and Illusions To make a due return to this we must consider a great and difficult Problem which is What is a Real Miracle And for answer to this weighty Question I think 1. That it is not the strangeness or unaccountableness of the thing done simply from whence we are to conclude a Miracle For then we are so to account of all the Magnalia of Nature and all the Mysteries of those honest Arts which we do not understand Nor 2. is this the Criterion of a Miracle That it is an Action or Event beyond all Natural Powers for we are ignorant of the Extent and Bounds of Nature's Sphere and Possibilities And if this were the character and essential Mark of a Miracle we could not know what was so except we could determine the extent of natural causalities and fix their Bounds and be able to say to Nature Hitherto canst thou go and no further And he that makes this his measure whereby to judge a Miracle is himself the greatest Miracle of Knowledge or Immodesty Besides though an Effect may transcend really all the Powers of meer Nature yet there is a world of Spirits that must be taken into our Account And as to them also I say 3. Every thing is not a Miracle that is done by Agents Supernatural There is no doubt but that Evil Spirits can make wonderful Combinations of Natural Causes and perhaps perform many things immediately which are prodigious and beyond the longest Line of Nature but yet these are not therefore to be called Miracles for they are Saecred Wonders and suppose the Power to be Divine But how shall the Power be known to be so when we so little understand the Capacities and extent of the Abilities of Lower Agents The Answer to this Question will discover the Criterion of Miracles which must be supposed to have all the former Particulars viz. They are unaccountable beyond the Powers of meer Nature and done by Agents Supernatural And to these must be superadded 4. That they have peculiar Circumstances that speak them of a Divine Original Their mediate Authors declare them to be so and they are always Persons of Simplicity Truth and Holiness void of Ambition and all secular Designs They seldom use Ceremonies or Natural Applications and yet surmount all the Activities of known Nature They work those wonders not to raise admiration or out of the vanity to be talkt of but to seal and confirm some Divine Doctrine or Commission in which the Good and Happiness of the World is concern'd I say by such Circumstances as these Wonderful Actions are known to be from a Divine Cause and that makes and distinguisheth a Miracle And thus I am prepared for an Answer to the Objection to which I make this brief return That though Witches by their Confederate Spirit do those odd and astonishing things we believe of them yet are they no Miracles there being evidence enough from the badness of their Lives and the ridiculous Ceremonies of their Performances from their malice and mischievous Designs that the Power that works and the end for which those things are done is not Divine but Diabolical And by singular Providence they are not ordinarily permitted as much as to pretend to any new Sacred Discoveries in Matters of Religion or to act any thing for confirmation of Doctrinal Impostures So that whether Miracles are ceased or not these are none And that such Miracles as are only strange and unaccountable Performances above the common Methods of Art or Nature are not ceas'd we have a late great evidence in the famous GREATREX concerning whom it will not be impertinent to add the following account which I had in a Letter from Dr. G. R. Lord Bishop of D. in the Kingdom of Ireland a Person of singular Piery and Vertue and a great-Philosopher He is pleased thus to write THe great discourse now at the Coffee-Houses and every-where is about M.G. the famous Irish Stroker concerning whom it is like you expect an account from me He undergoes various Censures here some take him to be a Conjurer and some an Impostor but others again adore him as an Apostle I confess I think the Man is free from all Design of a very agreeable Conversation not addicted to any Vice nor to any Sect or Party but is I believe a sincere Protestant I was three weeks together with him at my Lord Conwayes and saw him I think lay his hands upon a thousand Persons and really there is something in it more than ordinary but I am convinc'd it is not miraculous I have seen pains strangely fly before his hand till he hath chased them out of the Body Dimness cleared and Deafness cured by his Touch twenty Persons at several times in Fits of the Falling-Sickness were in two or three minutes brought to themselves so as to tell where their pain was and then he hath pursued it till he hath driven it out at some extream part Running Sores of the Kings-Evil dried up and Kernels brought to a Suppuration by his hand grievous Sores of many months date in few dayes healed Obstructions and Stoppings removed Cancerous Knots in the Breast dissolved c. But yet I have many Reasons to perswade me that nothing of all this is Miraculous He pretends not to give Testimony to any Doctrine the manner of his Operation speaks it to be natural the Cure seldom succeeds without reiterated Touches his Patients often relapse he fails frequently he can do nothing where there is any decay in Nature and many Distempers are not at all obedient to his Touch. So that I confess I refer all his Vertue to his particular Temper and Complexion and I take his Spirits to be a kind of Elixir and Vniversal Ferment and that he cures as Dr. M. expresseth it by a Sanative Contagion This Sir was the first Account of the Healer I had from that Reverend Person which with me signifies more than the Attestations of multitudes of ordinary Reporters and no doubt but it will do so likewise with all that know that excellent Bishop's singular Integrity and Judgment But besides this upon my inquiry into some other Particulars about this Matter I received these further Informations from the same Learned Hand As for M.G. what Opinion he hath of his own Gift and how he came to know it I Answer He hath a different apprehension of it from yours and mine and certainly believing it to be an immediate Gift from Heaven and 't is no wonder for he is no Philosopher And you will wonder less when you hear how he came to know it as I have often received it from his own Mouth About three or four years ago he had a strong impulse upon his Spirit that continually pursued him from what-ever he was about at his Business or Devotion alone or in company that spake to him by this inward Suggestion I have given thee the Gift of Curing the Evil. This Suggestion was so importunate that he
act like his own Temptations and Perswasions In brief there is nothing more strange in this Objection than that Wickedness is Baseness and Servility and that the Devil is at leasure to serve those whom he is at leasure to tempt and industrious to ruine And 2. I see no necessity to believe that the Devil is always the Witches Confederate but perhaps it may fitly be considered whether the Familiar be not some departed Humane Spirit forsaken of God and Goodness and swallowed up by the unsatiable desire of Mischief and Revenge which possibly by the Laws and capacity of its State it cannot execute immediately And why we should presume that the Devil should have the liberty of wandering up and down the Earth and Air when he is said to be held in the Chains of Darkness and yet that the separated Souls of the Wicked of whom no such thing is affirm'd in any Sacred Record should be thought so imprison'd that they cannot possibly wag from the Place of their Confinement I know no shadow of Conjecture This Conceit I 'm confident hath prejudic'd many against the belief of Witches and Apparitions they not being able to conceive that the Devil should be so ludicrous as Appearing Spirits are sometimes reported to be in their Frolicks and they presume that Souls departed never revisâ—… the free and open Regions which confidence I know nothing to justifie For since good Men in their state of separation are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why the wicked may not be supposed to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the worst sense of the word I know nothing to help me to imagine And if it be so supposed that the Imps of Witches are sometimes wicked Spirits of our own Kind and Nature and possibly the same that have been Sorcerers and Witches in this Life This Supposal may give a fairer and more probable account of many of the Actions of Sorcery and Witchcraft than the other Hypothesis that they are always Devils And to this Conjecture Pleadventure to subjoin another which also hath its probability viz. 3. That 't is not impossible but that the Familiars of Witches are a vile kind of Spirits of a very inferiour Constitution and Nature and none of those that were once of the highest Hierarchy now degencrated into the Spirits we call Devils The common division of Spirits is in my Opinion much too general and why may we not think there is as great a variety of Intellectual Creatures in the Invisible World as of Animals in the Visible And that all the Superiour yea and Inferiour Regions have their several kinds of Spirits differing in their natural Perfections as well as in the Kinds and Degrees of their Depravities Which if we suppose 't is very probable that those of the basest and meanest Orders are they who submit to the mention'd Servilities And thus the Sagess and grandeur of the Prince of Darkness need not be brought in question on this Occasion IV. BVt IV. the Opinion of Witches seems to some to accuse Providence and to suggest that it hath exposed Innocents to the fury and malice of revengeful Fiends yea and supposeth those most obnoxious of whom we might most reasonably expect a more special care and protection most of the cruel practices of those presum'd Instruments of Hell being upon Children who as they least deserve to be deserted by that Providence that superintends all things so they most need its Guardian Influence To this so specious an Objection I have these things to answer 1. Providence is an unfathomable Depth and if we should not believe the Phaenomena of our Senses before we can reconcile them to our Notions of Providence we must be grosser Scepticks than ever yet were extant The miseries of the present Life the unequal distributions of Good and Evil the ignorance and barbarity of the greatest part of Mankind the fatal disadvantages we are all under and the hazard we run of being eternally miserable and undone these I say are things that can hardly be made consistent with that Wisdom and Goodness that we are sure hath made and mingled it self with all things And yet we believe there is a beauty and harmony and goodness in that Providence though we cannot unriddle it in particular Instances nor by reason of our ignorance and imperfection clear it from contradicting Appearances and consequently we ought not to deny the being of Witches and Apparitions because they will create us some difficulties in our Notions of Providence 2. Those that believe that Infants are Heirs of Hell and Children of the Devil as soon as they are disclosed to the World cannot certainly offer such an Objection for what is a little trifling pain of a moment to those eternal Tortures to which if they die as soon as they are born according to the tenour of this Doctrine they are everlastingly exposed But however the case stands as to that 't is certain 3. That Providence hath not secur'd them from other violences they are obnoxious to from cruelty and accident and yet we accuse It not when a whole Townful of Innocents fall a Victim to the rage and ferity of barbarous Executioners in Wars and Massacres To which I add 4. That 't is likely the mischief is not so often done by the evil Spirit immediately but by the malignant influence of the Sorceress whose power of hurting consists in the fore-mention'd Ferment which is infused into her by the Familiar So that I am apt to think there may be a power of real Fascination in the Witches Eyes and Imaginations by which for the most part she acts upon tender Bodies Nescio quis teneros oculus For the Pestilential Spirits being darted by a spightful and vigorous Imagination from the Eye and meeting with those that are weak and passive in the Bodies which they enter will not fail to infect them with anoxious Quality that makes dangerous and strange Alterations in the Person invaded by this poisonous Influence which way of acting by subtil and invisible Instruments is ordinary and familiar in all natural Efficiencies And 't is now past question that Nature for the most part acts by subtil Streams and Aporrhaea's of Minute Particles which pass from one Body to another Or however that be this kind of Agency is as conceivable as any of those Qualities which our Ignorance hath called Sympathy and Antipathy the reality of which we doubt not though the manner of Action be unknown Yea the thing I speak of is as easie to be apprehended as how Infection should pass in certain tenuious Streams through the Air from one House to another or as how the biting of a mad Dog should fill all the Blood and Spirits with a venomous and malign Ferment the application of the Vertue doing the same in our Case as that of Contact doth in this Yea some kinds of Fascination are perform'd in this grosser and more sensible way as by striking giving Apples and the
well learn'd to apply the Doctrines they had been taught that he that should endeavour to undeceive them was sure to hear what an Enemy this Reason this Carnal Reason this Vain Philosophy was to Free Grace and Faith and how little able to judge of those Rich those Precious those Spiritual Enjoyments 'T was time now in such an Age as this to assert the sober use of Reason and to rescue Religion by it And They did this happily and shamed all false pretences to the Spirit shewing That there was nothing but Nature and Complexion in the Illuminations Incomes Raptures Prophesies New Lights fluency of Expression mysteriousness of Phrase and other wonderful things of the Enthusiasts which were ignorantly taken to be Divine Communications to the great abuse of Religion and the Souls of Men Perceiving I say that this dangerous Phanatick Spirit was the evil Genius of the Age they bent all their force against it and detected the imposture and labour'd zealously to disabuse the credulous People who were exceeding apt to be taken with such glorious Nothings But of this I shall have another occasion to speak more ANd because the wildness of Enthusiasm and reproaches of Reason had expos'd Christianity it self to the Suspicions of some and Contempts of others as if it were a precarious unreasonable thing that depended only upon Mens Fancies Therefore here They labour'd also with very pious pains to demonstrate the Truth and Reasonableness of the Christian Religion The Beeing of God The Immortality of Humane Souls And Authority of Scripture which they did with much Zeal and much Judgment And these Doctrines were too seasonable and necessary in that Age in which the most glorious Professors laid the whole stress of Religion upon Fancies and thereby undermin'd the Foundations of Faith and Truth and by many Vanities and endless Divisions had made so many Infidels and unhappily dispos'd so many others to go the same way Against these therefore They bent their strength and rescued multitudes especially those of the springing Generation from the hands both of the Enthusiast and the Infidel Answering and discrediting all the new Pretensions and Objections both of the one and the other And their Endeavours here were very needful because the Ancient Books of those kinds were despis'd and neglected by the concern'd Parties and they were not so suitable to the Guize and Fashion of our Age and many Exceptions were started a-new and many other vain things boasted of to which those elder Discourses did not apply their force But these new Defenders of the Christian Truths met them all and spake the things that were suitable as well as those that were strong and true By these means the reasonable sober Spirit began to propagate and the Enthusiast who took notice of it and knew it would destroy his Glorious Imaginations rais'd a loud clamour against these Men as Socinians and advancers of Proud Reason above Free Grace and Faith From this envious and foolish Charge they sufficiently justified themselves by several Sermons and publick Determinations in their Academical Solemnities against the chief Principles of Socinianism sirenously asserting the Deity of Christ and Immortality of Humane Souls c. and vigorously opposing the main Socinian Tenents In consequence of which they shew'd the sure and safe ways to destroy those Opinions without hurting the Catholick Doctrines which many had wounded to do them spight and in this Design some of them appeared in publick with great success HAving thus asserted the Honour of our Faculties and maintain'd the Fundamental Interests of Religion They took notice what unworthy and dishonourable Opinions were publish'd abroad concerning God to the disparagement of all his Attributes and discouragement of vertuous Endeavours and great trouble and dejection of many pious Minds and therefore here they appear'd also to assert and vindicate the Divine Goodness and love of Men in its freedom and extent against those Doctrines that made his Love Fondness and his Justice Cruelty and represented God as the Eternal Hater of the far greatest part of his reasonable Creatures and the designer of their Ruine for the exaltation of meer Power and arbitrary Will Against these sowr and dismal Opinions They stood up stoutly in a time when the Assertors of the Divine Purity and Goodness were persecuted bitterly with nick-names of Reproach and popular Hatred They gave sober Accounts of the Nature of God and his Attributes suitable to those Declarations of himself he hath made by the Scriptures and our Reasons They shew'd continually how impossible it was that Infinite Goodness should design or delight in the misery of his Creatures That God never acts by meer arbitrary Will but by a Will directed by the Perfections of his Nature That to act arbitrarily is Imperfection and Impotence That he is tyed by the excellency of his Beeing to the Laws of Right and Just and that there are independent Relations of True and Good among things antecedent to all Will and Vnderstanding which are indispensible and eternal That Goodness is the Fountain of all his Communications and Actions ad extra That to glorifie God is rightly to apprehend and celebrate his Perfections by our Words and by our Actions That Goodness is the chief moral Perfection That Power without Goodness is Tyranny and Wisdom without it is but Craft and Subtilty and Justice Cruelty when destitute of Goodness That God is not pleased with our Praises otherwise than as they are the suitable Actings of his Creatures and tend to make them love him in order to their being happy in him By such Principles as These which are wonderfully fertile and big of many great Truths they undermined and from the bottom overthrew the fierce and churlish Reprobatarian Doctrines And those Truths they proved from the Scripture and the Nature of God and Reason of Things with all possible clearness and strength of Evidence OBserving further That Faith was preach'd up as the whole of Religion and that represented variously phantastickly and after an unintelligible manner drest up in Metaphors and Phrases and dangerous Notions that prescinded it from Good Works and made them unnecessary Here they appeared also and detected the vanity and canting of this Airy Divinity Stating the Notion of Faith plainly and clearly and stripping it out of its Chymerical cloathing Teaching That Faith in the general is the Belief of a Proposition affirm'd and Divine Faith the belief of a Divine Testimony and Evangelical Saving Faith such a Belief as works on the Will and Affections and produceth the Works of Righteousness So that the Faith that is said to justifie in the forensick sense is a complex thing and takes in an Holy Life and all the Graces of the Spirit which are call'd by the name of Faith because that is the Root of all the rest Thus they asserted the necessity of a real inward Righteousness against the Solifidian and Antinomian Heresies which had poison'd the whole Body of the then Current
perceive that those promises are hardly kept To appear often in the Press I know is censur'd but I see not why that should be a fault whilst the Books themselves have not greater If a Man write well he may deserve excuse at least if otherwise by use he may mend or if there be no hopes of that his writing often is not worth objecting Nor hath any one need to complain since no one is concern'd about what another Prints further than himself pleaseth And since Men have the liberty to read our Books or not Methinks they might give us leave to write or forbear This I say because I know this ill-natur'd humour puts restraint upon the Pens of some great Men and tempts others to make promises and excuses which I think do not become them For my part I have as little leasure to write Books as other Men for I have that to do which may be reckoned an Imployment but every Man hath some vaâ—…ancies and I love now and then in this manner to imploy mine 'T is an innocent way of entertaining a Mans self to paint the image of his thoughts and no better a Writer than my self may happen to divert if not to instruct some others by it ERRATA The Reader is desired to take notice of the following Errours of the Press some of which are so near in sound 〈◊〉 the words of the Author that they may easily be mistaken for his ESSAY I. For. Read Page Line BEst compactâ—…ess Foâ—…st compactness 13 2 The herb and the flower Herb and flower 16 2 Before us our discoveries Before us our discoveries 25 34 All opinions All their opinions 26 21 Old Law Old Saw 28 29 Heavens above c. Heavens above it 28 32 Other opinions Opinions 30 11 His saying His sayings 31 24 ESSAY II. Revile against Rail against 43 4 Boasts of Boasts 47 16 Isellâ—…s Psellus 53 19 Are certain Contain and are 62 13 ESSAY III. I take 't was I take it 't was 4 10 Virulam Verulam 34 14 Self-absurd Self-assur'd 52 12 ESSAY IV. Since then Since them 17 16 Difference Deference 26 25 Jumblings intermixtures Jumblings and intermixtures 32 13 14 Flighted Slighted 34 7 ESSAY V. Their own interest Their interests 28 8 ESSAY VI. For Read Page Line Streams Steams 14 22 Fâ—…m whatever What ever 56 17 She apprending She apprehended 56 22 ESSAY VII To them All To them All 6 13 14 From the World From your World 6 37 Such of them that Such of them as 7 1 They that made That they made 11 6 Main works Main marks 30 33 〈◊〉 2. 43 31 Note that the Sum of my Lord Bacons Atlantis being the brief contents of his Story printed in the beginning of the 7th Essay was intended as a Preface to it and should have been in the Italick Character but the Printer hath not done that nor made a sufficient Break to distinguish my Lord Bacons Contents ending Page 2. Line 12. from the Authors Story Essay I. Against Confidence in Philosophy And Matters of Speculation ONE of the first things to be done in order to the enlargement and encrease of Knowledg is to make Men senâ—…ible how imperfect their Vnderstandings are in the present state and how lyable to deception For hereby we are disposed to more wariâ—…ess in our Enquiries and taken off from â—…old and peremptory Conclusions which are some of the greâ—…test hindâ—…rances of Intellectâ—…al improvementâ—… in the World Therefore by way of Intrâ—…duction to Philosophy and grounded Science we must endeavour first to destroy the confidence of Assertions and to establish a prudent reservdâ—…ss and modesty in Opinions In order to this I shall here set down some thoughts I have had on this Subject And in doing it I shall 1. Offer some considerable Instanâ—… of Humane Ignorance and Deficiency even in the main and most usual things in Nature 2. I shall enquire into the Caâ—…ses of our imperfection in Knowledg which will afford further evidence and proof of it and 3. Add some Strictâ—…es against Dogmatizing in Philosophy and all matters of uncertain Speculation My Instances shall be drawn 1. From the Nature of our Souls and 2. from the Constitution of our own and other Bodies Abâ—… 〈◊〉 former I consider That if Certainty were any where to be expected one would think it should be had in the Notices of our Souls which are our true selves and whose Sentiments we most in wardly know In things without us our shallowness and ignorance need not be matter of much wonder since we cannot pry into the hidden things of Nature â—…or obsâ—…rue the first Springs and Wheels that set the rest in motion We see but little parcels of the Works of God and want Phaenomena to make entire and secure Hypotheses But if that whereby we know other things know not it self If our Souls are strangers to things within them which they have more advantage to understand than they have in matters of external Nature I think then that this first will be a considerable Instance of the scantness and imperfection of our Knowledg 1. I take notice therefore That the Learned have ever been at great odds and uncertainty about the Nature of the Soul concerning which every Philosopher almost had a distincâ—… Opinion The Chaldâ—…ans held it a Vertue without fâ—…n Xenocrates and the Aegyptians a moving Nâ—…ber Parâ—…ider a compound of Light and Darkness Hesâ—…od and Anâ—…minder a consistence of Earth and Water Thâ—…les call'd in a Nature without rest Heraclides supposed it to be Light Empedocles to be Blood Zeno the Quintessence of the Elements Gâ—…len would have it to be an hot Complexion Hippocrates a Spirit diffused through the Body Plato a self-moving Substance Aristotle an Entelechy or no body knows wâ—… and Varâ—…o an heated and dispersed Air. Thus have some of the greatest Men of â—…ntient times differ'd in one of the first Theories of Humane Nature which may well be reckon'd an Argument of uncertainâ—…y and â—…perfection And yet I account not the difficulties about this to be so hopeless as they are in lesâ—… noted Mysteries The great occasion of this diversity and these mistakes is That Men would form some Image of the Soul in their Fancies as they do in the contemplation of corporeal Objects But this is a wrong way of speculating Immaterials which may be seeâ—… in their effects and attributes by way of reflection but if like children we run behind the Glass to look for them we shall mâ—… nothing there but disappointment 2. There hath been as much trouble and diversity in enquiâ—…ing into the Origine of the Soul as in seâ—…hing into the nature of it In the opinion of some learned Mâ—… It was from the beginning of the World created with the Heavens and Light others have thought it an extract from the Vniversal Soul Some fancied it descended from the Moon others from the Stars or vast spaces of the Aether above the Planets some teach That God is the
their impressions therefore the Fallacies and Deceits are imputed to their misinformations This I premise to prevent a Philosophical mistake but shall retain the common way of speaking and call those the errors of the Senses That these very frequently misreport things to us we are assured even from themselves a straight stick seems crooked in the Water and a square Towre round at a distance All things are Yellow to those that have the Jaundice and all Meats are bitter to the disaffected Palate To which vulgar Instances it will presently be answer'd that the Senses in those cases are not in their just circumstances but want the fit medium due distance and sound disposition which we know very well and learn there was somewhat amiss because our Senses represent those things otherwise at othertimes we see the stick is straight when it is out of the Water and the Tower is square when we are near it Objects have other Colours and Meats other tastes when the Body and its Senses are in their usual temper In such cases Sense rectifies its own mistakes and many times one the errors of another but if it did not do so we should have been alwayes deceived even in those Instances and there is no doubt but that there are many other like deceptions in which we have no contrary evidence from them to disabuse us not in the matters of common Life but in things of remoter speculation which this state seems not to be made for The Senses must have their due medium and distance and temper if any of these are amiss they represent their Objects otherwise to us than they are Now these we may suppose they generally have in the necessary matters of Life if not to report things to us as they are in themselves yet to give them us so as may be for our accommodation and advantage But how are we assur'd that they are thus rightly disposed in reference to things of Speculative Knowledg What medium what distance what temper is necessary to convey Objects to us just so as they are in the realities of Nature I observ'd before that our Senses are short imperfect and uncommensurate to the vastness and profundity of things and therefore cannot receive the just Images of them and yet we judg all things according to those confused and imperfect Idaeas which must needs lead us into infinite errors and mistakes If I would play the Sceptick here I might add That no one can be sure that any Objects appear in the same manner to the Senses of other men as they do to his Yea it may seem probable that they do not For though the Images Motions or whatever else is the cause of Sence may be alike as from them yet the representations may be much varied according to the nature and quality of the recipient we find things look otherwise to us through an Optick Tube then they do when we view them at a distance with our naked eyes the same Object appears red when we look at it through a Glass of that Colour but green when we behold it through one of such a Tincture Things seem otherwise when the Eye is distorted then they do when it is in its natural ordinary posture and some extraordinary alterations in the Brain double that to us which is but a single Object Colours are different according to different Lights and Positions as 't is in the necks of Doves and folds of Scarlet Thus difference in circumstances alters the sensation and why may we not suppose as much diversity in the Senses of several men as there is in those accidents in the perceptions of one There is difference in the Organs of Sense and more in the temper and configuration of the inward parts of the Brain by which motions are convey'd to the seat of Sense in the Nerves Humours and Spirits in respect of tenuity liquidity aptitude for motion and divers other circumstances of their nature from which it seems that great diversity doth arise in the manner of receiving the Images and consequently in the perceptions of their Objects So then though every man knows how things appear to himself yet what impressions they make upon the so different Senses of another he only knows certainly that is conscious to them And though all men agree to call the impression they feel from such or such an Object by the same name yet no one can assuredly tell but that the Sentiment may be different It may be one man hath the impression of Green from that which in another begets the Sense of Yellow and yet they both call it Green because from their infancy they were wont to join that word to that Sentiment which such an Object produc'd in their particular Sense though in several men it were a very divers one This I know some will think hard to be understood but I cannot help that Those that Consider will find it to be very plain and therefore I shall spend no more words about it The Sum is Our Senses are good Judges of Appearances as they concern us but how things are in themselves and how they are to others it should seem we cannot certainly learn from them And therefore when we determine that they are and must be according to the representations of our individual Senses we are very often grosly deceiv'd in such sentences to which yet we are exceeding prone and few but the most exercised minds can avoid them Of this I 'le give a great Instance or two 1. It is almost universally believ'd at least by the vulgar that the Earth rests on the Centre of the World and those ancient Philosophers have been extreamly hooted at and derided that have taught the contrary doctrine For my part I shall affirm nothing of the main question but this I say That the common inducement to believe it stands still viz the Testimony of Sense is no argument of it And whether the opinion of Pythagoras Copernicus Des-Cartes Galilaeo and almost all late Philosophers of the motion of the Earth be true or false the belief of its Rest as far as it ariseth from the presum'd evidence of Sence is an error That there is some common motion that makes the day and night and the varieties of seasons is very plain and sensible but whether the Earth or the Sun be the Body mov'd none of our Senses can determine To Sense the Sun stands still also and no Eye can perceive its Actual motion For though we find that in a little time it hath chang'd its Position and respect to us yet whether that change be caus'd by its translation from us or ours from it the Sense can never tell and yet from this and this only the greatest part of mankind believes its motion On the other side The standing still of the Earth is concluded the same way and yet though it did move it would appear fixt to us as now it doth since we are carried with it in a regular
and so those confined Understandings that never looked beyond the Opinions in which they were bred are excedingly assur'd of the Truth and comparative excellency of their own Tenants when as the larger Minds that have travail'd the divers Climates of Opinions and consider'd the various Sentiments of inquiring Men are more cautious in their Conclusions and more sparing in positive Affirmations And if the Dogmatist could be perswaded to weigh the Appearances of Truth and Reason that are in many other Opinions that he counts unreasonable and absurd this would be a means to allay if not to cure his Confidence 2. Dogmatizing in things uncertain doth commonly inhabit with untained Passions and is usually maintain'd upon the obstinacy of an ungover'd Spirit For one of the first Rules in the Art of Self-Government is to be modest in Opinions And this Wisdom makes Men considerate and wary distrustful of their own Powers and jealous of their Thoughts He that would rule himself must be circumspect in his Actions and he that would be so must not be hasty and over-confident in his Conclusions 'T is Pride and Presumption of ones self that causeth such forwardness and assurance and where those reign there is neither Vertue nor Reason No regular Government but a miserable Tyranny of Passion and Self-will 3. Confidence in Opinions is the great disturber both of our own Peace and of the quiet of other Men. He that affirms any thing boldly is thereby ingaged against every one that opposeth it He is concern'd and undertakes for his Tenent and must fight his way He confronts every different Judgment and quarrels all Dissenters He is angry that others do not see that which he presumes is so clear he clamours and feviles He is still ditrating and still in a storm He cannot bear a Contraction nor scarce a Suspence of Judgment So that his Peace is at every ones Mercy and whoever will cross his saying throws him into the Fire and destroys his Quiet And such a Man need not be more miserable On this account the Stoicks affected an indifferency and neutrality in all Things as the only means to that freedom from Passion and Disturbance which they sought and if there be any repose attainable by the Methods of Reason there is nothing so like to afford it as unconcernment in doubtful Opinions The contrary Zeal and assurance as it robs every Man of his private happiness so hath it destroyed the Peace of Mankind It hath made the World an Acâ—…ldama and a Babel For this is the ground of all the Schisms and strivings of Sects that have fill'd our Air with Smoke and Darkness yea and kindled the fierce Flames that have conâ—…ed us Every vain Opiniator is as much assured as if he were infallible His Opinions are Truths certain Truths Fundamental Ones and the contrary Doctrines Heretical and Abominable Hence arise Disputes Hatreds Separations Wars of which we have seen and yet see very much and God knows how much more we may Of all which Mischiefs here is the Ground viz. Mens presumptions of the certainty of their own Conceits and Ways and could they but be induced to be modest in them and to look on them with the eye of less assurance it would abate their Heats and Aâ—…imosities and make way for Peace and charitable Agreement in the things that are undoubtedly True and Good 4. Confidence in Opinions is ill Manners and an affront to all that differ from us For the Dogmatist chargeth every one with Ignorance and Error that subscribes not his Saying In effect he gives the lie to whosoever dares dissent from him and declares that his Judgment is fittest to be the Intellectual Standard This is that Spirit of Pride and Rudeness that faith to every different Apprehender Stand off I am more Orthodox than thou art a Vanity that is worse than any simple Error 5. Dogmatizing and Confidence in doubtful Tenents holds the Opiniator fast in his Misconceits and Errors For he that is confident of all things is unavoidably deceiv'd in most and he that assures himself he never errs will always err His Presumptions will defeat all attempts of better Information We never seek for that which we think we have already but reject those Aids that make promise and offer of it And he that huggs Vanity and Falshood in the confidence of undoubted 〈◊〉 and Silence is commonly intractable to the Methods that should rectifie his Judgment Ignorance is far fooner cured than false conceit of Knowledg and he was a very wise Man that said There is more hope of a Fool than of him that is wise in his own Eyes 6. Dogmatizing shews Poverty and narrowness of Spirit There is no greater Vassallage than that of being enslaved to Opinions The Dogmatist is pent up in his Prison and sees no Light but what comes in at those Grates He hath no liberty of Thoughts no prospect of various Objects while the considerate and modest Inquirer hath a large Sphere of Motion and the satisfaction of more open Light He sees far and injoys the pleasure of surveying the divers Images of the Mind But the Opiniator hath a poor shrivel'd Soul that will but just hold his little Set of Thoughts His Appetite after Knowledg is satisfied with his few Mushromes and neither knows nor thinks of any thing beyond his Cottage and his Rags I might say a great deal more to the shame of this folly but what I have writ will be enough for the Capable and Ingenious and much less would have been too much for others And now when I look back upon the main Subject of these Papers it appears so vast to my Thoughts that me-thinks I have drawn but a Cockle-shell of Water from the Ocean Whatever I look upon within the Amplitude of Heaven and Earth is evidence of Humane Ignorance For all things are a great Darkness to us and we are so to our selves The plainest things are as obscure as the most confessedly mysterious and the Plants we tread on are as much above us as the Stars and Heavens The things that touch us are as distant from us as the Poles and we are as much Strangers to our selves as to the People of the Indies On review of which me-thinks I could begin anew to represent the imperfection of our Knowledg and the vanity of bold Opinions which the Dogmatists themselves demonstrate while each Disputer is confident that the others confidence is vain from which a third with more reason may conclude the same of the confidence of both And one would think there should need no more to bring those assured Men to modest Acknowledgments and more becomming Temper than this That there is nothing about which the Reason of Man is capable of being employed but hath been the Subject of Dispute and diverse apprehension So that the Lord Montaigne hath observ'd Mankind is agreed in nothing no not in this That the Heavens are over us Every Man almost differs from
Ideot and a Child then whom his Actions were more stupid Besides which testimony we have a worse character of him from Aristocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. That he neither invented nor writ any thing that was good but railed both at Gods and Men. And yet it should seem by the honour his Country did him that he was not so very a Sot as some thought and as divers Passages in the Story of his Life speak him For he was made High Priest and great Immunities and Priviledges given to Philosophers for his sake But I have nothing to do with the Story of his Life His Disciples were many the most eminent of them reckon'd by Laertius but none hath left so exact an account in writing of the Sceptick Doctrines if they may be so call'd as Sextus Empiricus one much later than those Sectators of Pyrrho The chief ground of Scepticism he saith is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That every reason hath an equal one opposite to it So that they gave no assent to any thing They allow'd Appearances but would not grant that things really are in themselves as they appear to our Senses or that we can by our Reasons judg any thing truly and certainly of them That there is nothing fair or foul just or unjust nothing true or real in any thing as Laertius speaks of the belief of Pyrrho And therefore their Phrases were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Not more this than that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perhaps and not perhaps viz. perhaps it is perhaps it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I suspend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I determine nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I comprehend not And for fear they â—…d be Dogmatical even in these Phrases Empericus saitâ—… 〈◊〉 they do only declare their present Affections expressâ—… 〈◊〉 things appear to them without determining any thing 〈◊〉 even not determining so much as this I determine nothing Now besides the professed Dâ—…ples of this Sect divers other ancient Philosophers spoke doubtfully and unresolvedly of things and Cicero in Licullus saith thus of Empedocles Empedocles ut interdum mihi furere videatur abstrusa esse omnia nihil nos sentire nihil cernere nihil omnino quale sit posse reperire Sextus Empiricus mentions divers others who it seems were thought to be Scepticks or very near them as Heraclitus because he taught that Contraries are in the same thing Democritus for denying Hony to be sweet or bitter The Syrenaick Sect holding that only the Affections are comprehended Protagoras for making the Phaenomena particular to every single Person But all these he shews to have been Assertors and very different from the Pyrrhonian Sect. He inquires also of the Academick Philosophy how it agreed with or disagreed from the Sceptick These Philosophers were reputed anciently and by some ever since thought to be too much addicted to that way But Sextus clears them from it beginning with Plato the Founder of the first School of whom he saith That though in his Gymnasticks where Socrates is brought in deriding the Sophists he hath the Sceptick uncertain Character yet in declaring his Opinion he was a Dogmatist particularly in his Doctrines of Idaeas Providence the preference of a Life of Vertue Which if Plate assent to as existent he affirms dogmatically if as probable he differs from the Sceptick in preferring one Opinion before another Those of the New Academy say all things are incomprehensible in which saith Sextus they differ from us because they assert this but we do not know but that they may be comprehended They differ also in asserting Good and Evils and that some things are credible others not whereas the Pyrrhonians count all to be equal To this purpose he speaks of them But for the middle Academy founded by Arcesilaus he saith that that Philosopher's Institution and theirs were almost the same in that Arcesilaus asserted nothing of the existence or non-existence of things not preferring one Opinion before another but in all things suspending Which he did to make tryal of his Disciplâ—… whether they were capable of the Doctrine of Plato which he taught to his Friends Thus that famous Sceptick doth honour to the memory of those Ancients by endeavouring to take what he thought to be credit from them which indeed was ever a disgrace and ought to be so esteemed still For those Pyrrhonians that were of the right strain seem to me to have been a sort of conceited Humorists that took a pride in being singular and venting strange things opposing all knowledg that they might be thought to have the most and to have found out that universal ignorance and uncertainty which others could not see far enough to descry Which way of pretended Philosophy as it gratified their pride so it serv'd their malice and ill-nature which delights much in the Spirit of Contradiction and contempt of other Men. This they shew'd in great degree according to Laertius who saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They accounted all Fools that were not of their own Party So that they were in no wise to be reckon'd as Philosophers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristocles speaks in Eusebius For they pluckt up the Principles of Philosophy by the Roots And indeed their doubting and suspension was not in order to the forming a surer Judgment but a resolution to sit down for ever in despair of Knowledg And therefore they were very improperly call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sookers since their great Principle was that nothing was to be found Upon the whole it was not without cause that Ciceroâ—… Aristocles and other sober Philosophers spoke of their way as down-right madness and we have great reason to believe so of the Founder of the Sect if that be true which is related by Laertius and others of his washing a Sow and running into the Forum with a Spit of Meat in his hand after the Cook that had offended him a thing very unbecoming the Professor of the so much talkâ—… of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or freedom from disturbance And his unconcernment another time was as sottish when he past on and would 〈◊〉 help or take notice of his Friend Anaxarehus when he 〈◊〉 â—…n into a Ditch which was bruitish stupidity rather than Philosophical Indifference And indeed this Sect indeavoured to divest themselves of Hâ—…ne Nature as Pyrro's answer implied when he was upbraided for avoiding a Dog viz. that 't was hard wholly to put off Man and so they were destructive to the Societies and all the Interests of Mankind This I say upon the supposition that they were in earnest and believ'd themselves but I incline to think that they were only humoursom and conceited Fellows rather than I will say that they were absolutely distracted Thus you see I could revile against the Scepticks as well as my Antagonist but letting further censure of them pass I might take notice on this occasion what odd extravagant People have of old had the
Body But this Learned Man knows The Platonists assign them Souls immaterial Bâ—…ings divers from the Body and the Peripateticks substantial Forms distinct from Matter Des Cartes indeed thinks them to be pure Machines mov'd altogether after the manner of a Clock or Engine which if it should prove to be truly their case yet have we no reason to believe it so in our selves since we feel it otherwise viz. That we can move and stop many of our Motions upon the command and direction of the Will which Faculty belongs to some Principle Immaterial And if this be always determin'd by something Corporeal and not in our own power as he seems to intimate Farewel Liberty and welcome Stoical Necessity and irresistible Fate in all things For the other things that follow pag. 35. in answer to the Doubts about Sensation particularly our decerning Quantities Distances c. 'T is evident by what he speaks of demonstrating those things by the Opticks that he understands not the force of the Objection and hath said nothing that comes near it as will appear plainly to any capable Person that will take the pains to compare what we both write He comes next p. 36. to my Difficulties about the Memory concerning which I say not as he suggests That 't is impossible to be explicated but that none of the known Hypotheseis have yet explain'd it which is sufficient for my general conclusion of the present Imperfection and the Narrowness of our Knowledg But our Author thinks Sir K. Digby's account to be the true Solution and answers to my Objection that 't is as conceivable how the Images and representations of Objects in the Brain should keep their distinct and orderly situations without confusion or dissipation as how the Rays of Light should come in a direct Line to the Eye or how the Atomical Effluvia that continually flow from all Bodies should find their way To which I reply 1. The multiplying Difficulties doth not solve any for supposing these to be unaccountable or very hard to be explain'd yet this would only argue another defect in our Knowledg and so be a new evidence of the truth of my general Conclusion But a. The propos'd Instances are not so desperate For 1. supposing Light with Des-Cartes which is most probable to consist in the conamen of the aethereal Matter receding from the Centre of its Motion the direct tendency of it to the Eye is no difficulty worth considering or if the Rays be Atomical Streams and Effluxes from the Sun there is then nothing harder to be conceiv'd in this Hypothesis than in the direct spouting of Water out of a Pipe nor any more than in the beating of the Waves against the side of a Ship when it swims in the Sea And 2. for the other Instance of corporeal emissions that find their way to the Bodies with which they have intercourse it would require to be prov'd that the secret Operations of Nature are performed by such material effluvia Perhaps 't is more likely that those strange Effects are not Mechanioal but Vital effected by the continuity of the great Spirit of Nature which is diffus'd through all things or however to suppose the Memory to be as clear and plain as Magnetism and Sympathies will be no great Advantage to the belief of the intelligibleness of it There needs no more here only I take notice of the Charge p. 41. in these words I 'd remember the ingenious Author that he mis-imposeth the third Opinion which relisheth nothing of Philosophy upon Aristotle who taught the Digbaean way To which I say if the Doctrine of Intentional Species be not Aristotle's than the Universities of Europe who have taught this Opinion to be his have hitherto been mistaken and this Assertion that Aristotle deliver'd the Dighaean Doctrine of Atomical Effluvia will alter the whole Hypothesis and then there will be little or nothing of Aristotle in his Schools 2. The Digbaean Atomical Opinion is notoriously known to have been the way of Democritus and Epicurus which Aristotle frequently and professedly opposeth That Democritus taught the Atomical Hypothesis we have Aristotle's affirmation to justifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speaking of Leucippus and Democritus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dicunt 〈◊〉 Printas magnitudines multitudine quidem infinitas magnitudine vero indivisibiles and as he goes on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Horum complexione circumplexu omnia gigâ—…i And that these solv'd the way of Sensation by material Images we have from Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Democritus Epicurus per Idolorum ingressus putarunt visivum evenire This Hypothesis Aristotle endeavours to confute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Absurdum eâ—…iam quod illi non â—…nerit in mentem clubitare cur oculus vidit solus aliorum vero nullum quibus apparent idola And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Democritus plurimi Physiologerum quicnque loquuntur de sensia absurdiâ—… quiddâ—…m faciunt omnia enim sensibitia tactilia faciunt We see then Aristotle thought the Doctrine of Sensation by Corporeal Images absurd in Democritus and Epicurus and therefore he must have much contradicted himself if he taught the same Doctrine with Sir K. Digby about the Memory which was one with that of those Ancients And there is little doubt but that the Memory is excited to Action by the like Instruments that the external Senses are consonantly to that of Plato in his Phâ—…do speaking of the Senses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. That the Memory is begot of them And the same Aristotle affirms almost in the same words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Memory is begot out of the Sense So that I think I am not mistaken in this matter or if I am I err with the great Body of his Sectators But whether the Doctrine 〈◊〉 Intentional Species be Aristotlt's or not 't is no great matter I make this no charge against him And if it be noâ—… 〈◊〉 't is however the common Tenent of his Schools and so lit to be consider'd as an Hypothosis which I have done and shâ—…wn it to be an insufficient account of the Memory To the Difficulty I propose about the Formation of Animals our Author offers two Things The first of them may deservs a word or two about it 〈◊〉 In his own words 't is thus expresâ—… Conceive the first thus Lâ—…'s say the Seed of a Plant or Animal contains invisible parts of all the Animal's Members These let 's say supplyed with moisture increase with some slight mutation whereof the reason may be easily rendred for example that some parts dryer and harder others are more throughly water'd and grow soft and what great matter will be apprehended in the formation of living things You may remember Sir that once when you and I were talking of the wonderful discoveries of the Microscope and the many compleat Animals it discloseth which lay hid from our unaided sight we fell thence into a discourse of the strange and incredible
all those Arguments that are brought for our Immortality are in this way clearly disabled For all that we can say will prove but this That the Soul is no Body or part of Matter but this will amount to no evidence if there are a middle kind of Essences that are not corporeal and yet mortal So that when I say Philosophy serves Religion against Sadducism I would not be understood to mean the Peripatetick Hypotheseis but that Philosophy which is grounded upon acquaintance with real Nature This by leaving this whole unintelligible sort of Beings out of its Accounts as things for which there is no shadow of ground from Reason or Nature but good evidence of their non-existence from both disappoints the Sadduce of the advantage he hath from this needless and precarious Principle And by distributing Substance into Body and Spirit without the admission of middle Natures the Real Philosophy gives demonstrative force to those Arguments for our Immortality that prove our Souls are not Bodies and so Sadducism is ruined by it These things I have thought fit to advertise not out of design to censure any particular way of Philosophy but for the security of my Discourse And though I have made a little bold with the Peripateticks here yet the great Name of Aristotle to which they pretend is not concerned for I am convinc'd that he taught no such Doctrine of substantial Forms as his later Sectators and Interpreters have imputed to Him who indeed have depraved and corrupted his sense almost in the whole Body of his Principles and have presented the World with their own Fancies instead of the genuine Opinions of that Philosopher But I proceed III. THe Real Philosophy that inquires into God's Works assists Religion against Superstition another of its fatal Enemies That I may prove this it must be premised That Superstition consists either in bestowing Religious Valuation and Esteem on things in which there is no good or fearing those in which there is no hurt So that this Folly expresseth it self one while in doting upon Opinions as Fundamentals of Faith and Idoliziug the little Models of Fancy for Divine Institutions And then it runs away afraid of harmless indifferent Appointments and looks pale upon the appearance of any usual Effect of Nature It tells ominous Stories of every Meteor of the Night and makes sad Interpretations of each unwonted Accident All which are the Products of Ignorance and a narrow Mind which defeat the Design of Religion that would make us of a free manly and generous Spirit and indeed represent Christianity as if it were a fond sneaking weak and peevish thing that emasculates Mens Understandings making them amorous of toys and keeping them under the servility of childish fears so that hereby it is exposed to the distrust of larger Minds and to the scorn of Atheists These and many more are the mischiefs of Superstition as we have sadly seen and felt Now against this evil Spirit and its Influences the Real Experimental Philosophy is one of the best Securities in the World For by a generous and open Inquiry in the great Field of Nature Mens minds are enlarged and taken off from all fond adherences to their private Sentiments They are taught by it That Certainty is not in many things and that the most valuable Knowledge is the practical By which means they will find themselves disposed to more indifferency towards those petty Notions in which they were before apt to place a great deal of Religion and to reckon that all that will signifie lies in the few certain operative Principles of the Gospel and a Life suitable to such a Faith not in doting upon Questions and Speculations that engender strife and thus the Modern Experimental Philosophy of God's Works is a Remedy against the notional Superstition as I may call it which hath been and is so fatal to Religion and the peace of Mankind Besides which by making the Soul great this Knowledge delivers it from fondness on small Circumstances and imaginary Models and from little scrupulosities about things indifferent which usually work disquiet in narrow and contracted Spirits And I have known divers whom Philosophy and not Disputes hath cured of this Malady This we may observe that those Remedies are the best and most effectual that alter the temper and disposition of the Mind For 't is suitableness to that which makes the way to Mens Judgments and settles them in their Perswasions There are few that hold their Opinions by Arguments and dry Reasonings but by congruity to the Understanding and consequently by relish in the Affections So that seldom any thing cures our intellectual Diseases throughly but what changes these And I dare affirm that the Free Experimental Philosophy will do this to purpose by giving the Mind another Tincture and introducing a sounder Habit which by degrees will repel and cast out all Malignities and settle it in a strong and manly Temperament that will master and put to flight all idle Dotages and effeminate Fears The Truth is This World is a very Bedlam and he that would cure Madmen must not attempt it by Reasoning or indeavour to shew the absurdity of their Conceits but such a course must be taken as may restore the Mind to a right Crasis and that when it is effected will reduce and rectifie the extravagances of the distemper'd Brain which Disputes and Oppositions will but inflame and make worse Thus for instance when frantick Persons are fond of Feathers and mightily taken with the employment of picking Straws 't would signifie very little to represent to them the vanity of the Objects of their Delights and when the Melancholist was afraid to sit down for fear of being broken supposing himself of Glass it had been to little purpose to have declared to him the ridiculousness of his Fears the disposition of the Head was to be alter'd before the particular Phrensie could be cured 'T is too evident how just this is in the application to the present Age Superstitious fondness and fears are a real degree of madness And though I cannot say that Philosophy must be the only Catholick way of Cure for of this the far greatest part of Men is incapable yet this I do affirm that 't is a Remedy for those that are strong enough to take it and the rest must be helped by that which changeth the Genius and this cannot ordinarily be done by any thing that opposeth the particular Fancy However I must say 2. That the sort of Superstition which is yet behind in my account and consists in the causless fear of some Extraordinaries in Accident or Nature is directly cured by that Philosophy which gives fair likely-hoods of their Causes and shews that there is nothing in them supernatural the light of the day drives away Apparitions and vain Images that fancy forms in obscure shades and darkness Thus particularly the Modern Doctrine of Comets which have been always great Bugbears to the guilty
and timorous World hath rescued Philosophers from the trouble of dreadful Presages and the mischievous Consequences that arise from those superstitious Abodings For whatever the casual Coincidencies may be between those Phaenomena and the direful Events that are sometimes observed closely to attend them which as my Lord Bacon truly notes are observ'd when they bit not when they miss I say notwithstanding these the Real Experimental Philosophy makes it appear that they are Heavenly Bodies far above all the Regions of Vapours in which we are not concerned and so they are neither the Signs nor the Causes of our Mischiefs And for the other little things which afford Matter for the Tales about Prodigies and other ominous Appearings the knowledge of Nature by exciting worthy and magnificent conceptions of the God of Nature cures that blasphemous abuse of the adorable Majesty whereby foolish Men attribute every trivial event that may serve their turns against those they hate to his immediate extraordinary interposal For 't is ignorance of God and his Works that disposeth Men to absurd ridiculous Surmises uncharitable Censures seditious Machinations and so to Thoughts that are prejudicial to the Glory of God the Interests of Religion and the security of Government to that Justice and Charity we owe to others and to the happiness that we seek our selves To which I add That this kind of Superstition is a relique of Pagan Ignorance which made Men look on Thunder Eclipses Earthquakes and all the more terrifying Phaenomena of Nature as the immediate Effects of Powers Supernatural and to judge Events by flights of Birds and garbages of Cattel by the accidental occursions of this Creature and the other and almost every casual occurrence But these Particulars have been most ingeniously represented and reproved in a late very elegant Discourse about Prodigies And though I do not acquiesce in the Design of that excellently penn'd Book which is to discredit and take away all kinds of Presages Yet I think it hath done rarely well so far as it discovers the folly and mischiefs of that ignorant and superstitious Spirit that makes every thing a Prodigy With such apprehensions as these the knowledge of Nature fills those Minds that are instructed in it And there is no doubt but that the Antipathy the Real Philosophy bears to all the kinds of Superstition is one cause why zealous Ignorance brands those Researches with the mark of Atheism and Irreligion For superstitious Folly adopts those groundless Trifles which Philosophy contemns and reproves into the Family of Religion and therefore reproacheth the Despisers of them as Enemies to the Faith and Power of Godliness So it fared with some of the bravest Spirits of ancient times who have had black Characters fixt upon their great and worthy Names only for their Oppositions of the foolish Rites and Idolatries of the vulgar Heathen We know the case of Socrates And as to the interest of their Names that of Anaxagoras Theodorus Protagoras and Epicurus was much worse the causless infamy coming down the Stream as far as the last Ages Since then we know who was an Heretick for saying there were Antipodes and a Pope was taken for a Conjurer for being a Mathematician yea those noble Sciences were counted Diabolical and even the Sacred Language could scarce escape the suspicion In later times Galilaeo fell into the Inquisition for the Discoveries of his Telescopes and Campanella could not endeavour to assert and vindicate the freedom of his Mind without losing that of his Person I might come nearer to our own days and knowledge Gothick barharity and the Spirit of the Iuquisition is not quite worn out of the Reformation Though indeed it ordinarily remains but among the scum and dregs of Men And no one is either less Religious or less Wise for being accounted an Atheist by the common Rabble But where-ever the knowledge of Nature and God's Works hath in any degree obtain'd those vile Superstitions have been despised and put to an infamous flight But to take another step IV. THe Real Philosophy and knowledge of God's Works serves Religion against Enthusiasm another dreadful Enemy Now Enthusiasm is a false conceit of Inspiration and all the bold and mistaken Pretensions to the Spirit in our days are of this sort What particularly Religion hath suffer'd from it would be too long to reckon upon this occasion It will be enough to say in an Age that hath so much and such sad experience of it That Enthusiasm hath introduced much phantastry into Religion and made way for all imaginable Follies and even Atheism it self which it hath done two ways 1. By crying up the Excesses and Diseases of Imagination for the greatest height of Godliness And 2. By the disparagrment of sober Reason as an Enemy to the Principles of Faith And Philosophy assists Religion against both these FOR the first in order The real knowledge of Nature detects the dangerous imposture by shewing what strange things may be effected by no diviner a cause than a strong Fancy impregnated by Heated Melancholy For this sometimes warms the Brain to a degree that makes it very active and imaginative full of odd Thoughts and unexpected Suggestions so that if the Temper determine the Imagination to Religion it flies at high things at interpretations of dark and Prophetick Scriptures at Predictions of future Events and mysterious Discoveries which the Man expresseth fluently and boldly with a peculiar and pathetick Eloquence which pregnances being not ordinary but much beyond the usual tone and temper of the Enthusiast and he having heard great things of the Spirits immediate Motions and Inspirations cannot well fail of believing himself inspired and of intitling all the excursious of his Fancy to the immediate Actings of the Holy Ghost and those thoughts by the help of natural pride and self-love will work also exceedingly upon the heightned Affections and they upon the Body so far as to cast it sometimes into Raptures Extasies and Deliquiums of Sense in which every Dream is taken for a Prophesie every Image of the Fancy for a Vision and all the glarings of the Imagination for new Lights and Revelations Thus have our Modern Prophets been inspired by Temper and Imagination and not by Design only For we may not think they are all Hypocrites and knowing Impostors No they generally believe themselves and the strength of their highly invigorated Fancies shuts out the sober Light of Reason that should disabuse them as sleep doth that of our External Senses in our Dreams And the silly People that understand not Nature but are apt to take every thing that is vebement to be sacred are easily deceived into the belief of those Pretensions and thus Diseases have been worship'd for Religion This account the Philosophy of Humane Nature gives of that by which the World hath been so miserably abused And when we cast our eyes abroad we may plainly see that those glorious things are no more than what hath been done
by the Extatick Priests of the Heathen Oracles and the Mad-men of all Religions by Sybils Lunaticks Poets Dreamers and transported Persons of all sorts And it may be observ'd daily to what degrees of elevation excess of drinking will heighten the Brain making some witty nimble and eloquent much beyond the ordinary proportion of their Parts and Ingenuity and inclining others to be hugely devour who usually have no great sense of Religion As I knew one who would pray rapturously when he was drunk but at other times was a moping Sot and could scarce speak sense Thus also some kinds of Madness Diseases Accidents Peculiarities of Temper and other natural things that heat the Brain fill Men with high surprizing Conceits about Religion and furnish them with fervid Devotion great readiness of Expression and unexpected applications of Scripture to their crasy Conceits I say the Experimental Philosophy of our Natures informs us that all this is common in alienations and singularities of Mind and Complexion And they were remarkable in the Prophets of the Heathen and the Priest whom Saint Austin knew that would whine himself into an Extasie In the wonderful Discourses of the American Bishop that said he was the Holy Ghost and the canting fluency of the German Enthusiasts some of whose Imaginations were as wild and extravagant of such Instances I might make up a much larger Catalogue if I should descend to our Domestick Lunaticks but their temper is well known and therefore I only add this more That I have often met with a poor Woman in the North whose habitual conceit it was That she was Mother of God and of all things living I was wont to personate a kind of complyance with her Fancy and a modest desire to be further informed about it which gentleness drew from her so many odd fetches of Discourse such applications of Scripture and such wonderful references to Things in which she was never instructed that look'd like gleanings out of Hobbs and Epicurus that I have been much amazed at her talk And yet when I diverted her to any thing else of ordinary Matters she spoke usually with as much sobriety and cold discretion as could well be expected from a Person of her Condition nor did she use to be extravagant in any thing but about that particular Imagination which Instance among many others I might produce very much confirms me in the truth of that Observation of those Philosophers who have given us the best light into the Enthusiastick Temper viz. That there is a sort of madness which takes Men in some particular things when they are sound in others which one Proposition will afford a good account of many of the Phaenomena of Enthusiasm and shews that the Extravagants among us may be really distracted in the Affairs of Religion though their Brains are untouc'd in other Matters Thus a Philosophical use of observation and the knowledge of Humane Nature by it helps us to distinguish between the Effects of the adorable Spirit and those of an hot distemper'd Fancy which is no small advantage for the securing the Purity Honour and all the interests of Religion But 2. there is another mischief of the Enthusiastick Spirit behind and that is its bringing Reason into disgrace and denying the use thereof in the Affairs of Faith and Religion This is an evil that is the cause of many more for it hath brought into the World all kinds of Phantastry and Folly and exposed Religion to Contempt and Derision by making Madness and Diseases Sacred It leads Mens Minds into a maze of confused Imaginations and betrays them into Bogs and Precipices deprives them of their Light and their Guide and lays them open to all the Delusions of Satan and their own distemper'd Brains It takes Religion off from its Foundations and leaves the Interest of Eternity in Mens Souls to Chance and the Hits of Imagination teaching those that are deluded to lay the stress of all upon Raptures Heats and Mysterious Notions while they forgetâ—… and scorn the plain Christianity which is an imitation of Christ in Charity Humility Justice and Purity in the exercise of all Vertue and command of our selves It renders Men obnoxious to all the Temptations of Atheism and the blackest Infidelity and makes it impossible to convince an Infidel to settle one that doubts or to recover one that is fallen off from the Faith These Evils I am content only to name in this place having represented them more fully in another Discourse and the experience of our own Age may convince us with a little consideration upon it That all those fatal Mischiefs have been tâ—… Effects of the Contempt and Disparagement of Reason But yet though I affirm this I am not so rash or so unjust as to believe or say That this Spirit hath produced all those sâ—…d things in every one that speaks hotly and inconsiderately against Reason I am far from the wildness of such a censure because I know how much imprudent Zeal customary Talk high Pretensions and superstitious Fears may work even upon honest Minds who many times hold bad things in the Principle which they deny in the Practice and so are upright in their Wills while they are very much confused and mistaken in their Vnderstandings This I account to be the case of multitudes of pious People in reference to Reason They have heard hot-headed indiscreet Men declaim against it and many of them whose Opinions will not bear the Light have an interest to do so Their Pretensions were plausible and their Zeal great their Talk loud and their Affirmations bold and the honest well-meaning Folks are caught in their Affections and these lead bad Principles into their Minds which are neither disposed nor able to examine So they believe and speak after their Teachers and say That Reason is a low dull thing ignorant of the Spirit and an Enemy to Faith and Religion while in this they have no clear thoughts nor yet any evil meaning But let these Fancies swim a-top in their Imaginations and upon occasions they run out at the Tongues end though they are not always improved to those deadly Practices For Charity and Caution I have said this but yet nothing hinders but that all the forecited Evils are justly said to be the Tendencies and in too many Instances have been and are the Effects of this Spirit And now I doubt not but 't will be granted readily by all considering Men that whatever assists Religion against this destructive Enemy doth it most important service and this the Free and Real Philosophy doth in a very eminent degree In order to the proof of this we may consider what I intimated just now viz. That Men are led into and kept in this Fancy of the Enmity of Reason to Religion chiefly by two things 1. By an implicit assent to the Systemes and Distates of those who first instructed them And 2. By defect in clearness of Thoughts and the ability to
every thing every thing but what is sober whatever is wild will be suck'd in like the Air but what is reasonable will be fled like Infection So that if a Man would recommend any Doctrine for his life to those Enemies of Reason it must be some odd non-sense in the clothing of Imagination and he that can be the Author of a new kind of Madness shall lead a Party Thus hath Religion by the disparagement of Reason been made a Medley of Phantastick Trash spiritualized into an heap of Vapours and formed into a Castle of Clouds and exposed to every Wind of Humour and Imagination 3. By the same way great advantage is given to the Church of Rome Which is well known by those that adhere unto it And therefore Perronius Gonterius Arnoldus Veronius and other Jesuites have loudly declaimed against Reason and the last mentioned Veronius presented the World with a Method to overthrow Hereticks meaning those of the Protestant Faith which promised more than ordinary And that was to deny and renounce all Principles of Reason in Affairs of Faith absolutely and roundly and not to vouchsafe an Answer to any Argument against Transubstantiation or the other Articles of their new Faith but point-blank to deny whatever Reason saith in such Matters And he affirms that even these Principles of Reason viz. Non entis non sunt Attributa omne quod est quando est necesse est esse and such like which are the Foundations of all Reasoning are dangerous to the Catholick Faith and therefore not to be heeded This Man speaks out and affirms directly and boldly what the other Enemies of Reason mean but will not own This is a Method to destroy Hereticks in earnest but the mischief is all Christians and all other Religions and all other Reasonings are cut off by the same Sword This Book and Method of Veronius was kindly received by the Pope priviledged by the King of Spain approved by Cardinals Archbishops Bishops and all the Gallick Clergy as solid and for the advantage of Souls and the Sorbone Doctors gave it their approbation and recommended it as the only way to confute us and all the other Adversaries of their corrupted Faith and Religion Did these know what they did And did they think we understand the Interest of the Roman Church If so we kindly serve their ends and promote their Designs in the way which they account best while we vilifie and disparage Reason If this be renounced in Matters of Religion with what face can we use it against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation or any other Points of the Roman Creed Would it not be blameless and irreprovable for us to give up our Understandings implicitly to the Dictates and Declarations of that Church May we not follow blindly whatever the Infallible Man at Rome and his Councils say And would it not be vain self-contradiction to use Arguments against their Decrees though they are never so unreasonable Or to alledge Consequences from Scripture against any of their Articles though never so contrary to the Holy Oracles How easily may they rejoyn when we dispute against them You argue from Reason and by Consequences But Reason is dull and carnal and an enemy to the things of the Spirit and not to be heard in the high Matters of Religion And what can we say next if allow of the Accusation I say by this way we perfectly disable or grosly contradict our selves in most of our Disputes against the Romanists And we are very disingenuous in our dealings while we use Reason against them and deny it when 't is urged against our selves by another sort of Adversaries which implies that when we say Reason is not to be heard we mean 't is not to be heard against us But it must against the Church of Rome or any others we can oppugn by it So that our denying Reason in Religion is either very humoursom and partial or 't is a direct yielding up our Cause to our Enemies and doing that our selves which is the only thing they desire to undo us and to promote their own Interests upon our Ruines And thus I have represented some of the Mischiefs that arise from the disparagement of Reason we see they are great ones big of many others and such as are destructive to all Government and all the Interests of the sober part of Mankind This is properly Fanaticism and all that we call so grows upon it Here the Enemies of our Church and Government began upon this they insisted still and filled their Books and Pulpits and private Corners with these Cantings This was the Engine to overthrow all sober Principles and Establishments with this the People were infutuated and credit was reconciled to Gibberish and Folly Enthusiasms and vain Impulses This is the Food of Conventicles to this day the root of their Matter and the burden of their Preachments Let Reason be heard and tie them to Sense and most of their Holders-forth haue no more to say Their spirituality for which they are admired is besides Reason and against it rather than above it And while this Principle of the enmity between Reason and Religion stands the People will think them the more Spiritual Preachets because they are the less reasonable And while they are abused by such a belief 't will be impossible for sober Men to have any success in their endeavours to convince them AGAINST Modern Sadducism In the Matter of Witches and Apparitions Essay VI. Essay VI. AGAINST MODERN SADDUCISM In the Matter of Witches and Apparitions IF any thing were to be much admired in an Age of Wonders not only of Nature which is a constant Prodigy but of Men and Manners it would be to me matter of astonishment that Men otherwise witty and ingenious are fallen into the Conceit that there 's no such thing as a Witch or Apparition but that these are the Creatures of Melancholly and Superstition foster'd by Ignorance and Design which comparing the confidence of their disbelief with the evidence of the things denied and the weakness of their Grounds would almost suggest that themselves are an Argument of what they deny and that so confident an Opinion could not be held upon such inducements but by some kind of Witchcraft and Fascination in the Fancy And perhaps that evil Spirit whose Influences they will not allow in Actions ascribed to such Causes hath a greater hand and interest in their Proposition than they are aware of For that subtil Enemy of Mankind since Providence will not permit him to mischief us without our own concurrence attempts that by stratagem and artifice which he could never effect by open ways of acting and the success of all wiles depending upon their secrecy and concealment his influence is never more dangerous than when his agency is least suspected In order therefore to the carrying on the dark and hidden Designs he manageth against our Happiness and our Souls he cannot expect to advantage himself more
than by insinuating a belief That there is no such thing as Himself but that Fear and Fancy make Devils now as they did Gods of old Nor can he ever draw the assent of Men to so dangerous an Assertion while the standing sensible Evidences of his Existence in his practices by and upon his Instruments are not discredited and removed 'T is doubtless therefore the interest of this Agent of Darkness to have the World believe that the Notion they have of Him is but a Phantôme and Conceit and in order thereunto That the stories of Witches Apparitions and indeed every thing that brings tidings of another World are but melancholick Dreams and pious Romances And when Men are arriv'd thus far to think there are no Diabolical Contracts or Apparitions their belief that there are such Spirits rests only upon their Faith and reverence to the Divine Oracles which we have little reason to apprehend so great in such Assertors as to command much from their assent especially in such things in which they have corrupt Interests against their evidence So that he that thinks there is no Witch believes a Devil gratis or at least upon Inducements which he is like to find himself disposed to deny when he pleaseth And when Men are arrived to this degree of Disfidence and Infidelity we are beholden to them if they believe either Angel or Spirit Resurrection of the Body or Immortality of Souls These things hang together in a Chain of Connexion at least in these Mens Hypothesis and 't is but an happy chance if he that hath lost one Link holds another So that the Vitals of Religion being so much interessed in this Subject it will not be unnecessary imployment particularly to discourse it And in order to the proof that there have been and are unlawful Confederacies with evil Spirits by vertue of which the hellish Accomplices perform things above their natural Powers I must premise that this being matter of Fact is only capable of the evidence of Authority and Sense And by both these the being of Witches and Diabolical Contracts is most abundantly confirm'd All Histories are full of the Exploits of those Instruments of Darkness and the Testimony of all Ages not only of the rude and barbarous but of the most civiliz'd and polish'd World brings tidings of their strange performances We have the Attestation of thousands of Eye and Ear-witnesses and those not of the easily deceivable Vulgar only but of wise and grave Discerners and that when no Interest could oblige them to agree together in a common Lye I say we have the light of all these Circumstances to confirm us in the belief of things done by Persons of despicable Power and Knowledge beyond the reach of Art and ordinary Nature Standing publick Records have been kept of these well-attested Relations and Epocha's made of those unwonted Events Laws in many Nations have been enacted against those vile practices Those among the Jews and our own are notorious such Cases have been often determined near us by Wise and Reverend Judges upon clear and convictive Evidence and multitudes in our Nation have suffered death for their vile Compacts with Apostate Spirits All these I might largely prove in their particular Instances but that 't is not needful since those that deny the being of Witches do it not out of ignorance of these Heads of Argument of which probably they have heard a thousand times But from an apprehension that such a belief is absurd and the things impossible And upon these presumptions they contemn all Demonstrations of this nature and are haâ—…dned against Conviction And I think those that can believe all Histories are Romances that all the wiser World have agreed together to juggle Mankind into a common belief of ungrounded Fables that the sound Senfes of multitudes together may deceive them and Laws are built upon Chymera's that the gravest and wisest Judges have been Murderers and the sagest Persons Fools or designing Impostors I say those that can believe this heap of Absurdities are either more credulous than those whose credulity they reprehend or else have some extraordinary evidence of their Perswasion viz. That 't is absurd and impossible there should be a Witch or Apparition And I am consident were those little appearances remov'd which Men have form'd in their Fancies against the belief of such things their own Evidence would make the way to Mens assent without any more Arguments than what they know already to enforce it There is nothing then necessary to be done in order to the establishing the belief I would reconcile to Mens minds but to endeavour the removal of those Prejudices they have received against it the chief of which I shall particularly deal with And I begin with that bold Assertion That I. I. THe NOTION of a Spirit is impossible and contradictious and consequently so is that of Witches the belief of which is founded on that Doctrine To which Objection I Answer 1. If the Notion of a Spirit be absurd as is pretended that of a GOD and a SOUL distinct from Matter and Immortal are likewise Absurdities And then That the World was jumbled into this elegant and orderly Fabrick by chance and that our Souls are only parts of Matter that came together we know not whence nor how and shall again shortly be dissolv'd into those loose Atoms that compound them That all our Conceptions are but the thrusting of one part of Matter against another and the Idea's of our Minds meer blind and casual Motions These and a thousand more the grossest Impossibilities and Absurdities consequents of this Proposition That the Notion of a Spirit is absurd will be sad Certainties and Demonstrations And with such Assertors I would cease to discourse about Witches and Apparitions and address my self to obtain their assent to Truths infinitely more Sacred And yet 2. though it should be granted them that a Substance immaterial is as much a contradiction as they can fancy yet why should they not believe that the Air and all the Regions above us may have their invisible intellectual Agents of Nature like unto our Souls be that what it will and some of them at least as much degenerate as the vilest and most mischievous among Men. This Hypothesis will be enough to secure the possibility of Witches and Apparitions And that all the upper Stories of the Universe are furnish'd with Inhabitants 't is infinitely reasonable to conclude from the Analogy of Nature Since we see there is nothing so contemptible and vile in the World we reside in but hath its living Creatures that dwell upon it the Earth the Water the inferiour Air the Bodies of Animals the Flesh the Skin the Entrails the Leaves the Roots the Stalks of Vegetables yea and all kind of Minerals in the Subterrancous Regions I say all these have their proper Inhabitants yea I suppose this Rule may hold in all distinct kinds of Bodies in the World That they have
Confederate Spirit should transport the Witch through the Air to the place of general Rendezvous there is no difficulty in conceiving it and if that be true which great Philosophers affiâ—… concerning the real separability of the Soul from the Body without Death there is yet less for then 't is easie to apprehend that the Soul having left its gross and sluggish Body behind it and being cloth'd only with its immedâ—…e Vehicle of Air or more subtile Matter may be quickly conducted to any place by those officious Spirits that attend it And though I adventure to affirm nothing concerning the truth and certainty of this Supposition yet I must needs say it doth not seem to me unreasonable Our experience of Apoplexies Epilepsies Extasies and the strange things Men report to have seen during those Deliquiums look favourably upon this Conjecture which seems to me to contradict no Principle of Reason or Philosophy since Death consists not so much in the actual separation of Soul and Body as in the indisposition and unfitness of the Body for Vital Union as an excellent Philosopher hath made good On which Hypothesis the Witch's anointing her self before she takes her flight may perhaps serve to keep the Body tenantable and in fit disposition to receive the Spirit at its return These things I say we may conceive though I affirm nothing about them and there is not any thing in such Conceptions but what hath been own'd by Men of Worth and Name and may seem fair and accountable enough to those who judg not altogether by customary Opinions There 's a saying of the great Apostle that seems to countenance this Platonick Notion what is the meaning else of that Expression Whether in the Body or out of the Body I cannot tell except the Soul may be separated from the Body without death Which if it be granted poâ—…sible 't is sufficient for my purpose And 2. The Transformations of Witches into the shapes of other Animals upon the same supposal is very conceivable since then 't is easie to apprehend that the Power of Imagination may form those passive and pliable Vehicles into those shapes with more ease than the Fancy of the Mother can the stubborn Matter of the Foetus in the Womb as we see it frequently doth in the Instances that occur of Signatures and monstrous Singularities and perhaps sometimes the confederate Spirit puts tricks upon the Senses of the Spectators and those Shapes are only Illusions But then 3. when they feel the Hurts in their gross Bodies that they receive in their Aiery Vehicles they must be supposed to have been really present at least in these latter and 't is no more difficult to apprehend how the hurts of those should be translated upon their other Bodies than how Diseases should be inflicted by the Imagination or how the Fancy of the Mother should wound the Foetus as several credible Relations do attest And 4. for their raising Storms and Tempests They do it not by their own but by the power of those Evil Spirits that reside in the Air and the Ceremonies that are enjoyn'd them are doubtless nothing else but Entertainments for their Imaginations and likely design'd to perswade them that they do those strange things themselves Lastly For their being suck'd by the Familiar I say 1. we know so little of the nature of Daemons and Spirits that 't is no wonder we cannot certainly divine the Reason of so strange an Action And yet 2. we may conjecture at some things that may render it less improbable For some have thought that the Genii whom both the Platonical and Christian Antiquity thought embodied are recreated by the Reeks and Vapours of Humane Blood and the Spirits that proceed from them Which supposal if we allow them Bodies is not unlikely every thing being refresh'd and nourish'd by its Like And that they are not perfectly abstract from all Body and Matter besides the Reverence we owe to the wisest Antiquity there are several considerable Arguments I could alledge to render exceeding probable Which things supposed the Devil 's sucking the Sorceress is no great wonder nor difficult to be accounted for Or perhaps 3. this may be only a Diabolical Sacrament and Ceremony to confirm the Hellish Covenant To which I add 4. That the Familiar doth not only suck the Witch but in the Action infuseth some poisonous Ferrnent into Her which gives her Imagination and Spirits a Magical Tincture whereby they become mischievously influential and the word Vâ—…nesica intimates some such Matter Now that the Imagination hath a mighty power in Operation is feen in the just-now mention'd Signatures and Diseases that it causeth and that the Fancy is modified by the Qualities of the Blood and Spirits is too evident to need proof Which things supposed 't is plain to conceive that the Evil Spirit having breath'd some vile Vapour into the Body of the Witch it may taint her Blood and Spirits with a noxious Quality by which her infected Imagination heightned by Melancholy and this worse Cause may do much hurt upon Bodies that are obnoxious to such Influences And 't is very likely that this Ferment disposeth the Imagination of the Sorceress to cause the mentioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or separation of the Soul from the Body and may perhaps keep the Body in fit temper for its re-entry as also it may facilitate transformation which it may be could not be effected by ordinary and unassisted Imagination Thus we see 't is not so desperate to form an apprehension of the manner of these odd Performances and though they are not done the way I have describ'd yet what I have said may help us to a conceit of the Possibility which sufficeth for my purpose And though the Hypothesis I have gone upon will seem as unlikely to some as the things they attempt to explain are to others yet I must desire their leave to suggest that most things seem improbable especially to the conceited and opinionative at first proposal And many great Truths are strange and odd till Custom and Acquaintance have reconciled them to our Fancies And I 'le presume to add on this occasion though I love not to be confident in affirming that there is none of the Platonical Supposals I have used but what I could make appear to be indifferently fair and reasonable III. III. A Nother Prejudice against the being of Witches is That 't is very improbable that the Devil who is a Wise and Mighty Spirit should be at the beck of a poor Hag and have so little to do as to attend the Errands and impotent Lusts of a sil'y old Woman To which I might answer 1. That 't is much more improbable that all the World should be deceiv'd in Matters of Fact and Circumstances of the clearest Evidence and Conviction than that the Devil who is wicked should be also unwise and that He that perswades all his Subjects and Accomplices out of their Wits should himself
like by which the contagious Quality may be transmitted as we see Diseases often are by the touch Now in this way of conjecture a good account may be given why Witches are most powerful upon Children and timerous Persons viz. because their Spirits and Imaginations being weak and passive are not able to resist the fatal Influence whereas Men of bold Minds who have plenty of strong and vigorous Spirits are secure from the Contagion as in pestilential Airs clean Bodies are not so liable to Infection as other tempers Thus we see 't is likely enough that very often the Sorceress her self doth the mischief and we know de facto that Providence doth not always secure us from one anothers Injuries And yet I must confess that many times also the Evil Spirit is the Mischievous Agent though this Confession draw on me another Objection which I next propose V. V. IT may be said that if Wicked Spirits can hurt as by the Direction and at the desire of a Witch one would think they should have the same power to do us injury without instigation or compact and if this be granted 't is a wonder that we are not always annoyed and infested by them To which I Answer 1. That the Laws Liberties and Restraints of the Inhabitants of the other World are to us utterly unknown and in this way we can only argue our selves into confessions of our Ignorance which every Man must acknowledge that is not as immodest as ignorant It must be granted by all that own the Being Power and Malice of Evil Spirits that the security we enjoy is wonderful whether they act by Witches or not and by what Laws they are kept from making us a Prey to speak like Philosophers we cannot tell Yea why they should be permitted to tempt and ruine us in our Souls and restrain'd from touching or hurting us in our Bodies is a Mystery not easily accountable But 2. though we acknowledg their Power to vex and torment us in our Bodies also yet a reason may be given why they are less frequent in this kind of mischief viz. because their main Designs are levell'd against the interest and happiness of our Souls which they can best promote when their Actions are most sly and secret whereas did they ordinarily persecute Men in their Bodies their Agency and wicked Influence would be discover'd and make a mighty noise in the World whereby Men would be awaken'd to a sutable and vigorous opposition by the use of such means as would engage Providence to rescue them from their rage and cruelties and at last defeat them in their great purposes of undoing us eternally Thus we may conceive that the security we enjoy may well enough consist with the power and malice of those Evil Spirits and upon this account may suppose that Laws of their own may prohibit their unlicenc'd Injuries not from any goodness there is in their Constitutions but in order to the more successful carrying on the projects of the Dark Kingdom as Generals forbid Plunder not out of love to their Enemies but in order to their own success And hence 3. we may suppose a Law of Permission to hurt us at the instance of the Sorceress may well stand with the polity of Hell since by gratifying the wicked Person they encourage her in malice and revenge and promote thereby the main ends of their black Confederacy which are to propagate Wickedness and to ruine us in our eternal Interests And yet 4. 't is clear to those that believe the History of the Gospel that Wicked Spirits have vexed the Bodies of Men without any instigation that we read of and at this day 't is very likely that many of the strange Accidents and Diseases that befal us may be the infliction of Evil Spirits prompted to hurt us only by the delight they take in mischief So that we cannot argue the improbability of their hurting Children and others by Witches from our own security and freedom from the Effects of their Malice which perhaps we feel in more Instances than we are aware of VI. VI. ANother Prejudice against the belief of Witches is a presumption upon the enormous force of Melancholly and Imagination which without doubt can do wonderful Things and beget strange Perswasions and to these Causes some ascribe all the Effects of Sorcery and Witchcraft To which I reply briefly and yet I hope sufficiently 1. That to resolve all the clear Circumstances of Fact which we find in well-attested and confirm'd Relations of this kind into the power of deceivable Imagination is to make Fancy the greater Prodigy and to suppose that it can do stranger Feats than are believed of any other kind of Fascination To think that Pins and Nails for instance can by the power of Imagination be convey'd within the Skin or that Imagination should deceive so many as have been Witnesses in Objects of Sense in all the Circumstances of Discovery This I say is to be infinitely more credulous than the Assertors of Sorcery and Demoniack Contracts By the same reason it may be believ'd that all the Battels and strange Events of the World which our selves have not seen are but Dreams and fond Imaginations and like those that are fought in the Clouds when the Brains of the deluded Spectators are the only Theatre of those fancied Transactions And 2. to deny evidence of Fact because their Imagination may deceive the Relators when we have no reason to think so but a bare presumption that there is no such thing as is related is quite to destroy the Credit of all Humane Testimony and to make all Men liars in a larger sense than the Prophet concluded in his haste For not only the Melancholick and the Fanciful but the Grave and the Sober whose Judgements we have no reason to suspect to be tainted by their Imaginations have from their own knowledge and experience made reports of this Nature But to this it will possibly be rejoyn'd and the Reply will be another prejudice against the belief for which I contend viz. VII VII THat 't is a suspicious circumstance that Witchcraft is but a Fancy since the Persons that are accused are commonly poor and miserable old Women who are over-grown with discontent and melancholy which are very imaginative and the Persons said to be bewitch'd are for the most part Children or People very weak who are easily imposed upon and are apt to receive strong Impressions from nothing whereas were there any such thing really 't is not likely but that the more cunning and subtil Desperado's who might the more successfully carry on the mischievous Designs of the Dark Kingdom should be oftener engaged in those black Confederacies and also one would expect Effects of the Hellish Combination upon others than the Innocent and the Ignorant To which Objection it might perhaps be enough to return as hath been above suggested that nothing can be concluded by this and such-like arguings but that the
policy and menages of the Instruments of Darkness are to us altogether unknown and as much in the dark as their Natures Mankind being no more acquainted with the Reasons and Methods of Action in the other World than poor Cottagers and Mechanicks are with the Intrigues of Government and Reasons of State Yea peradventure 2. 't is one of the great Designs as 't is certainly the Interest of those wicked Agents and Machinators industriously to hide from us their influences and ways of acting and to work as near as is possible incognito upon which supposal 't is easie to conceive a reason why they most commonly work by and upon the weak and ignorant who can make no cunning Observations or tell credible Tales to detect their Artifice Besides 3. 't is likely a strong Imagination that cannot be weaken'd or disturb'd by a busie and subtil Ratiocination is a necessary requisite to those wicked Performances without doubt an heightned and obstinate Fancy hath a great influence upon impressible Spirits yea and as I have conjectur'd before on the more passive and susceptible Bodies And I am very apt to believe that there are as real Communications and Intercourses between our Spirits as there are between Material Agents which secret Influences though they are unknown in their Nature and ways of acting yet they are sufficiently felt in their Effects For Experience attests that some by the very majesty and greatness of their Spirits discover'd by nothing but a certain noble Air that accompanies them will bear down others less great and generous and make them sneak before them and some by I know not what stupifying vertue will tie up the Tongue and confine the Spirits of those who are otherwise brisk and voluble Which thing supposed the influences of a Spirit possess'd of an active and enormous Imagination may be malign and fatal where they cannot be resisted especially when they are accompanied by those poisonous Reaks that the Evil Spirit breaths into the Sorceress which likely are shot out and applyed by a Fancy heightned and prepared by Melancholy and Discontent And thus we may conceive why the Melancholick and Envious are used upon such occasions and for the same reason the Ignorant since Knowledge checks and controuls Imagination and those that abound much in the Imaginative Faculties do not usually exceed in the Rational And perhaps 4. the Daemon himself useth the Imagination of the Witch so qualified for his purpose even in those Actions of mischief which are more properly his for it is most probable that Spirits act not upon Bodies immediately and by their naked Essence but by means proportionate and sutable Instruments that they use upon which account likely 't is so strictly required that the Sorceress should belive that so her Imagination might be more at the Devotion of the mischievous Agent And for the same reason also Ceremonies are used in Inchantments viz. for the â—…egetting this Diabolical Faith and heightning the Fancy to a degree of strength and vigour sufficient to make it a fit Instrument for the design'd performance These I think are Reasons of likelihood and probability why the Hellish Confederates are mostly the Ignorant and the Melancholick VIII VIII THe frequent Impostures that are met with in this kind beget in some a belief that all such Relations are Forgeries and Tales and if we urge the evidence of a Story for the belief of Witches or Apparitions they will produce two as seemingly strong and plausible which shall conclude in Mistake or Design inferring thence that all others are of the same quality and credit But such Arguers may please to consider 1. That a single Relation for an Affirmative sufficiently confirmed and attested is worth a thousand Tales of forgery and imposture from whence an Universal Negative cannot be concluded So that though all the Objector's Stories be true and an hundred times as many more such Deceptions yet one Relation wherein no fallacy or fraud could be suspected for our Affirmative would spoil any Conclusion could be erected on them And 2. It seems to me a belief sufficiently bold and precarious that all these Relations of Forgery and Mistake should be certain and not one among all those which attest the Affirmative Reality with Circumstances as good as could be expected or wish'd should be true but all fabulous and vain Certainly they have no reason to object Credulity to the Assertors of Sorcery and Witchcraft that can swallow so large a Morsel And I desire such Objectors to consider 3. Whether it be fair to infer that because there are some Cheats and Impostors that therefore there are no Realities Indeed frequency of deceit and fallacy will warrant a greater care and caution in examining and scrupulosity and shiness of assent to things whereing fraud hath been practiced or may in the least degree be suspected But to conclude because that an old Woman's Fancy abused her or some knavish Fellows put tricks upon the ignorant and timorous that therefore whole Assizes have been a thousand times deceived in judgement upon Matters of Fact and numbers of sober Persons have been forsworn in things wherein Perjury could not advantage them I say such Inferences are as void of Reason as they are of Charity and good Manners IX IX IT may be suggested further That it cannot be imagin'd what design the Devil should have in making those solemn Compacts since Persons of such dehauch'd and irreclaimable Dispositions as those with whom he is supposed to confederate are pretty securely his antecedently to the Bargain and cannot be more so by it since they cannot put their Souls out of possibility of the Divine Grace but by the Sin that is unpardonable or if they could so dispose and give away themselves it will to some seem very unlikely that a great and mighty Spirit should oblige himself to such observances and keep such a-do to secure the Soul of a silly Body which 't were odds but it would be His though He put himself to no further trouble than that of his ordinary Temptations To which Suggestions 't were enough to say that 't is sufficient if the thing be well prov'd though the Design be not known and to argue negatively à fine is very unconclusive in such Matters The Laws and Affairs of the other World as hath been intimated are vastly differing from those of our Regions and therefore 't is no wonder we cannot judge of their Designs when we know nothing of their Menages and so little of their Natures The ignorant looker-on can't imagine what the Limner means by those seemingly rude Lines and Scrawls which he intends for the Rudiments of a Picture and the Figures of Mathematick Operation are non-sense and dashes at a venture to one un-instructed in Mechanicks We are in the dark to one anothers Purposes and Intendments and there are a thousand Intrigues in our little Matters which will not presently confess their Design even to sagacious Inquisitors And therefore 't
is folly and incogitancy to argue any thing one way or other from the designs of a sort of Beings with whom we so little communicate and possibly we can no more aim or guess at their Projects and Designments than the gazing Beast can do at ours when they see the Traps and Gins that are laid for them but understand nothing what they mean Thus in general But I attempt something more particularly in order to which I must premise That the Devil is a name for a Body Politick in which there are very different Orders and Degrees of Spirits and perhaps in as much variety of place and state as among our selves so that 't is not one and the same Person that makes all the Compacts with those abused and seduced Souls but they are divers and those 't is like of the meanest and basest quality in the Kingdom of Darkness which being supposed I offer this account of the probable Design of those wicked Agents viz. That having none to rule or tyrannize over within the Circle of their own Nature and Government they affect a proud Empire over us the desire of Dominion and Authority being largely spread through the whole circumference of degenerated Nature especially among those whose pride was their original transgression every one of these then desires to get Vassals to pay him homage and to be employed like Slaves in the services of his Lusts and Appetites to gratifie which desire 't is like it may be allowed by the constitution of their State and Government that every wicked Spirit shall have those Souls as his property and particular Servants and Attendants whom he can catch in such Compacts as those wild Beasts that we can take in hunting are ours by the allowance of our Laws and those Slaves that a Man hath purchas'd are his peculiar Goods and the Vassals of his Will Or rather those deluding Fiends are like the seducing Fellows we call Spirits who inveigle Children by their false and flattering Promises and carry them away to the Plantations of America to be servilely employed there in the Works of their Profit and Advantage And as those base Agents will humour and flatter the simple unwary Youth till they are on Ship-board and without the reach of those that might rescue them from their hands In like manner the more mischievous Tempter studies to gratifie please and accommodate those he deals with in this kind till Death hath lanâ—…h'd them into the Deep and they are past the danger of Prayers Repentance and Endeavours and then He useth them as pleaseth Him This account I think is not unreasonable and 't will fully answer the Objection For though the Matter be not as I have conjectur'd yet 't will suggest a way how it may be conceiv'd which destroys the Pretence That the Design is inconceivable X. BVt X. we are still liable to be question'd how it comes about that those proud and insolent Designers practice in this kind upon so few when one would expect that they should be still trading this way and every-where be driving on the Project which the vileness of Men makes so feisable and would so much serve the interest of their Lusts. To which among other things that might be suggested I return 1. That we are never liable to be so betrayed and abused till by our vile Dispositions and Tendencies we have forfeited the care and oversight of the better Spirits who though generally they are our guard and defence against the malice and violence of Evil Angels yet it may well enough be thought that sometimes they may take their leave of such as are swallowed up by Malice Envy and desire of Revenge qualities most contrary to their Life and Nature and leave them exposed to the invasion and sollicitations of those Wicked Spirits to whom such hateful Attributes make them very sutable And if there be particular Guardian Angels as 't is not absurd to fancy it may then well be supposed that no Man is obnoxious to those Projects and Attempts but only such whose vile and mischievous Natures have driven from them their protecting Genius Against this dereliction to the power of Evil Spirits 't is likely enough what some affirm that the Royal Psalmist directs that Prayer Psal. 71. 9 10. Cast me not off in the time of old Age forsake me not when my strength faileth For They that keep my Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the LXX and the Vulgar Latin Qui custodiunt animam meam they take counsel together saying God hath forsaken him persecute him and take him for there is none to deliver him 2. 'T is very probable that the stare wherein they are will not easily permit palpable Intercourses between the bad Genii and Mankind since 't is probable that their own Laws and Government do not allow their frequent excursions into this World Or it may with as great likelyhood be supposed that 't is a very hard and painful thing for them to force their thin and tenuious Bodies into a visible consistence and such Shapes as are necessary for their designs in their correspondencies with Witches For in this Action their Bodies must needs be exceedingly compress'd which cannot well be without a painful sense And this is perhaps a reason why there are so few Apparitions and why Appearing Spirits are commonly in such hast to be gone viz. that they may be deliver'd from the unnatural pressure of their tender Vehicles which I confess holds more in the Apparitions of Good than of Evil Spirits most Relations of this kind describing their discoveries of themselves as very transient though for those the Holy Scripture records there may be peculiar reason why they are not so whereas the Wicked Ones are not altogether so quick and hasty in their Visits The reason of which probably is the great subtilty and tenuity of the Bodies of the former which will require far greater degrees of compression and consequently of pain to make them visible whereas the latter are more feculent and gross and so nearer allied to palpable Consistencies and more easily reduceable to Appearance and Visibility At this turn I have again made use of the Platonick Hypothesis That Spirits are embodied upon which indeed a great part of my Discourse is grounded And therefore I hold my self obliged to a short account of that supposal It seems then to me very probable from the Nature of Sense and Analogy of Nature For 1. we perceive in our selves that all Sense is caus'd and excited by Motion made in Matter and when those Motions which convey sensible Impressions to the Brain the Seat of Sense are intercepted Sense is lost So that if we suppose Spirits perfectly to be disjoin'd from all Matter 't is not conceivable how they can have the sense of any thing For how material Objects should any way be perceiv'd or felt without Vital Union with Matter 't is not possible to imagine Nor doth it 2. seem sutable to the
Analogy of Nature which useth not to make precipitious leaps from one thing to another but usually proceeds by orderly steps and gradations whereas were there no order of Beings between Us who are so deeply plunged into the grossest Matter and pure unbodied Spirits 't were a mighty jump in Nature Since then the greatest part of the World consists of the finer portions of Matter and our own Souls are immediately united unto these 't is exceeding probable that the nearer orders of Spirits are vitally join'd to such Bodies and so Nature by degrees ascending still by the more refin'd and subtile Matter gets at last to the pure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or immaterial Minds which the Platonists made the highest Order of Created Beings But of this I have discoursed elsewhere and have said thus much of it at present because it will enable me to add another Reason of the unfrequency of Apparitions and Compacts viz. 3. Because 't is very likely that these Regions are very unsutable and disproportion'd to the frame and temper of their Senses and Bodies so that perhaps the Courser Spirits can no more bear the Air of our World than Bats and Owls can the brightest Beams of Day Nor can the Purer and Better any more endure the noysom Steams and poisonous Reeks of this Dunghil Earth than the Delicate can bear a Confinement in nasty Dungeons and the foul squalid Caverns of uncomfortable Darkness So that 't is no more wonder that the better Spirits no oftner appear than that Men are not more frequently in the Dark Hollows under-ground Nor is 't any more strange that evil Spirits so rarely visit us than that Fishes do not ordinarily fly in the Air as 't is said one sort of them doth or that we see not the Batt daily fluttering in the Beams of the Sun And now by the help of what I have spoken under this Head I am provided with some things wherewith to disable another Objection which I thus propose XI XI IF there be such an intercourse between Evil Spirits and the Wicked How comes it about that there is no correspondence between Good Angels and the Vertuous since without doubt these are as desirous to propagate the Spirit and Designs of the Vpper and better World as those are to promote the Interest of the Kingdom of Darkness Which way of arguing is still from our Ignorance of the State and Government of the other World which must be confest and may without prejudice to the Proposition I defend But particularly I say 1. That we have ground enough to believe that Good Spirits do interpose in yea and govern our Affairs For that there is a Providence reaching from Heaven to Earth is generally acknowledg'd but that this supposeth all things to be order'd by the immediate influence and interposal of the Supreme Deity some think is not very Philosophical to suppose since if we judge by the Analogy of the Natural World all things we see are carried on by the Ministery of Second Causes and Intermediate Agents And it doth not seem so Magnificent and Becoming an apprehension of the Supreme Numen to fancy his immediate Hand in every trivial Management But 't is exceeding likely to conjecture that much of the Government of us and our Affairs is committed to the better Spirits with a due subordination and subserviency to the Will of the chief Rector of the Universe And 't is not absurd to believe that there is a Government that runs from Highest to Lowest the better and more perfect orders of Being still ruling the inferiour and less perfect So that some one would fancy that perhaps the Angels may manage us as we do the Creatures that God and Nature have placed under our Empire and Dominion But however that is That God rules the Lower World by the Ministery of Angels is very consonant to the Sacred Oracles Thus Deut. 32. 8 9. When the Most High divided the Nations their Inheritance when he separated the Sons of Adam he set the Bounds of the People 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the number of the Angels of God as the Septuagint renders it the Authority of which Translation is abundantly credited and asserted by its being quoted in the New Testament without notice of the Hebrew Text even there where it differs from it as Learned Men have observ'd We know also that Angels were very familiar with the Patriarchs of old and Jacob's Ladder is a Mystery which imports their ministring in the Affairs of the Lower World Thus Origen and others understand that to be spoken by the Presidential Angels Jer. 51. 9. We would have healed Babylon but she is not healed forsake her and let us go Like the Voice heard in the Temple before the taking of Jerusalem by Titus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And before Nebuchadnezzar was sent to learn Wisdom and Religion among the Beasts He sees a Watcher according to the LXX an Angel and an Holy One come down from Heaven Dan. 4. 13. who pronounceth the sad Decree against Him and calls it the Decree of the Watchers who very probably were the Guardian Genii of of Himself and his Kingdom And that there are particular Angels that have the special Rule and Government of particular Kingdoms Provinces Cities yea and of Persons I know nothing that can make improbable The instance is notorious in Daniel of the Angels of Persia and Graecia that hindred the other that was engaged for the Concerns of Judaea yea our Saviour himself tells us that Children have their Angels and the Congregation of Disciples supposed that St. Peter had his Which things if they be granted the good Spirits have not so little to do with Us and our Matters as is generally believed And perhaps it would not be absurd if we referr'd many of the strange Thwarts and unexpected Events the Disappointments and lucky Coincidences that befal us the unaccountable Fortunes and Successes that attend some lucky Men and the unhappy Fates that dog others that seem born to be miserable the Fame and Favour that still waits on some without any conceivable Motive to allure it and the general neglect of others more deserving whose worth is not acknowledg'd I say these and such-like odd things may with the greatest probability be resolv'd into the Conduct and Menages of those Invisible Supervisors that preside over and govern our Affairs But if they so far concern themselves in our Matters how is it that they appear not to maintain a visible and confest Correspondence with some of the better Mortals who are most fitted for their Communications and their Influence To which I have said some things already when I accounted for the unfrequency of Apparitions and I now add what I intend for another return to the main Objection viz. 2. That the Apparition of Good Spirits is not needful for the Designs of the better World what-ever such may be for the Interest of the other For we have had the
Appearance and Cohabitation of the Son of God we have Moses and the Prophets and the continued Influence of the Spirit the greatest Arguments to strengthen Faith the most powerful Motives to excite our Love and the noblest Encouragements to quicken and raise our Desires and Hopes any of which are more than the Apparition of an Angel which would indeed be a great gratification of the Animal Life but 't would render our Faith less noble and less generous were it frequently so assisted Blessed are they that believe and yet have not seen Besides which the Good Angels have no such Ends to prosecute as the gaining any Vassals to serve them they being Ministring Spirits for our good and no self-designers for a proud and insolent Dominion over us And it may be perhaps not impertinently added That they are not always evil Spirits that appear as is I know not well upon what grounds generally imagined but that the extraordinary detections of Murders latent Treasures falsified and unfulfill'd Bequests which are sometimes made by Apparitions may be the courteous Discoveries of the better and more benign Gâ—…nii Yea 't is not unlikely that those Warnings that the World sometimes hath of approaching Judgments and Calamities by Prodigies and sundry odd Phaenomena are the kind Informations of some of the Inhabitants of the Upper World Thus was Jerusalem forewarned before its sacking by Antiochus by those Aiery Horsemen that were seen through all the City for almost forty days together 2 Mac. 5. 2 3. And the other Prodigious Portents that fore-ran its Destruction by Titus which I mention because they are notorious Instances And though for mine own part I scorn the ordinary Tales of Prodigies which proceed from superstitious Fears and unacquaintance with Nature and have been used to bad Purposes by the Zealous and the Ignorant Yet I think that the Arguments that are brought by a late very Ingenious Author to conclude against such Warnings and Predictions in the whole kind are short and inconsequent and built upon too narrow Hypotheseis For if it be supposed that there is a sort of Spirits over us and about us who can give a probable guess at the more remarkable Futurities I know not why it may not be conjectured that the kindness they have for us and the appetite of fore-telling strange things and the putting the World upon expectation which we find is very grateful to our own Natures may not incline them also to give us some general notice of those uncommon Events which they foresee And I yet perceive no reason we have to fancy that what-ever is done in this kind must needs be either immediately from Heaven or from the Angels by extraordinary Commission and Appointment But it seems to me not unreasonable to believe that those officious Spirits that oversee our Affairs perceiving some mighty and sad Alterations at hand in which their Charge is much concerned cannot chuse by reason of their affection to us but give us some seasonable hints of those approaching Calamities to which also their natural desire to foretel strange things to come may contribute to incline them And by this Hypothesis the fairest Probabilities and strongest Ratiocinations against Prodigies may be made unserviceable But this only by the way I desire it may be considered further 3. That God himself assords his Intimacies and converses to the better Souls that are prepared for it which is a priviledge infinitely beyond Angelical Correspondence I confess the proud and fantastick Pretences of many of the conceited Melancholists in this Age to Divine Communion have prejudiced divers intelligent Persons against the belief of any such happy vouchsafement so that they conclude the Doctrine of Immediate Communion with the Deity in this Life to be but an high flown Notion of warm Imagination and over-lushious self-flattery and I acknowledge I have my self had thoughts of this nature supposing Communion with God to be nothing else but the exercise of Vertue and that Peace and those Comforts which naturally result from it But I have considered since that God's more near and immediate imparting himself to the Soul that is prepared for that happiness by Divine Love Humility and Resignation in the way of a vital Touch and Sense is a thing possible in it self and will be a great part of our Heaven That Glory is begun in Grace and God is pleased to give some excellent Souls the happy Ante-past That Holy Men in ancient Times have sought and gloried in this Injoyment and never complain so sorely as when it was with-held and interrupted That the Expressions of Scripture run infinitely this way and the best of Modern good Men do from their own experience attest it That this spiritualizeth Religion and renders its Injoyments more comfortable and delicious That it keeps the Soulunder a vivid Sense of God and is a grand security against Temptation That it holds it steady amid the Flatteries of a Prosperous State and gives it the most grounded Anchorage and support amid the Waves of an adverse Condition That 't is the noblest incouragement to vertue and the biggest assurance of an happy Immortality I say I considered these weighty things and wondred at the carelesness and prejudice of Thoughts that occasion'd my suspecting the reality of so glorious a Privilege I saw how little reason there is in denying Matters of inward Sense because our selves do not feel them or cannot form an apprehension of them in our Minds I am convinced that things of gust and relish must be judg'd by the sentient and vital Faculties and not by the noetical Exercises of speculative Understandings And upon the whole I believe infinitely that the Divine Spirit affords its sensible Presence and immediate Beatihck Touch to some rare Souls who are divested of carnal Self and mundane Pleasures abstracted from the Body by Prayer and Holy Meditation spiritual in their Desires and calm in their Affections devout Lovers of God and Vertue and tenderly affectionate to all the World sincere in their Aims and circumspect in their Actions inlarged in their Souls and clear in their Minds These I think are the dispositions that are requisite to fit us for Divine Communion and God transacts not in this near way but with prepared Spirits who are thus disposed for the manifestation of his Presence and his Influence And such I believe he never fails to bless with these happy foretasts of Glory But for those that are Passionate and Conceited Turbulent and Notional Confident and Immodest Imperious and Malicious That doat upon Trifles and run fiercely in the ways of a Sect that are lifted up in the apprehension of the glorious Prerogatives of themselves and their Party and scorn all the World besides For such I say be their Pretensions what they will to Divine Communion Illapses and Discoveries I believe them not Their Fancies abuse them or they would us For what Communion hath Light with Darkness or the Spirit of the Holy One with those
God and had eminently his Superscription on them shall be ascribed to the Agency of Evil Spirits and Diabolical Compact as they were by the malicious and spightful Pharisees when those great and last Testimonies against Infidelity shall be said to be but the Tricks of Sorcery and Complotment with Hellish Confederates This is Blasphemy in the highest against the Power and Spirit of God and such as cuts of all means of Conviction and puts the Unbeliever beyond all possibilities of Cure For Miracles are God's Seal and the great and last Evidence of the truth of any Doctrine And though while these are only dis-believed as to the Fact there remains a possibility of Perswasion yet when the Fact shall be acknowledg'd but the Power Blasphemed and the Effects of the Adorable Spirit maliciously imputed to the Devils such a Blasphemy such an Infidelity is incurable and consequently unpardonable I say in sum the Sin against the Holy Ghost seems to be a malicious imputation of the Miracles wrought by the Spirit of God in our Saviour to Satanical Confederacy and the Power of Apostate Spirits Then which nothing is more blasphemous and nothing is more like to provoke the Holy Spirit that is so abused to an Eternal Dereliction of so Vile and so Incurable an Unbeliever This account as 't is clear and reasonable in it self so it is plainly lodg'd in the mention'd Discourse of our Saviour And most of those that speak other things about it seem to me to talk at random and perfectly without Book I Have thus endeavoured to remove the Main Prejudices against the belief of Witches and Apparitions and I 'me sure I have suggested much more against what I defend than ever I heard or saw in any that opposed it whose Discourses for the most part have seemed to me inspired by a lofty scorn of common belief and some trivial Notions of Vulgar Philosophy And in despising the Common Faith about Matters of Fact and fondly adhering to it in things of Speculation they very grosly and absurdly mistake For in things of Fact the People are as much to be believ'd as the most subtile Philosophers and Speculators since here Sense is the Judge But in Matters of Notion and Theory They are not at all to be heeded because Reason is to be Judge of these and this they know not how to use And yet thus it is with those wise Philosophers that will deny the plain Evidence of the Senses of Mankind because they cannot reconcile Appearances to the fond Fancies of a Philosophy which they lighted on in the High-way by Chance and will adhere to at adventure So that I profess for mine own part I never yet heard any of the confident Declaimers against Witchcraft and Apparitions speak any thing that might move a Mind in any degree instructed in the generous kinds of Philosophy and Nature of things And for the Objections I have recited they are most of them such as rose out of mine own Thoughts which I obliged to consider what might be to be said upon this occasion For though I have examined Scot's Discovery sancying that there I should find the strong Reasons of Mens dis-belief in this Matter Yet I met not with any thing in that Farrago that was considerable For the Author doth little but tell odd Tales and silly Legends which he confutes and laughs at and pretends this to be a Confuration of the Being of Witches and Apparitions In all which His Reasonings are Trifling and Childish and when He ventures at Philosophy He is little better than absurd So that I should wonder much if any but Boys and Buffoons should imbibe Prejudices against a Belief so infinitely confirmed from the loose and impotent Suggestions of so weak a Discourser But however observing two things in that Discourse that would pretend to be more than ordinary Reasons I shall do them the civility to examine them It is said 1. THat the Gospel is silent as to the Being of Witches and 't is not likely if there were such but that our Saviour or his Apostles had given intimations of their Existence The other is 2. MIracles are ceased and therefore the prodigious things ascribed to Witchcraft are supposed Dreams and Impostures For Answer to the First in order I consider 1. That though the History of the New Testament were granted to be silent in the Business of Witches and Compacts yet the Records of the Old have a frequent mention of them The Law Euod 22. 18. against permitting them to live is famous And we have another remarkable prohibition of them Deut. 18. 10. 11. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his Son or his Daughter pass through the Fire or that useth Divination or an Observer of Times or an Enchanter or 〈◊〉 Witch or a Charmer or a Consulter with Familiar Spirits or a Wizard or a Necromaneer Now this accumulation of Names some of which are of the same sense and import is a plain indication that the Hebrew Witch was one that practised by compact with evil Spirits And many of the same Expressions are put together in the Charge against Manasses 2 Chron. 33. viz. That he caused his Children to pass through the Fire observed Times used Inchantments and Witchcraft and dealt with Familiar Spirits and with Wizards So that though the Original word which we render Witch and Witchcraft should as our Sadduces urge signifie only a Cheat and a Poisoner yet those others mention'd plainly enough speak the thing and I have given an account in the former Considerations how a Witch in the common Notion is a Poisoner But why meer poisoning should have a distinct Law against it and not be concluded under the general one against Murder why meer Legerdemain and Cheating should be so severely animadverted on as to be reckon'd with Inchantments converse with Devils and Idolatrous Practices I believe the denyer of Witches will find it hard to give a reason To which I may add some other Passages of Scripture that yield sufficient evidence in the Case The Nations are forbid to hearken to the Diviners Dreamers Inchanters and Sorcerers Jer. 27. 9. The Chaldaeans are deeply threatned for their Sorceries and Inchantments Isa. 47.9 And we read that Nebuchadnezzar called the Magicians Astrologers Sorcerers and Chaldaeans to tell his Dream My mention of which last minds me to say that for ought I have to the contrary there may be a sort of Witches and Magicians that have no Familiars that they know nor any express Compact with Apostate Spirits who yet may perhaps act strange things by Diabolick Aids which they procure by the use of those Forms and wicked Arts that the Devil did first impart to his Confederates And we know not but the Laws of that Dark Kingdom may injoyn a particular attendance upon all those that practise their Mysteries whether they know them to be theirs or not For a great interest of their Empire may be served
at large by such Hellish Covenants and Combinations since thereby they confirm and harden their Hearts against God and put themselves at greater distance from his Grace and his Spirit give the deepest Wound to Conscience and resolve to wink against all its Light and Convictions throw a Bar in the way of their own Repentance and lay a Train for Despair of Mercy These certainly are sure ways of being undone and the Devil we see hath great Interest in a Project the success of which is so attended And we know he made the Assault de facto upon our Saviour when he tempted him to fall down and worship So that this Learned Author hath but little Reason to object 3. That to endeavour such an express Covenant is contrary to the Interests of Hell which indeed are this way so mightily promoted And whereas he suggests that a thing so horrid is like to startle Conscience and awaken the Soul to Consideration and Repentance I Reply That indeed considering Man in the general as a Rational Creature acted by Hopes and Fears and sensible of the Joys and Miseries of another World one would expect it should be so But then if we cast our Eyes upon Man as really he is sunk into Flesh and present Sense darkned in his Mind and governed by his Imagination blinded by his Passions and besotted by Sin and Folly hardned by evil Customs and hurried away by the Torrent of his Inclinations and Desires I say looking on Man in this miserable state of Evil 't is not incredible that he should be prevailed upon by the Tempter and his own Lusts to act at a wonderful rate of Madness and continue unconcerned and stupid in it intent upon his present Satisfactions without sense or consideration of the dreadfulness and danger of his Condition and by this I am furnished also to meet a fourth Objection of our Author's viz. 4. That 't is not probable upon the Witches part that they will be so desperate to renounce God and eternal Happiness and so everlastingly undo their Bodies and Souls for a short and trivial Interest which way of arguing will only infer That Mankind acts sometimes at prodigious degrees of brutishness and actually we see it in the Instances of every day There is not a Lust so base and so contemptible but there are those continually in our Eyes that feed it with the Sacrifice of their Eternity and their Souls and daring Sinners rush upon the blackest Vilanies with so little remorse or sense as if it were their design to prove that they have nothing left them of that whereby they are Men. So that nought can be inferr'd from this Argument but that Humane Nature is incredibly degenerate and the vileness and stupidity of Men is really so great that things are customary and common which one could not think possible if he did not hourly see them And if Men of Liberal Education and Acute Reason that know their Duty and their Danger are driven by their Appetites with their Eyes open upon the most fatal Rocks and make all the haste they can from their God and their Happiness If such can barter their Souls for Trifles and sell Everlasting for a Moment sport upon the brink of a Precipice and contemn all the Terrors of the future dreadful day why should it then be incredible that a brutish vile Person sotted with Ignorance and drunk with Malice mindless of God and unconcerned about a future Being should be perswaded to accept of present delightful Gratifications without duly weighing the desperate Condition Thus I suppose I have answered also the Arguments of this Great Man against the Covenants of Witches and since a Person of such Sagacity and Learning hath no more to say against what I defend and another of the same Character the ingenious Dr. Parker who directed me to him reckons these the strongest things that can be objected in the Case I begin to arrive to an higher degree of Confidence in this belief and am almost inclined to fancy that there is little more to be said to purpose which may not by the improvement of my Considerations be easily answered and I am yet the more fortified in my Conceit because I have since the former Edition of this Book sent to several Acute and Ingenious Persons of my Acquaintance to beg their Objections or those they have heard from others against my Discourse or Relations that I might consider them in this But I can procure none save only those few I have now discuss'd most of my Friends telling me That they have not met with any that need or deserve my notice By all this it is evident that there were Witches in Ancient Times under the Dispensation of the Law and that there were such in the Times of the Gospel also will not be much more difficult to make good I had a late occasion to say something about this in a Letter to a Person of the highest Honour from which I shall now borrow some things to my present purpose I Say then II. That there were Compacts with Evil Spirits in those times also is me-thinks intimated strongly in that saying of the Jews concerning our Saviour That he cast out Devils by Beelzebub In his return to which he denies not the Supposition or possibility of the thing in general but clears himself by an appeal to the Actions of their own Children whom they would not tax so severely And I cannot very well understand why those times should be priviledg'd from Witchcraft and Diabolical Compacts more than they were from Possessions which we know were then more frequent for ought appears to the contrary than ever they were before or since But besides this There are Intimations plain enough in the Apostle's Writings of the Being of Sorcery and Witchcraft St. Paul reckons Witchcraft next Idolatry in his Catalogue of the Works of the Flesh Gal. 5. 20. and the Sorcerers are again joyn'd with Idolaters in that sad Denunciation Rev. 21. 8. And a little after Rev. 22. 15. they are reckon'd again among Idolaters Murderers and those others that are without And me-thinks the Story of Sâ—…non Magus and his Diabolical Oppositions of the Gospel in its beginnings should afford clear Conviction To all which I add this more general Consideration 3. That though the New Testament had mention'd nothing of this Matter yet its silence in such Cases is not Argumentative Our Saviour spake as he had occasion and the thousandth part of what he did or said is not Recorded as one of his Historians intimates He said nothing of those large unknown Tracts of America nor gave any intimations of as much as the Existence of that Numerous People much less did he leave Instructions about their Conversion He gives no account of the Affairs and State of the other World but only that general one of the Happiness of some and the Misery of others He made no discovery of the Magnalia of Art or Nature no
But these things were common to them All hated the former Constitutions All cried up their own Clan as the only Saints and People of God All vilified Reason as Carnal and Incompetent and an Enemy to the things of the Spirit All had confident false and perverse Notions of the Divine Attributes and Counsels All decry'd Vertue and Morality as a dull thing that was nothing in the account of God All fill'd their Discourses with the words of Light Faith Grace the Spirit and all talk'd in set Phrases phancifully and ignorantly about them All pretended to great Heights in Knowledge though that consisted in nothing but an ability to repeat those Phrases of their Sect like Parrots All talk'd of their extraordinary communion with God their special Experiences Illuminations and Discoveries and accordingly all demean'd themselves with much sawciness and irreverence towards God and contempt of those that were not of the same phantastical Fashion All were zealous in their proper set of Doctrines and Opinions and all bitterly oppos'd and vilified every different Judgment These are some of the main things that made up the common Nature of the Parties In particulars as I have said they were infinitely at variance While things were in this condition some of our Missionaries in Forreign Parts returned and among the other Books and Rarities from the World they brought the Works of some of your Episcopal Divines and other Learned Men particularly those of Hammondus Taylorus Grotius c. Such of them that were written in English they translated into Latin the rather because they judg'd those Discourses very seasonable and proper to obviate the Evil Genius of the unhappy Age. As soon as they came abroad in the general Language they were read by the sober sort of our Divines with great approbation and acceptance and from them they had Light and Advantage for the detecting the Follies and Extravagancies of the Times For my part I was then a Student in the University and therefore shall chuse to relate what effect those Writings had there and particularly upon divers of my mine own Acquaintance who are now very considerable in this Church and have done great Service in it It was one Advantage that the Young Academians had from that unhappy Season that they were stirr'd up by the general Fermentation that was then in Mens Thoughts and the vast variety that was in their Opinions to a great activity in the search of sober Principles and Rules of Life I shall not undertake to describe the Spirit and Temper of all the Theologues and Students of those Times but shall give you an account of some that I knew who have been very useful to the Church in confuting and exposing the Fanatical Principles and Genius and who derived much of their Spirit and Doctrines from those excellent Authors of your Country Here I told the Governor that things had been lately also in our parts much after the manner he had described the Condition of theirs and that therefore I was very desirous to know by what Ways and Doctrines the People were reduced to a better temper I said also that I had relation to one of our Universities and on that account likewise was sollicitous to understand how those Academical Divines were formed and what they did when they came abroad He answer'd that he was ready to gratifie my desires but then said he I would not have you think that I magnifie the Persons I shall describe to you or their Learning and Performances above all our other Clergy No thanks be to God we have numbers of Excellent Men famous for their Piety Learning and Usefulness in the Church of whom by reason of my distance and constant Imployments in this place I have no personal knowledge and therefore I choose to speak only of those that were bred in the University about mine own Time and the rather that you may observe the Providence of God in raising Men so serviceable to his Church in the very worst of Days Having premis'd which he fell immediately to an account of their Preparations in the University and thence to a Relation of their Performances after Of the former he spoke thus THose Divines of whom I have undertaken to say something went through the usual course of Studies in the University with much applause and success But did not think themselves perfect as soon as they were acquainted with the knowledge contain'd in Systems No they past from those Institutions to converse with the most Ancient and Original Authors in all sorts of profitable Learning They begun at the top with the Philosophers of the Eldest Times that were before the days of Aristotle They perused the Histories of their Lives and Doctrines and then read all the remains of them that are extant They consider'd their Principles only as Hypotheseis with Minds free and untainted They studied them to know the several Scheams of their Opinions without passing Judgments yet upon their Truth or Falshood They read Plato and convers'd much with that Divine Philosopher They acquainted themselves with Aristotle his great Scholar and by his Original Writings they found how much he had been misrepresented and abused by his Commentators especially by those of later Times and saw how different a thing Aristotelian Philosophy was in his own Works from that which they had met in compendiums and the Disputing Books that pretended to it They made themselves intimate with Plutarch and Cicero And dealt much with the other chief Writers both Greeks and Romans By which means they were well instructed in the History of Philosophy and the various Thoughts and Opinions of the greatest Men among the Ancients But yet notwithstanding this Conversation with those Sages They were not so pedantically and superstitiously fond of Antiquity as to sit down there in contempt of all later Helps and Advancements They were sensible That Knowledge was still imperfect and capable of further growth and therefore they looked forward into the Moderns also who about their time had imployed themselves in discovering the Defects of the Ancients in reviving some of their neglected Doctrines and advancing them by new Thoughts and Conceptions They read and consider'd all sorts of late Improvements in Anatomy Mathematicks Natural History and Mechanicks and acquainted themselves with the Experimental Philosophy of Solomon's House and the other Promoters of it So that there was not any valuable Discovery made or Notion started in any part of Real Learning but they got considerable knowledge of it And by this Vniversal way of proceeding They furnish'd their Minds with great variety of Conceptions and rendred themselves more capable of judging of the Truth or likelyhood of any propos'd Hypothesis Nor did they content themselves with Reading and the knowledge of Books but join'd Contemplation and much thoughtfulness with it They exercised their Minds upon what they read They consider'd compar'd and inferr'd They had the felicity of clear and distinct thinking and had large compass
to dissenters and prevent all vehemencies of captious dispute all schisms and unnecessary separations and many Wars and Persecutions upon the account of Religion For if the things in which Men differ be not Religion be not Faith and Fundamental If this be true and this truth acknowledg'd All these would want pretence and so Peace and Vnity would possess the spirits of Men. They saw that Religion which was shaken by divisions and rendred suspected of uncertainty through the mixture of uncertain things would stand safe and firm when 't was lay'd only upon the plain infallible undoubted propositions That holiness would thrive when Mens zeal was taken off from talking and disputing against others and directed inwards to the government of themselves and the reformation of their own hearts and lives That Papism which in those times of distraction began to spread even here would drop to the ground if it were believed That the necessary principles of Religion were few and plain and those agreed on For then there would be no need of an Infallible Interpreter and Judge I say They were sensible that all the great Interests of Religion and Mankind might be served by the acknowledgment of this one Reasonable Principle which they saw was the only way to bring us to stability and consistence â—…o Peace and Vnion In Consequence of this Spirit and Doctrine they discours'd the things wherein they differ'd from others with mildness and modesty without anger and damning sentences and afforded their converses to all sorts of good Men though they believ'd them mistaken They never exprest rage in their conversations or discourses against bare errours and mistakes of judgment But for the pride and confidence censoriousness and groundless separations that are the frequent attendants of different opinions These sometimes mov'd them to anger and expression of just resentment because they look'd on them as great Immoralities and very pernicious sins And on the occasion of these spiritual vices they were warmed with zeal against the Sectaries and Bigots for the taking down of whose pride and confidence They thought it necessary to detect the Impostors and to expose their vanities which they did successfully and shew'd That their Divinity consisted most in Phrases and their boasted spirituality in fond affections That their new lights were but freakish fancies and old Heresies revived and the precious Mysteries of their Theology but conceited absurdities and non-sense in a fantastick dress They happily drew the parallel between our Separatists and those antient ones the Pharisees and proved that the same spirit acted the Ataxites that govern'd those Jewish Fanaticks And because their pretences were taking and specious and had caught great numbers of the easie well meaning people of Bensalem Therefore to disabuse them they labour'd much to shew the shortness of their kind of Godliness and the danger of placing all Religion in Praying Hearing Zeal Rapture Mysteries and Opinions Accordingly they declar'd and prov'd That 1. Fluency and Pathetick eloquence in suddain Prayer may proceed and doth many time from excited passion and warm imagination from a peculiar temper and heated melancholly That these are no sign that a man prays by the spirit nor do they argue him to be one jot the better then those that want the faculty or any whit the more accepted of God for it That to pray by the spirit is to pray with Faith Desire and Love and that a Man may pray by the spirit and with a Form 2. That people may delight to hear from other causes then conscience and a desire to be directed in the government of their Lives That hearing is very grateful to some because it feeds their opinions and furnisheth their tongues and inables them to make a great shew of extraordinary Saint-ship They represented that meer animal Men and fond lovers of themselves may be much taken with hearing of the Gracious promises and Glorious priviledges of the Gospel when at the same time they are told they are all theirs and theirs peculiarly and exclusively to the rest of Mankind That pride and vanity and self-love will recommend and indear such preaching That it is most luscious to fond and conceited men to hear how much better and more precious they are then their Neighbours how much dearer to God and more favour'd by him what an interest they have in free distinguishing Grace and how very few have a share in it besides themselves How their enemies are hated of God and how sad a condition they are in who differ from them in practices and opinions To doat on such preaching and admiringly to follow such Preachers They shew'd was but to be in love with flattery and self-deceit That it was no sign of Godliness but an evident argument of pride malice and immoderate selfishness That these are the true causes of the zeal and earnestness of many after Sermons and of the pleasure that they have in hearing though they would perswade others and believe themselves that the love of Religion and sence of duty are the only motives that prevail with them 3. Concerning zeal They taught That zeal in it self is indifferent and made good or bad as it's objects and incentives are That meer education and custom natural conscience and particular complexion do sometimes make Men very zealous about things of Religion That though the fervours of the Ataxites for their Doctrines and ways were not all feigned but real and sincere Yet their zeal was nothing worth being but meer natural passion kindled by a fond delight in their own self chosen practices and opinions That their coldness to the great known necessary duties of Justice Charity Obedience Modesty and Humility was an evident sign that their heat for pretended Orthodox tenents and modes of worship had nothing Divine in it That true zeal begins at home with self-reformation and that where it was imployed altogether about amendments of external Religion and publick Government it was pernicious not only to the World but to a Mans self also 4. And because the heights of zeal ran up sometimes into raptures and exstacies which were look'd on as wonderful appearances of God in the thus transported persons Therefore here also They undeceived the people as I said in the general before by shewing That these alienations may be caused naturally by the power of a strong fancy working upon violent affections That they together may and do oft produce deliquiums of sense That the Imagination working then freely and without contradiction or disturbance from the external senses and being wholly imploy'd about Religious matters may form to it self strange Images of extraordinary apparitions of God and Angels of Voices and Revelations which being forcibly imprest on the fancy may beget a firm belief in the exstaticall person that all these were divine manifestations and discoveries and so he confidently thinks himself a Prophet and an inspired Man and vents all his conceits for Seraphick truths and holy Mysteries And by the vehemency
they manag'd their Rebukes of these self-condemn'd men with much judgment and wit without any thing of fierceness or scurrility They shew'd them the Immorality of their spirit and it's contradictions and antipathy to the genius and temper of the Gospel and urged That though they hated debauchery and some gross Carnal sins as the Pharisees did the Publicans Yet they were given up to many other sorts of wickedness to spiritual Pride Malice Envy Avarice Stubbornness Disingenuity and Disobedience That they harbour'd and kept warm these under their pretences of Christs Righteousness and their specious forms of Godliness That though they were always confessing sin in the general with much seeming remorce and trouble of spirit yet they seldom or never made acknowledgements of these That though they lov'd to hear the sins of Drunkenness and Prophaneness vehemently declaim'd against Yet they could not endure to have these throughly detected and reprov'd That even their own Teachers durst not touch here and that when others did it though without naming parties or pointing out persons they call'd it Railing and Persecution and made no other use of those just rebukes That though they shew'd great seeming tenderness of Conscience in other smaller matters of Mint Annise and Cummin Yet they seldom appear'd sensible or troubl'd at their transgressions in those greater matters of the Law ANd because these people were always making complaints and sad moâ—…ns of their sins without endeavouring to amend Those Divines represented to them that such complaints were but forms and a fashion that they followed That sad looks and whinings were but a shew of Humility and Repentance That if they were sensible of their sins indeed they would use the Grace of God to overcome them till at last they arriv'd at victory and not still continue in a state of whimpering and complaining That these men cousened themselves into a false opinion of their penitence and were perswaded that this was enough without conquest and true reformation of heart and life that their remaining sins were but infirmities and the spots of Gods children which were covered with Christs Righteousness and not seen in the Elect By which they deluded themselves into dangerous presumption and security These our Divines endeavour'd to destroy and to pluck away the fig-leaves of all their false and imperfect marks of Godliness and shew'd that their usual complaints were but like the noise of Parrots without an inward sence That when men were only sensible and sorry they were yet but under the Law and a state of bondage That the Gospel aims at Liberty and Victory and that we are but just entred and are yet very imperfect till we have attain'd some considerable measure of that That the great mark of sincerity is to be proceeding and going forwards and towards the conquest of sinful habits and inclinations That we are not to look on these as failings and infirmities and so sit down contented with some tears and customary confessions under the power of them That Infirmities are but single acts and such too as have not the will in them That God hath afforded us sufficiency of means and helps enough to subdue all the evils of our natures and that if we neglect to use those aids and live at rest under any sinful appetites and passions we are Hypocrites and our boasted Faith and spiritualities will signify nothing to us HEre the Governour made a little stop and then said I have run over these things as they offer'd themselves to my mind I might have set them in a better order and have added many other particulars but as to method there is no great need of curiosity in it in such a relation By the things I have told you you may gather what was the Genius of those Divines in many others which for brevity I omit I said that though one might collect the opinion of many matters more by what he had been pleas'd to represent to me yet there were two things which I had a desire to be informed in further viz. Their Notion of Free Grace and Justification by Faith Their Doctrines about these answer'd He might in great part be gather'd from some of those principles I have mention'd but however I shall gratify you with a short account of them For Free Grace it was ever in the mouths of the Ataxites and they seem'd to be transported and ravish'd in the admiration of it But their notion was very perverse and false For they made it an arbitrary kindness bestow'd upon some very few persons for no reason in the world Not for the sake of any vertue or divine qualifications but only for meer uncountable will and pleasure And said That God from this Free Grace as they call'd it chang'd the hearts of the Elect by an immediate irresistible power and created Faith and other Graces in them in the same way of omnipotent operation Against these dangerous conceits they taught That God loves Vertue and Holiness and is no fond Respecter of Persons That those are the proper objects of his special kindness That there was a general Grace which had appear'd unto all men in the light of Reason the Laws written upon our hearts and common aids of the Spirit That it's freedom consisted in it's universal diffusion through the world without let or impediment and in the spontaneity of it This said he may seem somewhat a hard word but I have no plainer to express the fulness of my sense by and I never use a difficult term when the thing can be spoke as well in one that is more easie and familiar I answer'd that I understood it very well and that he meant that Gods Grace was willing and unforc'd flowing from the benignity of his nature still communicating it self to all Subjects that were capable You apprehend me right continued the Governour and thus he hath imparted himself to all Mankind But then added He There is a Grace more special that concerns Christians only without us the declaration of the Gospel and within us those divine vertues that are wrought by them and therefore call'd Graces He said The Gospel perswadeth without force and God works upon us by it in a way proper and sutable to reasonable Creatures by our Reasons and our Interests by our Hopes and our Fears assisting all good desires and endeavours by the operation of his holy Spirit This said he acts as a General Cause according to the dissposition of the Subject our endeavours would be weak and fruitless without it And yet It never works alone by meer omnipotence without our endeavours They operate in conjunction as the Sun and moysture of the earth and seminal principles do in the production of Plants and Flowers each cause doing what is proper to it The Dictates of the Spirit are contain'd in the Gospel and the Spirit enlightneth and teacheth by that And so he came to the great Doctrine of Justification by Faith Here he call'd to my mind
Religion upon it self But that better use may be made of it and by some is will appear by considering particularly how acquaintance with Nature assists RELIGION against its greatest Enemies which are Atheism Sadducism Superstition Enthusiasm and the Humour of Disputing FOr the First Atheism I reckon thus The deeper insight any Man hath into the Affairs of Nature the more he discovers of the accurateness and Art that is in the contexture of things For the Works of God are not like the compositions of Fancy or the Tricks of Juglers that will not bear a clear light or strict scrutiny but their exactness receives advantage from the severest inspection and he admires most that knows most since the insides and remotest recesses of things have the clearest stamps of inimitable Wisdom on them and the Artifice is more in the Wheel-work than in the Case For if we look upon any of the Works of Nature through a Magnifying Glass that makes deep Discoveries we find still more beauty and more uniformity of contrivance whereas if we survey the most curious piece of humane ingenuity by that Glass it will discover to us numerous Flaws Deformities and Imperfections in our most Elegant Mechanicks Hence I gather That the study of God's Works shewing us more of the riches of Nature opens thereby a fairer Prospect of those Treasures of Wisdom that are lodged within it and so furnisheth us with deeper Senses and more Arguments and clearer Convictions of the existence of an infinitely intelligent Being that contrived it in so harmonious and astonishing an order So that if any are so brutish as not to acknowledge him upon the view of the meer external frame of the Universe they must yet fall down before the evidence when Philosophy hath opened the Cabinet and led them into the Jewel-bouse and shewn them the surprizing variety that is there Thus though the obvious Firmament and the motions of the Sun and Stars the ordinary vicissitudes of Seasons and productions of things the visible beauty of the great World and the appearing variety and fitness of those Parts that make up the little one in Man could scarce secure Galen from the danger of being an Atheist Yet when he pryed further by Anatomical Enquiries and saw the wonderful diversity aptness and order of the minutest Strings Pipes and Passages that are in the inward Fabrick He could not abstain from the devoutness of an Anthem of Acknowledgment And that the real knowledge of Nature leads us by the hand to the confession of its Author is taught us by the Holy Pen-man who suggests that the visible things of the Creation declare him The Plebeian and obvious World no doubt doth but the Philosophical much more So that whosoever saith that inquiry into Nature and God's Works leads to any degree of Atheism gives great ground of suspicion that himself is an Atheist or that he is that other thing that the Royal Psalmist calls him that saith in his heart there is no God For either he acknowledgeth the Art and exactness of the Works of Nature or he doth not if not he disparageth the Divine Architect and disables the chief Argument of his existence If he doth and yet affirms that the knowledge of it leads to Atheism he saith he knows not what and in effect this That the sight of the order and method of a regular and beautiful contrivance tends to perswade that Chance and Fortune was the Author But I remember I have discours'd of this elsewhere and what I have said for Philosophy in general from its tendency to devout Acknowledgments is not so true of any as of the Experimental and Mechanick For the Physiology of the modern Peripatetick Schools creates Notions and turns Nature into words of second Intention but discovers little of its real beauty and harmonious contrivance so that God hath no glory from it nor Men any Argument of his Wisdom or Existence And for the Metaphysical Proofs they are for the most part deep and nice subject to Evasions and turns of Wit and not so generally perswasive as those drawn from the plain and sensible Topicks which the Experimental Philosophy inlargeth and illustrates This then gives the greatest and fullest assurance of the Being of God and acquaintance with this kind of Learning furnisheth us with the best Weapons to defend it For the modern Atheists are pretenders to the Mechanick Principles viz. those of meer Matter and Motion and their pretensions cannot be shamed or defeated by any so well as by those who throughly understand that wild Systeme of Opinions These indeed perceive that there is only Nature in some things that are taken to be supernatural and miraculous and the shallow Naturalist sees no further and therefore rests in Nature But the true Philosopher shews the vanity and unreasonableness of taking up so short and discovers infinite Wisdom at the end of the Chain of Causes I say If we know no further than occult Qualities Elements Heavenly Influences and Forms we shall never be able to disprove a Mechanick Atheist but the more we understand of the Laws of Matter and Motion the more shall we discern the necessity of a wise mind to order the blind and insensible Matter and to direct the original Motions without the conduct of which the Vniverse could have been nothing but a mighty Chaos and mishapen Mass of everlasting Confusions and Disorders This of the FIRST viz. That the knowledge of Nature serves Religion against Atheism and that it doth also II. AGainst Sadducism 'T is well known that the Sadduces denyed the existence of Spirits and Immortality of Souls And the Heresie is sadly reviv'd in our days 1. What a Spirit is and whether there be Spirits or not are questions that appertain to the disquisition of Philosophy The Holy Scripture that condescends to the plain capacities of Men useth the word Spirit commonly for the more subtile and invisible Bodies and 't will be difficult from thence to fetch a demonstrative proof of Spirits in the strict Notion That there are Angels and Souls which are purer than these gross Bodies may no doubt be concluded from thence But whether these are only a finer sort of Matter or a different kind of Beings cannot I think be determin'd by any thing deliver'd in the Divine Oracles The Inquiry therefore belongs to Philosophy which from divers Operations in our own Souls concludes That there is a sort of Beings which are not Matter or Body viz. Beings self-motive penetrable and indivisible Attributes directly contrary to those of Matter which is impenetrable divisible and void of Self-motion By these Properties respectively the distinct nature of Spirit and Body is known and by the same that there are Spirits in the strictest sence as well as corporeal Beings Now by stating the Nature and proving the Existence of Spirits a very considerable service is done to Religion For hereby our Notion of the adorable Deity is freed from all material grosness
in which way those must conceive him that acknowledge nothing but Body in the World which certainly is a very great dis-interest to his Glory and suggests very unbecoming thoughts of him And by the due setling the Notion of a Spirit the conceit of the Soul 's Traduction is overthrown which either ariseth from direct Sadducism or a defect in Philosophy Hereby our Immortality is undermined and dangerously exposed But due Philosophical Disquisition will set us right in the Theory For the former of the Errors mention'd viz. the Aâ—…hropomorphite Doctrines that make God himself a corporeal Substance Those cannot be disproved but by the Use and Application of the Principles of Philosophy Since let us bring what Arguments we can from the Scriptures which speak of the Perfection Infinity Immensity Wisdom and other Attributes of God These no doubt will be granted but the Query will be Whether all may not belong to a material Being a question which Philosophy resolves and there is no other way to search deep into this Matter but by those Aids So likewise as to the Traduction of the Soul The Arguments from Scripture against it are very general yea many expressions we find there seem at first sight to look that way And therefore this other help Philosophy must be used here also and by the distinct representation which it gives of the Nature of Sprit and Matter and of the Operations that appertain to each this Error is effectually confuted which it cannot be by any other proceeding Thus Philosophy befriends us against Sadducism in the first Branch of it as it explodes the being of Spirits 2. The other is the denyal of the Immortality of our Souls The establishment of this likewise the Students of Philosophy and God's Works have attempted in all Ages and they have prov'd it by the Philosophical considerations of the nature of Sense the quickness of Imagination the spirituality of the Vnderstanding the freedom of the Will from these they infer that the Soul is immaterial and from thence that it is immortal which Arguments are some of the most demonstrative and cogent that the meer reasons of Men can use but cannot be manag'd nor understood but by those that are instructed in Philosophy and Nature I confess there are other Demonstrations of our Immortality for the plain Understandings that cannot reach those Heights The Scripture gives clear evidence and that of the Resurrection of the Holy Jesus is palpable But yet the Philosophical Proofs are of great use and serve for the conviction of the Infidel to whom the other inducements are nothing and the deeper knowledge of things is necessary to defend this great Article of Religion against such Men since they alledge a sort of Arguments to prove the Soul to be mortal that cannot be consuted but by a reason instructed in the Observations of Nature For the Modern Sadduce pretends that all things we do are performed by meer Matter and Motion and consequently that there is no such thing as an immaterial Being so that when our Bodies are dissolv'd the whole Man is destroyed and lost for ever which dismal conclusion is true and certain if there be nothing in us but Matter and the results of Motion and those that converse but little with Nature understand little what may be done by these and so cannot be so well assured that the Elevations Mixtures and Combinations of them cannot be at last improv'd so far as to make a sensible reasoning Being nor are they well able to disprove one that affirms that they are actually advanc'd to that height whereas he that hath much inquired into the Works of God and Nature gains a clear sight of what Matter can perform and gets more and stronger Arguments to convince him that its Modifications and Changes cannot amount to perception and sense since in all its Varieties and highest Exaltations he finds no Specimens of such Powers And though I confess that all Mechanick Inquirers make not this use of their Inquisitions and Discoveries yet that is not the fault of the Method but of the Men and those that have gone furthest in that way have receded most from the Sadducean Doctrines Among such I suppose I may be allowed to reckon the Noble Renatus Des-Cartes And his Metaphysicks and Notions of Immaterial Beings are removed to the greatest distance from all Corporeal Affections which I mention not to declare or signifie my adherence to those Principles but for an Instance to shew that acquaintance with Matter and the knowledge of its Operations removes the Mind far off from the belief of those high Effects which some ascribe to Corporeal Motions and from all suppositions of the Soul 's being bodily and material Thus Philosophy is an excellent Antidote against Sadducism in both the Main Branches of it But then I must confess also that the Philosophy of the late Peripatetick Writers doth rather assist than overthrow this dangerous Infidelity I mean in what it teacheth concerning Substantial Forms which I fear tends to the disabling all Philosophical Evidence of the Immortality of Humane Souls For these Peripateticks make their Forms a kind of medium between Body and Spirit viz. Beings that are educed as they speak out of Matter and are so dependent on it that they perish utterly or return into the bosom of the Matter as some cant when they cease to inform it But yet they allow not that those Forms are material in their essential Constitution and Nature This is the Peripatetick account of substantial Forms and such they assign to all Bodies and teach That the noblest sort of them are sensitive and perceptive which are the Souls of Brutes If this be so that Beings which are not Spirits but corruptible dependants upon Matter may be endowed with Animadversion and Sense what Arguments have we then to shew that they may not have Reason also which is but an Improvement and higher degree of simple Perception 'T is as hard to be apprehended how any of the results of Matter should perceive as how they should join their Perceptions into Reasonings and the same Propositions that prove the possibility of one prove both so that those who affirm that Beasts also have their degrees of true Reason speak very consonantly to those Principles And if such material corruptible Forms as the Peripateticks describe are sufficient for all the Actions and Perceptions of Beasts I know not which way to go about to demonstrate that a more elevated sort of them may not suffice for the reasonings of Men. To urge the Topicks of Proof I mention'd from Notions Compositions Deductions and the like which are alledged to prove our Souls Immaterial I say to plead these will signifie nothing but this That Humane Souls are no portions of Matter nor corporeal in their formal Essence But how will they evince that they are not educed from it that they depend not on Matter and shall not perish when their respective Bodies are dissolved Certainly
say if such a One as this should prove a Diabolical Impostor and Providence should permit him to be so credited and acknowledged What possibility were there then for us to be assured that we are not always deceived yea that our very Faculties were not given us only to delude and abuse us And if so the next Conclusion is That there is no God that judgeth in the Earth and the best and most likely Hypothesis will be That the World is given up to the Government of the Devil But if there be a Providence that superviseth us as nothing is more certain doubtless it will never suffer poor helpless Creatures to be inevitably deceived by the craft and subtilty of their mischievous Enemy to their undoing but will without question take such care that the Works wrought by Divine Power for the confirmation of Divine Truth shall have such visible Marks and Signatures if not in their Nature yet in their Circumstances Ends and Designs as shall discover whence they are and sufficiently distinguish them from all Impostures and Delusions And though wicked Spirits may perform some strange things that may excite wonder for a while yet He hath and will so provide that they shall be basfled and discredited as we know it was in the Case of Moses and the Aegyptian Magicians These things I count sufficient to be said to this last and shrewdest Objection Though some I understand except that I have made it stronger than the Answer I have applyed That I have urged the Argument of Unbelievers home and represented it in its full strength I suppose can be no matter of just reproof For to triumph over the weakness of a Cause and to over-look its strength is the trick of shallow and interessed Disputers and the worst way to defend a Good Cause or confute a Bad One. I have therefore all along urged the most cogent Things I could think of for the Interest of the Objectors because I would not impose upon my Reader or my self and the stronger I make their Premises the more shall I weaken their Conclusion if I answer them which whether I have done or not I refer my self to the Judgments of the Ingenious and Considerate from whom I should be very glad to be informed in what particular Points my Discourse is defective General Charges are no Proofs nor are they easily capable of an Answer Yet to the mention'd Exception I say That the strength of the Objection is not my fault for the Reasons alledg'd and for the supposed incompetency of my return I propose that if the Circumstances of the Persons Ends and Issues be the best Notes of Distinction between true Miracles and Forgeries Divine and Diabolical Ones I have then said enough to secure the Miracles of our Saviour and the Holy Men of Ancient Times But if these Objectors think they can give us any better or more infallible Criteria I desire them to weigh what I have offer'd about Miracles in some of the following Leaves before they enter that Thought among their Certainties And if their other Marks of Difference will hold notwithstanding those Allegations I suppose the inquisitive believing World would be glad to know them and I shall have particular Obligations to the Discoverer for the strength with which he will thereby assist my Answer But till I see that I can say nothing stronger or if I saw it which I shall not in haste expect I should not be convinced but that the Circumstances of Difference which I have noted are abundantly sufficient to disarm the Objection and to shew that though Apparitions Witchcraft and Diabolical Wonders are admitted yet none of these can fasten any Sluâ—… or ground of dangerous Doubt upon the miraculous performances of the H. Jesus and his Apostles If the dissatisfied can shew it I shall yeeld my self an humble Proselite to their Reasons but till I know them the General Suggestion will not convince me Now besides what I have directly said to the Main Objection I have this to add to the Objectors That I could wish they would take care of such Suggestions which if they overthrow not the Opinion they oppose will dangerously affront the Religion they would seem to acknowledge For he that saith That if there are Witches there is no way to prove that Christ Jesus was not a Magician and Diabolical Impostor puts a deadly Weapon into the hands of the Infidel and is himself next door to the Sin against the Holy Ghost of which in order to the perswading greater tenderness and caution in such Matters I give this short account THe Sin against the Holy Ghost is said to be Unpardonable by which sad Attribute and the Discourse of our Saviour Mat. 12. from the 22 to the 33 Verse we may understand its Nature In order to which we consider That since the Mercies of God and the Merits of his Son are infinite there is nothing can make a Sin unpardonable but what makes it incurable and there is no Sin but what is curable by a strong Faith and a vigorous Endeavour For all things are possible to him that believeth So that That which makes a Sin incurable must be somewhat that makes Faith impossible and obstructs all means of Conviction In order to the finding which we must consider the Ways and Methods the Divine Goodness hath taken for the begetting Faith and cure of Infidelity which it attempted first by the Prophets and Holy Men of Ancient Times who by the excellency of their Doctrine the greatness of their Miracles and the holiness of their Lives endeavoured the Conviction and Reformation of a stubborn and unbelieving World But though few believed their report and Men would not be prevail'd on by what they did or what they said yet their Infidelity was not hitherto incurable because further means were provided in the Ministry of John the Baptist whose Life was more severe whose Doctrines were more plain pressing and particular and therefore 't was possible that He might have succeeded Yea and where He failed and could not open Mens Hearts and Eyes the Effect was still in possibility and it might be expected from Him that came after to whom the Prophets and John were but the Twilight and the Dawn And though His miraculous Birth the Song of Angels the Journey of the Wise Men of the East and the correspondence of Prophesies with the Circumstances of the first appearance of the Wonderful Infant I say though these had not been taken notice of yet was there a further provision made for the cure of Infidelity in his astonishing Wisdom and most excellent Doctrines For He spake as never Man did And when these were despised and neglected yet there were other Means towards Conviction and Cure of Unbelief in those mighty Works that bore Testimony of Him and wore the evident Marks of Divine Power in their Foreheads But when after all These clear and unquestionable Miracles which were wrought by the Spirit of