all which we are seeking after For what any Cause doth by a power received from a higher Cause and consequently ordered by it that is done principally by that first or highest Cause And if God had made the world by an Angel or Intelligence it would have been nevertheless his Creature nor any thing the less to his honour than if he had made it by himself alone § 11. The summ of all is that There is certainly a first uncaused independent Cause of Man and all things else besides that Cause CHAP. V. What this Cause is in it self That it is God § 1. THe first Cause is known to us imperfectly and by the effects Man is so conscious of his ignorance herein and of the perplexities and diversities of opinions which follow thereupon and of the necessity of beginning downward at the effects and rising upward in his enquiry that I need not prove this Proposition to any man § 2. Though God or the first Cause is to be searched after in all his works yet chiefly in the chiefest of them within our reach which is Man himself If any shall say that the Sun and other creatures are more excellent than Man and therefore God or the first Cause is to be searched after rather in them and his Attributes denominated from them I answer There is no doubt but secundum quid the Sun is a nobler Creature than Man But what it is simpliciter we cannot tell unless we knew it better The highest exellencies known to man in the Sun is the Potentia Motiva Illuminativa Calefactiva Motion Light and Heat with their effects do tell us what we know of it That which we are conscious of in Man is Posse Scire Velle Power Intellection and Will with their Perfections which are an higher excellency than Motion Light and Heat § 3. He that giveth Being to all else that is must needs be the first Being formally or eminently Himself Entity must needs be in the noblest sense or sort in the Primum Ens the original of Being rather than in any derived Being whatsoever For it cannot give better than it hath so that Ens or I am is his first Name § 4. He that hath made Substances more noble than Accidents is Himself a Substance either formally or eminently and a Living Substance yea Life it self Once for all by Eminently I mean somewhat more excellent or transcendent which yet Man hath no better Name for or fitter Notion of God is thus a Substance Life transcendently if not formally § 5. He that hath made Intelligences or Spirits or Minds more noble and excellent than Bodies is himself a Mind Intelligence or Spirit either formally or transcendently and eminently We find that corporeal gross and dense Beings are most dull and passive and have least of excellency The Body of it self in comparison of the Mind is a dull and dirty clod Though we have no adequate conception of a Spirit we know not onely Negatively that it containeth a freedom from the baseness and inconveniences of corporeity but also we know by its essential acts that positively it is a pure active Life Intelligence and Will and therefore a more excellent sort of Being than things meerly corporeal which have no such action So that we have found as to his Being that the first Cause is Ens Substantia Vita Spiritus § 6. There must needs be in the first Cause an Esse Posse Operari If there were no Operation there were no Causation If there were no Power there could be no Operation and if there were no Being there could be no Power Not that these are things so various as to make a composition in the first Cause but they are transcendently in it without division and imperfection by a formal or virtual distinction § 7. Seeing the noblest Creatures known to us are Minds that have a Posse Scire Velle active executive Power with an Vnderstanding to guide it and a Will to command it God hath either formally or eminently and transcendently such a Power Intellect and Will which is his Essence For nothing is more certain than that no Cause can give more than it had to give If the first Cause had not Power Understanding and Will either formally or eminently in a higher and nobler kind he could not have endowed all mankind with what he had not 1. That the first Cause is most powerful is evident by his works he that gave Man his measure of power and much more to many other creatures hath himself much more than any of them He that made this marvellous frame of all the Orbs and causeth and continueth their being and their constant rapid motion is incomprehensibly potent Whatsoever Power there is in all the Creatures visible and invisible set together there must be more or as much in their first Cause alone because nothing can give more Power than it hath 2. His works also prove that the first Cause is an Vnderstanding for the admirable composure order nature motions variety and usefulness of all his Creatures do declare it He that hath given Vnderstanding to Man hath formally or eminently more himself than all men and all his creatures have If Intellection were not an excellency above meer natural or bruitish motion Man were not better than the inanimates or bruites but if it be the Giver of it cannot want it Not that his Intellection is univocally the same thing with ours But it is something incomparably more noble which expresseth it self in humane Intellection as its Image and is seen by us in this Glass and can be expressed by us no better than by this name 3. And as it is a nobler nature which acteth by Volition or Free-will than that which hath no Will at all and so no voluntary choice and complacency so the first Cause which hath given this noble faculty to Man hath certainly himself though not a Will univocally the same with ours yet a Will of a transcendent excellency which expresseth it self in ours as its Image and must be something better and greater but cannot be lower or less And though such Indetermination as proceedeth from imperfection and consequently such Liberty belongeth not to the first Cause which hath no defects yet all that Liberty which belongeth to perfection must undoubtedly belong to Him He that did what we see hath done it willingly and freely § 8. What ever the first Cause is it must needs be in absolute Perfection It must needs have in it more than the whole world besides because it giveth all that to the whole Creation which it hath received and is An imperfect cause could never have made such a world as we behold and partly know And were the first Cause imperfect there would be no perfection in being § 9. The perfection of the first Cause in Being requireth that it be Eternal without Beginning or End of duration Nothing in the world can
It is not one part of the Sun that moveth and another which illuminateth and another which heateth But the whole Sun if it be wholly Fire or aethereal matter doth move the whole illuminateth and the whole doth heat And Motion Light and Heat are not Qualities inherent in it But Motion Illumination and Calefaction are Acts flowing immediately from its Essence as containing the faculties or powers of such acts He that could write a perfect method of Physicks and Morality would shew us Trinity in Unity through all its parts from first to last But as the Veins Arteries and Nerves the Vessels of the Natural Vital and Animal humours and spirits are easily discernable in their trunks and greater branches but not so when they are minute and multiplied into thousands so is it in this Method But I must desire the Reader to observe that though I here explain this Trinity of Active Principles in the Divine Essence which is so evident to Natural Reason it self as to be past all controversie Yet whether indeed the Trinity of Hypostases or Persons which is part of the Christian Faith be not somewhat distinct from this is a question which here I am not to meddle with till I come to the second part of the Treatise Nor is it my purpose to deny it but only to prepare for the better understanding of it Of which more shall there afterward be said § 32. And thus all Creatures and especially our selves declare that there is a first Being and Cause of them all who is a Substance Life a Spirit or Minde an Active Power Vnderstanding and Will perfect eternall independent and self-sufficient not compounded not passible not mutable corruptible or mortall Immense Omnipresent Incomprehensible only One Omnipotent Omniscient and most Good most Happy in Being Himself in Knowing himself and enjoying him most Holy transcending all the Creatures of a Perfect Will the Fountain of all Morall Good Love or Benigne having a Trinity of essential Transcendent Principles in unity of Essence which have made their adumbration or appearance on the World whereof though he be not the constitutive form or Soul He is to it much more the first Efficient Dirigent and ultimate final Cause of all That is THERE IS A GOD. CHAP. VI. Of GOD as RELATED to his Creatures especially to Man And I. as his OWNER PAssing by all that is doubtfull and controverted among men truly Rational and taking before me only that which is certain undenyable and clear and wherein my own Soul is past all doubt I shall proceed in the same method secundum ordinem cognoscendi non essendi The word GOD doth not only signifie all that I have been proving viz. The perfect nature of the first Cause but also his Relations to us his Creatures And therefore till I have opened and proved those Relations I have done but part of my work to prove that THERE IS A GOD. § 1. GOD having produced Man and all the World by his Power Vnderstanding and Will is by immediate resultancy Related to him as his CREATOR Though he made his Body of pre-existent Matter yet was that Matter made of nothing and therefore God is properly Mans CREATOR and not his Fabricator only And a CREATURE is a Relation which inferreth the Correlate a CREATOR as a Son doth a Father This therefore is Gods first grand Relation unto Man which hath no cause to produce it but his actual Creation which is its fundamentum § 2. This Grand prime Relation inferreth a Trinity of Grand Relations viz. That God is our OWNER our RVLER and our BENEFACTOR of which we are now to speak in order That these Three are justly distinguished from each other is past doubt to all that understand what is meant by the terms An Owner as such is not a Ruler or Benefactor a Ruler as such is not an Owner or a Benefactor A Benefactor as such is neither an Owner nor a Ruler And the enumeration is sufficient All humane affairs or actions of converse and society belong to Man in one of these three Relations or such as are subordinate to them and meer dependents on them or compounded of them They are in some respect the Genera and in some as it were the Elements of all other Relations And from the manner of men they are applyed to God with as much propriety of speech as any terms that man can use concerning him And he that could draw a true scheme or method of the Body of Morality or Theology for all is one with me would reduce all the dealings of God with Man which are subsequent to the fundamental Act of Creation to these three Relations and accordingly distinguish of them all Yet in the Mixt acts as most are such distinguishing only of the compounding Elements I mean the interest of these three Relations as making up the several acts § 3. A full Owner or Proprietor is called Dominus in the strictest sense and is one that hath a Jus possidendi disponendi utendi a right of having or possessing disposing and using without any copartner or superior Proprietor to restrain him The meaning is better known by the bare terms of denomination through common use than by definition We know what it meaneth when a man saith of any thing It is mine own There are defective half-proprieties of Co-partners and subordinate Proprietors which belong not to our present case The word Dominus Dominuim is sometime taken laxely as comprehending both Propriety and Rule and sometime improperly for Government or Command it self But among Lawyers it is most commonly taken properly and strictly for an OWNER as such But lest any be contentious about the use of the word I here put instead of it the word Owner and Proprietor as being more free from ambiguity § 4. GOD is jure Creationis Conservationis the most absolute Owner or Proprietor of Man and the whole Creation It is not possible that there should be a more full and certain title to propriety than Creation and total conservation is He that giveth the World all its Being and that of nothing and continueth that being and was beholden to no pre-existent matter nor to any co-ordinate concause nor dependent on any superiour cause in his causation but is himself the first independent efficient total cause of being and well-being and all the means thereto must needs be the absolute Owner of all without the least limitation or exception It is not the supereminency of Gods nature excelling all created beings that is the foundation of this his Propriety in the creature For Excellency is no title to Propriety And yet he that is unicus in capacitate possidendi that is so transcendently excellent as to have no Copartner in a claim might by Occupation be sole Proprietor in that kinde of Propriety secundum quid which Man is capable of Because there is no other whom he can be said to wrong But GOD hath a
the bruits have sense imagination thought and reason by matter and motion only without immortal or incorporeal substances therefore by sense imagination thoughts or reason you cannot prove that man hath more III. Forms are but Accidents that is Qualities or the mode of matter and not Substances different from matter therefore it is so with humane souls IV. The soul dependeth upon matter in its operations and acteth according to it and not without it therefore it is material and consequently mortal V. No immaterial substance moveth that which is material or is the principle of its operations but the soul moveth the body as the principle of its operations ergo VI. If in our dreams the thoughts do operate only according to the accidental irregular motion of the spirits and sometime be so unactive that we do not so much as dream then the soul is nothing but the said active spirits or some material corruptible thing but c. ergo VII Sense is a more perfect apprehension than Reason therefore Bruits which have sense have as noble and perfect a kind of soul as man or at least reason is no proof of the immateriality of souls VIII Sensation and Intellection are both but Reception and and the soul is but a patient in them Ergo it is not a self-moving and so not an incorporeal substance IX Nothing is in the understanding but what is first in the sense Ergo the understanding can reach no further than to sensible things Ergo it is it self of no higher a kind X. Corporeal objects move the soul Ergo it is corporeal For things material cannot work upon that which is immaterial XI If the soul were incorporeal it would know it self to be so but it is not only ignorant of that but hath no true notion but meerly negative of immaterial beings XI That which is generated is corruptible but the soul is generated as is proved by Senertus and many others XIII Quicquid oritur interit that which is not eternal as to the past duration is not eternal as to the future duration but all Christians maintain that the soul is either created or generated and not of eternal duration as to what is past and all the Philosophers or most who took it to be eternal as to future duration went on that ground that it was so antecedently XIV You give us none but moral arguments for the soul's immortality XV. Nay you confess that the soul 's eternal duration cannot by you be proved by any natural evidence though you think you so prove a life of Retribution XVI The soul and body are like a candle where oyl and week and fire which are all are in flexu continuo and as there is not the same individual flame this hour as was the last so neither have we the same individual souls Ergo they are uncapable of a life of Retribution hereafter XVII If the soul be a durable substance as we must confess no substance is annihilated it is most likely to come from the anima mundi or some universal soul of that orb or system of which it is a part and so to return to it again as the beams to the Sun and so to cease its individuation and consequently to be uncapable of a life of Retribution XVIII The Platonists who hold the souls immortality and some Platonick Divines too have so many fopperies about its vehicles regions and transmutations as maketh their principal doctrine the less credible XIX If the soul should continue its individuation yet its actings will be nothing like what they are in the body nor can they exercise a memory of what they did in the body as having not the material spirits and nerves by which memory is exercised and therefore they can have no proper retribution especially punishment for any thing here done XX. The belief of the immortality of the soul doth fill men with fears and take up their lives in superstitious cares for a life to come which might be spent in quietness and in publick works and it fills the world with all those religious sects and controversies which have so long destroyed Charity and Peace These are the Objections which I have here to answer OBJECTION I. MAtter and Motion without any more may do all that which you ascribe to souls Answ When nothing seemeth to us more false and absurd than the matter of your objection you cannot expect that your naked assertion should satisfie us without proof and a satisfactory proof must reach to all the noblest instances and must have better evidence than the bold and confident affirmations of men who expect that their conceptions should be taken for the flower of reason whilst they are pleading against the reasoning nature it self And to what Authors will they send us for the proof of this assertion Is it to Mr. Hobs We have perused him and weigh'd his reasons and find them such as reflect no dishonour on the understandings of those who judge them to be void of probability as well as cogent evidence But after so smart a castigation as he hath received from the learned D◠Ward now Bishop of Exeter and from that clear-headed Primate of Ireland Dr. Bramhal I hope it will not be expected that I trouble my self or my Reader with him here Is it to Gassendus He writeth for the immaterial created humane soul himself And Charity obligeth me not to charge him with prevarication whatsoever to Cartesius or any where else he writeth which seemeth injurious to this Doctrine And if Sorberius number it with his honours in vita Gassendi that Mr. Hobs could not sufficiently admire his works Qui Heroem nostrum nunquam majorem apparere pronunciabat quam in retundendis larvis tenues in auras tam facilè diffugientibus gladio imperviis nec ictum clava excipientibus ita enim sentiebat vir emunctae naris de Meditationibus Cartesii de illa Gassendi disquisitione c. It was because he weighed not honour in an English ballance nor judged not of an English-man by an English judgment nor himself well perceived what was indeed honourable or dishonourable in his friend If you send us to Epicurus and Lucretius they are so overwhelmed with the number of adversaries that have fallen upon them that it is a dishonour to give them another blow Besides all the crowd of Peripateticks Platonists and Stoicks even the moderate latitudinarian Cicero hath spit so oft in the face of Epicurus that when Gassendus hath laboured hard in wiping it he thought meet to let this spot alone But because it is onely this sort of men that are the adversaries with whom we do contend I will this once be so troublesome to the Reader as to give him first some general countercharges and reasons against the authority of these men and next some particular reasons against the objected sufficiency of Matter and Motion to do the offices which we ascribe to souls And 1. When I find
nature and by an active attendance and embracement yea by an active appetite sicut foemina marem vel potius sicut esuriens cibum Yea it moveth towards its object and meeteth it It actively welcometh and improveth it As I said even now a Scholar that in his studies so far diverteth his thoughts that he knoweth not that the Clock hath strucken at his ears and knoweth not what those say that talk by him doth shew that some active attendance is necessary to almost all perception He that feeleth not that his understanding doth agere as well as pati when he is studying reading or writing is a stranger to himself How oft have I read over many lines when I have thought of something else and not known one word that I have read Is inventing compounding dividing defining c. no action I never felt cause from any experience of my own to believe that I was a meer patient in any thought that was ever in my minde Nay the Epicurean that supposeth thoughts to be but a dance of Atomes called Spirits doth think that those atomes or spirits are notably active Cartesius his materia sultilis is eminent in activity Do you think that every dead Object which I think on with my eyes shut in the night and so much more alive than I and so much more active than my minde that it must be accounted the sole agent and my minde the patient They know little of a minde that talk in this strain I know Cartesius telleth us that the eye hath no fire or light in it except perhaps the eye of a Cat or Owl But if the study of matter and motion had left him any room for the consideration of other things which he past over he would by a little search have found that the eye doth close with its primary object Light by meer connaturality because it participateth of Light it self in its own constitution It is fire in the eye even in the visive Spirits which meeteth the fire or light without and by union causeth that which we call sight And seeing that experience forced him to confess it of Cats and Owls how could he think that all other eyes or sight were quite of another kinde Some men have been able to see in the dark and had sparkling eyes almost like Cats The degree here differeth not the species If this materia subtilis or globuli aetherei be fire he might have allowed some of that to the visive spirits in Man as well as in Owls Saith Ficinus in Theophrast de Anim. c. 14. Primum luminosum est Coeleste Secundum est Igneum Tertium inter composita quod quasi fulget ut Ignis Primum luminale est Oculus praecipuè radiosus in animalibus quae nocte vident sed â—lii quoque oculi quamvis minus sunt tamen luminalus Nemesius l. pro Immort Anim. in Bibl. Pat. p. 505. approveth Plato's Judgement Plato inquit per confusionem splendorum res aspici existimat ut id lumen quod ex oculis proficiscitur aliquo usque in aerem qui ejusdem est secum genus effluat Quod verò à corporibus manat contraferatur quod in aere est qui interponitur facileque diffunditur vertitur simul cum oculorum igne extendatur Et Galenus inquit de visione cum Platone consentit in 70 de consens And he saith himself that the Sun sendeth its light by the Air and the light in the eye streameth also into it which is to seeing as the Nerves are to the Brain for feeling Porphyry saith that sight is the Soul it self discerning it self in all things But if there were any doubt in the point of sight which is performed both by active spirits and an active object Light yet methinks that when I feel a stone much more when I meditate on a Mountain all should confess that my sense and intellection is like to have more action than that Stone and Mountain And if you say only that Spirits first moved move others and so touch the Intellectual Organs or Spirits I have partly answered that before and shall answer it more anon We have great reason to ascribe the most of action to that part which is most subtile vigorous and active OBJECTION IX THere is nothing in the Intellect which was not first in the Sense from which it receiveth all its knowledge by the Idea's of the Phantasie Therefore the Soul can reach no higher than to corporeal sensible things Therefore it is but such it self Answ The Antecedent is false and both the Consequents Had he limited his assertions to corporeal objects I should easily acknowledge to Gassendus that Omnis quae in mente habetur Idea ortum ducit à sensibus Et Omnis Idâ—a aut per sensum transit aut ex iis quae transeunt per sensum formatur Et quae Idea propriis acquiritur sensibus persectior est eâ quae ex facta ab alio descriptione formatur Qualis Idea rei talis definitio But that these things will not hold true as he delivereth them universally I think I shall make plain and confute this Objection to the satisfaction of any one that knoweth himself Ortum ducere à sensu is an ambiguous phrase The sense may be the Occasion sine qua non of that whereof it never had the least participation in it self I desire you but to distinguish between the Intellects Object and its Act and those Objects which it knoweth by the mediation of other extrinsick objects and those which it knoweth by the mediation of its own Act. These differences are past all doubt When the eye seeth these Lines and this Paper the Light and Lines and Paper are each one thing and the sight of them is another I see the Light and thereby the Paper but I see not my sight My sight is not the object of my sight It may be said that the Object is in my sight but not that my sight is in my sight Yet by seeing I perceive not only what I see but that I see and I perceive much more plainly that I see than what I see I may doubt of a thousand objects which I see what matter shape or colour they are of but I doubt not at all of the act of seeing that right or wrong some fight I have or that I see the Light so is it with the Intellect This book is one thing and the understanding it is another thing The book is the object of my understanding but at least in primò instanti my understanding is not the object of my understanding but by understanding I have an immediate perception that I understand And as Cartesius truely saith the act of Intellection is more perceived than the object I am more certain that I think and understand than I am of the nature of that which I think of and understand If any say that the act of Intellection is the object of another
him who will live such a Holy Life 114 CHAP. XIV That there is a Life of Retribution after this proved 119 CHAP. XV. Of the Intrinsecal Evils of SIN and of the PERPETVAL PVNISHMENT due to the Sinner by the undoubted Law of Nature 156 CHAP. XVI Of the present sinfull and miserable state of the World 176 CHAP. XVII What Naturall Light declareth of the Mercy of God to Sinners and of the Hopes and Means of Mans Recovery 182 PART II. Of CHRISTIANITY and Supernatural Revelation CHAP. I. OF the need of a clearer Light or fuller Revelation of the Will of God than all that hath been opened before p. 191 CHAP. II. Of the several RELIGIONS which are in the World 198 CHAP. III. Of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION and 1. What it is 204 CHAP. IV. Of the Nature and PROPERTIES of the Christian Religion 229 CHAP. V. Of the CONGRVITIES in the Christian Religion which make it the more easily credible and are great Preparatives to Faith 241 CHAP. VI. Of the WITNESS of JESVS CHRIST or the great demonstrative Evidence of his Verity and Authority viz. The SPIRIT In 4. parts 1. Antecedently by PROPHECY 2. Constitutively and Inherently the Image of God on his Person Life and Doctrine 3. Concomitantly by the Miraculous Power and Works of Christ and his Disciples 4. Subsequently in the actual Salvation of men by Renovation Opened Notes added 258 CHAP. VII Of the subservient Proofs and Means by which the forementioned Evidences are brought to our certain knowledge 302 How we know the antecedent Prophetical Testimony and the Constitutive Inherent Evidence How we know the Concomitant Testimony of Miracles 1. By Humane Testimony 2. By Evidence of Natural Certainty 3. By Divine attestation in the Testifyers Miracles The Proofs of that Divine attestation with the Witnesses 1. In the holy Constitution of their Souls and Doctrine 2. In their Miracles and Gifts 3. In the success of their Doctrine to mens sanctification How the Churches testimony of the Disciples Miracles and Doctrine is proved 1. By most credible Humane Testimony 2. By such as hath Natural Evidence of Certainty 3. By some further Divine attestation The way or Means of the Churches attestation and Tradition The Scriptures proved the same which the Apostles delivered and the Churches received How we may know the 4th part of the Spirits Testimony viz. The Successes of Christian Doctrine to mens sanctification What Sanctification is and the acts or parts of it Consectaries from p. 302. to 350 CHAP. VIII Of some other subservient and Collateral Arguments for the Christian Verity 350 CHAP. IX Yet Faith hath many Difficulties to overcome What they are and what their Causes 365 CHAP. X. The Intrinsecal Difficulties in the Christian Faith resolved or 24 Objections against Christianity answered 371 to 424 CHAP. XI The Extrinsecal Difficulties or 16 more Objections resolved 424 CHAP. XII The reasonable Conditions required of them who will overcome the Difficulties of Believing and will not undoe themselves by wilfull Infidelity 444 The summ of all in an Addresse to God 453 457 CHAP. XIII Consectaries I. What Party of Christians should we joyn with or be of seeing they are divided into so many Sects 464 CHAP. XIV II. Of the true Interest of Christ and his Church and the Souls of Men of the means to promote it and its Enemies and Impediments in the World Which being only named in brief Propositions should be the more heedfully perused by those that dare pretend the Interest of Religion and the Church for the proudest or the most dividing practices and those which most directly hinder the successefull preaching of the Gospel the pure Worshipping of God and the saving of Mens Souls 466. The Conclusion or an Appendix defending the Souls Immortality against the Somatists or Epicureans and other Pseudo-philosophers OBJECTION I. MAtter and Motion only may do all that which you ascribe to Souls p. 495 OBJECT II. By Sense Imagination Cogitation Reason you cannot prove the Soul to be incorporeal and immortal because the Bruits partake of all these 523 OBJECT III. Humane Souls are but Forms and Forms are but the qualities or modes of Substances and therefore perish when seperated from Bodies 535 OBJECT IV. The Soul is material and consequently mortal because it dependeth upon matter in its Operations and therefore in its Essence 539 OBJECT V. No immaterial Substance moveth that which is material as a principle of its Operations but the Soul so moveth the Body Ergo 540 OBJECT VI. The Soul in our sleep acteth irrationally according to the fortuitous motion of the spirits Ergo 543 OBJECT VII Reason is no proof of the Souls Immateriality because Sense which the Bruits have is the more perfect apprehension 543 OBJECT VIII Sensation and Intellection are both but Reception The Passivity therefore of the Soul doth shew its Materiality 544 OBJECT IX There is nothing in the Intellect which was not first in the Sense c. Ergo the Soul that can reach but things corporeal is such it self 547 OBJECT X. That which things Corporeal work on is Corporeal but c. 551 OBJECT XI That is not incorporeal which knoweth not it self to be so nor hath any notion but Negative and Metaphorical of Incorporeal Beings 551 OBJECT XII The Soul is generated Ergo corruptible 555 OBJECT XIII Omne quod oritur interit That which is not eternal as to past duration is not eternal as to future duration But c. 567 OBJECT XIV You have none but Moral Arguments for the Souls Immortality 568 OBJECT XV. You seem to confess that it is not the endless duration of the Soul but only a future state of Retribution which you can prove from Nature alone 568 OBJECT XVI Both Soul and Body are like a Candle in fluxu continuo Ergo being not long the same are uncapable of a Life of Retribution 569 OBJECT XVII The Soul returneth to the Anima Mundi or Element of Souls and so loseth its Individuation and is uncapable of Retribution 571 OBJECT XVIII The Fictions of the Platonists about their several Vehicles and such like do make their Doctrine the more to be suspected 574 OBJECT XIX The Souls actings will not be such as they are now by Corporeal Spirits and Idea's Ergo it will be uncapable of Retribution 578 OBJECT XX. The belief of the Souls Immortality doth fill men with fears and draw them to superstition and trouble the Peace of Kingdoms c. 579 In Objection about the Worlds Eternity What Christianity saith about it 582 The Testimony of Socrates and Zenocrates of the Souls Immortality 589 â—icero's Doctrine and his redargution of the Somatists at large 590 The Stoicks neerness to the Doctrine of Christianity with their particular Moral Tenets and their Praises by the Learned and Pious Mr. T. Gataker 595 The Stoicks Platonists and other Philosophers opinion of the sufficiency of Virtue to be Mans Felicity against the Epicurean Doctrine of Pleasure Vindicated It importeth a
heaven hath overcome the greatest difficulty of my belief and I should the more easily believe that he will do the rest and that I shall surely come to heaven when I am fit for it Object But Christ doth not only undertake to regenerate and to save us but also to justifie us and this by a strange way by his Sacrifice and Merits Answ The greater is his wisdom and goodness as made known to us I am sure an unpardoned unrighteous person is uncapable of felicity in that state and I am sure I cannot pardon my self nor well know which way else to seek it And I am sure that so excellent and holy a person is fitter to be well-beloved of God I than But I pray you remember 1. That he undertaketh not to pardon or justifie any man whom he doth not renew and sanctifie 2. And that all his means which seem so strange to you are but to restore God's Image on you and fit you for his love and service And this we can testifie by experience that he hath done in some measure in us and if I find his means successful I will not quarrel with it because it seemeth strange to me A Physician may prescribe me remedies for some mortal disease which I understand not but seem unlike to do the cure but if I find that those unlikely means effect it I will not quarrel with him nor refuse them till I know my self to be wiser than he and have found out some surer means It is most evident then that he who saveth us is our Saviour and he that saveth us from sin will save us from punishment and he that maketh us fit for pardon doth procure our pardon and he that causeth us to love God above all doth fit us to enjoy his love and he that maketh us both to love him and to be beloved by him doth prepare us for heaven and is truly the MEDIATOR § III. Four or five Consectaries are evident from this which I have been proving 1. That we have left no room for their insipid cavil who say that we flie to a private spirit or conceit or Enthusiasm for the evidence of our faith There are some indeed that talk of the meer perswasion or inward active testimony of the Spirit as if it were an inward word that said to us This is the word of God But this is not it which I have been speaking of but the objective testimony or evidence of our Regeneration which could not be effected but 1. by a perfect doctrine and 2 by the concurrent work or blessing of God's Spirit which he would not give to confirm a lie The Spirit is Christ's witness in the four ways fore-mentioned and he doth moreover cause me to believe and increase that faith by blessing due means But for any Enthusiasm or unproved bare perswasion we own it not § 112. II. That Malignity is the high-way to Infidelity As the holiness of his members is Christ's last continued witness in the world so the malicious slandering and scorning at godly men or vilifying them for self-interest or the interest of a faction is the devils means to frustrate this testimony § 113. III. That the destruction of true Church-discipline tendeth to the destruction of Christianity in the world by laying Christ's Vineyard common to the Wilderness and confounding godly and the notoriorsly ungodly and representing Christianity to Pagans and Infidels as a barren notion or a common and debauching way § 114. IV. That the scandals and wickedness of nominal Christians is on the same accounts the devils way to extirpate Christianity from the earth § 115. V. That the great mercy of God hath provided a sure and standing means for the ascertaining multitudes of holy Christians of the truth of the Gospel who have neither skill nor leisure to acquaint themselves with the History of the Church and records of Antiquity nor to reason it out against a learned subtil caviler from other extrinsick arguments Abundance of honest holy souls do live in the fervent love of God and in hatred of sin and in sincere obedience in justice and charity to all men and in heavenly desires and delights who yet cannot well dispute for their Religion nor yet do they need to flie to believe as the Church believeth though they know not what or why nor what the Church is But they have that Spirit within them which is the living witness and Advocate of Christ and the seal of God and the earnest of their salvation not a meer pretense that the Spirit perswadeth them and they know not by what evidence nor yet that they count it most pious to believe strongliest without evidence when they least know why but they have the spirit of Renovation and Adoption turning the very bent of their hearts and lives from the world to God and from earth to heaven and from carnality to spirituality and from sin to holiness And this fully assureth them that Christ who hath actually saved them is their Saviour and that he who maketh good all his undertaking is no deceiver and that God would not sanctifie his people in the world by a blasphemy a deceit and lie and that Christ who hath performed his promise in this which is his earnest will perform the rest And withall the very love to God and Holiness and Heaven which is thus made their new nature by the Spirit of Christ will hold fast in the hour of temptation when reasoning otherwise is too weak O what a blessed advantage have the sanctified against all temptations to unbelief And how lamentably are ungodly Sensualists disadvantaged who have deprived themselves of this inherent testimony If two men were born blinde and one of them had been cured and had been shewed the Candle-light and twilight how easie is it for him to believe his Physician if he promise also to shew him the Sun in comparison of what it is to the other who never saw the light CHAP. VIII Of some other subservient and Collateral Arguments for the Christian Verity HAving largely opened the great Evidence of the Christian Verity viz. The SPIRIT in its four wayes of testifying Accidentally Inherently Concomitantly and Subsequently I shall more briefly recite some other subservient Arguments which I finde most satisfactory to my own understanding § 1. I. The natural evidence of the truth of the Scripture about the Creation of the World doth make it the more Credible to me in all things else For that is a thing which none but God himself could reveal to us For the Scripture telleth what was done before there was any man in being And that this World is not eternal nor of any longer continuance is exceeding probable by the state of all things in it 1. Arts and Sciences are far from that maturity which a longer continuance or an Eternity would have produced Guns and Printing are but lately found out The body of man is not yet well Anatomized
effect of any politick Confederacy between him and them but the effect of Gods Power Light and Love so that it should be a great confirmation to our Faith to consider that those multitudes believed by the wonderfull testimony and work of the Holy Ghost upon the Disciples when Christ had been crucified in despight who yet believed not before but were his Crucifiers It was not so hard nor honourable an act to believe in him when he went about working Miracles and seemed in a possibility to restore their temporal Kingdom as to believe in him after he had been crucified among Malefactors He therefore that could after this by the Spirit and Miracles bring so many thousands to believe did shew that he was alive himself and in full power 3. And that the Apostles were mean unlearned men is a great confirmation to our Faith For now it is apparent that they had their abilities wisdom and successes from the Spirit and Power of God But if they had been Philosophers or cunning men it might have been more suspected to be a laid contrivance between Christ and them Indeed for all his Miracles they began to be in doubt of him themselves when he was dead and buryed till they saw him risen again and had the Spirit came upon them and this last undenyable evidence and this heavenly insuperable Call and Conviction was it which miraculously setled them in the Faith 4. And that Saviour who came not to make us Worldlings but to save us from this present evil World and to cure our esteem and love of worldly things did think it meetest both to appear in the form of a poor man himself and to choose Disciples of the like condition and not to choose the worldly wise and great and honourable to be the first attesters of his miracles or preachers of his Gospel Though he had some that were of place and quality in the World as Nicodemus Joseph Cornelius Sergius Paulus c. yet his Power needed not such Instruments As he would not teach us to magnifie worldly Pomp nor value things by outward appearance as the deluded dreaming world doth so he would shew us that he needeth not Kings nor Philosophers by worldly power or wisdom to set up his Kingdom He giveth power but he receiveth none He setteth up Kings and by him they reign but they set not up him nor doth he reign by any of them Nor will he be beholden to great men or learned men for their help to promote his cause and interest in the World The largeness of his mercy indeed extendeth to Kings and all in Authority as well as to the poor and if they will not reject it nor break his bonds but kiss the Son before his wrath break forth against them they may be saved as well as others Psal 2.1 2 9 10. 1 Tim. 2.1 2. But he will not use them in the first setting up of his Church in the World lest men should think that it was set up by the Learning Policy or Power of man 1 Cor. 1.26 27 28 29. and 2.5 6 7 10 13. 13.19 c. And therefore he would not be voted one of the Gods by Tyberius or Adrians Senate nor accept of the worship of Alexander Sevâ—rus who in his Lararium worshipped him as one of his Demi-gods nor receive any such beggarly Deity from man but when Constantine acknowledged him as God indeed he accepted his acknowledgement Those unlearned men whom he used were made wiser in an hour by the Holy Ghost than all the Philosophers in the World And those mean contemned persons overcame the Learning and Power of the World and not by Arms as Mahomet but against Arms and Arguments wit and rage by the Spirit alone they subdued the greatest powers to their Lord. Obj. XIV But it doth sapere scenam sound like a Poetical fiction that God should satisfie his own Justice and Christ should die instead of our being damned and this to appease the wrath of God as if God were angry and delighted in the blood or sufferings of the innocent Answ Ignorance is the great cause of unbelief This objection cometh from many errours and false conceits about the things of which it speaketh 1. If the word Satisfaction offend you use only the Scripture-words that Christ was a Sacrifice an Atonement a Propitiation a Price c. And if this be incredible how came it to pass that sacrificing was the custom of all the world Doth not this objection as much militate against this was God angry or was he delighted in the bloud and sufferings of harmless sheep and other cattel and must these either satisfie him or appease his wrath What think you should be the cause that sacrificing was thus commonly used in all ages through all the earth if it savoured but of poetical fiction 2. God hath no such thing as a passion of anger to be appeased nor is he at all delighted in the bloud or sufferings of the worst much less of the innocent nor doth he sell his mercy for bloud nor is his satisfaction any reparation of any loss of his which he receiveth from another But 1. Do you understand what Government is and what Divine Government is and what is the end of it even the pleasing of the will of God in the demonstrations of his own perfections if you do you will know that it was necessary that God's penal Laws should not be broken by a rebel world without being executed on them according to their true intent and meaning or without such an equivalent demonstration of his Justice as might vindicate the Law and Law-giver from contempt and the imputation of ignorance or levity and might attain the ends of Government as much as if all sinners had suffered themselves And this is it that we mean by a Sacrifice Ransom or Satisfaction Shall God be a Governour and have no Laws or shall he have Laws that have no penalties or shall he set up a lying scar-crow to frighten sinners by deceit and have Laws which are never meant for execution Are any of these becoming God Or shall he let the Devil go for true who told Eve at first You shall not die and let the world sin on with boldness and laugh at his Laws and say God did but frighten us with a few words which he never intended to fulfill or should God have damned all the world according to their desert If none of all this be credible to you then certainly nothing should be more credible than that his wisdom hath found out some way to exercise pardoning saving mercy without any injury to his governing justice and truth and without exposing his Laws and himself to the contempt of sinners or emboldening them in their sins even a way which shall vindicate his honour and attain his ends of government as well as if we had been all punished with death and hell and yet may save us with the great
pars inteligibilis of a being as without the form But that is not the common acception of it nor is it then fit for the place assigned it in ordine praedicamentali From all this I am not about to injure any mans understanding by building my Conclusions upon any questionable grounds I do but right your understandings so far as to remove all uncertain foundations though they be such as seem to be most for the advantage of my Cause and are by most made the great reasons of the Souls Immortality And it is not my purpose to deny that as Angels are compounded ex genere differentiâ so the generical nature of Angels greatly differeth from the nature of Corporeal things As God can make multitudes of corporeal Creatures formally or specifically different of the matter of one simple Element only as Air or Fire without material mixture so he can either make an Element of Souls either existent of it self of which he will make Individuals yea species formally divers or else existent only in the species and individuals as he please But then we must say that as fire and air and water do differ formally as several Elements so the spiritual Element or general Nature hath a formal difference from the Corporeal called the Material But hence it will follow 1. That Angels and humane Souls have a double form as some use to call it that is Generical as Spirits which is presupposed as the aptitude of their Metaphysical matter by which they differ from bodies and specifical by which they are constituted what they are and differ among themselves unless you deny all such formal difference among them and difference them only by individuation and accidents as several drops or bottles of water taken out of the same Sea 2. And it will seem plain that our differencing characters or properties between Spirits and Bodies must be sought for in their different forms which must be found in the noble operations which flow from the forms and not from uncertain Accidents Therefore my design in all this is but to intimate to you how lubricous and uncertain and beyond the reach of mans understanding the ordinary characters from such Accidents are and that its better fetch the difference from the Operations Saith Georg. Ritschel Contempl. Metap c. 6. pag. 40 43. Difficile est rebus materialibus immersis substantiam immaterialem concipere Et licet pro certo non constet an Menti Angelicae omnis simpliciter Materialitas repugnet certum tamen est elementarem nostram ab illis abesse atque Divinam Essentiam ab omni esse materia secretam aeterna ejus immutabilis habitudo convincit nisi per materialitatem fortè substantiam intelligas § 15. Dubium quidem nullum est immaterialem Mundum essentiarum varietate Intelligibilium aequè admirabilem augustum esse atque Mundum corporeum videmus sed in quo illa consistat diversitas bonis indicio certo non percipitur Nimirum si praeter te lumbricum atque scarabaeum animal aliud nullum vidisses audires autem esse alia innumera genera diversitate naturae forma penitus discrepantia tum vagas quidem confusasque de diversitate volvere cogitationes posses non posses autem illas tot bestiarum piscium reptilium avium species suo vultu coloribus signare Ita quid spiritus sit immaterialis ex te capere qui Mentem immaterialem habes qualemcunque notitiam potes non potes autem in te perspicere in quo precise illa varietas consistat To come neerer to the application of what is said to the present Objection 1. The Souls of Men and Bruits we see do not differ in genere entis nor in genere substantiae nor in genere principii vitalis nor in genere sentientis 2. The matter of both whether it differ as Metaphysical and Physical or how is much beyond our knowledge 3. The great diversity of Operations doth shew the great diversity of their Powers and forms and inclinations 4. This sheweth the diversity of their uses and ends for which they were created 5. It is certain that no substantial Principle in either of them is annihilated at death The Souls of Bruits have the same nature after death as they had before and the Souls of men have the same nature as before They are not transformed into other things 6. Therefore about both of them there is nothing left of doubt or controversie but only 1. About the perpetuated Individuation 2. The future Operations and so the habits viz. 1. Whether the Souls of men or bruits or both do lose their individuation and fall into some Vniversal Element of their kinde 2. Whether they operate after death as now There is nothing else about their Immortality that common Reason can make a question of And for the Souls of Bruits whether they remain Individuate or return to a common Element of their kinde is a thing unknown to us because unrevealed and unrevealed because it is of no use and concernment to us Our own case concerneth us more and therefore is more made known to us by God As will further appear in that which followeth OBJECTION III. HVmane souls are but forms and forms are but the qualities or modes of substances and therefore accidents and therefore perish when separated from the bodies Answ The world of learned men do find themselves too much work and trouble others with controversies about names and words and especially by confounding words and things and not discerning when a controversie is only de nomine and when it is de re And they have done so about forms as much as any thing The word form is usually liable to this ambiguity In compounded beings it is sometime taken for the active predominant part or principle and sometimes for the state which resulteth from the contemperation of all the parts Which is the fittest to be called the form is but a question de nomine Gassendus himself confesseth this ambiguity of the word and having pleaded that all forms except man's intellectual soul are but modes or qualities of bodies and accidents He addeth § 1. l. 6. c. 1. Si formae nomine spiritum quendam quasi florem materiae intellexeris cujusmodifere concipimus animam in equo tum forma dici potest substantia immo corpus tenuissimum quod crassius pervadat perficiat regat At si formae nomine intelligatur dispositio ac modus quo tam substantia illa spirituosior quam crassior reliqua se habet ad quam facultates actionesque naturales consequuntur tum posse Qualitatem conseri ac dici Whether the souls of bruits be only the spirits or the flos materiae or not it is granted by him and by almost all men that in mixt bodies there is one part more subtil than the rest which is the most active powerful predominant part and which doth corpus
same thing as many others do that call them forms when they speak of vegetatives And what if by substances Telesius mean the same that Pemble doth by accidents Is not the world then troubled with ambiguitie of words He that will consider them well may suspect that they mean as I conjecture An active power or principle being the chief cause of operations alterations and discrimination is the thing that they all mean by all these names And the followers of Democritus especially Gassendus and Cartesius do not improbably argue that it is some substantial being which maketh that change or effect upon our senses which as there received is a quality So that unless Mr. Pemble can better tell us what lux calor are than by calling them Qualities he hath given the understanding no satisfaction at all Much less when he nakedly asserteth without any proof that sensation doth not superare naturam primarum qualitatum that are none of them sensible themselves And when he hath no other answer to this argument but that non minus miranda sunt in inanimatis which he giveth not one instance or word to prove When Aristotle c. Scaliger Sennertus and abundance more have said much to the contrary I conclude that for all that is here said and whether you call them our forms or not as you may or may not in several senses humane souls are those parts of man which are simple pure invisible active powerful substances and therefore being not annihilated must needs subsist in their separated state OBJECTION IV. THe Soul is material and consequently mortal because it dependeth upon matter in its operations and consequently in its essence Answ 1. I have proved already that if you did prove the soul material you had not thereby at all proved it mortal unless you mean only that it hath a posse mori vel annihilari which may be said of every creature for simple matter which hath no repugnant parts or principles hath not only a posse nen mori but an aptitude in its nature ad non moriendum Remember your friends that make the world or matter at least to be eternal They thought not that materiality was a proof of either annihilation or corruption Object If it be material it must be compounded of matter and form and therefore is corruptible Answ True if that matter and form were two several substances and were one repugnant to the other The soul and body are different substances but the metaphysical matter and form of the soul being but the genus differentia are not two substances much less repugnant and therefore have never the more a tendency to corruption 2. The soul useth matter and dependeth no otherwise on it than its instrument It doth not follow that a man is a horse because he dependeth on his horse in the manner of his riding and his pace nor that I am inanimate because in writing I depend on my pen which is inanimate If you put spirits of wine into water or whey as its vehicle to temper it for a medicine it doth not follow that the spirits are meer water because they operate not without the water but conjunct and as tempered by it If the fire in your Lamp do not shine or burn without the oil but in manner and duration dependeth on it it doth not follow that fire is annihilated when the candle is out or that it was but oil before no nor that it ceaseth to be fire afterwards as Gassendus must needs confess who holdeth that the Elements are not turned into one another § 1. l. 3. c. 2. Fire ceaseth not to be fire when it goeth out of our observation The noblest natures use and rule the inferiour God himself moveth and useth things material and yet is not therefore material himself Yea if motus be in patiente recipitur ad modum recipientis you may conjecture how far God's own operations upon the creatures may be called dependent as to the effect as being ad captum modum creaturae And the Sun doth move and quicken all passive matter here below ad modum recipientis with great variety through the variety of the matter and yet it followeth not that the Sun is it self such passive matter 3. The soul hath operations which are not upon matter at all though matter may possibly be an antecedent occasion or prerequisite Such is the apprehension of its own intellection and volitions and all that it thence gathereth of God and other intellectual natures and operations of which I must say more anon OBJECTION V. NO immaterial substance moveth that which is material as a principle of its operations but the soul moveth the body as the principle of its operations Ergo. Answ 1. I have already said that if you proved the soul material it would not prove it mortal 2. As the body hath various operations so it is moved by various principles or powers As to locomotion and perhaps vegetation the materia subtilii or finest atoms as you will call it or the fiery matter in the spirits as I would call it is an active being which hath a natural power to move it self and the rest But whether that motion do suffice to sensation is undecided But certainly there is another inward principle of motion which guideth much of the locomotive and over-ruleth some of the natural motion by a peculiar action of its own which is called Intellection and Volition as I have proved before When I go to the Church when I write or talk the spirits are the nearest sufficient principle of the motion as motion but as it is done in this manner to this end at this time with these reasons it is from the intellectual principle 3 And thus I deny the major Proposition And I prove the contrary 1. God is the first principle of all motion in the world and the first cause of material motion and yet is not material 2. What the lower and baser nature can do that the higher and nobler hath power to do suppositis supponendis therefore if a body can move a body a soul can do it much more But saith Gassendus Causis secundis primum agendi principium est Atomorum varia mobilitas ingenita non incorporea aliqua substantia Answ Angels are causae secundae souls are causae secundae animated bodies of men are causae secundae prove it now of any of these in your exclusion if you can But he saith Capere non licet quomodo si incorporeum sit ita applicari corpori valeat ut illi impulsum imprimat quando noque ipsum contingere carens ipsa tactu seu mole quae tangat non potest Physicae actiones corporeae cum sint nisi à principio physico corporeoque elici non possiut Quod anima autem humana incorporea cum sit in ipsum tamen corpus suum agat motumque ipsi imprimat dicimus animam humanam qua est
intellectus seu mens atque adeo incorporea non elicere actiones nisi intellectuales seu mentales incorporeas Et quum est sentiens vegetans praeditaque vi corporum motrice atque adeo corporea est elicere actiones corporeas c. And of Angels and Devils he saith That it is known by faith only that they are incorporeal and perhaps God gave them extraordinary bodies when he would have them move or act on bodies To this I answer 1. Who gave those atoms their ingenite mobility and how You say that captum omnem fugit ut quippiam aliud moveat si in seipso immotum maneat If so then it seemeth that either God was moved when he moved atoms or that he never moved them How then came they to be moved first But you confess that God put into them their mobility You say De Deo alia ratio est quoniam infinitae virtutis cum sit vâ—ique praesens non ullo sâ—i motu sed nutu solo agere movere quidlibet potest If you think not as you speak it is unworthy of a Philosopher if you do then it is strange that you should overthrow your own reasoning and excuse it no better than thus If the reason why incorporeal spirits cannot move bodies be that which you alledge because only a body can be applied to a body to make impression on it then God can less move a body than man's soul can because his purest essence is more distant from corporeal grossness than our souls are At least the reason would be the same And to say that God is every where and of infinite vertues maketh him nevertheless a Spirit and created spirits if that be enough may have power or vertue enough for such an effect Doubtless if God move bodies the spirituality of an agent hindereth not the motion 2. But why should it captum omnem superare that a nobler and more potent nature can do that which a more ignoble can do Because I cannot know how a spirit by contact can apply it self to matter shall I dream that therefore it is uncapable of moving bodies Clean contrary I see that matter of it self is an unactive thing and were it not that the noble active element of fire which as a lower soul to the passive matter and a thing almost middle between a spirit and a body did move things here below I could discern no motion in the world but that which spirits cause except only that of the parts to the whole the aggregative motion which tendeth to rest The difference of understandings is very strange it is much easier to me to apprehend that almost all motion should come from the purest powerful active vital natures than that they should be all unable to stir a straw or move the air or any body OBJECTION VI. THe soul is in our sleep either unactive as when we do not so much as dream or acteth irregularly and irrationally according to the fortuitous motion of the spirits Ergo it is no incorporeal immortal substance Answ 1. I suppose the soul is never totally unactive I never awaked since I had the use of memory but I found my self coming out of a dream And I suppose they that think they dream not think so because they forget their dreams 2. Many a time my reason hath acted for a time as regularly and much more forcibly than it doth when I am awake which sheweth what it can do though it be not ordinary 3. This reason is no better than that before answered where I told you that it argueth not that I am a horse or no wiser than my horse because I ride but according to his pace when he halteth or is tired Nor doth it prove that when I alight I cannot go on foot He is hard of understanding that believeth that all the glorious parts of the world above us have no nobler intellectual natures than man Suppose there be Angels and suppose one of them should be united to a body as our souls are we cannot imagine but that he would actuate it and operate in it according to its nature as I write amiss when my pen is bad The same I say of persons Lethargick Apoplectick Delirant c. OBJECTION VII REason is no proof of the soul's immateriality because sense is a clearer and more excellent way of apprehension than Reason is and the bruits have sense Answ 1. I have said enough to the case of Bruits before 2. The soul understandeth bodily things by the inlet of the bodily senses Things incorporeal as I shall shew more anon it otherwise understandeth When it understandeth by the help of sense it is not the sense that understandeth any thing If Bruits themselves had not an Imagination which is an Image of Reason their sense would be of little use to them We see when by business or other thoughts the minde is diverted and alienated how little sense it self doth for us when we can hear as if we never heard and see and not observe what we see yet it 's true that the more sense helpeth us in the apprehending of things sensible which are then objects the better and surely râ—w perceive them by the understanding As the second and third Concoction will not be well made if there be a failing in the first so the second and third perception â—n the Phantasie and Intellect will be ill made if the first deceive or fail them But this proveth not either that the first Concoction or Perception is more noble than the third or that Sensitives without Reason have any true understanding at all or that Sense Phantasie and Reason are not better than Sense alone But these things need not much disputing If Sense be nobler than Reason let the Horse ride the man and let the Woman give her milk to her Cow and let Bruits labour men and feed upon them and let Beasts be your Tutors and Kings and Judges commit to them the noblest works and give them the preeminence if you think they have the noblest faculties OBJECTION VIII SEnsation and Intellection are both but Reception The passiveness therefore of the Soul doth shew its materiality Answ A short answer may satisfie to this Objection 1. All created Powers are partly passive how active soever they be For being in esse operari dependant on and subordinate to the first Cause they must needs receive his influence as well as exercise their own powers As the second wheel in the Clock must receive the moving force of the first before it can move the third 2. It is an enormous error about the operations of the Soul to think that Intellection yea or Sensation either is meer Reception and that the sensitive and intellective power are but Passive The active Soul of Man yea of Bruits receiveth not its object as the mark or butt receiveth the arrow that is shot at it It receiveth it by a similitude of
even so the bruitish grossness of the Somatists driveth some Philosophers into Platonick dreams and the Platonick fictions harden the Epicureans in a far worser way Lactantius de ira Dei cap. 13. thinks that Epicurus was moved to his opinion against Providence by seeing the hurt that good men and Religious endure from the woâ—ser sort here in this world But why should you run out on one side the way because other men run out on the other why do you not rather argue from the doctrine in the sober mean that it is true than from the extreams that the truth is falshood When reason will allow you to conclude no more than that those extremes are falshood But surely I had rather hold Plato's Anima mundi or Aristotle's Intellectus agens and his moving Intelligences than Epicurus his Atoms and motion only And I had rather think with Alexander Arphad that omnis actio corporis est ab incorporeo principio yea or the Stoicks doctrine of Intellectual Fire doing all than Gassendus his doctrine that no incorporeal thing can move a corporeal or that Atoms and their motion only do all that we find done in nature When I look over and about me I find it a thing quite past my power to think that the glorious parts above us are not replenished with much nobler creatures than we And therefore if the Platonists and the ancient Platonick Fathers of the Church did all think that they lived in communion with Angels and had much to do with them and that the superiour intelligences were a nobler part of their studies than meer bodies they shall have the full approbation of my reason in this though I would not run with them into any of their presumptions and uncertain or unsound conceits Saith Aeneas Gazaeus pag. 778. when he had told us that Plato Pythagoras Plotinus and Numenius were for the passing of men's souls into bruits but Porphyry and Jamblichus were against it and thought that they passed only into men Ego quidem hac ipsa de causa filium aut famulum ob id quod commiserint peccatum puniens antequam de ipsis supplicium sumam praemoneo ut meminerint ne posthac unquam in eadem mala recurrant Deus autem quando ultima supplicia decernit non edocet eos qui poenarum causas sed scelerum memoriam omnem tollet vide pag. 382. For this reason and many others we assume not their conceit of the soul's pre-existence and think all such unproved fancies to be but snares to trouble the world with We think not that God punisheth men for sin in another world while he totally obliterateth the memory of the other world and of their sin When he hath told us that In Adam all die and By one mans disobedience many are made sinners and so condemnation passed upon all Rom. 5. Nor will we with Origen thus tempt men to look for more such changes hereafter which we can give them no proof of Nor will we distribute the Angelical Hierarchy into all the degrees which the pseudo-Dionysius doth nor with the Gnosticks Basilidians Saturninians Valentinians and abundance of those antient Hereticks corrupt Christianity with the mixture of fanatick dreams about the unrevealed Powers and worlds above us either worshipping Angels or prying into those things which he hath not seen and are not revealed vainly puft up by his fleshly mind or without cause puffed up by the imagination of his own flesh as Dr. Hammond translateth it Col. 2.18 Nor will we make a Religion with Paracelsus Behmen the Rosicrucians or the rest described by Christ Beckman Exercit. of the Philosophical whimsies of an over-stretch'd imagination And yet we will not reject the saying of Athenagoras Apol. pag. 57. Magnum numerum Angelorum Ministrorum Dei esse fatemur quos opifex architectus mundi Deus Verbo suo tanquam in classes ordinavit centuriavitque ut elementa coelos mundum quae in mundo sunt vicesque ordinem omnium moderarent Though we may adde with Junilius Africanus that Whether the Angels meddle with the government of the world of stablished creatures is a difficult question OBJECTION XIX IF the soul do continue individuate yet its actings will not be such as they are now in the body because they have not spirits to act by And as Gassendus thinketh that the reason of oblivion in old men is the wearing out of the vestigia of the former spirits by the continual flux or transition of matter so we may conceive that all memory will cease to separated souls on the same account and therefore they will be unfit for Rewards or Punishments as not remembring the cause Answ 1. Iâ— Gassendus his opinion were true men should forget all things once a year if not once a month considering how many pounds of matter are spent every 24 hours And why then do we better when we are old remember the things which we did between nine or ten years old and twenty than most of the later passages of our lives as I do for my part very sensibly 2. What is mans memory for with bruits we meddle not but scientia praeteritorum Is not remembring a knowing of things past surely we may perceive that it is and that it is of the same kind of action with the knowing of things present And therefore we may make not memory a third faculty because it is the same with the understanding 3. We have little reason to think that the surviving soul will lose any of its essential powers and grow by its change not only impotent but another thing Therefore it will be still an intelligent power And though remote actions and effects such as writing fighting c. are done by instruments which being removed we cannot do them without yet essential acts are nothing so which flow immediately from the essence of the agent as light heat and motion of the fire If there be but due objects these will be performed without such instruments Nor will the Creator who continueth at an active intelligent power continue it so in vain by denying it necessaries for its operations There is like to be much difference in many respects between the soul's actings here and hereafter but the acts flowing from its essence immediately as knowledge volition complacency called Love and Displacencie c. will be the same How far the soul here doth act without any idea or instrument I have spoken before And the manner of our acting hereafter no man doth now fully understand But that which is essentially an intellectual volitive power will not be idle in its active essence for want of a body to be its instrument If we may so far ascribe to God himself such Affections or Passions as the ingenious Mr. Samuel Parker in his Teutam Phil. l. 2. c. 8. p. 333 c. hath notably opened we have no reason to think that scientia praeteritorum is not to be ascribed
4. l. 7. c. 2. p. 457. Vid. Priscian in Theophrast Proving that light is neither a Body nor a Quality c. 19. But I find no satisfaction when he cometh to tell us what it is Nor will I subscribe to Ficinus who with other Platonists saith Coeleste corpus primum luminis susceptaculum incorporea vita intelligentia regi à qua Lumen habeat caeterisque tradat Si Lumen esse dicamus Radios visuales coelestium oculorum in se viventium perque ejusmodi radios cuncta videntium agentiumque videndo non errabimus * Leg. Le Grand Dissert in Epicur Philos ad Gassend de communi rerum vivendi ratione ad Campanel de nominibus Dei soli attributis In which he taketh Atoms or indivisible particles for the first real passive matter antecedent to the distinction of Elements but Fire called also Spiritus Aethereus Natura to be of a higher elevation the Active informer disposer and moderator of all matter and animated Fire that is the Sun and its emanations to be the life and Ruler of the material world And that this was the sense of almost all the old Philosophers And that by their numerous names of God they meant the same thing as diversly operating that is the Sun Fire or Aether which they took to be animated intellectuals as considered in its various respects to mortals Ut docet Hermes Mens generalis habet pro corpore Ignem quasi Igne stipatur circum vestitur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 semper enim necessario Ignis Aethereus Mens Universalis sihi invicem comites assident amboque ita affinos nihil constituunt aliud quà m spiritum Igneum Aethereum lucidum coelestem divinum tenâ—brosam hanc informem immanis materiei abyssum complentem illustrantem animantem Idem ad Campanel pag. â—0 Vide quae ex Mercur. Pimand citat pag. 79. Saith a novel Philosopher himself Ex speculis ustoriis certum est calorem a sole creari intensissimum non acceleratione motus sed coalitione radiorum Lumen species est inter omnes species sensibiles prae caeteris intellectualem speciem repraesentans in Intellectu est per causam in coelo per formae plenitudinem in igne per plenitudinem participationis hinc derivatur in portiones Ficin in Theophrast de Anim. c. 44. Non ergo levitas gravitas causae primi â— orus sunt sed qualitates sunt elementorum sed tamen ut etiam hoc detur quomodo ratiocinari opinari judicare gravitatis levitatis opera esse possunt si ron sunt gravitatis levitatis opera neque elementorum sunt si non elementorum neque certe corporum Nemesius de An. c. 2. p. 484. * So Lipstorpius in his Specim Philos Cartes Deus in principio mundi materiam simul cum motu quiete creavit Unde communissima naturae lex c. vid. pag. 37 38. So that Nature with the Cartesians is nothing at all but God's first moving act at the creation as if he caused motion without any moving created principle and as if spirits and fire had no more moving a nature or principle than clay but only that their matter was either in the creation more moved by God or since by a knock from some other mover put into motion by which accidental motion clay or water may be made fire Leg. Petr. Mousnerii lib. de Impetu lib. 2. de motu naturali Where the nature of Motion is more exactly handled than by the Epicureans or Cartesians though too little is said de vi moventis in comparison of what is said de impetu mobilis Leg. l. 2. pag. 76 77 c. de causa intrinseca motus localis naturalis Et pag. 78. his seven Reasons against Gassendus his doctrine of Gravitation by the traction of Atoms and his confutation of all extrinsick causes viz. Causa prima sola aër terrae vis magnetica vel per qualitatem diffusam vel per vim sympathicam vel tractionem filamentorum virtus coeli pellens detrusio per lucem generans And as easily may the Cartesian reason be confuted which Lipstorpius so magnifieth and the Impetus innatus is the reason which he assigneth pag. 80 81 c. Vid. exceptiones Jo. Bap. du Hamel contra Cartes in conciliat pag. 148 151 170 209 210. See Sir W. Rawleigh Hist l. 1. of Fire making it certainly a thing unknown and probably quiddam medium between things corporeal and incorporeal †Hence it is that the wisest Philosophers differ in this point whether any proper matter be found in the Soul of man Micraelius Ethnoph l. 1. c. 13. p. 23 24. hath instanced in many that are for some materiality Eam sententiam inter veteres probavit apud Macrobium Heraclitus Phyficus cui anima est essentiae Stellaris scintilla Hip parchus apud Plinium cui est coeli pars Et Africanus apud Ciceronem qui detrahit animum ex illis sompiternis ignibus quae sydera vocamus quaeque globosâ—e rotundae divinis animatae mentibus circulos fuos orbesque conficiunt celeritate mirabili Seneca qui descendisse eam ex illo coelesti Spiritu ait Plato ipse qui alicubi animam vocat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 radians splendidum vehiculum Et Epicterus qui astra vocat nobis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 amica cognata Elementa ipseque cum Peripateticis Aristoteles qui eam quinta essentia constare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in animabus inesse dicit Inter nostrates Scaliger quoque vocat animam naturam coelestem quintam essentiam alia quidem a quatuor Elementis natura praeditum sâ—d non sine omni materia Eadem opinio arridet Roberto de Fluctibus c. Lege rationes Carpentarii in Dec. 1. Exerc. 7. contra porositatem diaphanorum Dicit Plato universae naturae animam porrectam esse a centro orbis terrae usque ad extremas oras coeli Non ut locum ista notet poâ—ectio sed extensionis quendam modum quem Mens Ratio assequatur Nemes de Anim. c. 2. pag. 487. †I hope we shall not have Philosophiam staticam and judge of Essences and Excellencies by the ballance †In Ficinus his collections lib. de daemonib Poâ—phyry de Occasion per Ficin holds that Anima quidam Medium quiddam est inter Essentiam individuam atque essentiam vera corpora divisibilem Intellectus autem essentia est individua solum sed qualitates materialesque formae secundum corpora sunt divisibiles Lege Plotinum de Anim. En. 4. l. 3. c. 391. sect 26. Against the soul's dependance upon matter the Platonists write excellently Plato himself and Plotâ—nus and Jamblicus Proclus c. Anima per essentiam est mobilis ex seâ—psa sed conjuncta corpori quodammodo evasit etiam mobilis aâ—unde sicut anim ipsa sua