shall have end so Eternal à parte post But wherefore do I spend my time in proving that which hath been so generally received of all of what Religion or Profession soever not Christian Religion onely but all the several Religions in the World have ever taught the Immortality of the Soul were it the Graecian Chaldean or Arabian of old or the Jewes the Turkes or other of the Gentiles in these later times
and therefore they likewise hold there are rewards and punishments for souls departed according as they have acted in the flesh be it good or evill Onely they have differed about the state of souls departed in which some have held ridiculous things Touching which we will proceed to shew how far this verity is evidenced to us by Philosophical principles by the light of natural reason The Soul of man after this life remains and abides for ever whole and intire as to its essence for that is simple and undivided as hath been sayd though not as to all its faculties and operations all the faculties of the soul remain not with the soul after the death of man at least the operations in that condition as before and therefore may be said to be perished The Intellectual faculty abides for ever with the soul so is no way mortal but for as much as the Sensitive faculty is organical and cannot work without a body when the body dyes that faculty is sayd to perish but this in respect of the body not in respect of the soul which faculty abides with the soul for ever potentialiter though not actualiter but is idle and cannot work whilst the body sleepeth in the grave and as Aristotle saith An old man had he the eyes of a young man would see as well as a young man so if after death the soul should enter into a body it would doe all the operations which before it did now since all these faculties as to the soul remain though in respect of the body they are sayd to perish it is necessary and that according to the principles of Philosophy that sometime the soul should reassume a body or else these faculties are reserved and kept in vain But because no power or faculty can be in vain Vide Pacim in Arist de anima lib. 3. c. 6. sect 5. â— Et lib. â— c. 10. sect 5. yet that is in vain which is never reduced into act and that Deus natura nihil frustra operantur according to Aristotle and the rule of Philosophy therefore it must needs be confessed that the soul shall sometime come into the body again which Conclusion is confirmed by very good reason for the soul is according to its essence a Form and a Form naturally desires the Matter to which it relates and without the Matter it is but imperfect for nothing is perfect ex sola forma not by Form alone but Matter and form together so that Matter concurs to the perfection of all created compounded substances otherwise death would not be so terrible if all perfection and happiness consisted in the soul Being thus seasoned with these Philosophical verities thou maist more readily assent to those Theological truths of the soul's eternity and immortality thou seest O my soul how near nature rectified and rightly principled leads to Christ what Affinity there is 'twixt Reason and Faith Nature and Grace they thwart not one the other the Truth of Philosophy agrees with the Truth of Divinity and from this Philosocal Principle will I teach thee a Christian Article of the Resurrection of the body and life everlasting For let me argue with thee O my soul in thine own natural principles if the soul be a Form which naturally desires the Matter to which it is the Form and without which it is imperfect if it have Faculties which it cannot exercise without a body and that God and Nature have made nothing in vain therefore the soul must of necessity reassume a body it must either be the same numerical body or another different from what it had before if another then must thou grant a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Transmigration of souls an error of the Pythagoreans and is an impossibility according to the principles of Philosophy because as Aristotle every where affirmeth a determinate Form requires a determinate Matter a specifical Form a specifical Matter and a numerical Form requires the same numerical Matter so the same Individual Soul requires the same Individual Body and if the soul assume the same body then must thou hold the Resurrection of that body which Christian Religion teacheth also CHAP. III. Of the Definition of the Soul Chap. 3. Book 1. ONe and the same thing may be the subject of several Sciences though diversly handled and considered in every one of them and as it is diversly considered so may it diversly be defined Logick is not tied to certain matter but runs generally through all kind of things not standing so much upon the matter Mathematicks handles things abstracted from matter non re sedratione Metaphysicks handles things altogether separated from matter but Physicks handles things not separated from matter at all nec re nec ratione Thus are the Definitions of one and the same thing various according to the several Sciences which treat of it Aristotle puts an example of Anger that being considered in the Physical Science is defined to be A certain motion of the body for some injury received with desire of revenge being in Logick considered it s defined onely A desire of revenge the one expresseth the matter he other not The Soul of man is a subject for all Sciences Philosophical or Theological and therefore admits of several Definitions but for as much as it is not our purpose at present to treat of the soul of man either Theologically as the Image of God in man nor yet Metaphysically as incorporeal spiritual and abstracted from bodily organs in its diviner contemplative intellectual faculties which resembles the nature divine nor yet to handle it onely in its Sensitive parts which resembles the nature of beasts but as it hath assumed humane nature and is the Form of man and so a part of him who is compounded of Matter and Form who is in that respect of a middle nature 'twixt Terrestrial and Celestial 'twixt Mortal and Immortal creatures and participates of both and this nature too we consider not as in the state of integrity in which it was created but in this lapsed degenerate condition it groaneth under since the fall of man and is intombed in a body of weak and sinfull flesh and operates not but by and with the body The subject therefore of this Book is Physical material and inseparable from the body as well in its Affections which we here handle as in its Essence such then must our Definition be for quale est definitum talis esse debâ—s definitio The Definition of the soul The Soul is the act and perfection of the natural organical body having life in power I shall not stay to coment upon the words of this Definition to shew how the soul is an act and perfection which words are Synonima the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comprehending both and is the genus in this Definition and how this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not the second act to wit the Operation and Motion which is the soules
accidens but the first act of the body not Artificial nor Mathematical but of a Natural body nor of every Natural but that Natural body which is Organical and consists of many parts and members and this body Natural and Organical having life not actu sed potentia this is the Definition given by Aristotle in his book De anima where he also defines the soul to be that beginning by which we have life sense Lib. 2. ca. 1. Another Definition of the soul Lib. 2. c. 2. and understanding chiefly the which as it is a full and perfect definition of the Rational soul so take it disjunctively in it several parts and it will agree with the soul of Plants and of Beasts for the Soul of Plants is principium quo primò vivunt the soul of Beasts quo primò vivunt ac sentiunt the soul of Men quo vivunt sentiunt ac intelligunt primò the Soul is the beginning of life and Vegetation chiefly for when the soul is gone out of the body it ceaseth to live or grow any longer the soul is the beginning of Sense chiefly for the soul being absent the body is altogether insensible and the soul is the beginning of Understanding chiefly for the carcass or cadaver is voyd of understanding when the soul is departed out of the body And it is sayd chiefly because though the body Natural and Organical may be said to be the beginning of life sense and reason yet that is but Organically and Secondarily the Soul is the begining chiefly and primarily TotuÌ„ composituÌ„ dicatur principium ut quod cum sit illud quod agat forma vero principium ut quo cum agat beneficio formae instrumenta denique per quod cum per ipsa operetur Sennert These are the Definitions given by Aristotle the former being drawn from those things which are notiora secundum naturam though nobis ignotiora the latter from those things which are secundum nos notiora though secundum naturam ignotiora and those are the Effects and Faculties of the soul which are called the second act of the soul not the first act and are the companions associates of the soul neither of which do we reject but make use of both since in the subsequent Chapters we shall consider the soul not onely as it is principium corporis animalis tanquam forma or the act and perfection of a Natural Organical body which is according to the former Definition but as it is principium operationum tanquam eftrix as it is considered in the latter so making of two one Definition thus The Soul is the act the perfection and beginning of a Natural Organical body endued with life sense and understanding And now having traced thee O my soul from thy original the place and person à quo to the place and person ad quem from Heaven to Earth from God to Man and find thee clothed in humane nature I shall not raise a consideration from that close conjunction and mysterious union which is betwixt the soul and body flesh and spirit that being formerly couched in the first Chapter of this Book but finding thee seated in humane nature intombed and imprisoned in a body of flesh consider O my soul into what a body thou art come the body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Plato is quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the soul's prison and sepulcher a dungeon foul and noysom in materiâ primâ even in its first and best matter of which it is made slime and mud red earth and clay For God made man saith the Text of the dust of the ground And again Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return And again Behold I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord which am but dust and ashes And this first matter if we look into its original it was of meer nothing not of any other praeexistent matter for then it would not be materia prima It's true in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth but as true not out of another Heaven and Earth but of meer nothing and thus much of the first matter of this body of flesh But if we look into the second matter this body of sinful flesh contracted by the fall of our first Parents what is it but sanguis menstruus worse than a menstruous cloth or polluted rag which is a thing so vile and filthy as cannot be expressed the eyes refusing to b hold and the hands to touch it and the mind abhorring to think of it into to such a dungeon art thou cast O my soul fettered and fast bound in the chains of carnal lusts and concupiscence having thy Understanding darkned and thy Will and reason captivated and scarce the essence and definition of a soul remaining in thee thy act being turned into power nay rather impotency and weakness thy perfection into much imperfection thy beginning of life into a beginning of death and misery There was a time when the soul of man enjoyed more immunities and though a prisoner as it were in the body yet as Joseph who was made ruler and overseer of the whole house and had the command of all in the prison and whatsoever was done there that did he The soul was not a captive to the flesh so long as man continued in his innocency but contrariwise had the care and command of all the body was subject to the soul the flesh unto the spirit the inhaerent justice in which man was created subjected the inferior and Sensual parts to the superior Intellectual faculty without the least predominancy at any time so long as the superior continued in obedience and subjection to God the body was obedient to the command of the soul but after that the soul had rebelled against God the body took occasion to rebel against the soul so that to this day there hath bin a continual civil war within us the law of our members warring against the law of our mind and bringing us captive to the law of sin which is in our members this is the miserable estate of mankind by nature that in the deep sense thereof we may all cry with Saint Paul O wretched creature that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death But stand thou still O my soul and see the salvation of our God seest thou thy self in the state of nature dead in trespasses and sinnes an heathen an alien from the Commonwealth of Israel without hope without God in the world There is a law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made thee free from the law of sin and death this Christianity teacheth to this Christian Religion not Heaâ—henish superstition leadeth There is a state of Grace which is Christian as well as a state of Nature corrupt and hea henish Rom. 6.14 they that are under this law sin hath power on but they that are under Grace sin shall have no power over Vnto this state
of Grace O my soul thou art called a state of righteousness and justification by Faith which is the gift of God and say not thou with thy self that this gift of God doth not extend to thee for none are excluded that will lay hold on and receive this gift really tendred to all for as by the offence of one judgement came upon all men to condemnation so by the Righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life The righteousness that comes by Christ doth recompence the loss by Adams transgression and the advantage that comes by Christ is much every way for not as the offence so is the gift for judgement is indeed by one offence unto condemnation but the gift is of many offences unto justification Secondly By this O my soul thou art loosened from thy fetters released from imprisonment grave and hell by this thou art renewed in that image of God wherein thou wast created and restored to thy antient right of rule and dominion by this thou comest again to the true definition of a Soul viz. The very perfection and act of a Natural Organical nay more of a Supernatural Organical Body and the beginning of llfe not a Natural onely but Supernatural not Temporal but Eternal also CHAP. IV. Of the Vnity of the Soul Chap. 4. Book 1. THere be three distinct Effects and Operations of the Soul from which we have drawn our Definition above-mentioned viz. Life Sence and Understanding and these have their distinct Powers or Faculties viz. the Vegetative the Sensitive and Intellectual the Vegetative Faculty hath the proper effects of the Vegetative Soul to produce Life the Sensitive hath the property of producing Sense and the Intellectual Faculty the property of the Rational Soul of begetting Understanding of these we purpose to treat distinctly and apart in the next ensuing Chapters by the way we shall say something of the Soul's Unity to prevent some mistakes and errors which have arisen and still may be touching the Soul in its Essence and Powers for when we see and learn these distinct Faculties and operations of the Soul we are easily drawn to conceit there are also three distinct Soules in Man this was the Error of no mean Philosophers Plato of old Averroes Gandavensis Zabarel and others of later daies and accordingly they held that these Souls had their peculiar and distinct places of residence and abode in Man the Vegetative they placed in the Liver the Sensitive in the Heart and the Rational Soul in the Brain but this doth Aristotle every where confute so do the generality of Philosophers after him Scotus Pacius Faber Faventinus and others For man is certainly One and how comes a Trinity of soules in the Unity of a person What is it that unites man and makes him one it must be his soul or his body but not his body that 's clear for first the body is united and preserved by the soul not the soul by the body wherefore we see by experience that when the soul is departed out of the body the body continues not long after but turns to putrifaction Again man is said to be one not in respect of his body but his soul the body which is materia is nothing but in power 't is the Form which actuates and perfects the Form gives being and since ens bonum convertuntur Forma ut dat esse sic etiam dat unitatem Sennertus that which gives Being gives Unity the soul of man gives him his being dat hoc esse the soul of man gives him to be one now if there were three Forms three distinct souls in man every distinct Form must give him a distinct being so man would not be one but three a Monster a tergeminus Gerion an opinion exploded as well in Divinity as Philosophy See Tertullian in lib. de anima But man is but One therefore but one soul in man though distinct in its powers and faculties there is a Trinity of faculties in the Unity of a Reasonable soul the Vegetative is a faculty of the Vegetative soul the Sensitive of the Sensitive and the Intellectual of the Rational soul yet is there not three souls in man but one soul One Individual soul onely in man according to Aristotle which notwithstanding hath dividual and distinct powers and faculties one simple essence which is the Form of man distinguisht into three faculties of Vegetative Sensitive and Intellectual one in respect of its essence three in respect of its faculties Neither are these faculties one before or after another in time but all are Cotemporarie there is no Priority or Posterity in time onely in order amongst them Object Averroes and Zabarel who maintain three souls in man are against this position and quote the words of Aristotle in his Book de gener animal cap. 3. which are these Man first lives the life of Plants then the life of Beasts and afterwards the life of a Man from whence they would infer that one faculty is in time before another and one succeeds another therefore there are so many several and succeeding souls Ans But to this it may be answered That because the soul hath need of Organs and Instruments of the body to work withall and that these Instruments are too weak and litle fit to exercise the noblest Operations of the soul in the first times therefore doth the soul exercise the Operations of Vegetation first because those Organs are first fitted and prepared and afterwards the Operations of Sense and Reason and in this sense is Aristotle to be understood where he saith A man first lives the life of Plants then the life of a Beast and afterwards the life of a Man to wit in the Operations of the soul which are in time one before another the Operations of the Vegetative soul are first then of the Sensitive and lastly of the Rational and that will be granted by reason of the defect and inability in the other Organs which are not so soon fitted for the other faculties to operate yet the faculties of the soul are in one instant of time without any Priority one of another in time and so they continue after the dissolution of the soul and body though the Operations of some of the faculties are perished because the body whose Organs they require are perished the faculties of the soul as well the Sensitive as Intellectual remain and abide with the soul after the death of man although the Intellectual then is onely operative as hath been elsewhere said and as we cannot say and say truly that the Sensitive faculty is perished with the body and the Intellectual only survives and abides with the soul because it only operates no more truly can we affirm that the Vegetative faculty in the first Generation is first in time because it first operates therefore saith Philosophy There is no Priority or Posteriority in the faculties of the soul there are none
before or after other in the Generation of man See Magirus his Comment in Physicam suam lib. 6. cap. 3. By this Philosophical Verity of the Unity of the soul in the Trinity of faculties maist thou more readily assent O my soul to that Christian and Catholick article of that sacred Mystery of the Unity of the God-head in the Trinity of persons thou art an Embleme of the trine-une-God of one God in essence and three persons in operation one simple essence in three distinct persons Father Son and Holy Ghost thou art one Soul a simple and undivided essence in three divided and distinct powers Vegetative Sensitive and Intellectual and these are three not confounded but so distinct powers that one may not be predicated of another the Vegetative is not the Sensitive or Rational nor the Sensitive the Vegetative or Intellectual faculties nor the Intellectual either Vegetative or Sensual so in the Trinity of persons in one God-head they are all distinct not confounded persons we must not confound the persons nor yet divide the substance so saith Catholick faith the Father is not the Son nor the Holy Ghost St. Athanasius his Creed Licet namque in hac ineffabili incomprehensibili deitatis essentia alter alter id quidem requirentibus proprietatibus personarum sobrie Catholiceque dicatur non tamen ibi est alterum alterum sed sim◠〈…〉 â—um ut nec prejudicium faciat unitati trinitatis confessio nec propri◠〈…〉 â—it exclusioâ— vera assertio veritatis Bernardus Epist 190. fol. 1581. K. paulâ— infra Alius procul dubio pater alius filius quamvis non aliud pater quam filius nam per aliud aliud novit pietas fidei caute inter personarum proprietates individuam essentiae unitatem discernere medium iter tenens regiâ incedere via ut nec declinat ad dextram confundendo personas nec respiciat ad sini tram substantiam dividendo It s truly said saith Ursinus in his Catechism the Father is alius another from the Son and Holy Ghost the Son is alius another from the Father and the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost is alius from the Father and the Son but not truly said the Father is aliud the Son aliud the Holy Ghost aliud for alium esse denotes the diversity of persons but aliud esse the diversity of essence now though the persons in the Trinity be dictinct and the names of Father Son and Holy Ghost are proper names and may not be predicated one of another yet God is a common name because the essence of the deity is common to them all and may be predicated of any of them therefore doth holy Church acknowledge the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God not as a part of God or the Divine essence for God is indivisible and hath no parts and there is no person in this Trinity but is perfect God and whole God Even so the Soul is a Common name and may be predicated of any of the faculties not as a whole to its parts for the soul is indivisible and hath no parts and there is none of the faculties but is the full and whole soul For as the essence of the soul is indivisible and is whole in the whole and whole in every part of the body so are the powers and faculties of the soul of the same nature for since the powers and faculties of the soul are or at least flow from the very substance of the soul and the substance of the soul is in all and every part of the body it must needs follow that the faculties of the soul are also there intire It is true Anima quae est in toto corpore eadem eisdem quidem est ubique instructa facultatibus in omnibus membris omnia quae sibi propria sunt agendi potentiam habet per certa tamen organa certas actiones perficit videt per oculum audit per aures olfacit per nares Sennartus lib. 6. cap. 1. Tom. 1. the Operations of the soul are not in every part and place of the body because in every part there are not requisite Organs and therefore it s said The faculties of the soul are in every part of the body as to their essence though not as to their Operations See Fab. Favent theor 82. in sine primi capitis Again in this Trinity of persons none is before or after other none is greater or less than the other but the whole three persons are Coeternal together and Coequal so saith Athanasius And thus far may the Soul of man with its faculties in a sort though in a weak and imperfect manner hold the resemblance of God and the blessed Trinity yet maist thou not O my soul but conceive that this sacred Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity in a far more eminent manner excells that of thine nor maist thou with safety too curiously search into this mystery but what in Reason thou canst not apprehend with the Catholick Church adore and believe and the Catholick Faith is this That we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance for there is one perperson of the Father another of the Son and another of the Holy Ghost But the God-head of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all one the glory equal the Majesty Coeternal Such as the Father is such is the Son and such is the Holy Ghost The Father Uncreate the Son Uncreate and the Holy Ghost Uncreate The Father Incomprehensible the Son Incomprehensible and the Holy Ghost Incomprehensible The Father Eternal the Son Eternal and the Holy Ghost Eternal and yet they are not three Eternals but one Eternal as also there are not three Incomprehensibles nor three Uncreated but one Uncreated and one Incomprehensible so likewise the Father is Almighty the Son Almighty and the Holy Ghost Almighty and yet they are not three Almighties but one Almighty so the Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God and yet they are not three Gods but one God so likewise the Father is Lord the Son is Lord and the Holy Ghost Lord and yet not three Lords but one Lord for like as we be compelled by Christian Verity to acknowledge every person by himself to be God and Lord so we are forbidden by the Catholick Religion to say there be three Gods or three Lords the Father is made of none neither created nor begotten the Son is of the Father alone not made nor created but Begotten the Holy Ghost is of the Father and the Son neither made nor created nor begotten but Proceeding so there is one Father not three Fathers one Son not three Sonnes one Holy Ghost not three Holy Ghosts And in this Trinity none is before or after other none is greater or less than another But the whole
as shrill and sharp or base and dull sounds and their intermediums the nose and palate are near a kin and have Objects alike of which they Judge the one of sweet or bitter smells the other of sweet or bitter tasts and their mediums the hand or Sense of feeling hath its different Objects of hot and cold moist and dry soft and hard and the like of which it passeth its Judgement And by interjected means The Senses as they require their proper Objects so also fit Mediums for the conveyance of things sensible to the Senses the Objects of the Sense work not immediately upon the senses but by intcrjected means so the eye to discern and judge of colours needs light and a transparent perspicuous body as Air Water Glass Ice or some such diaphanous body actually enlightned to convey the Object to the sight without which interjection the eye could not discern at all and indeed many more things are required to make the Judgement that comes of Sense perfect which otherwise is very uncertain and deceitful though positis omnibus requisitis all necessaries being premised the rule holds true sensus est semper verus and this sensus non fallitur circa proprium objectum and in this sense and no other is Aristoâ—le to be understood The Senses by receiving things sensible are made one or like to those Objects they receive for the Form and similitude of the Object presented to the sight is in the eye and made one with it and so of the other Senses and their Objects the sight and thing seen the ear and thing heard the smell and tast and their Odors and savours are all alike no difference twixt the Sense and its Object but talis est sensus quale est objectum such potestate in power not in Act not in act the same with the Object which is a matter for the matter is not received by the Sense the Form and similitude onely is received into the Sense abstracted from Matter And therefore doth Aristotle compare the Sense to Wax and the Object to a Seal Now as the Wax taketh the impress and Form of the Seal whether it be Iron Brass Gold or Silver but no part of the Iron Brass Gold or Silver So the sense receives the Form and print of the Object or thing discerned but no part of the matter of the Object Nor was there any being in the Sense before but a bare facultie a faculty to receive sensible Forms an aptitude power of receiving colours is in the sight of the eye in that Instrument or Organ of sight which is called pupilla in English the ball or apple of the eye this hath a faculty a power of receiving colours as the Organs of the other Senses have of receiving theirs but is not actually coloured hath no colour in it for then it could not receive those that are without nor have an aptitude thereunto for saith Aristotle intus existens prohibet alienum the good man within doors keeps the stranger forth But that the Senses may more readily receive their Objects therefore are the Organs destitute and naked of the Nature of the Objects they receive as the eye is void of colour and the ear of sounds for if the eye had Actually in it either white or black it could not receive another from without so when any savour or smell is actually in the Organs of those Senses it is an impediment to other savours and smells that they either not at all or at least very weakly are discerned for intus existens prohibet alienum that which is within keeps all others out Lastly these External Senses are the five Ports and Gates of the Intellectual Soul at least of that Intellectual faculty which is called Patient or Practical and there is nothing entreth into this faculty but is let in thorough some of these doors the Cinque-ports of the Soul for so is the rule in Philosophy nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuit in sensu I need not tell thee O my Soul thou hast a conscience within thee is in stead of a thousand witnesses shewing thy miserable seduction and Perdition by following the Judgement of Sense and refusing the dictates of thy own Understanding judging according to the outward appearance of External Objects gilded apples and fruit of the tree bona apparentia onely pleasant to the eye and goood for food bitter in thy belly though sweet in thy mouth gall in digestion though Honey in tast nor need I to shew thee the resemblance and similitude twixt thee and thy Objects which thou hast contracted by receiving and embrasing of them such as thy Object is such art thou sin is thy Object therefore thou art such such in Form and likeness and since sin is a non entity privatio boni the Form of sin is meer deformity this print and Form hast thou within thee as fully and plainly as the Wax retains the Form of the Seal through the Senses it is conveyed unto thee the innumerable sinnes and transgressions wherewith mankind is involved springs from hence even from this Sensitive faculty of the flesh the Senses are the doors thorough which all sins of all kind have entred into the Soul of man the rule in Philosophy nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuit in sensu holds true in sins of all sorts which come not to the Soul but thorough these wider Gates which lead unto destruction thorough these the three Grand enemies of Mans Salvation shoot their poisonous darts at the heart of man Help help me O Lord my God for my Enemies have compassed about my Soul the Flesh the World and the Devill and the dangerousest Enemy is my own Flesh my bosom-friend is become my greatest adversary they of my household are my deadly foes the Flesh which I cannot fly from nor yet drive from me I am constrained to carry about me it is so close conjoyned to my Soul d stroy it I may not though unwillingly I uphold it feed it I must though in feeding of it I nourish my Enemy an Enemy worst of all enemies not an open enemy for against a professed Enemy one may make head but thou my familiar an intestine secret Enemy who slayest unawares as Joab did Abner and Amasa this is the Enemy within that betraies my Soul to its Eenemies without and sets open these Senses the Soul's Cinque-ports through which the World and Devill shoot their poysonous arrows and have grievously wounded me and death through these windowes hath entred my Soul I open my eyes and the world presents me with beautiful Objects a Dalila a Bethshaba the Devill straight shoots his poysonous dars lascivious thoughts unchast desires Carnal lusts and concupisence and fastens in my Soul I open my ears and the World presents me with the various sounds of blasphemy towards God scandalous and reproachful speeches towards our Neighbours perjuries lies cursings from my own mouth and
from the mouths of others straight the Devil shoots his arrows of Anger Malice Strife Envy Murther and the like I would please my palate and behold I am presented with all the delicates the World affordeth the Devil shoots his darts of excess of Gluttony Drunkenness and the like to my feeling is presented the Worlds various Objects of Warm and Moist and soft and Smooth the Devills darts are Adultery Fornication c. Thus whether I See Hear or Speak Tast or Touch I am assaulted on every hand by these my Enemies who bear a Tyrannous hate against me and which way soever I turn me I find no safety Perills and Dangers Temptations and Trialls Snares and Ginnes Bonds and Imprisonment whither soever I goe do attend me darts are continually cast close Siege is laid to my Soul sometimes they assault me vi armis in open field sometimes by underminings sleights and Stratagems somtimes overtly sometimes covertly alwaies maliciously To thee do I fly for help against these evills O my God for vain is the help of Man unto thy Word have I recourse where I find present cures and remedies for all such as will faithfully apply them and first of the remedie against the evils of the eye this I find set down by holy Job and practised by himself I have made saith he a Covenant with my eyes that I will not think upon a maid The words are not I will not lock but I will not think for look I may but not so long look till that aspect doth pierce to my heart and I begin to think of her beauty and to lust after her imbraces St. Augustines rule for chastity accordingly is occuli vestri si jaciantur in aliquem sigantur in neminem we may cast our eyes on some but fasten on none for simple aspect cannot be avoyded nor can that hardly hurt the Soul unless it be continued therefore saith Augustine not the beholding but the continuance in beholding is perilous The remedy against the evill of hearing the Prophet David laies down Psalm the 39. I said I will take heed unto my waies that I offend not in my tongue I will keep my mouth as it were with a bridle whilst the ungodly is in my sight Speak I may that 's not prohibited but a caution given to take heed what I speak I may speak with discretion if I speak with deliberation warily and wisely rashly and foolishly therefore saith David I will take heed to my waye that I offend not in my tongue that is I will ponder and consider beforehand what to say my words shall not be many and ex tempore but few and with premeditation I will keep silâ—nce awhile and muse though it be pain and grief to me and whilst I am musing the fire kindle and at last I speak with my tongue And this rule Saint James prescribes Jam. 1.19 that every man be slow to speak so Saint Bernard Verba antequam proferantur pensanda we must stay to weigh our words before we utter them and b cause we many times receive hurt from others tongues as well as our own Saint Bernard 's rule is for slow hearing as well as slow speaking for the prophane and scandalous speeches of others doe suddenly infect our souls if we lend a willing ear thereto for words saith Democritus are the shadow of deeds for what we doe hear with delight we will as readily act and therefore saith he many lose the benefit that comes by refraining their tongue because they refrain not their ears from others tongues Now against Gluttony and Drunkenness the sins of the Palate and against Adulteand Fornication which come by the Sense of Feeling the Remedies are such as Physicians use to prescribe their Patients in their sick and weak condition viz abstinency from much meat and drink a spare and moderate diet 1 Tim. 5.2 such as Paul prescribes Timothy a little wine for his stomacks sake and his often infirmity a little wine to strengthen him against his often infirmities and but a little wine to avoyd Luxury In lib. de arte bene moriend for in wine is Luxury saith Bellarmine Again Physicians use Phlebotomie lanching and cutting of Veins and prescribe bitter Pils and Potions all which are enemies to Nature and the body of man such are all fastings and watchings and humbling of the body which though they turn to the Mortification of the Flesh yet tend to the Vivification of the Soul and this is the chastising of the body which St. Paul speaks of Cor. 1.9 saying Castigo corpus I chastise I keep under my body and bring it into subjection lest that by any means when I have preached to others I my self should be a cast-away But for further remedy against such evils as come to the Soul by these Senses I will shew how the Soul hath five Senses by which it is cured as the Body hath five by which it is wounded As the Body hath five Senses so hath the Soul there are five Organical Corporeal Senses there are also five Inorganical and Spiritual Senses the Body hath five by which it is joyned to the Soul in life the Soul hath five by which it is united to God in love De natura dignitate amoris divini cap. 6. f. 1155. serm 16. parvis sol 481. c. Et de vita quinque sensibus animae fol. 374 a. Et in caena domini serm 5. fol. 1360. 'T is Saint Bernard 's observation his words are these There are five Corporeal Senses by which the Soul gives sense to the body which are beginning with the lowermost and so upwards to the noblest of them Feeling Tasting Smelling Hearing Seeing There are also five Spiritual Senses by which Charity quickens and enlivens the Soul viz. Paternal Love Social or Conjugal Love Natural Love Spiritual Love and Divine Love or the Love of God and as the body by the means of life is joyned to the soul by five Organical Senses so is the soul by the means of Charity joyned to God by these five Spiritual Senses the Love of Parents is the meanest Spiritual Sense and answereth the bodily sense of Feeling the Love of God the highest and noblest Sense and answereth the bodily sense of Seeing So Love runs through the whole Soul and without this Love the Soul is dead to God Love I say not Lust the Soul's Love Chap. 7. Book 1. not the Senses Lust Love the action of Virtue not the passion of Vice Love the fruit of the Spirit not Lust the weed of the Flesh Of which Love we shall speak more in the Chapter of the Affection of the Soul CHAP. VII Of the three Internal Senses viz. Common Sense Phantasie Memory THus much of the External Senses which are seated in the body whose Organs are extra to judg of things out of themselves Now come we to the Internal which are intra cranium seated in the Brain not outward
they fall not under the object of Memory properly things present fall under the External senses those things we hear or see without any use of our Memory nor of time future that is not the notion of Memory things future we remember not they fall not under Memory but under Faith Opinion Hope and Expectation but the object of Memory is the form of External objects conserved and kept under the notion of time past onely And of this there are two sorts in man a Sensitive Memory which is common with Beasts and perisheth with the Body and an Intellectual Memory proper to Man which is Immortal and remains with the Soul after death this Intellectual Memory is called Recordation or Remembrance and onely found in such creatures as can rationally discourse and this is a Memory of such things which were once in a manner clean forgotten but brought again into our mind and re-imprinted in our Memory by reason and deliberation and weighing of repeated circumstances of time place person or other like things We shall not insist upon that faculty which is called Common Sense it being the same with the five External they as the Rivulets it as their Spring it as the Point they as the Lines drawn from the Point of which we have raised our consideration before Phantasie is the highest faculty that irrational creatures are capable of this sits as supreme Judge in the Sensitive Soul yea and I may say too in the Rational Soul even since the Fall of man by which his Understanding was darkened and captivated to the lusts of the fâ—esh and whose operations are slower and more obstructed than the operations of our Phantasie the operations of Reason and Understanding are impedited many waies upon any perturbation of mind either by immoderate Love or Anger Fear or Grief or the like or else by some sickness and distemper of the body or else by sleep for then the External Senses rest neither doth the Understanding that while work but in all these cases the Phantasie is working and let a man sleep or wake his Phantasie is seldom idle but man is slothfull and loth to goe to that strict inquisition and painful search of things which the Understanding standeth upon therefore he goeth to Phantasie which is more nimble easie and ready at hand This causeth man to run into so many errors for whilst right reason was his guide he continued upright Intellectus est semper verus is a Maxim in Philosophy for that judgement which Reason passeth upon things as it is with deliberation so it is voyd of error but when man rejected the judgement of his own Understanding and followed the judgement of sensual Phantasie which was our first Parents case and in them of us all he runs himself upon a thousand errors and involves himself in a sea of miseries for the judgement of the Understanding is not so sure and true but that of Phantasie is as deceitfull for though Sense may give a true judgement in some cases pofitis omnibus requisitis as a proper object present and presented to an Organ fitted and prepared to receive it by due mediums convenient distance and the like yet Phantasie sticks not to these rules but passeth her sentence on all objects that have been presented to her by the Senses whether they be present or absent proper or common near or far off and who seeth not upon what weak principles how rotten a foundation this judgement of Phantasie standeth yet from hence all things are conveighed into our Memory and there registred as they are by our Phantasie apprehended true or false good or bad there they are reserved and kept And thus we descend to the consideration of our Memorative faculty from whence they pass into our Affections Soul The Memorative faculty as it takes and retains the impression of all vain objects presented by the Phantasie so its operation is to think of them so retained Memory then is the Magazine and Nurserie of our thoughts this is the source of sin and sink of all uncleanness from whence springs every wicked invention every foolish imagination every evill thought and cogitation and these are the beginnings of sorrow hinc illae lachrymae sin creeps first into our thoughts then into our words then into our actions in our Memory our destruction is first hatched Memory sends forth lusts lust when it hath conceived brings forth sin sin when it is finished brings forth death Saint Bernard makes three degrees of sin one in thought that 's from our Memory another in affection that 's from our Will the third in purpose and resolution that 's from our Mind the thought to sin defiles and stains the soul the affection to sin wounds the soul but the resolution to sin kils the soul thoughts breed delight delight consent consent action action custom custom necessity necessity death Thus sin like the cloud arising at the first in the compass of a hand soon overspreads the surface of Heaven or like a Gangrene beginning in the Memory but quickly overrunning all the parts and faculties both of soul and body this is that Basiliâ—k which must be crushed in the shell lest it grow to a Dragon and drive the woman into the wilderness and this is done by resisting the beginnings by driving all lustfull thoughts out of our Memories It may seem and really it is so a difficult work to expel all those various thoughts and imaginations of the heart which are evill onely evill and that continually but when once the Memory is seasoned with other cogitations the evill and corrupt will not so easily find entertainment vitious and virtuous thoughts will not cohabit together the love of the World and the love of God the lust of the Flesh and love of the Spirit cannot consist in one subject If any man love the World the love of the Father is not in him they are contrary which cannot be in one place at one and the same time the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and pride of life is not of the Father but of the World The remedy against these is the same with that against the evils of the eye set down by Job I have made a covenant with my eyes how then shall I think upon a Maid if I resolve to withdraw mine eyes from beholding vanitie much more my mind from thoughts of vanity wherefore that my Memory be seasoned with purer meditations I will call to remembrance the loving kindness of the Lord I will think of God and in him will I rejoyce I will think upon my Redeemer how and what he suffered for me I will think on the hour of death and day of Judgement of the joyes of Heaven and of the torments of Hell the consideration of these is of force to affright and drive away all the wicked thoughts of the World the Flesh or the Devil of what kind soever whether they be ambitious proud thoughts or light and vain
it is not Will longer than its free for that is it whereby it is distinguished from Appetite and whereby Man is disstinguisht from Sensitive and all other agents and made like unto God resembling him in his manner of working God workes not necessarily but freely so we what ever we work as men the same do we wittingly work and freely saith Mr. Hooker else our actions would neither he righteous nor sinful in themselves nor reward or punishment due unto us for the same for these do alwaies presuppose some thing done well or ill and that willingly and freely and because of this freedom of Will in Man onely Mans observation of the Law of his nature is righteousness onely Mans transgression sin righteousness and sin is imputed to none hut voluntary free Agents that might have done better or worse than they do Hence ariseth that conscience which is in every Man and not to be found in other Agents a conscience either accusing or excusing every Man for the good or evill he hath done though never so secretly for as much as he might have chosen whether he would have done it or no Every Mans heart and conscience saith Mr. Hooker doth in good or evill even secretly committed and known to none but it self either like or disalow it self and accordingly either rejoyce very nature exulting as it were in certain hope of reward or else grieve as it were in a Sense of future punishment And this ariseth from an innate freedom that is in all Rational creatures a freedom of willing and nilling those things which Reason judgeth good or evil This light of Reason and Understanding is in all men in all Intellectual creatures the wickedest Man that is wholly governed by the inferior Orbs by unruly passions which flow from Sense not by the dictates of a right Understanding hath so much of this Intellectual power which serves to struggle to combate and to fight with those powers of Sense and Appetite and though it seldom prevail yet it leaves a sting of conscience sticking like a thorn in the flesh because in doing evill he prefers and that wilfully a lesser good before a greater the greatness whereof is by reason investigable and may be known Known by an unregenerate man by the light of Natural Reason much more by a regenerate man enlightned by the Spirit of God which is an argument of the freedom of Will in all men the will is alwaies and in all men free free in it nature and essence though in it operations an accidental servitude is acquired by the Fall Man was created with a posse standi and posse cadendi without any servitude upon his Will and though his choice was evil and so he fell yet to will and to doe that which was good was more natural to him the Moral Law was writ in his heart and made connatural more easie it was for him to have kept than broke it though since the Fall the course of nature is changed from a posse standi or posse non cadendi to a non posse non cadendi from a liberty of standing to a necessity of sinning and all this by nature not in massa pura but in massa corrupta by the vitiosity of Nature an evill servitude and sad accident acquired by the Fall of man is more prone to evill than to doe good we may not say so properly naturaliter as accidentaliter the Will being wounded in its operations having an accidental servitude upon it so that now though to will be present with us yet how to perform we know not there is in the best so much predominancy of Sense and Appetite over Reason through evill habits and customes accrewed or the seeds of Original sin derived to them they many times doe contrary to what their Wills desire and their Reason presents as good according to that of the Apostle The good I would that do I not but the evill I would not that do I. CHAP. IX Of the Affections and Passions of the Soul Chap. 9. Book 1. IT remaineth to treat of the Affections and Passions which are incident to the Soul and are but as it were the sundry fashions and forms of the Appetitive soul which Aristotle sometimes calls Accidents sometimes Affections sometimes Passions of the Soul Affections as they are moderate natural and engendred with the soul and body are actions transient not permanent and so are neither vitious or evill in themselves nor ought nor can be removed from our nature which was the error of some Philosophers of the sect of the Stoicks Passions as they are inordinate and predominant and so are vitious and dangerous to the soul and both may and ought to be expelled such as fall not on a Philosopher that is to say a wise and virtuous man for virtus consistit in moderatione passionum therefore although to be angry is natural to every man and cannot be expelled the soul of any yet to be inordinate and immoderate in anger is the part of a fool and not of a wise man because where any inordinate Passions do bear rule they cloud the understanding and obscure the light of truth as thick clouds the light of the sun and therefore concludes Aristotle in the fourth of his Ethicks Mansuetus vult imperturbatus esse non duci à passione from a wise man all unruly and disordered passions are to be driven away This is the exhortation given by Philosophy it self to Boetius tu quoque si vis Lumine claro cernere verum Tramite recto carpere coelum Gaudia pelle pelle timorem Spemque fugato nec dolor assit Nubila mens est vinctaque fraenis Haec ubi regnant And though there be several other Affections and Passions of the Soul which are not here nominated but are notwithstanding in themselves as vitious as these yet these of Joy Fear Hope and Grief are the four Cardinal and chief Affections unto which all the rest may be reduced for there is no Affection but is in respect of some Good or Evill and that a Good or Evill present or Good and Evill absent Joy is an Affection of the Soul for a Good present Hope an Affection of the Soul for a Good absent and future Grief is for an Evill present Fear for an Evill absent and future which Affections as long as they be but rightly ordinate and subject nor may nor can be expelled being natural and good but when they grow heady sensual fleshy terrene set upon the lusts and pleasures of this stage-play world are vitious and hurtful which a wise man a virtuous will keep under and not suffer to range and rule for these are they which are properly called Passions when they grow exorbitant according to the definition of Aquinas Affectus est vehemens animi passio animum torquens verum judicium rationis impediens otherwise it is of these natural and ordinate Affections for they do neither animum
torquere nor verum rationis judicium impedire so are not evill in themselves and of their own nature but through error in mans judgement from whence the vitiosity passeth upon the Affections Other reasons may be given of the evill and exorbitant Passions which doubtless are stronger or weaker according to the temperature of the four elements in the body of man from whence the complexions have their denomination if the complexion be Sanguine it commonly feeds the Affection of Joy and Mirth and Love and the like if Cholerick expect Anger Hatred Malice c. if Melancholy then Sorrow Fear and Grief and thus according to the temperature of the body are Passions for the most part more or less predominant the more temperate the complexion the more moderate the Passions the better the constitution the purer and nobler the Affections are That all Affections of the Soul are vitious and not onely to be moderated but wholly to be extirpated and expelled from our nature was an error broacht in the School of the Stoicks condemned in Christianity as well as by the Peripatetick Philosophers of old Mr. Hooker It is not in our own power whether we will be stirred with Affections or no It is as possible to prevent them all as to go out of our selves or to give our selves a new nature no more than we can refuse to wink with the eye when a sudden blow is offered at it or refuse to yawn when we see a yawning sleepy fellow though by frequent and habitual Mortification and by continual watchfulnes Dr. Taylors life of Christ 2 part fol. 122. and standing in readiness against all in advertencies we may lessen the inclination and account fewer sudden irreptions saith a devout and judicious Doctor of our English Church Many ought to be corrected few totally to be rejected some Affections there are which are virtuous and godly in themselves some are wicked and diabolicall some are in themselves neither godly nor wicked The good and virtuous are Love Pitty Joy Charity c. the diabolical are Envy Wrath Malice and especially that which your Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is a rejoycing at other mens ill hap and misfortune the indifferent Affections are Fear Sorrow Anger and the like which as they are not simply good so are they not morally evill since our blessed Saviour who knew no sin was notwithstanding subject to like Passions of Sorrow Fear Grief and the like such as accrewed to us by the Fall of our first Parents and are infirmities and defects of pure nature effects or fruits of sin and so an evill to wit of punishment as well as other bodily defects as hunger thirst sickness yea and death which come unto us but by the Fall all these our Saviour was subject to in all things being made like unto us sin onely excepted The evill of sin he took not though he took upon him the true nature of man so saith Saint Augustine As Christ took upon him a true humane nature so he took the true defects and evils of that nature but not all he took upon him the defects or evils of punishment but not the defects and evils of sin Such Passions and Infirmities of Fear Grief Anger of Sickness Death and the like as are evils of punishment only Christ was subject to as we are therefore such are not simply sinfull neither can they be simply good since they be effects and fruits of sin Nor was Christ subject to these Passions in the same manner and measure as we Christ onely in the first motions and sudden irresistible alterations those twincklings of the eye as the Philosopher calls them those Propassions as the Schoolmen term them or Passions transient but we not in Propassion onely for a flash and away but in Passion also in Passion permanent to entertain it and retain it many times either without just cause or longer than occasion requires or beyond due measure by which the Affections come to be inordinate the Mind moved perplexed and troubled Reason blinded Judgement perverted and depraved These are the Diseases and Maladies of my Soul far worse than any that can be of my Body whether it be Lethargy Phrensie Apoplexie Epilepsie burning Feaver or the like all which are the most dangerous diseases of the Body for though the outward Senses may be surprised by these and my Body thereby made insensible of pain yet whilst my Soul remains un-distempered my Reason is able to discover and judge of these bodily distempers either by its inflamation or beating of its pulse and arteries or by some extraordinary heat and lassitude but when my Soul is diseased my Reason is also wounded and being sick hath no judgement at all of that which she suffereth for the self same that should judge is diseased being surprised with those unruly Passions which like a tempestuous storm at Sea carrie this little Ship of my Body into the deep without Tacklings Mast or Rudder or any to steer her aright whereby she is exposed to splittings shipwracks and all other misfortunes of the Seas But in the way of more strict Religion it is advised that he that would cure his passions should pray often Dr. Taylors life of Christ par 2. fol. 125. A Remedy against passions in general it is St. Augustines Counsell unto the Bishop Auxilius that like the Apostles in a storm wee should awaken Christ and call to him for aid lest wee ship-wrack in so violent passions and impetuous disturbances Again a continual exercise Vigilancie and Circumspection of thy Reason is a Sovereign Antidote for the Ejection of these poysonsom passions out of thy Soul and therefore one advertisement given by Fundanus in Plutarch against such inordinate passions is not here to be pretermitted Whosoever saith he will live safe and in health ought all their life time to look to themselves and be as it were in continual Physick and not as the Herb Hellebore which we English Neeswort after it hath wrought the cure in a sick mans body is cast up again together with the malady so Reason also should be sent out after the passion it hath cured but ought to remain still in thy mind to keep and preserve the judgement for Reason is to be compared to wholesom and nourishing meates and not to medicines and purgative drugs Of all those several affections and passions incident to the Soul and are either as Lenitives or Corrasives viz. pleasant and wholesome or harsh and noysom to the Soul two onely as principal I shall insist on upon which the rest are founded from whence they spring viz. Love and Ire Anger though simply and as it is in it self considered to wit in its first motions and natural inclination be neither good nor evil yet is made good or evil according to the circumstances of time and adjuncts of manner and measure all anger in all causes and in all degrees is not simply unlawful to be angry when
we ought as wee ought and as much as we ought is not criminal but praise-worthy but when wee have no just cause if then we be angry with our Brother we are guilty of judgement so saith our Saviour yea though we have just cause we may miss it in the measure or in the manner as when our anger exceeds the value of the cause or the proportion of other circumstances and adjuncts thus Moyses anger though for Gods cause and Religion was reproved because it went forth into violent and troublesome expressions and shewed the degree to be inordinate other passions there are which arise out of this which are in themselves sinful and damnable those are hatred and malice Anger persisted in turnes to hatred and malice and these are nothing but a continued anger odium est ira inveterata Anger with deliberation and purpose of revenge which is morally evill and prohibited in the sixth Commandement Envy is another sprig of this root and that which in Greek is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the one proceeds from Anger mixt with Sorrow repining at the prosperity and welfare of another the other proceeds from Anger mixt with Joy rejoycing at the calamities and miseries of others A remedy against Anger with its effects in particular the worst and dangerousest of all Passions for prevention whereof propound to thy self the example of meek and patient persons remembring alwaies that there is a Family of meek Saints of which Moses is the President a Family of patient Saints under the conduct of Job every one in the mountain of the Lord shall be gathered to his Tribe to his own Family in the great day of Jubilee Dr. Taylor and the angry shall perish with the effects of anger and peevish persons shall be vexed with the disquietness of an eternal Worm and sting of a vexatious conscience if they suffer here the transportations and sadest effects of an unmortified habitual and prevailing anger But love is the Queen of Vertues the chief of all affections and a duty enjoyned and commanded by God upon this hang the Law and the Prophets it runnes through the decalogue it is the fulfilling of the Law Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul and thy neighbour as thy self is the whole duty of man Love is an lnseparable affection of the soul Faith and Hope may cease but Charity abides for ever and joynes our souls to God as the Soul is the life of the Body so is Charity the life of the Soul and as the Body by the means of life is joyned to the Soul so is the Soul by the means of Love conjoyned to God Love is the Soul's Sense and the love of God is the Soul's eye There is another love called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is that natural affection which Parents bear towards their Children and the Children again to Parents the like which is one of the Soul's Senses but not the noblest for as the eye is the noblest of the bodily Senses so is Divine love the noblest of the Soul's Senses and is the Soul's eye by which we see God As the body hath two eyes so the Soul hath its eyes Reason and Love these are the eyes which the Spouse in the Canticle speaks of saying Thou hast wounded me my Spouse my Sister thou hast wounded me with one of thy eyes now the eye of Love is the right eye and seeth further than the eye of Reason Ratio deum videre non potest nisi in eo quod non est amor autem non adquiescit requiescere nisi in eo quod est ratio per id quod non est in id quod est videtur proficere amor postponens quod non est in eo quod est gaudere deficere ratio majorem habet sobrietatem amor beatitudinem saith St. Bernard Again there is a twofold love of beatitude one of desire the other of enjoyment est amor desiderii est amor fruitionis t' is St. Bernards still the love of desire is that natural Appetite or pondus naturale which is in every creature towards their chief felicity I mean not such a weight as alwaies tends downward such as is the natural weight of Earth whose perfection lies below in its Center but such as looks upward as the natural weight of fire so mans love of desire lookes up to God who onely is mans summum bonum his chiefest felicity and so beaâ—itude Let the eyes of my Soul O God for ever look up towards thee especially the eye of my Love which though in much weakness it behold thee here not in fruition but in desire Let this innate desire and love of my Soul towards thee so quicken and stir up my elicite acts and abilities to pursue the meanes tending to thee as thou hast prescribed in thy Word that at the last my desires may reach to a Beatifical Vision and full fruition and my love be compleated in the enjoyment of thee that the panting desires of my Soul here may be so taken up hereafter with the cool refreshments of thee the everliving Water that I may say Lord it is enough That I may so behold thy face in righteousnes here that when I awake I may be satisfied with it Amen Amen TO My much honoured Friend and Neighbour HVMPHREY CHEETAM ESQUIRE SIR IN the Garden and Paradise of God not that Terrestrial which long since perished but the Heavenly which hath not suffered by any Cataclysm grows the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge which God as the chief Husbandman and Gardener both planteth and watereth and causeth to encrease Though it hath pleased Almighty God to plant and sow semina quaedam frutices some seeds and shrubs of Knowledge and Life in this earthly Garden and set Man therein to dress and keep it whose fruits though in this life they come not to full maturity and perfection yet serve us for a tast of those spiritual never fading fruits in Heaven since by the pains and industry of some Labourers in this Vineyard and the blessing of God the Sun of Righteousness shining upon their labours some fruits have been here gathered relishing much of the Heavenly perfection The Fruits ensuing are of this nature which I as a Gleaner have gathered from others and dedicate as the choicest of my labours and as I hope the welcomest present unto you the former Treatises adding little benefit but what you have formerly reaped from your own experience being ever the best School-mistris The two parts of this Rational life the Practick and Speculative you may read in the History of your own life who have well nigh by the course of Nature finished both the Clue of your thread being almost spun out and drawing on apace to the period set by the Prophet David Psalm 90. Wherefore leaving those things that are behind looking not backward at time past you press forward to the things that
are before if by any meanes you can attain to the Resurrection of the Just to that state of life which consists in Beatifical Vision to come which this ensuing Treatise though in much weakness points unto May it lay the way open before you and give you such a tast of the joyes of Heaven as may sharpen your stomach and quicken your appetite but not hasten your progress thither for serus in coelum redeas may you enjoy a long life here and Heaven at the last are the hearty wishes and dayly prayers of Sir Your most devoted friend and servant NICH. MOSLEY TO My loving Brother EDWARD MOSLEY Esquire one of the Commissioners for Administration of Justice in SCOTLAND Brother A Kingdome or Common-wealth is corpus politicum consisting of many and in themselvs disagreeing members but mixt and united in one Civil society by the rules of Morality that which formes and unites this Body is Government without which it would not be a Body but a Chaos rudis indigestaque moles Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum But rules of Policy and Government are investigable by Reason not by Sense therefore Man only who is animal rationale is properly termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Reasonable Soul of Man runs through the whole Body of practick Philosophy teaching the duty of a good man in Ethicks of a good Master of a Family in Oeconomicks of a good Citizen and Magistrate in Politicks which Duties consist in the exercise of all Moral Virtues especially those four Cardinal ones of Prudence Temperance Fortitude and above all of a Magistrate that of Justice Justice distributive as well as commutative without which no men of old were linked together in a Civil society nor at this day without it can be preserved And though Solomon saw an Evill and that a great one under the Sun an error proceeding from the Rulers who placed ignorance and mean persons in high Thrones when Wisdome and Nobility sate in ipsa abiectione whereby happily Magistracie was brought into contempt and Justice perverted through the weakness or wilfulness of such Juridicials who fall short of the perfection of those Moral Virtues those habits of the Mind which doe compleat a Magistrate yet against such Evill our Lawes have wisely provided That none shall bear any high Office of Magistracie no not the Office of a Justice of Peace in the Countrey but Plus hault meultz vailantz men of the best ranck and qualitie of the best reputation and most substantial as Lambert hath it Such a one may you be in your place and calling whose nurture and education from your youth up hath been in the studies of the Law and in the study of Ethicks as well Ethicae Christianorum as Ethicae Ethnicorum not that Natural onely drawn from the rules of Heathenish Philosophie but from the Fountain of Christian Divinity which will so furnish you with all Intellectual Habits not of Natural Virtues onely acquired ex crebris actionibus assuefactione consuetudine but of Supernatural also infused from above as may render you capable and sufficiently meriting those high employments unto which you are called Hence may you discover the necessity of this noble Science of the Soul even for you whose conversation amongst men is Practical and the Operations of your Soul such too consisting in the excercise of Moral Virtues whose residence is in the Soul the Reasonable Soul is the subject and receptacle of all Virtuous Habits acquired by Nature or infused by Grace Yet is there another noble Science of the Soul whose end is not Action but Contemplation or Speculation of the divine Essence this I presume is your chief study and delight in which you spend those spare houres of retirement are gained from your State-employments If these my poor and weak labours may be any help and furtherance of your meditations in that kind I freely and heartily dedicate them to you and rest Your affectionate Brother NICH. MOSLEY Natural and Divine CONTEMPLATIONS Of the Passions and Faculties Of the Soul of Man In Three Bookes THE SECOND BOOK The Metaphysical part CHAP. I Of the Intellectual faculties of the Soul AFter the discussion of the Vegetative and Sensitive it remaines to treat of the Intellectual faculties of the Soul which are not Organical Corporeal and Inseparable but have their Operations apart and without and so are separable from the body meer Operations of the Rational Soul which acteth without bodily Organs Chap. 1. Book 2. and is of an Immaterial Immortal Nature There are incident to this Soul three powers or faculties viz. VVill Memory and Understanding VVill is distinguisht from Appetite which is a concomitant of Sense and that necessarily being it self a concomitant of Reason and Intellect sed tamen liberè not tied by any necessity to any determinate act Memory is another branch of the Rational Soul and perisheth not with the body remaining as an inseparable companion to all separated substances and abstracted Forms of which two faculties viz. VVill and Memory sufficient hath been formerly said The Intellectual faculty which is the highest and noblest of the Rational Soul is distinguisht first into Agent and Patient The Patient Intellect again is threefold in power in Habit and in Act In Power onely is the intellect in it self and of its own nature for at the first it is nothing else but a meer power or promptitude to receive intelligible Forms and this is to be found in new born babes and Infants who have not yet acquired the act or habit of Understanding but are capable and receptible of Intelligible Forms which Intellect Aristotle compares to the first matter materia prima which is nothing but in power hath no Form but is capable of any And where Aristotle saith intellectus cognoscit omnia we must conceive it in this sense to wit in power for although there be many things wherof we are ignorant yet there is not any thing which our Understanding may not reach unto as for example wee know not the number Stars or the Sands of the Sea but this ignorance is accidental not natural for our intellect is capable of the knowledge of these if any one should but teach us the certain number of them The Intellect in Habit is that which hath received Intelligible Forms even those which it had power to receive but doth not act onely hath power to act and herein the Intellect in habit and Intellect in power do differ for the Intellect in power hath power onely quoad essentiam non quoad operationem but the intelin habit hath power tum quoad essentiam tum quoad operationem A learned man though he be asleep yet hath this Intellect in habit for as much as he hath received and retained those Intelligible Forms which gives him a power to operate and contemplate although he doth not actually know and contemplate he hath the habit though not the act whilst he sleepeth The Intellect Patient in
Act is that which is reduced into act and exercise so that it doth not not onely actually receive what formerly was but in power but also operates and works about those things it receives and actually Understands them which is done when the Phantasmes which are illustrated and made Intelligible by the Intellect Agent are actually received of the Patient Intellect by which that knowledge which formerly it had not is acquired The property of the Patient is to receive Intelligible Forms from Phantasmes illustrated by the Agent Intellect and from this property and Office of receiving Intelligible Forms it is called Intellectus patiens For as Sense is said to suffer because it receives Sensible Forms so the Intellecct by receiving Intelligible Forms recipiendo paâ—itur it suffers from Intelligible Forms as Sense suffers by its Sensible Forms But the Intellect Agent is no way passive being of it self perfect and needs not an Object to supply its defects being nothing in power but as Aristotle hath it essentialit r actus a pure act and receives not Intelligible Forms Its Office is to illustrate the Phantasm and to make of sensible Intelligible Forms and of Particulars Universalls and therfore the Intellect Agent is said omnia facere as the Patient is said omnia fieri Of these two Operations of the Agent Intellect viz to illustrate the Phantasm and to Understand the latter is onely Essential and remaines after death of the body the other is less Essential and therefore remaines not with the Soul after this life for although the Office of the Intellect Agent in this life be to illustrate the Phantasmes and to make that Actually Intelligible which was before but Potentially so and to reduce the Intellect Patient into Act yet this is not the sole and Essential Office of this Intellect for as much as after this life it continues not with it for after this life there remaines another manner of knowledge Proper and Essential to this Intellect not per species impressas by Intelligible Forms imprinted from some Sensible Object but per species in elligibiles congenitas innatas as shall hereafter be demonstrated And this is a part and faculty of that Reasonable Soul which is forma informans hominem and not an Extrinsecal assisting Form as a Mariner is of a Ship as some would have it it is that part of the Soul by which it doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Intelligere sapere vel cognoscere prudentis munere fungi as Aristotle hath it By which there ariseth another distinction of the Intellect into Practick and Speculative for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intelligere is an Operation of the Intellect generally but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sapere seuprudentis munere fungi is the proper Operation of the Practick Intellect whose end is Action and Object such things as fall under Action and such Action as falls under Sense and subject thereto and whose Science is Morality being conversant about Manners and Moral Vertues This Practick Intellect for of the Speculative is our whole discourse in the subsequent Chapters is that faculty or Operation of the Soul whereby Man is distinguisht from Beasts who live a Sensitive life and Angells who live a Contemplative life And that Beatitude or summum bonum which every man naturally coveteth after consists in action viz. in the perfect state of Moral virtues this Happiness appertains to man as man and without this Moral virtue none in this life can be accounted happy De perfecta possibilia secundum naturam non de perfecta absolute â—ut extraordinario dei munere Forsâ—ca lib. 2 Metaph. cap. 1. q. 2. Sect. 7 fol. 420. I speak of mans Natural and Temporal happiness in this life and not of that Supernatural and Eternal in the world to come in Heaven which consists in the sole intuitive Vision knowledge of the divine Essence Aristotle I grant makes two parts of Natural and Temporal felicity the one Practical consisting in the perfection of Moral virtues the other Speculative consisting in the perfection of virtues Intellectual and this Speculative and Intellectual part of a mans life he esteemeth the nobler part as a virtue of an higher order and sufficient in his kind to make a man happy But this Intellectual part doth not necessarily make him good who is endowed therewith or bring him to that perfect state of felicity in this life since it is here commonly mixed with vices and may be found in such who though they know God yet do not glorifie him as God Besides this part of Intellectual Contemplative Virtue viz that Intuitive Vision of God or the perfect knowledge of the divine Essence is not natural to Man Man attains not thereto by any strength of Nature it is the gift of God unto this light of Glory unto these supernal Joys no man attains by his own strength onely that which is practical and consists in well doing in the exercise of Moral virtues is proper to man in his Natural estate which is the operation of the Practick Intellect and therefore Aristotle in the tenth of his Ethicks saith The practick Beatitude agreeth with man as man that which consists in Contemplation doth not agree with man as man sed quatenus in eo est divinum quiddam degit vitam quandam divinam And in this respect the Soul may be sayd mortal because that part which consists in the exercise of Moral virtues whose end iâ— Action and such as is taken from Sense and Phantasie which is mortal and perishing operates only in this life by the help of Phantasie and without Phantasms the Soul understands not any thing so saith Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Soul meaning this Practical part for the Speculative part of the Soul doth not alwaies and altogether work by means of Sense and Phantasie since it knoweth such things as are immaterial and not subject to Sense as God abstracted Forms and Intelligences and it own self as elswhere shall be shewed Though to speak properly and truly the Rational Soul is not mortal in any part of its Essence or Faculties though the operations may cease in defect of requisite Organs neither is there two several Intellects really distinguisht but one intire Intellect belonging to this Soul onely in regard of its several wayes of knowledge and manner of operation in this life Practical and Speculative the Intellect hath obtained its distinction of Practick and Speculative which is but one in râ— though divers ratione But some have gone about to prove a real and essential difference 'twixt the one and the other making Reason or the Rational faculty of the Soul which is that part of the Intellect which is Practical and acquires knowledge by discourse and that not without great labour difficulty and uncertainty runing from the Causes to the Effects and from Effects to the Causes groaning under the perplexity of framing demonstrations by wresting deducing infering and concluding one proposition from
another making Reason I say but hand-maid and subservient to the Speculative Intellect no part at all of its essence nor adliged to it by the inseparability of Union or Identity but a Caduce sparious faculty accidentally advenient upon the degradation of our Nature and is separable from the Soul at the instant of her emancipation from her Prison of Clay and wholly useless to her in her state of restitution to the clarity of abstracted and intuitive Intellection VVhich opinion of the Mortality of the Reasonable Soul I have heretofore proved to thwart not onely the general belief of Heathens as well Philosophers as others be they Graecians Caldeans Arabians Jews Turks or others but also the Catholick Faith of holy Church and concurrent judgements of all the Fathers Nor can I be of opinion that Reason is a faculty accidentally advenient upon the fall of our first Parents and was not that Form which gave Adam his specifical difference from all other creatures ab origine as well before as since the fall if Adam was not created a Reasonable creature when God breathed into his Nostrills the breath of Life and he became a living Soul if that Soul was not a Rational Soul and therefore liveing because Immortal either Adam was no Man or every Man is not a Reasonable creature and then must wee seek out a new Definition of Man there being no truth in these Reciprocal termes or Convertible propositions viz No Man but is a Reasonable creature no Reasonable creature but is a Man which never yet were contradicted by any since Rationality is as essential to Man as Risibility which is proprium quarto modo quod omni soli semper convertibiliter accidit subjecto But if you take Reason not as an Essence or faculty but an Operation of the Soul which is Practical in this life and cannot Operate or come to the knowledge of any thing but by discourse and arguments runing from Effects to their Causes or from causes to their Effects and for discharge of its office herein stands in need of Object Form Phantasm and other bodily Organs this Operation of the Soul I grant ceaseth and perisheth with the body and after this life the Soul hath another manner of Operation as heretofore in part and more fully hereafter is demonstrated Otherwise Rationality is the very Essence of the Humane Soul and impossible it is to sever them distinguisht they may be by suppositionality not reality of essence for the rule is nulla res potest distingui realiter à differentia per quam essentialiter constituitur In this Rational Soul is the glorious Image of the Almighty Jehova radicated and equally proper to it with its very essence neither separate nor separable from this reasonable Soul this is it which carries the Resemblance and Portraiture of the Immense Godhead in the most simple Unity indivible Homogeneity of Spirit being tota in toto tota in qualibet parte and holds the Effigies of the sacred Trinity not only in her Ternary of faculties Vegeâ—ative Sensitive and Intellectual heretofore explicated but also as the more learned number of Christians judge it in these three faculties of Intellect Will and Memory in this Chapter handled Vide St. Aug. in 14 lib. de Trin. lib. 10. de Trinitate St. Bernard proving the Soul of Man to be Gods Image and therfore ought to be more serviceable to him thus speaks unto his own Soul O my Soul if thou wouldst be beloved of God reform his Image in thee and he will love thee renew his likeness in thee and hee shall desire thee c. The Original thus O Anima mea si vis amari à deo reforma in te imaginem suam amabit te repara in te similitudinem suam desiderabit te consilio namque sanctae Trinitatis ad imaginem similitudinem suam creavit te Creator tuus quod nulli alteri ex creaturis donavit ut tanto eum ardentius diligeres quanto mirabilius ab eo te conditam intelligeres considera ergo nobilitatem tuam quoniam sicut deus ubique est totus omnia vivificans omnia movens gubernans ita tu in corpore tuo ubique tota es illud vivificans movens gubernans sicut deus est vivit sapit ita tu secundùm modum tuum es vivis sapis sicut in deo tres sunt personae pater filius spiritus sanctus fic tu habes tres vires scilicet intellectum memoriam voluntatem sicut ex patre generatur filius ex utroque procedit spiritus sanctus ita ex intellectu generatur voluntas ex his ambobus procedit memoria sicut deus est pater deus est filius deus est spiritus sanctus non tamen tres dii sed unus deus tres personae ita anima est intellectus anima voluntas anima memoria non tamen tres animae sed una anima tres vires ex quibus animae viribus quasi excellentioribus jubemur deum diligere ut diligamus eum toto corde tota anima tota mente id est toto intellectu tota voluntate tota memoria hoc est toto affectu sine defectu cum discretionis intuitu nec solus sufficit de deo intellectus ad beatitudinem nisi sit in amore ejus voluntas imo haec duo non sufficiunt nisi memoria addatur qua semper in mente intelligentis volentis maneat deus ut sicut nullum potest esse momentum quo homo non u tatur vel fruatur dei bonitate vel misericordia ita nullum sit momentum quo eum praesentem non habeat in memoria And with him many of the Schoolmen * Vide Aquinatem lib. 1. dict 3 g. and Bellarmine also Habet etiam anima hominis imaginem in se quamvis obscuram divinissimae Trinitatis tum quia habet memoriam faecundam vim intelligendi vim amandi tum etiam quoniam mens ejus intelligendo format verbum quoddam simile à mente à verbo procedit amor quia id quod cognoscitur à mente repraesentatur à verbo ut bonum continuo à voluntate diligitur desideratur sed tamen longè altiore diviniore modo pater deus generat verbum deum c. Which is confessedly true this Image of the Trinity is but a most imperfect and obscure shadow of it and doth ill quadrate and respond with its prototype and prime examplar Again Man is made after the Image of God in respect of his Immortal Soul and invisible for God is Immortal so is the Soul of Man Immortal and God is Invisible so is the Soul God is Incorporeal and Immaterial so is the Soul of Man Moreover Man is made after the I of God in respect of his Dominion which he hath not onely over the Fishes of the Sea
the Fouls of the Air and the Beasts of the Field for that is in regard of that Rational Soul and endowments of mind in which Man as Man excells all other terrestrial creatures But also in respect of that dominion which one Man hath over another dominion belongs not to all the Sons of Adam God hath appointed Kings to Govern them and thereby hath imprinted a more lively Character of his own Image upon Kings than any other But above all is Gods Image seen in the endowments of his mind in the facu ty of the Soul even that whose Act and Opera ion is the perpetual contempla ion of truth and therefore is called intellectus divinus contemplativus a divine Understanding and Contemplative mind Tâ—is is the power and faculty of our Soul the purest the noblest and supremest faculty called lumen animae rationalis or anima animae the Soul of the Soul or the Eie of the Soul and receptacle of sapience and of knowledge divine This is that Eye of our Soul which by the bountiful grace of the Lord of all goodness pierceth through the impurity of our flesh and beholding the highest Heavens thence bringeth knowledge and Object to the Soul and mind to conâ—emplate the ever durng glory and termless joy prepared for such as preserve undefiled Sir Walter Raleigh and unrent the garment of the new Man which after the Image of God is created in righteousness and holiness as saith St. Paul CHAP. II. Of the Speculative part of the Soul Chap. 2. Book 2. THe Soul of Man as it is the Form of Man is notwithstanding an Immaterial independent abstracted substance though not so compleat perfect as the rest of the Spiritual Immaterial substances be it is of the Order though of the lowest Rank of simple essences whos 's Operations in regard of its imperfect and lowmost rank of Spiritual substances are not so noble so compleat and perfect as the Operations of other Intellectuall spirits be but many times mixed with inferior Operations and in some sense inseparable from them or thence sprung since all the knowledge which the Reasonable Soul attains to in this life by its natural strength is from Sense Mediately or Immediately derived this for the Science Practical properly and the practick Intellect whose Operations are determinately Practical and not Speculative as chiefly conversant about Manners and Moral Virtues whether Ethical Oeconomical or Political and whose end is Action viz. well doing though there is another Operation of the Soul whose end is not Action to do but to understand or contemplate this diviner faculty of the Soul this Contemlpative Intellect whose Operations are determinately Contemplative not Practical as chiefly about Theorie and whose end is knowledge or truth its principal end so sui ipsius gratia for its own sake for the love of truth for the cause of knowledge This I say hath its Operations more immixt and separable from bodily Organs or External Objects and herein is a diversity twixt the Reasonable and Sensitive Soul for to bring Sense into Act as the Eye to see c. is required an External Object and bodily Organs but to bring the Reasonable Soul into Act viz. to Understand or contemplate which is the Operation of the Speculative Intellect needs no External Objects at all for that which brings knowledge into Act and makes the mind actually to contemplate is meerly Interna to wit in the Soul an Operation then there is a Science Metaphysical abstracted from matter a Science of things which fall not under Sense come not from External Objects and of which no Phantasm or sensible Form can be presented to the Understanding of which we mean to treat of in this Book the knowledge of the Soul which it hath of Immaterial substances in this life viz. of it self of Angells and of God with the different manner of Operation of the Soul in this Natural condition or body corrupt and in the state of Separation or body glorified Yet is our knowledge of all Immaterial substances in this life very confused and imperfect and agreeth not with the state of the Soul conjoined to the body whose principal Operation is to illustrate the Phantasie and to make those things Actually which were but before Potentially Intelligible and to reduce the Intellect Patient into Act This is the principal Operation of the Intellect Agent in this life though not its sole and proper nor Essential Operation for then it would remain with the Soul after this life which it doth not for there is then another Operation and manner of knowledge not per corpus sed per influxum superioris causae as Suarez hath it proper and essential to the Soul as hereafter shall be shewed Of the knowledge which the Soul hath of it self The Operation of the Intellectual Soul is to know yea to know it self there is that faculty and power in Mans Soul whereby he may know himself know himself and be known by himself for the Soul of Man is Immaterial and so Intelligible as other Intellectual creatures which are meerly Immaterial now in those creatures who are Immaterial idem est intelligens quod inâ—elligitur Lib. 3. cap. 5. scientia seu intellectus contemplativus scibile So saith Aristotle in his Book de anima the Intellectual Soul is it which understands the Intellectual Soul is it which is understood it is not so with the Sensitive Soul whose Organs are External and whose knowledge is fetched from Objects ab extra and therefore neither knoweth nor perceiveth it self as hath been elsewhere said But the Operation of the Intellectual Soul is Intrinsecal it hath Objects Internal it self is its own Object alwaies present never absent from it self the Soul of Man is not onely a straight line drawn forth to point at other things but a reflex and circular line pointing at it self It knows it self by inspection or if I may say with Plato in this Timaeus by reflexion for he compared the Soul that governs this World and consequently the Soul which governs this Microcosm Man which is but a particle of that Soul which rules this Universe both of them being Intellectual and so may hold proportion and resemblance to a line wherein was Rectitude and Reflexion and to number which consisteth of Unity and Diversity The Right straight line of that Soul which rules the World he made to be the Axle-tree and Diameter of the World viz. that imagined line reaching from one Pole to another on which the World turneth about as a Wheel the straight line of the Humane Soul he made that right Operation and knowledge of the Soul procured by a certain progress from the essence as it were by aline drawn out to the powers and faculties and from them to the act and Operation of the Soul whereby the Soul looketh and pointeth forward and by a straight aspect contemplates things out of it self External Again this Rectitude or
right line he bended into an Orb or Globe consisting like numbers of Parity and Imparity Indentity and Diversity This reflex line of the Worlds Soul was in respect of its circular motion upon the Axle-tree of the World The reflex line of the Humane Soul was that Operation whereby reflecting upon it self it knew it self And this reflex line of the Soul of the World and of Man had in her Indentity and Diversity The Indentity of the Worlds Soul was in respect of the Eighth Sphaer which the antient Philosophers called the primum mobile for this Sphaer with one uniform motion is moved from East to VVest The Diversity consisted in the motion of the seaven Planets in their several Sphaers So the Soul of Man had its Indentity and Diversity Indentity in respect of its Speculative Intellectual faculty which is divine Diversity in respect of its inferior faculties Furthermore this Circular and Caelestial line of the VVorld he divided into two Circles viz. the Eighth Sphaer which is by him and the Antients called primum mobile and moves from East to VVest and the Sphaer of the Planets which moves in a contrary motion to the Eighth Sphaer viz from VVest to East and these two Sphaers are said to bee conjoyned by two points of the Axle-tree cuting through them viz. two Equinoctial points Again the other Circle viz that which moves from West to East he subdivided into seaven Circles of seaven Planets to all which he resembled the Soul of Man which is one essence and as it were one Caelestial Sphaer and is divided into the Intellectual faculty answering in analogy to the primum mobile or Eighth Sphaer and the Irrational faculty answering in similitude to the Sphaer of the Planets for this faculty is opposite and contrary to the Intellectual and moves contrary to it as the Planets do in a Counter-motion to the Eighth Sphaer and as in the Heavens the second Circle is subdivided into seaven Planets so doth Plato in his Timaeus subdivide the Irrational faculty of the Soul into seaven faculties viz. the particular or External Sense Common Sense Phantasie Memory the Cogitative Concupiscible and Irascible faculty As for example α β. Is the Axle-tree of the World γ δ. The Axle-tree of the Zodiak And thus would Timaeus prove the Soul of Man to know it self by Reflexion or Inspection into it self which though it may be true in a sense yet we are not to imagine such an Inspection or Intuitive Vision of it self in-this life as the Angells and separated Souls have of themselves for this knowledge agreeth not with the state of the Soul as long as it is joyned with this Body being hindred of the free and perfect exercise of those Actions which are Common and Essential to it and the separated Souls whilst in this body of flesh no more than the knowledge which now it ordinarily exerciseth agreeth with the state of the Soul departed and separated from the Body And though idem est intellectus quod intelligitur scientia scibile yet are wee not to conceipt an Indentity of Essence betwixt the Understanding and the Object Understood there is not such a Conformity twixt them in Essence but in Representation The Form and similitude is there the Intellect receives the species of things onely and therefore is it called forma formarum intelligibilium and so there comes an Identity not of Essence but of Proportion and Form Thus the Soul knoweth it self in this life non per essentionā by its own substance but per speciem and without this species the Soul knoweth not it self in this life though it needeth no Intelligible Forms to know its self by after this life but knoweth it self as other separated substances do themselves by their own substance and not by Form Neither is this Intelligible Form innate and ingendred ogether with the Nature and Essence of the Soul as those Forms whereby Angels and Souls departed know one another are as hereafter wee shall shew but Imprinted in the Understanding from some Object Sensible conveid to the Phantasie from the Phantasie by the Operation of the intellectus agens to our Patient Intellect where of Sensible they are made Intelligible Forms so from Sensible Objects are produced Intelligible Forms and without Sense no Intelligence this in the ordinary way and manner of the Souls Operation in this life we have no knowledge no not of Immaterial and Insensible Essences as of God or of our own Souls but is in a sort deduced from Sense for although some things are not sensible in themselves yet they may be sensible in their parts as a Golden Mountain which wee never saw but Phansie or in their similitude and Portraiture as men absent or dead are known by their Pictures or by their opposites as darkness by light coldness by heat or by their efects as God our own Soul and the Vertue and Operation of natural things which are all hidden to Sense but known unto us by their Effects So God and our own Souls are known to us by their Effects and Operations whereby may be inferred that all our knowledge yea our Metaphysical knowledge of abstracted and Immaterial substances do spring from Sense and so the Contemplative Intellect neither immixt nor inseparable from bodily Organs but Organical and depending on Sense contradictory to what hath before been affirmed To which I answer although it may be said that Immaterial and Intelligible Forms are drawn in a sort from Sense yet it is to be noted that Immaterial things do otherwise depend on Sense than things Material do for although our Intellect takes its principles from Sense by which it is brought to the knowledge of God arguing from the Effect to the Cause as Aristotle argues where from the Effect he proves the First mover to be Eternal Immaterial Infinite although I say our Intellect may know God to be insensible and Immaterial even from Sensible and material Effects which is its usual manner and way whereby it attaineth to knowledge here whilst in the body yet it undoubtedly not onely knows those principles and Effects which are subject to Sense and Phantasie but even God himself without any help of Phantasie or Sensible representation Even so although the Soul of Man doth come to the knowledge of it self by the Effects and Operations which it hath found in it self and so of Sensible are produced Intelligible Forms yet is not the Soul dependent of the body either in respect of Organ or Object but these Forms are illustrated and made Intelligible by Vertue of the Agent Intellect and though Phantasie be made Instrumental yet not so necessarily but that this Intellectual faculty may operate without the concurrence of Sensible objects Intelligible Forms may be imprinted in the Understanding though no Phantasm appear and many times through a vehement application of the Understanding to Contemplation the concourse of Phantasie is weakned yea sometimes though rarely altogether hindred as those Holy Men
who are given to deep and Divine Contemplation of Immaterial and Spiritual Substances can witness so saith Fonseca lib. 2 Metap cap. 1. q. 2. sect 6. lib. 1. cap. 2. q. 3. sect 6. Alluding still to Plato's Imaginary lines of the Soul viz. the Direct and Sphaerical consider O my Soul the use of these with thy self The direct line points to the knowledge of all things here without and beneath thee Phe Sphaerical to all within and above thee That knowledge which is acquired in the direct line is fetcht from Objects External and so hath Sense for its base looking at things External Corporeal Mortal which are all below the Soul of Man And though by the knoâ—ledge of these Externalls wee may come to the notion of Internal things by the knowledge of others to know our selves by sensible Objects to Intelligible Forms whereby our Souls may be represented Yet that knowledge must needs be imperfect confused and very un ertain no Quidditative knowledge of things Spiritual and Immaterial as the Schoolmen call it which is fetcht from effects and not from the Cause from the direct line of External Corporeal and inferior bodies and not from the Sphaerical of Intellectual spirits A straight line is full of imperfection and deformity whereas the Sphaerical is the perfectest fairest and capaciousest of all the rest Sphaera which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek signifies beauty because of all other figures it is the fairest and as it is fairest so it is the perfectest and most Capacious of all the rest and therefore it is the Heavens are in a round and Sphaerical not in a long and straight figure for if the heavens were in the Form and figure of long or direct lines there would be beyond them some place and body or else a Vacuity which argues a deformity an emptiness and imperfection so saith Aristotle in his second Book de caelo and his fourth Chapter Even so in the Soul of Man the Sphaerical line is the fairest perfectest and the most capacious the Circular line reflecting upon it self that eye of the Soul which contemplates it self and hath its Objects Internal that Soul which can see it self in it self and commune with it own heart is undoubtedly the divinest and perfectest and Beautiful of all others For to fetch our knowledge from outward Objects and to bend our studies to know the Heavens Elements and all other Material and Corporeal creatures is that imperfect line beyond which is somthing else or a Vacuity and though thou cast discourse of the Nature of all things here below though thy line of knowledge be drawn from North to South though it extend to all things from the Artick to the Antartick Pole though thou givest thy heart to seek and search after Wisdom as the wise man saith of all things that are done under Heaven of all works under the Sun and yet art ignorant of thy self all is but labour and travel which God hath given to the Children of Men to be exercised therein and without this Circumflex line viz. the Souls self-Inspection and knowledge of it self the end is Vanity and Vexation of Spirit In brief this Circular Sphaerical knowledge and Inspection of the Soul is that Encyclopaedia which comprehends all other Sciences within it Learn then this Platonick Idea and Imaginary Circle O my Soul by which thou maist reflect upon thy self and find thy self in thy self by that Eye of right Reason who fetcheth its knowledge from Internal Objects and Intelligible Forms whose base is Reason lower it looks not nor yet is hurried and tossed about with the Counter-motions of inferior faculties may soar aloft sometimes in Contemplation of Caelum Empyreum where those Divine Immutable and Impaâ—ible Essences which Aristotle speaks of do inhabite the highest Heavens where is the Throne of the most high God and Quire of Innumerable Saints and Angels may in a holy rapture somtimes with St. Paul be caught up to the third Heaven and there learn the secrets of God which is not lawful for Man to reveale may know things happily above Reason above it self but never contrary or below it self This is a Science Metaphysical properly so called which Grace not Nature teacheth a Science Theological a truth not acquired by Humane Art and Industry but by Divine Revelation taught us by the Spirit of God in the Scriptures Stude cognoscere te quia multo melior laudabilior es si te cognoscis quam te neglecto si cognosceres cursum siderum vires herbarum complectiones hominum naturas animalium haberes omnium caelestium terrestrium scientiam St. Bernards Meditations cap. 5. fol. 1054. Frustra cordis oculum erigit ad videndum deum qui nondum idoneus ad videndum seipsum prius enim necesse est ut cognoscas invisibilia spiritus tui quam possis esse idoneus ad cognoscenda invisibilia dei si non potes cognoscere te non praesumas apprehendere ea quae sunt supra te praecipuum principale speculum ad videndum deum est animus rationalis intuens seipsum fol. 3131. And doubtless this Inspection and knowledge of our selves and our own Souls is a Metaphysical Supernatural and Theological Science 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nosce te ipsum is a Divine Lesson so accounted by the Heathens when Graven upon the door of Apollo's Temple 't was feigned to have descended from Jupiter by the knowledge of our Souls wee come to the knowledge of our selves what we were what we are what we shall be by the knowledge of ourselves we come to the Unity of the God-head by it to the Trinity of Persons by it to the Hypostatical Union of the two Natures in Christ by it we are confirmed in the most Mysterious Articles of our Christian Faith by it Gods Essence is represented and lively Portraid look wee into our Souls and God is our Object whose Form we are whose similitude we retain when no other created Form can be given which may represent the Divine Nature as it is in it self God is pleased to Imprint an Intelligible Form of his own Essence upon the Reasonable Soul by which God is United and made known unto us for this is certain Et Suarez Metaphys disp 30. sect 11. part 27. divina essentia unitur intellectui creato beatorum more speciei intelligibilis it is the general opinion of the Schoolmen and other Divines See Fonseca lib. 1 Metaph. Gods Image we are the sacred Histories are express but principally in respect of our Souls let us make man after our own Likeness saith the Text and again God made Man in his own Image in the Image of God created he him Lift up now thy thoughts O my Soul to this thy Divine Exemplar and think how that every perfection of the Image is placed in the Resemblance it hath with its Pattern for though the Pattern should be deformed such as is usually imagined of
the Devill yet the perfection of the picture is to be drawn like to that Pattern and therefore though the deformity in the Pattern be truely its deformity yet the deformity in the Picture is its beauty But if the Pattern it self be beautiful the Picture then is most exact and perfect if it imitate in its beauty as near as may be the beauty of its Pattern and if every Picture had understanding it would desire nothing more than continually to contemplate its Pattern to frame it self to its imitation and to be made conformato it God thy Pattern O my Soul is infinite beauty a light in Which is no â—aâ—kness at all whose brightness the Sun and Moon admireâ— whose brightness that thou maist with â—ore ease imitate his similitude desire and by all means endeavour in which consisteth all thy perfection Profit Honor Joy Rest and all thy goodâ— Know â—hat the beauty of God thy Patterâ— consisteth in Wisdom and Holiness for as the beauty of the Body ariseth from the due proportion of the Members and pleasantness of Colour so in this spiritual Essence the suavity of Colour is in the light of Wisedom the proportion of Members is in justice But by justice is not meant any one particular Vertue but that general which contains in it all the rest that spiritual substance is the fairest whose mind shines with the light of Wisdom and whose Will is replenisht with perfect justice Now God thy Pattern O my Soul is Wisdom it self Justice itself and therefore is perfect beauty and because these two are in Scripture expressed by the name of Holiness threfore do the Angels crie on Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth Isaith 6. Levit. 11. Math. 6. and God himself cries out to us his Image and likeness be yee holy for I your God am holy and Christ in the Gospel be you perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect Therefore O my Soul if thou the Image of God desire to be made like thy exemplar thou must prefer Wisdom and Justice before all things True Wisdom is to judge of all things according to the highest Cause the highest Cause I call the Will of God or the Law which reveals the same to men therefore if thou love Wisdom thou must not regard what the Law of the flesh dictateth what Sense judgeth good what the World allows what kindred perswade much less what flatterers propound but turn thy deaf ear to these and onely harken to the Will of the Lord thy God judging and esteeming that the most profitable most glorious and most desirable good which is most agreeable to the Will and Law of God This is the Wisdom of the Saints of which the wise Man Writes Wisdom 7.10 11. I loved her before health and beauty and chose to have her in stead of light for the light that cometh from her never goeth out All good things together came to me with her and innumerable riches in her hands Furthermore Justice which is the other part of spiritual beauty comprehends all these Vertues which do adorn and perfect the Will but principally Charity which is the Mother and root of all Vertues and of which Saint Augustine saith De natura gratia cap. 70. Charity begun is Justice begun Charirty continued is Justice continued Charity perfected is Justice perfected for who so hath loved hath fulfilled the Law for love worketh no evill Chap. 3. Book 2. therefore love is the fulfilling of Law as the Apostle teacheth and contrariwise he that keeps Gods Word and Commandements Rom. 13. the love of God is perfect in this saith St. John therefore whosoever would be like unto this Divine pattern must obey him saying be ye followers of God as dear Children walk in love for the Son is the Image of his Father now the whole beauty and perfection of the Image is as we have formerly said to be most like the pattern See Bellarm. de ascensione mentis in deum per scalas rerum creaturarum gradu primo CHAP. III. Of the knowledge which the Soul hath of Angels and Saints departed THE state and condition of the Humane Soul is twofold and so hath two several waies of Operation two waies of acquiring knowledge one in the body Natural in this life another out of this body in another life The Operation of the Soul in this life is per corpus which is an impediment and let unto it that it cannot exercise as to all points those other Actions and Operations which are Common to it and separated substances so fully and freely as it doth out of the body So must the knowledge of the Soul in this life especially of Immaterial substances be more imperfect and uncertain by how much more it useth the body For Immateriality is the cause in knowledge and according to the degree of Immateriality is the degree to knowledge therefore as God is said in be summè Immaterialis so is he summè cognoscitivus whereas on the contrary wee see by common experience by how much more any thing recedes from Immateriality the less doth it partake of knowledge as all Corporeal Inanimate substances for their overmuch Materiality have no knowledge at all but your animalia sensitiva Sensitive Souls participate of a certain kind of knowledge because they have some power over their matter and in some measure are capable of Forms without matter and this knowledge is called Sensitive now the Reasonable creatures higher than they have attained to a degree of Intelligence their knowledge is called Intellectual because though their Souls inform the matter they may notwithstanding subsist without the matter so clear it is by how much more the Reasonable Soul in this life stands in need of the body by so much is it less knowing but by how much more freed from the body overcoming the imperfection of matter by so much the more Operative by so much the more Knowing But because the Soul of Man so long as it is in this body cannot exercise all its Operations out of the body therefore the Operation knowledge of the Soul in this life of Spiritual and Immaterial substances especially cannot be so full and perfect as it is out of the body in another life First therefore of the knowledge wee have of Saints and Angells in this life We have no Quidditative knowledge as the Schoolmen call it of abstracted forms essences in this life that is such a knowledge as to define them not onely with their Common but their Proper names also even to the last specficial difference which is the proper and positive knowledge of them such a knowledge we have not which was a question started by Aristotle but not assoiled but a Quidditative knowledge improperly so called to wit a confused knowledge of some Essential predicates but not of all and those too by Imperfect notions partly Common partly Privative or Negative not Proper or Positive such we have Some Essential
Essence or yet of the Operations of these Angels and Spirits Intellectual as a Doctrine less useful and necessary for Mans salvation than of the Nature of Man or God yet so much hath it imparted to her Disciples as may evidence by necessary consequence the truth of this Metaphysical Science of Natures Angelical the Fathers and Doctors of the Church having little varied in judgement from the Curiousest Naturalist and Philosopher in this point all concurring in this particular the School of Christ and School of Nature teaching one and the same thing without any grand Variation and dissenting The Creation of Angels though holy-Churches-creed is no where plainly pointed out in holy Writ otherwise than in the first daies Creation under that General notion of Heaven and Earth which may contain the whole host of Heaven so those words Genesis 1.1 In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth are by most understood viz. by Heaven not onely it but all things therein contained as Angels and the like whose proper seat is Heaven which may seem to be thus also explicated by St. Paul Col. 1.16 For by him are all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth Visible and Invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions Principalities or Powers viz. four of the Orders of Angels further also by God himself in the 38 Chapter of Job saying where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the Earth when the morning Stars sang together and the Sons of God shouted for joy that is to say the holy Angels who were created together with Heaven and Earth even in the beginning or morning of that first day as some have hence gathered Of all created substances some were created Visible Material Corporeal others were created Invisible Incorporeal Spiritual of their own Nature that the Angels are such created Invisible Incorporeal and Spiritual substances may be gathered out of the word of God David and Paul Prophet and Appostle both terming them Spirits and if Spirits then Invisible by Mortal eye and then Incorporeal at least as unto Humane or other natural body of their own Nature for so our Saviour hath resolved it saying a Spirit hath not flesh and bone as I have And the Schoolmen have decreed and concluded that Angels are meerly Spiritual and Incorporeal substances and no bodies or Corporeal Natures and with them agree the Fathers not a few though Origen and after him Saint Jerome would seem to maintain that Angels as oft as they sinned and fell away were thrust into bodies and there remained as a punishment unto them which opinion is exploded by all both Antient and Modern as savouring of Platonism more than Christianity Yet may we not deny but that Angels have been in bodily shapes and so seen and appeared unto our Fathers of old wherefore we must either grant unto them real bodies or that they did delude and deceive the Patriarches with Phantasms and meer Apparations which is not to be conceived of the holy Angels and therefore St. Bernard put a kind of necessity in it that Angels should have bodies otherwise how could they be ministring Spirits sent out to minister unto them who shall be Heirs of Salvation to men who yet live in the body how shall they perform this Ministerial Function of discoursing of walking and talking of eating and drinking and the like without a body all which notwithstanding Angels have done as sacred Writ accordeth But it may be objected if we do grant unto them true real Visible bodies then must we also grant them all motions and mutations incident to such Bodies to wit of Generation Corruption Augmentation Diminution Altricion alteration then such as may be borne fed and nourished may die may suffer and the like as other corporeall Creatures doe how then are they meerly Spirituall and of an Incorporeall nature To which may be answered First 1 Negatively negatively True humane bodies Angels have not humane nature no spirituall substance ever assumed except the Son of God the second Person in the ever blessed Trinity of whom it is said He took not upon him the nature of Angels but the seed of Abraham and by whom it is verified A spirit hath no flesh and bone so no humane or fleshly Bodies are ascribed to Angels 2 Affirmatively Secondly affirmatively True reall bodies they have not newly generate created or begotten but assumed of Air and other Elements so condensate consolidate and contract together as that it may be seen felt touched c. Beyond the very nature of Air such a Body as is not essentiall but accidentall taken up for a time as we do put on our Cloathes and may be dissolved again at pleasure as soon as their Ministery is accomplish'd now such a Body is not subject to those Mutations of Generation Corruption and the like nor may it be said to die to suffer to feel o feed or the like as a humane Body may Thus is the nature of Angels Spirituall not carnall Incorporeall not corporeall and surpasseth the humane Nature in Understanding freedom of Will and externall Operations First in Understanding in regard of that Intuitive Vision they have of God per lumen Gloriae besidâ—s those superexcellent naturall Endowments Intellectual of seeing God per lumen naturae alwayes beholding his Face Vid. Hockers Eccles pol. 1. Sect. 4. fol. 53. as the Text expresseth they are so acquainted with the Mind and Will of God that Irrepercussa mentis acie divinorum judiciorum abyssum intuentur as St. Bernard hath it in comparison of which knowledge Angelicall all ours is but as that of Babes and Sucklings Out of whose Mouth notwithstanding God hath perfected his praise See Mr. Hooker his first book of Eccles pol. Sect. 6. fol. 56. or ordained strength as the Psalmist hath it here on Earth till such time as we grow up to perfect Man-hood to the measure of the fulness of the stature of Christ where shall be given to us little ones an equality of knowledge with the Angels to be like unto them who alwayes behold the Face of their Heavenly Father As touching their Freedom of Will and Power of working the Angelical far surpasseth the Humane Nature Bellarmine puts these differences betwixt them First in the Power and Rule over Bodies The humane Soul can onely move his own Body at his pleasure it cannot move others after the same sort Again the humane Soul moves its own Body upon the Earth in a slow motion step by step it hath not power to bear it upon the Water or elevate it above the Air or carry it whither it pleaseth but the Angels by the Power and Freedom of Will by the meer force of their spirit can lift up mighty Bodies and carry them whither they please Thus did an Angel take up Habacuc and in a short space brought him to Babylon with a Dinner for Daniel and carried him back again into the Land of Palestine Again
Man cannot fight with his enemies in Mind and Will onely but stands in need of Hands Weapons and the like but an Angel by the sole power of his Spirit and Will without either Hands or Armes can both fight against and also overcome a whole Host of Armed-men so an Angel in one night slew of the Assyrians one hundred eighty and five thousand Again Man by the Art of Painting and Engraving may make such an Image of Man so lively represented that it may seem to live and breath yet not without great paines and labour but an Angel without any paines without Hands without Instruments can even in an instant as it were so frame a Body of Elements that it shall be taken for a true humane Body of very wise Men such a Body as can Walk Speak Eat Drink yea may be touched handled and washed Thus Abraham prepared Meat for Angels and washed their Feet as th' Apostle hath it entertaning Angels unawares supposing they had been Men the same which happened to his Nephew Lot when he received two Angels into his house for Men as strangers and Travellers so the Angel Raphael for many dayes together dwelt and was conversant with Tobia the yonger Walking Talking and Eating and Drinking as if he were truly Man and yet when he was to leave him said I seemed to Eat and Drink with you but I use invisible Meat and Drink and so vanisht suddainly out of their sight a great power certainly and an admirable so quickly to make a Body as shall not be discerned to differ from a humane and living Body in any thing and the same again to dissolve in a trice as oft as it pleaseth him Again the Soul of Man is so closely conjoyn'd to the Body that without it the Soul cannot move from place to place but God hath not so tied a Body to Angelical natures but without a Body they may most swiftly pass from Heaven to earth from earth to Heaven again or whither also they please Thus as the Angelical Nature is next unto God in Dignity so doth it resemble Gods Omnipresence in Subtilty and Agility God is every where by the infinity of of his being and needs no local motion since he is every where Angels also do pass in so easie and swift a motion from place to place and have their Presence in all places as in a sort they may be said to be ubiquitary The number of these Angels are uncertain not revealed in the Word of God but without doubt so many as cannot well be comprised in the Art of Enumeration millions of millions ministring unto God and ten thousand times ten thousand standing before him whereupon Dionysius and with him Aquinas do conclude that the number of Angels are more than are the number of all corporeall substances whatsoever and although their number be so infinite yet they do every one differ amongst themselves not onely in individuall number but also in specificall form Yet for all this number almost infinite they are reduced into nine Ranks and Orders under some of which every of them are comprehended The first and highest Order is that of the Seraphims secondly Cherubins thirdly Thrones fourthly Dominions fifthly Principalities sixthly Powers seventhly Vertues eightly Archangels and the ninth and last Angels of all which Names we read in the holy Scriptures by which their severall Offices Degrees and Orders are dignified and distinguisht Chap. 4. Book 2. Wherefore else serve these different Names if they signified nothing but sure there is a difference twixt Angels and Archangels in degree then why not twixt the rest quid ergo sibi vult gradualis distinctio haec saith St. Bernard upon the same subject But Dionysius makes but three Orders of all putting three in every Order so making a ternary of Trinities alluding to the Sacred Trinity viz. Three Superior three middle and three inferior Orders The highest Orders are the Seraphim Cherubin and Thrones The midlemost Orders are the Dominions Principalities and Powers The lowermost are the Vertues Archangel and Angel but of this enough is said CHAP. IV. Of the Knowledge we have of God and his Attributes THat which may be known of God by the strength of naturall reason is drawn from the Works of his Creation for as the Cause is known by the Effects so is the Creator by the Creature the Physical Science of Causes and Effects here below brings us to a Metaphysical Knowledge of the cause of all causes even God above whose Deity may be seen in every place omnia sunt deâ—rum plena was the saying of Thales Milesius an antient Philosopher thus cited by Aristotle Lib. 1. De anima and thus said the Poets of old Jovis omnia plena paersentem que refert quaelibet herba deuÌ„ not the meanest of the Creatures but manifest a God-head The Philosophers therefore excepting the Epicureans who held that this great spacious universe was nothing else but Theatrum caeco atomorum confluxu genitum searching out the causes of things and finding a concatenation of them in an orderly dependance one upon another Simplicius Philoponus Ammonius Averrores aliique multi viri illustres neque numero pauciores nec autoritate inferiores iis qui de sipere maluerint mundum à deo ut causa efficiente pendere affirmant Scaliger and a necessary conjunction of every of them with their Effects ne daretur progressus in infinitum vel circulus committendus an absurdity in Nature which otherwise they would run into were forced to acknowledge one Supreme cause of all things which was God Plato Aristotle Galen and others from hence do prove that there is a God The quod sit is thus proved the quid sit may from thence also be concluded for when we look upon the Fabrick of Heaven and Earth wee may see the Greatness and Power of God when we behold the Governance and Guidance of all in so great a Beauty Order and Distinction of all things we may judge of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God when we consider the commodity profit and Use of all things we may experience the goodness and Love of God and so we may come to know God in his Predicates and Attributes viz. that he is Ens Actus Substantia Vivens Aeternus Justus Sapiens c. Yea under such conceptions and notions as are only proper and essential to God not agreeing with any other may God be apprehended by us in this Metaphysical Science viz. that he is Ens infinitum simpliciter that he is Actus purus causa prima primus motor immobilis c. And so we come to the knowledge of God quodsit and quid sit both that he is and what he is Yet is not this knowledge comprehensive of him these Motions of Gods Essentiall Attributes though Proper to him and Communicative to none beside are not quidditative an infinite Essence cannot so be comprehended within the Sphaer of a Finite
Operation of God Begetting and Breathing And these Operations ad intra viz. generandi spirandi in such an Ineffable Incomprehensible manner argues an omnipotency Divine and Power infinite in all the branches of Infinity but unwilling I am to wade too far into this Mysterious point this bottomless Ocean of Gods Internal Workings but rather to view it a far off as it is dispersed into Smaller and Shallower Rivulets and treat of Gods Power in his Works ad extra All things were made of God and without him nothing from the highest Angel to the meanest Worm from the highest Heavens to the profoundest Abysse this Work of Creation is Wonderful and argues an infinite perfection of Power whether we respect the Magnitude Multitude or Variety of things created the Magnitude is seen in the greatness of the Earth who hath measured the bredth of the Earth and the depth of its Abysse saith Ecclesiasticus So great it is that a great part of it lies yet undiscovered yet this Vast Earth being compared to Heaven is but as a point or prick for so have Astrologers observed wherein so many thousand Stars do shine the least whereof is bigger than the Earth the Multitude of things is seen if wee consider but the Sand of the Sea and drops of rain the Multitude of Minerals lie buried in the Earth the several sorts of Grass Herbs Fruits Plants upon the Earth the number of Men Stars and Angels besides the innumerable sorts forms and Individuals of living creatures going creeping swiming flying and the variety of things in this Multiplicity even in every Individual of every kind is wonderful Man from Man differing in shape and feature and one Star differing from another in glory yet all this great Universe with the Infinite number variety of things therein contained to be made of nothing of no preexistent matter yea and in nothing all this in an instant in the twinckling of an eye to be created and as speedily and easily to be dissolved argues an Almighty and omnipotent God Nor are his works less wonderful in that Mysterious but Fundamental point of our belief the Resurrection of the body after so many Revolutions of daies and years being turned to dust and ashes this dust dispersed into the four quarters of the World or turned into other bodies being eaten up of wild Beasts or devoured by men such as Cannibals who feed on mans flesh yet these same bodies Millions of Millions however dispersed or transformed in the twinkling of an eye at the sound of the Trumpet to arise the self-same Soul to be reunited to the self-same body the same Individual Form to reinform the same Numerical matter argues an Omnipotent hand and Almighty Power which God both can and will bring to pass so doth the Catholick Church profess Nor is Gods Almighty Power manifested onely in these created beings which have or shall have a being in Nature real Existencies do not Adaequate Gods Omnipotency but it extends to all kind of beings whatsoever to all Negative and Privative beings as Darkness Blindness and the like quae inhaerent entibus realibus without which they subsist not and so have a being in Nature Formally yet not a Positive but Privative being to all Imaginable beings meer entia rationis which have no being in Nature in any sense but only in the Intellect to all possible things entia possibilia though never Future all things whatsoever are absolutely simply and generally possible to be done In his Book of Gods omâ—â—potency saith Doctor Preston under which those things which never shall come into real being those things which may be but never shall be Contingents possible though never Future are comprehended those things which are impossible with Man are notwithstanding possible with God so saith our Saviour for with God nothing is impossible so said the Angel non erit impossibile a pud deum ullum verbum so is the Original where by verbum significatur id quod mente concipi potest ut factibile saith a Schoolman all that is imaginably possible to be done Non potest facere praeterita ut non fuerint necres dum est ut non fit Suar. Disp 30. and implies not a Contradiction falls with the Omnipotency of God and though God cannot do contradictions though somthing there is that is impossible for God to do as to lie to deny himself to call back yesterday that is to say things that are past that they should not be nor any thing that is whilst it is make it otherwise than it is he cannot make truth fashood and the like yet this is not through a weakness and defect of his Power Lib. 6. Episto 39. for so hath Saint Ambrose resolved it istud impossibile non infirmitatis est sed virtutis ac majestatis it argues the greater perfection of Power even as Infallibity is not the imperfection but perfection of Knowledge and to have no freedom to sin is not an imperfection but perfection of freedom of Will 3. Gods Eternity Gods Eternity and Immortality also is clearly set forth in holy Writ so Saint Paul to the King Eternal Immortal and onely wise God c. But thou wilt happily reply O my Soul that this Attribute appertaineth to thee and therefore not appropriate to God alone who art also of an Immortal Invisible Immaterial Nature as hath been elsewhere proved a simple Essence void of Composition or such matter which is subject to Dissolution Death and Destruction and true it is Patet hic quomodo avum differat à tempore aeternitate à tempore quidem ratione finis quaem tempus habet avum non habet ab aternitate ratione principii quod avum habet aepernitas vero non habet yet know thou a difference twixt Eternity simply so called and that which is improperly so called or betwixt Duration Increate and that which is Create or inter aevum aeternitatem age eternity there was a time when thou wast not and when thou wast thou camest to that being by the pleasure and will of God who can as easily when it pleaseth him reduce thee to nothing again though thou hadst no principles of corruption in thee but God was from everlasting Immortal and remains Immortal to perpetuity and this of Necessity and Intrinscical Nature for it is impossible for him who is the cause of all causes life and being it self and the Fountain both of being and life by any means whatsoever to come to nothing but as he was from Eternity so to continue to Eternity For this Attribute of Gods Eternity is a duration Increate which implies a Negation of all such Created Durations and Permanencies as consist of a continual Succession and flux of time for in Gods duration is no Succession so hath Boetius defined it interminabilis vitae tota simul perfecta possessio where by tota simul is excluded all Succession which
though it have a Totality of being yet is not altogether or all at once there is no such differences of time past and time future in Eternity all is present with God no time past or any time to come but all in the present tense my Father worketh hitherto and I work and again this day have I begotten thee though it was from Eternity before all times years and daies for Eternity with God is no more than this instant with us wherefore although our Souls may in a sense be called Eternal Immortal c. yet it is said of God by way of Eminency which is not appropriate to any other who onely hath Immortality c. And though God be Eternal both in Essence and in his Operations yet we Etsi enim aeternitati dies annos attribuimus id tamen facimus nostri melioris intellectus causâ Sennertus who are compact of Succession and are not perfect all at once neither in being nor in working but stand in need of time coming to supply what was Wanting in time past cannot speak nor think of Gods Eternal being and workings as they are in themselves but according to our capacity comparing time with time so conceipting a real or at least an Imaginable Succession of time so we say God was because we conceive him Coexisting with time past God is because Existing with time present and is to come because of his being with all times and beyond all times to come whereas in God is neither was no will be nor flux of time but all present yea Eternally present both God in his being and in his Operations God is from Eterntiy and all the Acts and Operations of God are from Eternity And though God is said and truly so to have done many things in time as to have created Man in the beginning of time so have sent his Son in the fulness of time c. which implies a Succession and no simple duration of God as to his Operations yet are these works ad extra which are manifested to us in time no breach of true Eternity though they admit of Succession and Variation Gods Eternal workings in time manifested to us hinder not Gods Internal workings before all time the World and every thing therein were from Eternity as unto God to whom all things are present and were Eternally so though manifested to us by the creation which is ad extra to be in the beginning of time Gods immutability 4. Which brings us to another Attribute of God whereby he is pleased to make himself known unto us to wit his Immutability I am God saith he of himself and change not yesterday and to day and the same for ever with whom is no Variation nor shadow of change neither Substantial nor Accidental no Substantial for God is a necessary being and impossible for him to be otherwise than he is therefore cannot admit of any Substantial change nor yet any Local change since God by the Infinity of presence and Immensity is in every where and there is no place where God is not so cannot be said to move or change from place to place nor yet is he changable in his Acts and qualities those mutations which may seem to happen in respect of his Divine workings ad extra when God makes any thing which was not formerly made argues no more Mutability in God than the makeing them in time argues a Temporal Succession and no simple Eternity in God as hath been said before for this Mutation à non esse ad esse is not in God but in the Creature not in the Agent but Patient for an Action Transient and External as this is makes a Mutation or change in the Creature but not in God and though there are no External workings or Actions Transient but flow ab intra from Immanent Actions of God yet argue they no Mutation in God since as they proceed from some Immanent Act of God so are they Eternal and Immutable in him Again some Acts of Gods are necessary as those whereby he loves himself some are free as those whereby he loves the Creatures those things which God knows and Wills necessarily those he knows loves Immutably of such Acts of God there can be no dispute but they may stand with Gods Immutability but how the free Acts of God as his freedom of loving or not loving his Creatures can stand with Divine Immutability is the grand question which here we will omit to resolve intending briefly to assoil this doubt in the Metaphysical part of the Subsequent Chapter Gods Immensity or Infinity of presence 5. Immensity is another Attribute whereby God is made known unto us in the Scriptures Great is our God above all Gods who made Heaven and Earth and filleth Heaven and Earth and yet Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens is not able to contain him God is every where present yet is contained no where but is above all and in all and through all as the Apostle speaks in every place God is present not Virtually onely but Really and Substantially the very Essence of God is diffused into all parts of the World as the Soul is in the body Indivisible and wholly not onely in an Indivisible point but a Divisible and Expatiated Circumference for if we grant this manner of real presence to Inferior and Imperfecter Substances as to the Soul of Man we may not deny it to more Noble and Superior Natures as to Angels much less to the Divine Nature to be whole in the whole and whole in every part of the whole in all places real or Imaginary whole for where God is not there is nothing and where there is nothing he is in himself For suppose we more Worlds and more Heavens yea imagine we infinite numbers of them more all which fall within the compass of Gods infinite Power there could not be any Imaginable place throughout them all which Gods presence did not fill for if his Power extend to the making his presence will extend to the filling of all otherwise God would be less Infinite in being than in working existendo quam agendo which is impossible since all the Attributes of God are Infinite and in infinitis non datur magis minus this serves to shew the Immensity of Gods Essence the Infinity of his presence which is not limited to any place Real nor Immaginary space is incapable of Termes can neither be Circumscribed nor defined in the Predicament of ubi for as the Spirit of God witnesseth There is no end of his greatness magnitudinis ejus non est numerus so the Latine renders it so all the Fathers Unanimously teach Nazianzen Athanasius Hilary Damascen Hieron Ambrose and lastly St. Bernard de consideratione lib. 5. speaks of the length and bredth the height and depth which is in God who is incomprehensible since no place can contain him and yet there is no place but where he is nusquam
knowest my thoughts afar off God is a searcher of the heart and trier of the reins the desires of the soul thoughts of the heart are not hid from him he long before knows all the free and voluntary acts of men and certainly can foretell the Event of every Future Contingent this is by Vertue of that Infinite Knowledge which is proper to God alone Prevision and Prediction of Contingent Effects none is capabel of but God alone and those to whom God is pleased to reveal it and therefore though the Prophets of old have foretold as we may read in holy Writ of many effects of this Nature which most truly and certainly came to pass yet it was not they but God in them foretold them Luk. 1.70 so saith Zacharie in his Benedictus As he spake by the mouth of his Prophets since the World began and St. Peter in his 2. Epist 1.21 Prophesie in old time came not by the Will of men but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost The Devils have formerly spoken in Oracles and taken upon them to foretel such Future Events but this is above the Nature of any Angel a Conjectural Knowledge they may have at the best such as a Mariner by his long Experience may foretel of the Wind the Husbandman of rain the Physician of diseases and the like by which the Devils have presumed to foretel such things to come in which also often they have both deceived themselves and others And where this Knowledge could not be attained wherein they could have no probable conjecture of Future Events they have in Oracles uttered Amphibologiously and in a double meaning that so if the Event proved otherwaies the fault might be imputed to the Misinterpretation and not to the Prediction But a certain Knowledge of a Future Contingent that they have not it is onely proper to God Your Astrologers Genethlialogists Vide Sennertum lib. 2. cap. 2. fol. 34. a b. and other such Diviners who like Gods Apes take upon them to imitate him in such Predictions are here to be derided and rejected as Impostors and deluders of mankind since they pretend not to Divine Revelation and Inspiration of God from whom alone such Effects do come to be certainly known The consideration hereof may make us with the Appostle cry out and say O the depth of the riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God Great is the Lord and great is his Power yea and his Wisdom infinite sapientiae ejus non est numerus Stand thou in Admiration and Adoration of this Knowledge of God O my Soul say with the Prophet David such Knowledge is too wonderful forme O God I cannot attain unto it for of such Knowledge doth the Prophet David there speak viz. of the Knowledge of Future Cogitations saying thou knowest my thoughts afar of not such as there already are but such as shall be hereafter nor such as shall be but such as may not be hereafter also Now the heart of Man is deep and unsearchable profundum inscrutabile saith the Steptuagint and who can know it It is answered I the Lord which search the heart and trie the Reins this makes the Psalmist crie out such knowledge is too wonderfull for me If we but cast in our mind the number of all mankind that have been since the Creation of the World living upon the face of the Earth and add thereto the number of those that are with those that shall be conversant upon the Earth before the Consummation of this Universe and we shall find they will not fall within the number of Arithmetick Millions of Millions and ten thousand times ten thousand are not the one half of them Let us withall cast in our mind the several various thoughts and desires of the heart which this day and night hath passed us thee and me much less the thoughts of every mans particular heart since the beginning of the World throughout the whole course of his life we are not able to recount them yet such is the infiniteness of his Wisdom and Knowledge that God in the Book of his Remembrance hath the number of all with the names of every one that hath been or now are from the beginning of the World to this very instant with a Register of all and every one of their Thoughts Words and Actions of what Nature soever or how secretly soever committed nor onely so but every mans thoughts and imaginations of heart that shall be nay more every thought that may be though it never be fall within the compass and comprehension of this infinit knowledge of God the thoughts which are not in thy heart O my Soul but furthest from thee nay and against thy mind as loathsom to retain are known to God It was not in Hasaels heart to kill his Master to take the strong holds of the Children of Israel and set them on fire to slay the young men with the sword to dash their Children rip up their women with child when he answered the Prophet What is thy Servant a dog that he should do these great things nor was it in Peters heart he was not guilty of such dissimulation to deny his Master when he answered our Saviour though all should forsake thee yet would not I and again though I should die with thee yet will not I deny thee yet these were foretold and so came to pass as they were foretold by that admirable Knowledge of him who searching the hearts and trying the reines seeth not as Man seeth but knoweth the thoughts afar off even such as are not yea and depend upon the Will of Man whether ever they spall be or not Such Knowledge is too wonderful for thee O my Soul thou canst not attain unto it Naural and Divine CONTEMPLATIONS Of the Passions and Faculties Of the Soul of Man In Three Bookes THE THIRD BOOK The Theological part CHAP. I. BUT oh the Trump hath sounded the Earth hath opened her Womb those that slept are awaked the bodies of the dead are raised to life and blessed are they that have died in the Lord. No longer now shall we view the Souls of those departed in their Metaphysical shapes and abstracted Forms every form to its Individual determinate matter and every Soul to its Numerical body the Soul hath quickned and revived the Body the Body is again reunited to the Soul in an Indissoluble Conjugal knot in an everlasting wedlock But since Corruption cannot Inherit Incorruption or Souls Immortal ever dwell in trunks of clay and dust therefore hath the Body cast off her old Garments and changed her attire she was sown a Natural body she is raised a Spiritual body sown in weakness but raised in Power in dishonor but raised in Glory sowen in Corruption but raised in Incorruption that she may for ever dwell with the Incorruptible Soul in Unity There are no jarrings twixt Soul and Body here as in
the dayes of their Pilgrimage upon Earth the flesh lusting against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh she who was earst Rebellious is now Obse quious to the Dictates of the Soul now is she wholly subject to the will of her Lord yielding obeysance and obedience with admirable Agility and Celerity of motion now not the least Ponderosity of a Massie substance or Natural body to foreslow her motion appears any more but the Perpensility of a Caelestial and Spiritual body mounted as it were on the wings and Plumes of a Cherub to expedite the Souls Injunctions such Homage and obedience the Body paies unto its Soul that as St Augustine saith ubi volet spiritus ibi protinus erit corpus nec volet aliquid spiritus quod nec spiritum nec corpus possit decere 1. Hereupon is the body enfranchised of sundry Praerogatives and Immunities which are altogether inconsistent with it in its Natural condition whilst it was Elementary its Natural motion tended downward according to the Nature of the Predominant Element the ascendent motion of a Physical body is Excentrique and Irregular which motion is Concentrique and Consonant to a body glorified solo voluntatis impetu c. at the beck and command of the glorious Soul is the body mounted from Earth to Heaven whose Nature it is to be wholly subject to that glorified Spirit from whose Redundancie the body likewise receives its Glorification 2. The Humane body in the state of Nature in a slow Progress marcheth forward step by step and that not without some Earth or other solid body to tread or go on whereupon the Earth is made a cause of our walking Causa fine qua non but in the state of Glory most swiftly and as it were in an instant it moves from place to place from one part of Heaven to another absque adminiculo without the benefit of Earth or other Element to impress the least Vestigias or footsteps of his treadings 3. In the terrene estate the body is Opaque and Luskie Dark and Purblind Beautified onely by the Additaments of External colour but the Spiritual body is Diaphanous transparent transplendent not like those lesser lights which onely appear in the night but like the Sun at noon day in the Firmament of Heaven Matthew 13.43 Then shall the Righteous shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father The CoÌ„fulgurations of bodies glorifi'd are like the bright shining of the Sun or compare we them to our Saviours glorious Body after his Exaltation which no doubt exceeds all the glory can be expressed or conceived when this transfiguration upon the Mount was so glorious That his face did shine as the Sun Matthew 17.2 and his Raiment was white as the light yet such is the condition and state of these bodies which are fashioned like unto his glorious Body according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself Phillip 3.21 Yet doth not this transcendent Glory superadded to the Humane body alter the Nature and Essence of the same the same Humanity is retained as well after as before the Resurrection the same body that is laid in the dust the self same body ariseth and ascends into glory that body is resumed in the Resurrection which was assumed in the Conception onely one to a Mortal the other to an Immortal life alterius gloriae sed ejusdem naturae the glory is different but the bodie 's the same The glorified bodies of Saints and the glorious body of our ever blessed Saviour in Heaven all of them of one Nature and Substance made up of Flesh and Blood and Bone Nerves Sinewes Arteries and what else conduceth to the perfection of a Humane body To deny this is to run into the Heresie of Eutiches condemned in the several Councils of Constantinople and Chalcedon who affirmed that the body of Christ was not of the same Nature with ours and that ours also after the Resurrection were not Palpable or Visible but more subtle and slender than VVind or Air. But as we have said the same body that is laid in the dust the same ariseth and puts on Immortality and glory a body of flesh is sown in dishonor but the same body of flesh is raised in glory Consonant hereto are the words of Job Job 19.25 26 27. I know that thy Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day day upon the Earth And though after my skinne wormes destroy this body yet in my Flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for my self and my eyes shall behold and not another though my Reines be consumed within me thus we read and thus is our Creed so is preached and so is believed for the Resurrection of the flesh is an Article of our Faith a Fundamental point of that Religion the Church Catholick professeth and that our Saviours body is of the same Substance is another Fundamental Athanasius is plain perfect God and perfect Man Of a Reasonable Soul and Humane Flesh subsisting yea Palpable flesh and Visible even after his Resurrection our Saviours words are full for it behold saith he my hands and my feet that it is I my self handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me have And therefore those words of the Apostle flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God are to be understood of sinful lusts and corruptions of the flesh 1 Cor. 15.10 and not of the flesh and blood it self dismantled of these And as the substance of a Humane body continues intire so hath she her faculties and qualities perfect though not all for in as much as the body is purged of sin and corruption those qualities which argue corruption and infirmity must needs be perished also absit labes silicet corruptionis assit effigies assit motio absit fatigatio assit vescendi potestas absit esuriendi necessitas c. Soft soft O my Soul dash not thy self on the Rock of Contention be not prolix in Polemick discourses and points Controversal since thou art devoted to thy calmer Theoremes and Diviner Speculations The case standing thus that none have admittance to those glorious Mansions in the new Jerusalem the City of God but bodies purged from their filthy lusts and sinful corrâ—ption bodies morigerous submisse and pliant to Soul and Spirit see then and lament the wretched estate of us Mortals upon Earth An evil it is under the sun an error proceeding from the ruler folly set in great dignity and the rich set in low place servants on horseback and Princes walking as servants upon the Earth Eccles 10.5 6 7. whose lives and conversations Diametrically oppose the glorified Saints in Heaven Apame was but Concubine to the great and mighty King Darius yet was she seen sitting on his right hand and taking the Crown from off his head did set it upon her own she also stroke the King with her
left hand Semblable to which is the rule and Dominion which Impetuous and Implacable flesh usurpeth and excerciseth over the Souls of Mortal men in their Pilgrimage here below leading them Captive to the Law of sin and death This is that miserable Bondage under which the Sons of men in this Vale of â—ars do groan from which Bondage of Corruption and body of sin they wait with earnest expectation to be delivered into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God And not onely they but our selves also which have the first fruits of the Spirit even we our selves groan within our selves waiting for the Adoption to wit the redemption of our bodies not that we should be found naked and our bobodies unclothed but clothed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of life It is not a change of our bodies but of our Raiment and Vestments which we do look for a Crown of glory for a Crown of thornes the Robes of Righteousness for the Raggs of Sin This change must be inâ—hoate here though compleated hereafter the Foundation must be layed on Earth in Grace but finished in Heaven in Glory the Garments of the Old man laid aside and the Garments of the New man put on the lusts of the flesh mortified the fruits of the Spirit quickned Ephe. 4.22 23 24. We must put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceiptful lusts and be renewed in the Spirit of our mind and we must put on that new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness that we may henceforth serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter For if we live after the flesh wee shall die but if we through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body we shall live Woe is me that I am constrained to live in Mesech to have my habitation in the tents of Kedar my Soul hath long dwelt with them that are Enemies to peace they are daily fighting and troubling it the Body with all its sinful lusts rebel against my Soul and when I labour for Peace they make them ready for Battel they will not have her rule over them whom thou O Lord hast made the Monarch and sole Empress of this little World but attempt by continual Insurrections and Intestine Wars to introduce an Arbitrary Power over an Athenian and Popular Government For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that he would grant me according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned in the inward Man in the spirit of my mind by the might and Power of his Spirit who raised up Jesus from the dead that as he died for my sin and rose again for my justification so I may die to sin and live unto righteousness and being buried with Christ into death by Baptism may walk in newness of life that being planted together in the likeness of his death I may be also in the likness of his Resurrection kowing this that my old man is Crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth I should not sin And though I live and walk in the flesh yet that I may not war after but against the flesh the weapons of my warfare being Spiritual and mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds to the casting down of Imaginations and every high thing that exalts it self against the Knowledge of God and bringing into Captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience of the flesh against the Law of my mind which is onely subject to the Law of God Help me O God so to keep under my body and bring it into subjection that I my self be no a castaway Thy will O Heavenly Father be done on Earth as it is in Heaven and as thou hast praepared an Heaven and fitted the body with all Obsequiousness to serve and the Soul to rule and command with all just Authority and moderation all this in the Resurrection of the body at the last day when Soul and Body meet again in a glorified estate to Possess the Heavenly Mansions so fit and and prepare them here that whilst they are in this Earthly Tabernacle all Schism being abandoned all Rebellion Anathemaâ—ized the heel may not kick against the body or the foot tread upon the head but however it fareth in the body Politick there may be such an orderly subjection in the body Natural that my flesh may be subject not Predominant to my Spirit my Body unto my Soul and both Soul and Body subject unto thee O my God do thou thus set my foot over the threshold of thy Heaven Chap. 2. Book 3. put thou my Soul into this happy condition of an inchoate blessedness so shall I cheerfully spend the remaindâ—r of my daies in a joyful expectation of the full Consummation of my glory Amen Bish Hall his Susurium cum Deo CHAP. II. Of the Organs of the body and the Exercise of the Sensitive faculties of the Soul by them in the state of glory AS the appearance of the Bride newly come from her Chamber in the daies of her Espousals on the Solemnity of her brideale and other Nuptial Rites bedecked and adorned with all the Ornaments both of body and mind that may render her gratious and Amiable in the eyes of her Betrothed or like the Kings Daughter all glorious within and without in clothing of wrought Gold brought into the Kings Palace attended on among the Honorable VVomen by a Train of Virgins that be her fellows Even such is the inward grace and outward Magnificence Pomp and State of the body in the morning of her Resurrection and Ascension from the Chamber of death to be Espoused again to the Soul in an everlast-VVedlock the Bill of Divorcement being cancelled and Nullified by an Act of perpetual Oblivion Her Soporiferous bed of rottenness she thenceforth lotheth and outrunneth leaving behind her load of inward Corruption all waywardness of mind and frowardness of disposition and her Troops of Natural Imperfection Deafness Dumbness Blindless Lameness c. such Sons of sorrow and servants of sin and perdition presume not to approach the marriage Chamber all other her Companions in the flesh that were faithful and serviceable to her and instrumental to the Soul in the Acts of grace are still her attendants and are admitted into the Royal Palace and invested with the Robes of Glory and Immortality as a badge and livery of the glorified Soul whose Servants and Ministers they are Those Organical parts of the body in which the Soul was exercised and without which it could not Operate in which respect the Soul as to such faculties and Operations might be termed Mortal are revived with the body and useful to the Soul in their several Stations I do not I dare not here affirm that all the parts of
the body do still remain Organicall after this life so as the Soul may exercise all the Powers of her triple life Vegetative Sensitive and Intellectual as she did in her Natural and Physical state according to those several Organs in which the Faculties were resient and peculiarly seated Nourishment Growth and Generation the proper Effects of the Vegetative life accomplish their ends in this life whereunto when they have obtained those Operations cease and the Organs rest from that labour and imployment but since the Senses are Operative in a glorified body for it 's not deprived of Sense I have no reason to think the Soul hath utterly rejected her manner of Operation by bodily Organs declining those old Servants as useless and inconsistent to such a glorified state Eyes Eares Nose Mouth Palat Hands Feet and all to be quite emancipated freed from the service of the glorified body and Soul in their works of that kind but to believe the Senses External and Senses Internal are Organical in Heaven as they were on Earth and subservient to the Soul in their several stations places of residence as Eye Ear Nose Palate Nerves Brain by which the Soul doth exercise its several faculties of Seeing Hearing Smelling Tasting Touching and the rest The eye the Noblest of the External Corporeal Organs offers it self first to our consideration which is not obscurely proved by holy Writ to be usefull and serviceable to those in the state of glory for this the damned in Hell do so far enjoy though to their torment and woe to see Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven and they themselves thrust out But the Saints to their endless joy and comfort have the use of their eyes and sight to see and behold the Splendor and Beauty of their own bodies being changed from vile to glorious after the fashion of Christs most glorious body which exceedeth the brightness of the Sun as the Apostle witnesseth Acts 26.13 What delight and pleasure must it needs be unto the Saints in Heaven to see every part of their body Hands Feet and all issuing forth such raies and beams of light sufficient to dispel all mists and darkness from them without further assistance of Sun Moon Stars or other Luminaries Nor is this Optick faculty of the Eye limited to it own body so as not to be of use to discern other Objects for all the Saints and Servants of God whose bodies are likewise glorified yea and the glorious body of Christ himself Christ the head with all his members are all of them Visible Objects of this Sense I know saith holy Job That my Redeemer lyveth and that he shall stand at the latter day vpon the Earth whom I shall see for my self and my eyes shall behold and not another It is not enough for the eye to behold its own glorifi'd Body shining as the Sun but it beholdeth an infinite number of Suns together no Parelia nor yet in their Eclipss but the glorious company of the Apostles the goodly fellowship of the Prophets the noble Army of Martyrs and the holy Church throughout all the World whose bodies do not onely send forth a glorious shine but every member part and Organ of those bodies are bespangled with the like raies of glory and splendor to the admiration of the beholder Who doubts saith Bishop Hall that these eyes shall see the glorious manhood of our blessed Saviour advanced above all the Powers of Heaven and if one body why not more if our elder brother why no more of our Spiritual Fraternity Certum est Bellar. in praefatione ad librum de aeterna felicitate beatos homines omnes ab omnibus videri sciri inter se familiariter versari ut amicos proximos saith another Doctor so then there is a Communion of Saints in Heaven as well as on Earth a society of bodies Visible one to another Besides the Vision of new Jerusalem apperteins to the glorious Saints to them it is given to see Jerusalem built up with Saphires and Emeruads and pretious Stones the Walls Towers and Battlements with pure Gold the Streets thereof paved with Beril Carbuncle and stones of Ophir and the Citizens thereof singing Hallelujah and saying Praised be God who hath exalted it for ever which was the Prophecie of Tobias and of Isaaih which also Saint John in his Revelation saw together with a new Heaven and a new Earth to wit the Holy City the new Jerusalem descending from God out of Heaven having the glory of God and her light was like unto a stone most pretious even like a Jasper stone clear as Christal it had no need of the of Sun nor the Moon to shine in it for the glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof and the Nations of them that are saved do walk in the light of it Yea we our selves together with the whole Creation do with earnest expectation wait for a Renovation and Melioration of the state of all things at the coming of the day of God wherein the Heavens that now are being on fire shall be dissolved and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat and wee shall as it is promised see new Heavens and new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness as the Apostle Peter hath it 2 Peter 3. Chapter and verse 10. What neither the eye here can see nor the ear can hear nor the heart of Man conceive in their Natural state shall all be Object and Visible to the eye in the state of glory so saith St. Bernard Erit quando iam non dicetur Audi filia vide inclina aurem tuam sed leva potius oculos tuos contemplare quid plane ea modo quae interim quidem etsi non videre adhuc audire tamen credere potes verum etiam quod sicut non videt oculus sic nec auris aâ—divit nec in cor hominis ascendit quod praeparavit deus diligentibus se nimirum tant a capiet oculus resurrectionis quanta nec auaitus nec animus nunc captat these eyes shall behold them and not anothers therefore in another place he addeth nec novos tibi instaurandos pates sed tuos utique restaurandos not that they shall be of another Nature but of another glorie The Ear also is exercised with Variety of sounds and voices both Articulate and Inarticulate the Organs of speech are as intire and perfect yea more in Heaven than on Earth we may not conceive a deficiency in any part there are Guttur Lingua Palatum Quatuor dentes duo labra simul For the bodies of the glorified Saints are true real and lively bodies and perfect in every member even as our blessed Saviour after his Resurrection was manifested to be both by his Conversation and Confabulation with his Apostles and Disciples speaking of many things perteining to the Kingdom of God and by his hearing and answering of questions and further
from his voice from Heaven to St. Paul and his reply to the Quaere of St. Paul Such bodies and bodily Organs for Vocal musick have all the Saints to sing hear Halellujahs sung a great voice was heard of much People in Heaven saying and singing Hallelujah in a most Melodious tune the ditty or ballad whereof was Salvation and Glory and Honor and Power unto the Lord our God There is a ful Quire of Saints thousands of thousands harmoniously canting the praises of the Lord and as full a Chorus with the like affectionate melody again and again ecchoing and resounding the like praises and loving kindness of the Lord. And as the company of singers is great so are the songs and Canticles various though all of them Eucharistical some in Memory of our Creation others in Memory of our Redemption some in triumph of the Holy Martyrs some in joy of Converts and Penitents others in Honor of Chastity and Virginity and those who were not defiled with Women the redeemed from amongst men being the first Fruits unto God and to the Lamb others for the Victory of all Saints over the World the Flesh and the Devil over the Beast and over his Image and over his Mark and over the number of his Name others for the judgements of God inflicted upon the ungodly ones There is sung the song of Moyses and there is sung the song of the Lamb yea there is sung the Psalm of David misericordias domini in aeternum as St. Augustine affirmeth fortasse non solius dei laudes in civitate illa canentur sed etiam tâ—iumphi sanctorum martyrum confessorum praeconia virginum gloria sanctorum omnium contra diabolum victoriae cantibus extollentur haec enim omnia in dei laudes gloriam redundabunt And all these songs and cantons cannot but be wonderous pleasant and delightsom to the ears of all the blessed and glorified Saints of God for which Cause the Ear is Organical and serviceable to the Soul and Body in their state of glory In the next place consider we the Sense of Olfaction and those sweet smeling savours and Odors in the Nostrils of all the Saints to shew that the body is not destitute of an Organ for the exercise of this Sensitive faculty of the Soul no more than of the rest which are so useful to her in this state For though the Scriptures afford not so pregnant proofs for the two Senses of Smelling and Tasting as for the other three yet may we not in reason conceive a total Deprivation or Annihilation of them more than of the rest nor without injury to the Humane Nature to which we attribute so great perfection and integrity of parts in that condition debar her the freedom of exercising any of her faculties other than what argue and favour Corruption which so much tends to the perfection of a Humane body ther 's no Privation of Sight of Hearing or of Touching why then of the other are the Saints Hosmei and are not Goglites if the want of an eye or an ear be such a blemish and imperfection as may not befall a glorified body is not the want of a nose as great a deformity but Odors and Olfaction there is in this state and this Sense hath its Objects of delight as well as the rest Glorified bodieâ— are Odoriferous bodies sending forth most fragrant sents as they are glorious to the eye so are they Aromatical to the smell St. Hierom of the body of St. Hilarion affirmeth after its ten months burial it was found lively fresh and whole tantis fragrans odoribus ut delibutum unguentis putaretur the like doth St. Gregory witness of St. Servulus saying anima exeunte tanta fragrantia odoris aspersa est ut omnes qui illuc aderant inaestimabili suavi ate replerentur and a little after quousque corpus ejus sepulturae traderent ab eorum naribus odoris itlius fragrantia non recessi and Bellarmine hence inferreth the alive bodies of the Saints in Heaven must needs send forth most sweet perfumes when their dead bodies are so Fragrant But above all is the glorious body of our blessed Saviour being perfumed with Mirrh and Frankincense with all powders of the Merchant and whose Garments smell of Mirrh Alloes and Cassia whereupon the Church that Spiritual Spouse cries unto Christ her Head and her Husband melioria sunt ubera tua vino fragrantia unguentis optimis oleum effusum nomen tuum Ideo Adolescentulaedi lexeruntte trahe me post te curremus in odorem unguentorum tuorum thus saith St. Bernard Now if the body of Christ be so Odoriferous it is most propable the Saints are likewise so the Members in a due proportion to their head as in brightness so in sweetness The like probability is of the Sense of Tasting that it should remain in the glorified estate For if the Power of eating then the Sense of tasting but the first is granted then why not the latter adest vescendi potestas abest esuriendi necessitas and so resolves St. Augustine non potestas sed egestas edendi corporibus refurgentium aufertur Lib 13. de civit dei and this puts the difference twixt the Humane Nature Spiritual and Caelestial and the Natural and Terrestrial the one eates necessitatis the other potestatis gratiâ Christ after the Resurrection did eat and drink with his Disciples yet not as his Disciples for refreshment and nourishment non alimentorum indigentiâ sed ea qua hoc poterat popotestate and therefore the Paraphrase of venerable Beda upon those words of our Saviour have you here any thing to eat is worthy our observation Luk. 24 41. Aliter obsorbet aquam terra sitiens aliter solis radius calens illa indigentiâ iste potentiâ manducavit ergo post resurrectionem non quasi cibo indigens sed ut eo modo naturam corporis resurgentis astrueret so glorified bodies may sometimes eat to shew their Power and Freedom but never for hunger or satisfaction of a Natural Appetite or an empty Panch And this Comestion is real and true not a Fictitious and feigned eating of the Angels as that of Raphaels for the bodies which Angels sometimes assume being no Humane lively bodies have not the true and Real faculty of eating though happily of chewing or grinding and swallowing down into the interior parts of the body for a true Comestion is accompanied with a gust or tast which Sense continues to the glorified bodies and hath its recreation and delight as well as the other faculties though not in the Act of eating which they seldom use de sensu gustandi scribunt Theologi non usuros beatos cibis mortalibus sed habituros tamen oblectationem aliquam in eo sensu ne supervac aneus esse videatur futuram tamen oblectationem illam loco statui beaterum immortalium congruentem Bellarmine de aeterna felicitate lib. 4. cap. 8.
Science of this was Philosophical drawn from the light of Nature Reason teacheth thou art Immortal and capable of everlasting Felicity which consists in the Vision and Contemplation of God thy chiefest good and hast an Innate concreate desire thereto And although the principles of Rational Knowledge are for the most part per se nota so known by their own light as may force an assent yet in as much as God who is thy summum bonum is a light inaccessible such a light as blear-eyed Reason can not behold the full Knowledge of God is not by Rational principle Natural Science is not a scale large enough to contain nor a yard long enough to measure out the true Vertue and full force of this divine Essence but must resolve into principles of a higher nature here thou must run from the principles of Philosophy to the maxims of Divinity here thou must submit thy understanding to the rules and articles of Faith Thy Science of God then is Theological drawn not from the light of Nature but from the revelation of God in the Scriptures the principles of this Theological science are supernatural and resolve not into the grounds of natural reason but into the maxims of divine knowledge supernatural and of this we have just so much light and no more than God hath revealed to us in the Scriptures which is not so full a light as the prime principles of rational Sciences carry along with them to force reason upon the first sight to yeeld unto it such as are these viz. Every whole is greater than a part of the whole and again The same thing cannot be and not be at one and the same time and in one and the same respect These carry a natural light in them clear and evident the Scriptures not so yet such a light as is of force to breed Faith though not to make a perfect Knowledge for though it be life eternal to know God John 17. and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent yet this knowledge is no more than a belief since God requires not a demonstrative knowledge of him here but our Faith in him and such a knowledge as may fit that we walk by faith and not by sight or perfect knowledge for Man having sinned by pride God thought it fittest to humble him at the very root of the tree of knowledge and make him deny his understanding and submit to Faith or hazard his happinesse Faith then is a Christians rule and ground of Science now the evidence of Faith is not so clear as that of Reason tum ratione objecti tum ratione subjecti First Ratione objecti God Faith is the evidence of things not seen Secondly Ratione subjecti the Subject that sees it is but in aegnimate in a glass or dark speech Moreover Faith is an act of the Will primarily and chiefly and not of the Understanding It is not in this Theological Science as in other Sciences where voluntas sequitur dictamen intellectus but contrariwise intellectus sequitur arbitrium voluntatis For Faith is a mixt act of the Will and Understanding and the Will first inclines the Understanding to yeeld full approbation to that whereof it sees not full proof Credere enim est actus intellectus vero assentientis productus ex voluntatis imperio In sent d. 23. q. 2. a. 1. Tho. 2.2 q. 2. a. 2. ad 3 Biel. And again Intellectus credentis determinatur ad unum non per rationem sed per voluntatem And Stapleton contra Whittaker saith Fides actus est non solius intellectus sed etiam voluntatis quae cogi non potest Triplic contra Whittak cap. 6. p. 64 imo magis voluntatis quam intellectus quatenus illa operationis principium est assensum qui propriè actus fidei est sola elicit nec ab intellectu voluntas sed à voluntate intellectus in actu fidei determinatur And though the principles of Faith being concealed from our view and foulded up in the un-revealed counsell of God appear not so evident and manifest unto us as those of Reason yet they are in themselves much more sure and infallible than they for they proceed immediatly from God that heavenly Wisdom which being the fountain and original of ours must needs infinitely precede ours both in nature and excellency And therefore though we be far unable to reach the order of their deductions nor can in this life come to the vision of them yet we yeeld as full and firm consent not only to the articles but to all the things rightly deduced from them as we doe to the most evident principles of natural reason so that thou mayst justly say thy Faith is stronger than thy Reason or Knowledge is because it goes higher and so upon a safer principle than thy Reason or Knowledge can in this life attain unto Hoc intelligendum est ut scientia certior sit certitudine evidentiae fides vero certior firmitate adhaesionis majus lumen in scientia majus robur in fide saith Biel in 3 sent d. 23. q. 3 a. 1. Thus much and more maist thou find couched and excellently handled by the most reverend Father in God William Lord Arch-bishop of Canterbury in his book against Fisher pag. 16. And for certainty and assurance in this kind Faith doth not only exceed all certainty that can proceed from any natural Science be it never so demonstrative but in a manner equals the very knowledge by Intuitive Vision in the world to come St Bernard makes it good too in sermonibus Domini Gilleberti super Cantica Canticorum cap. 3. Intelligentia quidem etsi fidem excedit non tamen aliud contuetur quam quod fide continetur in intelligentia quam in fide non major certitudo inest sed serenitas neutra vel errat vel haesitat ubi vel error vel haesitatio est intelligentia non est ubi haesitatio est fides non est et si fides admittere posse videtur errorem non est vera nec Catholica fides sed erronea credulitas Thus are Reason Faith and Vision instrumental and necessary one for another without Reason no Faith without Faith no Vision and this is all the difference amongst them 't is St Bernards still and exquisitely done Fides ut sic dicam veritatem rectam tenet possidet Intelligentia revelatam nudam contuetur Ratio conatur revelare ratio inter fidem intelligentiamque discurrens ad illam se erigit sed ista regit ratio plus aliquid quam credere vult quid aliud conspicere aliud est credere aliud est cernere non tamen aliud quam quod fide concipit conspicere conatur et si nondum sincerè videre potest quibusdam tamen accommodatis experimentis conjicere tentat quae jam solida fide concepit ratio supra fidem conatur fide tamen nititur fide cohibetur in primo devota est in secundo prudens in tertio sobria ut sic dicam fides tenet tuetur ratio intelligentia intuetur bonus iste circuitus in quo mens rationis ductu pervestigando procedit sed à fide non recedit instructa à fide restricta ad fidem Thus have I shewed thee O my Soul thy spiritual progress in the search of thy Felicity this is the circuit and round of the Soul in its Military march to the heavenly Jerusalem in the search of him who is the dearly beloved of my Soul these are the streets it compasseth about bonus quidem rationis circuitus a happy circuit and progress of the Soul doubtless when the Soul prosecutes its felicity by rational disquisition and this search too is bounded and limited by the rules of Faith walking from Faith to Faith or from Faith to Vision and Contemplation till it come to the full fruition of what it so much desireth and loveth And now having brought thee to thy journeys end to thy harbour and haven of joy and bliss I will here sing a Requiem to my soul a nunc dimittis to my Spirit Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word for mine eyes have seen thy salvation And since the way to this beatitude lies by the gates of Death that there must be a separation of Soul and Body before there be a full Vision and Fruition I doe here desire to set this little house in order and to make this my last Will and Testament where I bequeath my Soul into the hands of God that gave it and my Body to the grave in Christian buriall Earth to Earth Dust to Dust Ashes to Ashes in hope of a joyfull and glorious resurrection unto eternal life through the merits of Christ my Saviour Amen FINIS