remembring Faculty whether they have a kind of Discursive Faculty which some call Reason whether they do prescind or abstract touching their Voyces how far they are significant and whether they intentionally signifie by them how far their Animal motions are spontaneous or meerly mechanical and which are of one kind which of another or whether as Des Cartes would have it all are purely Mechanical Many vain things have been asserted by men that would be counted eminent Wits but without debating in this place the truth of any of these things it is no marvel if we are to seek what are the manner of these operations of abstract Spirits or Brutes we cannot know them unless we were in them so as to be acquainted with their inward motions or at least unless they had some such way of communicating their Perceptions and Phantasms unto us as we have to our selves or one to another But whatever can be known of them we may easily by inspecting and observing our selves know much concerning our own Souls and the operations of them We may know that we have a principle within which we do as it were feel distinct from our Bodies whereby we think and we know we think whereby we do discursively and by way of ratiocination deduce one thing from another whereby we abstract divide and define whereby we have notions of things which were never derived to us by Sense as the Substance or the Substratum of those Accidents of things which are derived to us by our Sense whereby we do correct the errors of our Sense and judge otherwise touching things represented than the Sense represents them The Sense represents the Sun no bigger than a Bushel there is somewhat within us tells and that truly that it is bigger than the Earth because we find Distance diminisheth the appearance of Bodies Our Sense tells us that the representation in the Looking-Glass hath all the motions the bulk figure colour of that corporeal Moles it represents and represents the same under all the renditions of a Body as it doth the thing it self reflected but there is that within tells us and that truly that it is but a meer shadow and no real Substratum under that appearance of any such corporeal Moles We do most certainly know that there is that within us that doth exercise a rational Empire over our passions and sensual appetite that believes hopes and acts in order to ends that respect another Life than that of Sense We do find as it were the principal seats of these operations we feel our selves to understand in our Head and that we will and resolve and love and hate and pity in our Heart almost as plainly as we find our selves see with our Eyes or hear with our Ears I feel the propensions and inclinations of my Mind as really as I feel my Body to be cold or warm I find in my self that this inward principle doth exert many of its actions intentionally and purposely I resolve and cast about to remember things that I would remember I cast about for all circumstances that may revive my Memory or Reminiscence When I command any Muscle of my most remote Limb to move it doth it in an instant in the moment I will it and hereby I understand the motions of my Mind are no way Mechanical though the motion of the Muscle be such I move ride run or speak because I will do it without any other physical impulse upon me and when I see many analogal motions in Animals which though I cannot call them voluntary yet I see them spontaneous I have reason to conclude that these in their principle are not simply mechanical although a Mouse-trap or Architas his Dove moved mechanically from an artificial principle And because I find that the remotest Muscle in my Body moves at the command of my Will and since I see the energy of my Soul in every particle of my Body though not using intellectual actions in every part yet using some that are imperate as Local Motion some that are natural and involuntary as the Pulse of my Heart the Circulation of my Blood my Digestion Sanguification Distribution Augmentation And because at the same time I understand consider determine speak walk digest and exercise as well intelectual imperate and involuntary actions and all from the same vital Principle though operating differently in several Faculties and Operations I therefore experimentally feel that my Soul though it hath the residence of the exercise of his nobler Faculties in my Head and Heart yet it pervades my whole Body and exerciseth Vital Offices proportionate to the Exigences or Use of every part the Flesh the Bones the Blood the Spirits Nerves Veins Arteries Seminal Parts and this I feel to be through my whole Body and if I find any part of my Body be so mortified as it becomes like a rotten Branch of a Tree whether it be Nerve or Joint whereby that principle cannot communicate it self to it it putrifies and corrupts and is not participant of the motion or influence derived from my Soul because it is now no longer in it to quicken it And as I find my whole Body the Province or Territory of my Soul in which it universally acts according to the different organization and use of every part so I find that my Soul as to its substantial existence is confined within the precints of it and doth not physically act without it and by all this I learn that my Soul if it be a Spirit may be circumscribed within the compass of a determinate space that though it be a Spirit yet its operations while it is in the Body may be if not altogether yet in a great measure organical I understand remember and reason better in my health than in my sickness and better in my riper years than when I was a Child and had my organical Parts less digested and inconcocted And though it be a Spirit yet I find it is no inconvenience to have some analogy at least of co-extension with my Body And although it may be a simple Spirit and univocally and essentially the same as well in my Toe as my Head yet according to the variety of the disposition and organization of the several parts of my organical Body it exerciseth variety of operations the same Soul that understands in the Brain and sees in the Eye and hears in the Ear neither understands nor sees nor hears in the Fingers but moves and feels These and many such Perceptions I have touching that principle of Life Sense and Intellection within me and of these I have as great a certainty as possibly I can have of any thing in the world First Although I cannot immediately have any immediate sight of my Soul or of its immediate operations or internal actings yet I sensibly see and feel the effects thereof with as great an evidence and demonstration that it is such as if I saw the Principle it self and its immediate
remitted the Tongue speaks the Hand strikes or moves the Foot walks the Mouth opens or shuts and all those spontaneous motions subject to the Empire of the Will are performed And though I chuse my Instance in the subject in hand yet the like imperate motions are in Brutes and Animals though not by the Empire of Will which they have not yet by a Faculty that moves in many things spontaneously in some analogy and adumbration of the Empire of the Will in Man but incomparably below it both in perfection and freedom 3. Again there be very many Operations that although they flow from this active Principle yet they are not acts that are imperate by the Will but they are in a manner natural and unvoluntary and therefore I call them sometimes Involuntary sometimes Natural and they are very many and various such are many of the acts of Sense especially the external Though I do by the Empire of my Will direct the Motion or Acies of my Organ to this or that Object yet my Eye my Ear my Touch my Smell my Tast exercise their office of perception upon the Object duly applied to them without any act of my Will commanding them so to do when they are joyned to their Object So my Heart moves my Blood circulates my Meat digests my Body is augmented without any intention of mind to assist their actings So if there be an ill humour in my Body or a wound in my Hand or Leg the Vital energy of my Soul thrusts out the Balsamical humour of my Blood to heal the latter and useth all that Oeconomy that is proper for the expulsion or subduing of the former sometimes by pustulae or eruptions in the flesh sometimes by sweat sometimes by urine sometimes by seige and all this it doth in the most congruous way imaginable so that the best Physicians have not better direction ordinarily in their applications than to follow Nature in those motions And all this is done most exquisitely and yet without any deliberation or rational decision of the Understanding or Empire of the Will in relation to those Natural motions I shall only therefore observe concerning these Involuntary motions 1. That though they are without any dictamen Rationis yet they are done in a way of as great congruity to its end as if they were directed by the wisest counsel of the wisest Soul and it is reason good it should for it is a standing and most wise Law of exercise planted by the most wise God in this Vital Principle for the regiment of the Body And therefore though it be not directed by deliberation of the Humane Intellect or choice of Humane Will it is setled contrived implanted and directed there by a higher Wisdom even the Wisdom of the most wise God And this indeed is the reason of that Excellency that is seen in Instincts even of Brutes and the Formative process in generation that they so aptly and excellently attain their Ends namely because these Instincts and Powers are the immediate Impressions Signatures and Energies placed in them by the Great and Glorious God whose very foolishness as the Apostle tells us namely the seemingly vilest and lowest Impressions of his Wisdom is wiser than men 2. The second thing to be observed herein is That those Natural and Involuntary actings are not done as the former by deliberation and formal command yet they are done by the virtue energy and influx of the Soul and the instrumentality of the Spirits as well as those Imperate acts before spoken of wherein we see the immediate empire of the Soul That Soul that moves my hand my tongue my foot by way of express command and empire digests sanguifies carnifies excerts and doth all those Involuntary operations by it influence and presence remove but the Soul there is no more digestion sanguification or any other acts of that kind than there is speech in the tongue And although in some Insects there appears a palpitation of the Heart for some little space after it is severed from the Body and in Chicken and other Fowl after the separation of the Head from the Body there is a motion of the parts divided yet it lasts not long and they are but the irregular and convulsive motions or struglings of those Spirits which could not so hastily dismiss themselves from the vessels wherein they were inclosed I would now observe some generals in relation to this Adumbration of Providence and analogical Oeconomy of the Soul in the Body which are these 1. That this analogical Providence of the Soul in relation to its Province the Compositum or Microcosm is universal to every part of it there is not the most inconsiderable particle of Flesh Bone or Artery not the smallest Capillary Vein but it is present with and auxiliary to it according to its use and exigence and the congruity of its constitution it accommodates it self to the Eye for seeing to the Ear for hearing and though it accommodate not it self to the Finger in those exertings of those Senses of Seeing or Hearing yet it equally accommodates it self to those remote and small Organs as perfectly in relation to Feeling and to those motions that are suitable to them 2. That even those Exertions of the active Energy of the Soul that seem most remote from the deliberation of the Understanding and immediate active Empire of the Will are guided and directed with all imaginable congruity to their several Ends and Uses 3. That this very same individual Soul may and oftentimes doth exert all those operations at the same time without any difficulty or confusion At the same time I think I deliberate I purpose I command in inferiour Faculties I walk I see I hear I digest I sanguifie I carnifie my Lungs move swifter or slower by the empire and command of my Will my Heart moves naturally by the motion of Palpitation my Blood by the motion of Circulation Excretion Perspiration my Guts by the motion of Vermiculation my Stomach and Intestines digest the good ejects and expulses the bad my Disease is resisted and expelled my Wound cured and a thousand more concurrent coincident Motions and all these performed at the same time by the Power Energy and Oeconomy of one individual Soul and yet all this done easily and sweetly and perfectly without either lassitude confusion or perturbation And all this done by a little spark of Life which in its first appearance might be inclosed in the hollow of a Cherry-stone yet this little active Principle as the Body increaseth and dilateth evolveth diffuseth and expandeth if not his Substantial Existence yet his Energy and Virtue to the utmost confines of his little Province and every particle and atom thereof yea and it is of that absolute necessity that it should do so that without it the Compositum would be dissolved and the Body dissipated into corruption and its first principles as we see it falls out suddenly after the separation of the
and Inclinations and yet we see that these Sentiments are not confined to the Literati of mankind 2. Again I appeal to the most knowing men in the World that have but had the leisure to think seriously and converse with themselves and that have kept their Minds free from the fumes of intemperance and excess passion and perturbation whether next under Divine Revelation their best and clearest sentiments of Morality at least have not been gathered from the due animadversion and inspection of their own Minds and the improving of that stock of Morals that they there find and the transcribing of that Original which they found first written there It is true that it is with the connatural Principles inscribed in our Minds as it is with our Faculties they lye more torpid and inactive and inevident unless they are awakened and exercised like a spark involved in ashes and being either suppressed or neglected they seem little better than dead but being diligently attended inspected and exercised they expand and evolve themselves into more distinction and evidence of themselves And therefore it was not without some kind of probability that some of the Ancients thought that Science was little else than Memory or Reminiscence a discovery of what was in the Soul before But whatever may be said of other matters certainly the first draughts and strictures of Natural Religion and Morality are naturally in the Mind And hence some thinking men have thought that the specifical difference of the humane Nature is Propension to Religion and therefore define Man to be Animal religiosum which could not be from any habit barely acquisite by the exercise of Faculties unless the same were radically engraven in the very texture of his Soul I shall add but this one thing more It is plain that the existence of a Deity as a Being of infinite Perfection and consequently of infinite Goodness and Justice to reward and punish and of infinite Power and Wisdom is a truth that is highly rational and demonstrable by the exercise of intellectual Faculties upon the consideration of the Universe and its several parts and possibly the Immortality of the Soul is evincible by very great reason But these great truths are not communicated barely by one kind of means and it is needful in respect of their use they should all have all contributions and not only Brains to pursue a long train of consequences And yet we shall find in the generality of mankind especially when death begins to draw towards them a very quick and active demonstration of these convictions and possibly many times more vigorous and active than that rational conviction that is wrought by Speculation and Syllogisms which evidenceth that these Principles of the existence of a most righteous and powerful God and a state of rewards and punishments after death are more universally engraven in the Crasis of the Soul by Almighty God in its natural constitution than barely by the exercise of Faculties in Speculation and Ratiocination And herein it must be remembred that I am in this Discourse still in the outward Court of the Gentiles discoursing only as a reasonable Man and not taking in the assistance of the Christian Doctrine and those subsidia divinae gratiae that relate thereunto Therefore to conclude this point There seems to be two means of communicating and preserving in the Soul and Conscience these great speculative and moral Principles whereof I have even now treated viz. 1. That which I here call Connatural or a certain rational Instinct engraven in the very Make and constitution of it And as those that write of Conscience tell us it hath three offices or acts Synteresis Syneidesis and Epicrisis so those Principles are lodged in that Chest of the Conscience called Synteresis 2. A second means of attaining and keeping and improving these connatural Sentiments or rational Instincts both speculative and moral is that admirable adaptation of the Faculties of the humane Soul to those Principles and Sentiments that as the Eye discerns light and colour by a congruity between the visive Faculty and the visible Object and as the Palate tasts and relisheth its meat by the congruity between the Faculty and the Object whereby it judgeth of what is good and embraceth it and what is evil to it and rejects it So in the humane Faculties those of his Intellect and Will there is a proportionating of the Faculties to the Object whereby the former discerns truth from falshood and moral good from moral evil honestum decorum from indecens turpe and accordingly the Will when it acts regularly and as it should accepts or rejects it But as the estimative Faculty in Brutes is nevertheless consistent with their connatural Instincts which latter have still excellent use in the sentient Province so this adaptation of the Faculties in Man to their Objects doth not exclude those connatural implanted rational Instincts in the humane Nature but both consist together and are of admirable use to the humane Soul And thus far concerning the Soul of Man its Faculties and Instincts I come now to consider of the structure and fabrick of the humane Body and that not at large for that will be for another place but briefly and summarily to give an account of some of those appropriate and discriminating notices wherein it differs from and hath preference above the most perfect brutal Nature And they are such as either concern the entire Fabrick of the Body or such as concern some special Parts or Integrals thereof but I shall mingle them together as followeth 1. There is in the humane Fabrick a greater Majesty and Beauty than in any Animal in the World besides and that appears 1. In the erectness of his posture all other Animals have transverse Bodies as Birds and Beasts and though some do raise themselves upon their hinder legs to an upright posture yet they cannot endure it long it is unnatural and uneasie to them neither are the figures or junctures or order of their Bones Nerves and Muscles fitted to such a posture And it is observable that the structure of Man's Body is with that equilibration notwithstanding divers prominences therein the composure of his Nerves and Muscles for the due motion of his Spirits the structure of his Feet are so singularly accommodated that he maintains this erect posture standing or walking though his Feet the Basis of the Pillar of his Body be much narrower than the latitude of his Body 2. In the Majesty of his Face and Eyes 3. In the Beauty of his Face Beauty consists principally in these things Figure Symmetry and Colour No Bird or terrestrial Animal exhibits its Face in the native colour of its Skin but Man all others are covered with Feathers or Hair or a Cortex that is obduced over the Cutis as in Elephants and some sort of Indian Dogs and though in the torrid Climates the common colour is black or swarthy yet the natural colour of the
it hath been before observed that he that goes about to make the whole Universe and all the several parts thereof the business of his Enquiry as he shall find that there are many things therein that he cannot come at or make any discovery of so among those parts of the Universe that are objected to a greater discovery of our Senses the multiplicity is so great that a man of the most equal and firm constitution must despair of Life enough to make a satisfactory particular and deep enquiry into them But the Object in hand is but one it is Man and the Nature of Man I confess it is true that he that shall make it his business to take in as it were by way of a common place all those things that may be taken up under this consideration and follow all those Lines that concenter in this or almost any other the most single piece of Contemplation will make this Subject large enough and upon that account may be drawn in almost all things imaginable We find in the consideration of the Humane Nature a Substance a Body a Spirit We find the several Objects of his Senses Light Colour Sound and infinite more He that upon this account will take in the distinct and large considerations of these and the like Appendices to Humane Nature in their full amplitude will have a large Plain that will more than exhaust his Life before he come to the Subject it self which he designes Again there is an infinite multitude of collateral considerations that yet are relative to man hither comes all the considerations of Theology Physick Natural Philosophy Politicks the considerations of Speech Government Laws of History Topography of Arts of those Sciences that relate to the Senses of Opticks Musick and infinite more for all these have a relation to Man and are like so many Lines drawn from several Objects that some way relate to him and concenter in him and he that shall make it his business to follow all those Lines to their utmost shall make the contemplation of Man almost as large as the contemplation of the whole Universe When I say therefore the contemplation of Man is the contemplation of a single Object I mean when it is kept into those single bounds of Man in his own specifical Nature and under the physical contemplation of his Nature Parts and Faculties as they are appropriate unto him And then it is a Subject that we may possibly make some progress in its contemplation and conception within the period of the time that by the ordinary time of Life and the permission of necessary avocations a man may employ in such a contemplation And yet secondly though in this restrained notion the Subject seems to be restrained and single we shall find it no very narrow Subject but there will be business enough in it to employ our Faculty and to take up that time which either more necessary or more imporunate thoughts or employments will allow us and variety enough to entertain our thoughts with delight contentation and usefulness 3. The Third Commendation of this Object to our contemplation is this that therein we have more opportunity of certainty and true knowledge of the Object enquired into than we can have in any other Object at least of equal use worth and value Many excellent things there are in Nature which were very well worth our Knowledge but yet as hath been said either by reason of their remoteness from us unaccessibleness to them subtilty and imperceptibleness to us either are not at all suspected to be or are not so much as within any of our Faculties to apprehend or discover what they are or in case we have any conception that there may be something of that kind yet our Notions touching them are but products of Imagination and Phantasie or at best very faint weak ungrounded and uncertain conjectures and such as we can never prove to the satisfaction of others or our selves Our Sense is the best evidence that we have in Nature touching the existence of corporeal things without us and where that is not possibly to be exercised we are naturally at a great uncertainty whether things are or what they are Now the Understanding perceives or understands things by the assistance of Sense in a double manner 1. It either perceives them immediately as being immediately objected to and perceptible to the Sense as I perceive the Sun and the Stars by my sight I find that there is a Body hard or gentle or hot or cold by my Touch and accordingly my Understanding judgeth of them Or secondly though the Sense perceive not the Object immediately yet it doth represent certain sensible effects or operations and though by those effects or operations the Understanding doth not immediately conclude anything else to be but what the Sense thus feels or sees yet the Understanding sometimes by ratiocination and sometimes by the Memory doth infer and conclude something else to be besides what the Sense immediately represents either as the cause or the concomitant of it and doth as forcibly and truly conclude the thing to be and also sometimes what the nature of that cause or concomitant is as if it were seen by the Eye or felt by the Hand I do not see nor by any Sense perceive the quiet undisturbed Air yet because I do see that a Bladder that was before flaccid doth swell by the reception of that which I see not I do as truly and certainly conclude that there is such a subtil Body which we call Air as if I could see it as plain as I see the Water I do not see the Animal or Vital Spirits neither can they by reason of their subtilty and volatileness be discovered immediately to the Sense yet when I see that forcible motion of the Nerves and Muscles I do as certainly conclude there are such Instruments which the Soul useth for the performance of those motions as if I saw them I come into a Room where there is no visible or tangible Fire yet I find by my Sense the Smoke ascending I do as forcibly conclude that Fire is or hath been near as if I saw it because my sensible experience and memory tells me they are concomitant Upon the same account it is that when my Sense and sensible experience shews me that these and these effects there are and that they are successively generated and corrupted though my eye sees not that God that first made those things yet my Sense having shewed me these sensible Objects and the state and vicisstude of them my Understanding doth truly conclude that all this vicissitude of things must terminate in a first cause of things with as great evidence and conviction as if my Sense could immediately see or perceive him So that in the ordinary way of Nature and without the help of divine Revelation all our certainty of things natural begins at our Senses namely the immediate sense of the things themselves
qualities common to other Bodies it hath in it some parts more active and fiery others more passive and waterish or earthy it hath its tendencies to corruption and dissipation And though after the separation of the Soul from the Body it perchance loseth some of those particular Qualities Figurations and Properties that it had before yet it retaineth many of them for many of these Proprieties of a Body as such do not depend upon the Specifical Form of the Humane Nature as such Again there is in this Body a certain Active Specifical Form whereby it is constituted in Esse Hominis which hath in it and doth communicate to the Body certain operations specifical to it by this he exerciseth those operations which either flow from or are communicated by that Form as Life Sense Intellection Volition and the like And though Life and Sense be common to Man and Brutes and their operations in many things alike yet by this Form he lives the Life of a Man and not of a Brute and hath the Sense of a Man and not of a Brute For there is no such thing as Animal or Vivens not determined unto some particular Species as there is no such thing as a Man not determined in some individual For Universals are but Notions and Entia Rationis having their existence only in the understanding power and not in reality And these Operations and Faculties of Humane Life Humane Sense and Humane Understanding and Volition flow not from the corporeal Moles but from some other active regent Principle that resides in the Body and governs it whiles it lives which we call the Soul And therefore although the corporeal Moles after some kinds of Deaths retain the same bulky Integrals the same Figure Colour and many other accidents yet the Soul being removed the Faculties and Operations of Life Sense and Intellection cease from that Moles corporea and are no longer in it This Principle of Life Sense and Intellection in Man called the Soul hath the Body as its Province and Districtus wherein it exerciseth these Faculties and Operations and we shall find the Actions which are performed by it in the Body are of three kinds or natures 1. Some are immanent and not terminated immediately in any external or corporeal action 2. Some are transient and spontaneous terminating in the Body or some parts or motions thereof 3. Some transient but involuntary and exercised and terminated in or upon the Body These seem to be the several kinds of Actions of the Soul at least relating to the Regiment and Oeconomical Government of the Soul upon the Body 1. The internal and immanent Faculties and Acts of the reasonable Soul besides those of Common Sense Phantasie Memory Passion and Appetite common to Men and inferiour Animals are Intellect and Will and the proper Acts of the Intellect are Intellection Deliberation and Determination or Decision The proper Acts of the Will are Volition Nolition Choice Purpose or Resolution and Command in relation to Subordinate Faculties And although there be many actings both of the Intellect and Will that are relative to other things or objects than what immediately concern the Microcosm it self yet the principal part of that analogical Providence that the Soul exerciseth in relation to the Microcosm or Humane Compositum are Intellection Deliberation and Determination in the Understanding and Choice Volition Nolition and Purpose in the Will and these do or should regularly precede all those imperate Acts of the Soul that relate to the Compositum Before I write or speak or go a journey or eat or any the like action there is the deliberation of the Understanding whether I shall do this action the decision of the Understanding that it is fit to be done the choice of the Will to do it the purpose of the Will that it shall be done And although many times the distinction of these several procedures of the Soul do not always appear distinct especially in sudden or ordinary actions which seem to have but one act antecedent to the thing done namely the willing of it to be done yet in actions of weight and importance all these have their distinct order and procedure For although in the most incomprehensible and perfect Will of Almighty God there is no such succession of procedure yet in the operations of the rational Soul that is linked to the Body there is ordinarily that successive procedure of those immanent acts of the Soul that relate to any thing to be done This therefore is the first part of that analogical Providence that the Soul exerciseth in relation to the Body namely deliberation or counsel and decision in the Intellect and choice and purpose in the Will 2. The next Act which immediately succceds Purpose is the Command that is given by the volitive Faculty of the Soul and the Execution thereof and herein are considerable First The Power commanding which is the Will now determined by purpose or resolution Secondly The things to which these commands relate or the Object of them which in relation to the Body is in effect nothing but motion of the Spirits Nerves Muscles parts of the Body or the entire Compositum by virtue of this command the Muscles the Hand the Eye the Tongue perform those imperate commands of the Will I do not digest sanguifie nor my Heart move nor my Blood circulate nor my Meat digest by any immediate command of my Will but I eat I drink I move my Eye my Hand my Muscles my whole Body in pursuance of this command of my Will Thirdly The executive Instrument of this command mediately are my Nerves and Muscles but immediately those subtil invisible and forcible Engins which we call the Animal Spirits these being the most subtil parts in Nature and parts of matter subtilized next in degree of purity to that Soul that commands them are in their nature proper fit and suitable to be the first recipients of the Empire of the Soul they are the nimblest agil strongest Instruments fittest to be executive of the commands of the Soul they are a middle nature between the Soul and the Body the nexus animae to the Body and these subtil Messengers speedily dispatch themselves through the Nerves to the Muscles which are by these Spirits and the native Indoles that is in them and the exact texture of them fitted to move those Integrals of the Body to which they serve and as the Spirits shot through the Nerves are the first and immediate Instruments of the Soul in its imperate acts so the Muscles are as it were the Instruments of the Spirits or the remote Instruments of these imperate motions And by this means the Soul hath the actual imperium and command of all those motions of the Body which are spontaneous or capable of being commanded by the volitive Power of the Soul 't is by this the Eye-lid opens or shuts the Eye is converted to this or that object the Lungs are intended or
sensitive nature That the Rational Nature should have those Faculties of a Sensitive Nature and superadded to it the Faculties of Intellect Reason and Will whereby it might govern it self as a reasonable free Agent and determine it self to this or that action And these are the instituted Laws of the Divine common Providence 2. A continued influx of the Divine Goodness whereby things are upheld and continued in their state of being according to this Law of their Creation And by virtue of both these acts of common divine Providence all things are enabled to act and operate according to the Laws of their being without the necessity of any new individual concurrent act of special Providence producing directing or determining their several operations And hence it is that the Will of man by the instituted Law of his Creation and the common Influence of the Divine goodness and power is enabled to act as a reasonable Creature to determine it self and to govern its proper actions according to the Law of his Creation without any particular specificating concurrent new imperate act of the Divine special Providence to every particular determination of his Will Even as the continued influx of the reasonable Soul enables those Faculties which we call Natural or Involuntary without new deliberation purpose or counsel to every new act thereof And by this means the World is in an ordinary course of Providence governed according to those standing fixed Laws given to the Universe and the several parts thereof by the Divine Will wherein it is supported by the common influx and presence of the Divine power and goodness And this is that which being duly considered extricateth that Question which hath so much troubled the World concerning the sinful acts of men and how far forth the glorious God is at all concerned in them Certainly the imperate acts of his Blessed Will have nothing to do to enforce or necessitate the Will of man to any sin it is far from the purity of his Glorious Nature But the general Law of his Providence is only thus far concerned in it That he hath made Man an intelligent and free Agent put him into the power of his own Will but yet sub graviore imperio to restrain its actings if he please by his special Providence and Man in this state of his liberty when he doth sin sins from the Empire of his own Will and not from a determination of the Divine Regiment But though the contemplation of the regiment of the Soul over the Body hath given some analogical explication of the Divine Providence in the Government of the World yet as this Analogy is but imperfect the Divine Regiment of the World is infinitely more wise more powerful more perfect than the regiment of the Soul over the Body so in many things this Analogy by no means holds For instance The Soul doth what it doth in the Body though by a kind of efficiency yet it is but a subordinate efficient and vicarious and instrumental in the hands of the Almighty who as it hath endued the Soul with this energy so the Soul is but his substitute in this regiment of the Body but Almighty God is the supreme Rector of the World and of all those subordinate provinces and parts thereof Secondly in the imperate acts of the Souls regency of the Body and the Compositum She cannot in the Body work immediately without the instrumentality of the intermediate animal and vital Spirits But in the imperate acts of the special Divine Providence though we may justly think he doth most ordinarily use the ministry of those noble natures called Angels yet he may and oftentimes doth by the immediate Fiat of his own Will exercise these imperate acts of special Providence for his Power is infinite and all Beings are in an immediate obedience and subjection to it 3. The Soul cannot by its own Will exercise any immediate imperate act upon those natural and involuntary operations which yet are exercised by an influx from it indeed it may starve and destroy the Body by its Empire and thereby consequently impede and determine those natural and involuntary operations yet it cannot by its Intention or Empire prohibit or suspend their exercise the natural means being allowed and present it cannot effectually prohibit the Heart not to move or the Blood not to circulate or the Ventricle not to digest But it is otherwise with the Regent and regiment of the World even those things wherein he hath set a fixed Law which by virtue of the common influence of the Divine Power and Goodness they observe and follow are subject to the Empire of his special Providence and the imperate acts thereof And this is evident in that Administration of special Providence which is miraculous he commanded the Fire not to burn stopped the mouths and appetites of Lions and prohibited the natural operation and agency of Natural Causes 2. In all the special Providences that are exercised in the World though they do not visibly appear to us to be miraculous yet they most certainly are governed by the imperium of special Divine Providence whereby it sometimes excites second Causes to production of Effects which being thus excited they naturally produce sometimes impeding them sometimes diverting them sometimes directing them sometimes by contemperation or uniting other more active or contrary Causes allaying or enforcing them and although it may be the interposition of the Divine imperium or special Providence be not immediately the immediate antecedent Cause but it may be the third the fourth the tenth the twentieth Cause distant from the Effect Nay though possibly the conjunction of the immediate imperium Providentiae be with the First Mover in Nature the Heavenly Aethereal or Fiery Influx yet the regiment of the Divine Providence is as full and infallible in relation to the imperate regiment of the Effect as if it were immediately joyned to the designed Effect So that the Moral of that Poetical fiction that the uppermost Link of all the series of subordinate Causes is fastned to Jupiter's Chair signifies a useful truth Almighty God doth as powerfully govern and direct when he pleaseth and how he pleaseth all subordinate Causes and Effects as the Soul governs the motion of the Muscle or Limb by those strings of the Nerve which are rooted in the Brain 4. Again the regiment of the Soul over the Body is the regiment of the more active part over the more passive though both making one Compositum but the regiment of Almighty God over the World is not as a part of it or as a Form or Soul informing it but as a Rector or Governour distinct separate and essentially differing from it his regiment of the World in this respect not so much resembling the regiment of the Soul over the Body which together with it make one compounded Nature as the regiment of the Master or Rector over the Ship or the regiment of a King over his Subjects And
latitude such as are moral and supernatural Good 3. The Acts of this Faculty are generally divided into Volition Nolition and Suspension That division that herein better suits with my purpose are these Election and Empire 1. Election or choice and this in reference both to means and end for though the Schools tell us that Electio is only mediorum non finis this is to be intended of the general end or good at large and in its universal conception for when several particular ends are in proposal there is belonging to the Will a power of Election of these as well as of the means to attain them 2. The Imperium voluntatis over the Body and the Faculties We may observe in the humane as well as the animal Body two kinds of motions or exertions of Faculties some are stiled natural or involuntary such is the motion of the Heart the Circulation of the Blood the perception of the Senses when the Organs are open and the Object applied these natural though vital Faculties and Motions are not under the command of the Will immediately for whether I will or will not while I live my Heart beats my Blood circulates my Ventricle digests what is in it my Eye sees when open But there be other Motions in the humane and also in the animal Nature that are subject to the command of the Will in Man and to the appetite in Brutes as local motion which in Animals is under the regiment of the Appetite in Man under the regiment of the Will Now this Imperium voluntatis may be considered in relation 1. To it self It can suspend its own acting either of electing or rejecting 2. To the Understanding Though it cannot suspend its perception omnibus ad percipiendum requisitis adhibitis yet it may suspend its decision or determination or at least its obsequium to such decision 3. The Passions which are as it were the Satellites voluntatis and follow the command of the Will where the Will acts according to its power and authority 4. To the animal Spirits and the Vessels in which they are received when designed to Motion namely the Nerves and Muscles those are all subject to the Empire of the Will as to Local Motion of the whole Body or any part thereof when the Spirits Nerves and Muscles are in their due and natural state 5. To the sensual Appetite And indeed herein is evident both the Empire and Sovereignty of the Will and also the visible discrimination between the Humane Nature and the Animal or Brutal Nature and its preference before it In the animal Nature it is evident that the sensual Appetite is that which hath and exerciseth the sovereignty and dominion over the spontaneous actions of the animal Nature that commands the Foot to go the Mouth to eat and all other the spontaneous motions in order to a sensible good But in Man the sensual Appetite is Regimen sub graviere regimine the government of the Appetite is under the government of the Will and controlled by it at least where the reasonable Faculty is not embased and captived by ill custom or disorder And this appears two ways 1. Sometimes the very motion of the Appetite it self is restrained by the Empire of the Will so that a man doth not appetere that sensible good which otherwise he might or would because he will not and this is the most natural and noble regiment of the Will over the sensual Appetite 2. Though it may fall out that the sensual Appetite may appetere bonum sensibile yet the Will may and doth controll the empire of the Appetite in the execution of that appetition As for instance A man sees delicious fruit and he desires it in so much that were there not a controll over the empire of his Appetite it would command the Hand to reach it and the Mouth to eat it But the contrary command of the Will supersedes the command of the Appetite the Appetite desires it but the Hand is forbidden by the Will to reach it Now if any man shall say this contradiction appears not only in the reasonable Nature but even in the sensible The sensible Appetite is checked in its execution oftentimes by sensual Fear as in Dogs and Horses and other Brutes yea sometimes by the remembrance of a former suffering for the like attempt to gratifie his sensual Appetite and yet they are destitute of any superior faculty of Will to interpose a prohibition upon the Appetite I answer this is true for in such cases the impendent Fear is either present or in memory and so expected and it being of a sensible evil hath the same influence upon the sensual Appetite as the present good and therefore if the evil feared or impendent be a greater sensible evil than the good it over-rules the Appetite to aversation as the Fish that loves the bait yet feareth the hook which it discerns as a greater sensible evil the very Appetite is thereby determined to aversation But the controll of the Will upon the Appetite in the reasonable Nature is many times and indeed most often done not upon the account of a sensible evil felt or feared which of it self were sufficient to determin the Appetite but sometimes upon the account of such hopes or fears as fall not under a sensitive notice as of the command or prohibition by God yea many times upon a bare Moral account of the indecorum unreasonableness unseasonableness or utter unfitness of the thing it self without any other motive of fear either of a present or future sensible inconvenience thereby which Moral consideration can no way move the sensible Appetite were it not for the Will which being a rational Faculty is moved by it And this is all that I shall say touching the two great Faculties of the Soul the Understanding and Will I shall not add any thing here touching Passions or Affections of the Mind 1. Because they are but a kind of appendices to the Will the Satellites voluntatis those of the concupiscible kind being as it were the flowers of the motion of Volition those of the irascible kind the flowers of the motion of Aversation 2. Because the Passions for the most part are found in the sensible Nature namely those of love hatred delight grief expectation and fear and therefore I shall not here treat of them 3. I come now to consider of those rational Instincts as I call them the connate Principles engraven in the humane Soul which though they are Truths acquirable and deducible by rational consequence and argumentation yet they seem to be inscribed in the very crasis and texture of the Soul antecedent to any acquisition by industry or the exercise of the discursive Faculty in Man and therefore they may be well called anticipations prenotions or sentiments characterized and engraven in the Soul born with it and growing up with it till they receive a check by ill customs or educations or an improvement and advancement
Faculties and Organs though admirable yet are not of equal perfection with those of the nobler kind of Animals as will appear more hereafter They also that seem to have their Origination ex putrido or spontaneously yet it is evident to Experience that they do propagate their kind contrary to what was thought by Aristotle in his Book de Gen. Animal lib. 1. cap. 1. who supposeth At verò quae non ex coitu sed ex putri materia oriuntur ea generant quidem sed genus diversum And touching these Insects though they seem to be sponte orta yet there is much may be said that their Original is not spontaneous but that even those Insects that seem sponte orta arise one of these ways 1. Either immediately ex semine prioris Insecti ejusdem speciei 2. Or mediately ex hujusmodi semine Or 3. ex vivo animali diversae speciei Or 4. ex mortuo animali diversae speciei seu cadavere For some think that it is not easily grantable that a Being endued with Sense can by the course of Nature arise from a Being without Sense or at least without Life Vide Kircher l. 12. Mundi subterranei Fortunium Licetum de Insectis Touching the first of these many of those Insects that seem to be sponte orta do indeed immediately arise from the Semina of Insects of the same kind for these Insects for the most part ex coitu do produce an innumerable multitude of little Eggs or Semina that sometimes in the same Year grow to Animals of the same kind and sometimes their Semina are deposited in some Cranies or Coverts of the Earth or Trees Leaves or other Receptacles that serve for the Seminium or Store of the next Spring Malpighius that hath made a curious disquisition touching the Silk-Worm tells us that the usual product of that Worm in one Year is never less than 300 but most often 500 Eggs most of which foecunda and the like is visible in Caterpillers Flies Worms Frogs Locusts Wasps and all other Insects It is true the Winter destroys most of these Insects and many of their Semina and therefore the colder the Winter is the less the next Spring is infested with them But many of these Semina are preserved till the next Spring and then they assume their specifick Life by the heat of the approaching Sun These Semina being very small and light are many times dispersed into other places by the Winds sometimes carried away to other places by Waters and Floods sometimes exhaled into the Air with the gross Vapours drawn up by the Sun and poured down by Rain again on other places And this multitude of these little Semina thus dispersed assuming in the Spring their natural kinds give Men occasion to think them sponte orta whereas in truth they do as really arise ex semine specifico as the greater Animals And therefore credit is hard given to the Story of Diodorus Siculus or of the Poet out of him concerning the Mice arising in Egypt out of the Slime of Nilus Altera pars vivit manet pars altera tellus Neither to the confident Helmont in his Tract De Imagine Fermenti impraegnante massam Seminis pag. 113. who tells us that if a foul Shirt be put within the mouth of a Vessel where there is Wheat that in the space of 21 days it will turn the Wheat into Mice nor that other Relation of his in the same place that the Herb Basil being bruised and exposed to the heat of the Sun some days will breed Scorpions And as concerning the productions of Insects out of Vegetables viz. those little Animals that are bred in Flowers and Herbs there are some that think they are not the natural production of the Vegetables but that they are the small Semina of those Flies that are lodged in the cavities of them such as are in the Leaves of Elms or in the Leaves or Fruits of other Herbs or Trees as in the Oak-apple the Hasel-nut and some others And besides these formal Seeds the several parts of Insects have also their Seminal Nature in them and produce often Insects of the same kind see for this the whole Tract of Kircher in his Mundus subterraneus lib. 12. cap. 1. seqq wherein he gives us the Solution of the ortus spontaneus of the Barnacles in the Orcades and other Parts by the Eggs of the Sea-Fowls that are driven upon this Shore and many Instances of the Artificial production of Insects out of the macerated Materials of Worms Frogs Locusts Shell-Fish Scorpions whereby it appears that all their Parts are seminal though not so active and formative as their Formal Seeds are 2. As to the mediate production of Insects yet out of the Seminal Natures of others of the same Species Thus out of the Fimeta of Horses Oxen and Sheep arise Scarabei or Beetles and according to Kircher ubi supra Bees have their production out of the Stercus Bovis which yet he attributes to those Moleculae seminales deposited in those Flowers whereupon Cows do feed but not so macerated in the digestion but that they retain their primitive Seminal Nature though perchance this may be too remote and laborious a reduction and possibly it were better to be reduced to that which follows namely from the Animal vivum upon which account he supposeth that Ants are Humanae urinae proles 3. Therefore the third Original of Insects is from the living Body of another Animal whose excrementitious parts do naturally breed Insects as Lice Fleas Worms yea and according to the Author's Observation there is scarce any noysom Disease in the Body but it breeds Worms yea and according to a late curious Anatomist Kirkringius there are scarce any Viscera of the Body of Man but hath many sorts of Worms in it And the Solution of these Productions seem to be thus That the Sensitive Nature being divisible communicates it self in various degrees unto all that is united to the Body the Chyle the Humors nay the very Excrementitious Parts the natural Excrements the Urine the Hair the excrementitious Sweat and Evaporations carry along with them the mean and low Effluvia of the Sensible Nature or Animal Spirits That these Effluvia when they are closed up in any viscous Continent that may contain and keep them together from being presently diffused and wasted assume the form of an Animal though not of the same nature nor worth nor excellence nor perfection of the Animal it self that produceth it for the meanest and basest Effluvia of the Animal Soul accompany these mean and base connexa of the Animal Body namely the foul Humours and Excrements And hence it is that those nasty Productions as Lice Fleas Cimices the Worms in the Intestines or Ventricle nay in the Heart Liver Ears and other parts of Men are bred and from this participation of those baser Effluvia of the Animal Spirits the Hairs of Horses lodged in standing Water
Principle of the one and the other 2. In the disparity of the natural Method of the perfecting of the one and the other 3. In the disparity of the Natures of the Animals of the one kind and the other having arrived to their complement and perfection First touching the disparity of the natural Productive Principle of the one and the other although it be admitted that Insects and spontaneè orta do or may arise from a Semen or Principle that is not univocal or formal yet it must needs be agreed that the Natural Principle of such their production must be some analogal Semen or some Seminal Principle that is suitable to such a Production otherwise quidlibet orietur ex quolibet there must be something that must determin the Matter to be an apt Seminium for such a Production or else the Matter must determin it self either there must be some determinate Vital or Spiritual Principle that is determined in it self and determins the Matter which Paracelsus seems to hold that Bodies were first Spirits and Aristotle seems to intimate when he tells us that Animarum omnia plena and when the Matter is fitly prepared there is an illapse of this Vital Formative Spirital Principle into it or else the inherent qualities or dispositions of Matter it self must be of force to mould it self up into these Moleculae seminales the Formative Principles of these sponte orta I speak in the Language of those that erroneously hold no higher Principles but such as are purely Natural But although such Seminal Particles as these may be sufficient for the production of Insects yet they are not naturally accommodated for the perfection of the perfect Animals For the Semen prolificum for the production of perfect Animals must receive its specifical conforming Principle either by the Supernatural Power of Almighty God or from the Specifical Nature of the Individuals of both Sexes and if we could suppose an Anima vaga of the Sensible Nature not confined to any Individual of the same nature nothing could be a Matter fitly prepared for its reception but the Materia seminalis ex individuis elicita neither is there any Matter extra compositum animale capable to advance it self to the nature of such a perfect Animal for if either of these could be done we had as much reason daily to expect the like spontaneous productions of Horses and Sheep as we find of Frogs and Worms Again the Vis conformatrix and Seminal Particles of Insects is most plainly in Insects not confined to the semina formalia utriusque sexus commixta for we see almost all their parts are seminal and will by putrefaction advance to the production of their kind Their productive power is not so strictly and severely bound to the semen utriusque sexus Many have told us by experience and observation that the Excrements of Flies without any mixtion will produce immediately Flies that the Resolution or Maceration of Frogs and Worms will reproduce Individuals of the same species as Kercher lib. 12. Mundi subterranei tells us But there are no parts of perfect Animals that are productive of their species but the same is confined by the Laws of their Nature to a semen formale ex utroque sexu decisum It is true that their parts corrupted as their Blood Flesh or Veins will produce Insects and living Creatures of a different and baser kind than themselves as Worms Lice Fleas Flies but they can never advance to the production of their own kind And the Reason is because there is not possibly any transmission of that specifical vital formative Principle to any other part but the semen formale of the Individuals of that species and that Vis formatrix activa vitalis sensibilis must be communicated either by virtue of a participation of all the parts of the Producents or by a kind of a specifical Idea naturally produced by that Nature from whence it is derived which evolves and expands it self being produced or which is more intelligible and probable than either of the former by a participation of the vital and sensible Soul to the semen prolificum from the Producents and there is no way of communication thereof in perfect Animals but only to that natural and genuine Semen constituted mixed and ordered according to the Law of its Being so that we cannot suppose any seminal Principle of perfect Animals but this semen prolificum utriusque parentis unless we shall gratis and without either Reason or Example wholly invert the natural order of things and substitute a Semen contrary to the nature of the things that must be produced or admit that which those great Assertors of Nature think below them to grant and will rather suppose a thousand Absurdities than admit namely the Interposition of the Divine Power And 2. As the Semen formativum of perfect Animals is greatly differing from that of Insects and therefore not capable of a spontaneous production as these so it is apparent that at least in animalibus viviparis it is impossible to be preserved sine receptaculo naturae congruo scilicet utero foemineo The vital particles thereof are more fiery and volatile and higher advanced than that Semen that is or may be sufficient for Insects sine convenienti receptaculo avolabunt spiritus vitales ex interventu vel minimi frigoris mortuum infoecundum evadet but the Semina of Insects are more viscous and less volatile in so much that their Semina will remain all the Winter in caverns and holes and yet be fruitful the next Spring 3. Again the Semen Insecti being so small a Particle and having as I may say so small a portion of Soul in it is soon formed and brought to maturity We may learn this in their univocal productions or ex coitu Scaliger tells us Exercitat 191. l. 2. that the Gloworm brings forth his Eggs postridiè post coitum Malpighius in his curious Disquisition touching the Silkworm tells that quarto post coitum die the Female brings forth ordinarily above 300 sometimes above 500 Eggs and these will lie all the Winter and with the warm heat of the Spring and some other assistance will prove vital the next Spring and Aristotle Hist Animal l. 5. cap. 27. tells us that Araneae statim post ova parta incubant triduo peragunt quatuor septenis diebus justa accipiunt incrementa ibid. l. 6. cap. 37. tells us that Mures si salem lambunt pariunt sine coitu and that even their young have been found with young before they saw the light By all which it is evident That although these little Moleculae seminales will retain their fecundity longer than the Eggs of Birds even a whole Winter and possibly longer yet when they have obtained a convenient Matrix and the warm cherishing heat of the Spring the formation production and maturation of Insects and of that Semen prolificum which they univocally yield in their regular
and uses For although the Almighty Wisdom and Power could have made all this Fabrick of the World in its full complement and perfection in one moment and although he produced and perfected Vegetables Brutes and Man in one moment without the gradual procedures through those several stations and degrees which Nature now observeth and so he could have done in the production of all other the Integrals of the Universe yet he seems in some parts of this Processus formativus of the Universe to use sometimes such Methods Means and Instruments and such Times Periods and Orders as might seem to bear in some measure a congruity to a Natural Procedure thus he used that Motion or Agitation of the Spirit for the ripening and influencing of the vast Mass he first begins with the production of those more simple constituent Particles of Matter which might yield Matter suited and prepared to Mixt Natures And it is not unreasonable for us to think that this great flaming Light in the first three days of the Creation was used as a most suitable Instrument for the Rarefaction Digestion Separation and Distribution of the remaining part of the Chaotical Matter in those greater Agitations that it had in the production of the Aether the separation of the Water and the arefaction of the Earth which Processes required a more severe and violent active Instrument than was necessary or indeed suitable to those smaller Mutations which were after made and probably if that piercing and great Lucid Nature had continued its Revolutions about the World it would have been too strong and violent either to the production or conservation of those Animals and Mankind that were now to be produced And so the diffused Light that circulated about the Universe is now this fourth day distributed into these several Heavenly Bodies 1. Because now its use in that former state and method of its existence ceased 2. It was now for the use of the Universe to have it distributed and ordered into those several Vessels the Sun and Stars that might with a gentler and better regulated Heat and Motion influence the World 3. It was now more for the Beauty Order and Ornament of the Universe for the Glory and Honour of the Divine Wisdom Power and Goodness to distribute this Light into several Vessels and according to various measures and proportions and accommodated with several Motions than to keep it in one vast and terrible Body circulating the Universe which unrefracted might have been too penetrating and violent to the other parts of Nature And this seems to be the Method of the Origination of the Heavenly Bodies For though the firt Verse tells us that In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth we have no reason to suppose that the Etherial Bodies and the Heavenly Luminaries were completed in the moment of Time whatever may be conjectured touching the Coelum Empyraeum for it is evident that Light the first-born of the Universe was not made till the first day the Expansum or Aether till the second day nor the Heavenly Host the Planetary and Fixed Stars till the fourth day I shall not here contend much touching the System of the Universe whether the Earth be the Center thereof or the Sun whether it consist of so many several Systems or Vortices whether every Fixed Star hath its Vortex and the Sun the Center of the Planetary Vortex only thus much I shall say 1. That this Diving Hypothesis delivered to us by the hand of Moses seems wholly to contradict the Supposition of Solid Orbs and strongly concludes that the Heavenly Bodies are moved in liquido Aethere 2. It seems rather to countenance that System of the Universe that supposeth the Earth to be the common Center thereof than 〈◊〉 the imaginary Hypothesis of Copernicus Galileus Kepler or Des Cartes 3. That it utterly contradicts the Hypothesis of Aristotle and Ocellus and the Pythagoreans touching the Eternity of the World or of the Heavens and likewise the Fiction of Democritus and Epicurus of the casual Coalition of the Universe by the motion or interfering of Atoms 3. I come to consider of the Fifth Days Work touching the production of Fish and Fowls Vers 20. And God said Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven and God created great whales and every living creature that moveth which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind and every winged fowl after its kind and God saw that it was good The great Engin of the Heavenly Bodies being now constituted in that excellent state and order for the use and conservation of animal Life God Almighty proceedeth in a most exquisite order for the production of Animals and because the Waters were in themselves a more ductile and possibly a more fertil Body than the Earth and also because caeteris paribus the Fowls and Fishes are not of an equal perfection in their natures to the Brutes or Terrestrial Animals for these have certainly a more digested constitution greater variety and curiosity in their bodily texture and a higher Spirit and Soul of nobler Instincts and more capable of Discipline than the Fowl or Fishes Therefore as the production of Vegetables anteceded the production of Animals so the production of Animals aquatil and volatil preceded the production of terrestrial Animals What may else be said in relation to this Days Work I shall deliver in the Consideration of the next first Part of the sixth Days Work Therefore 4. The first Part of the sixth Days Work comprized the production of Terrestrial Animals Vers 24. And God said Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind and cattel and every creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind and it was so The Reasons why Terrestrial Animals had their production after the Fowls and Fishes have been partly before intimated and shall be here somewhat farther considered And they are these 1. Although Almighty God be not bound or straitned in his Operation to the sequaciousness of the Matter yet it is not improper for us to suppose that he may pursue the Laws of his own making where it consists with his design and intention The production of Vegetables by the Earth was indeed earlier but then the energy of his Instrument the Light perchance was stronger than after the distribution thereof into the Receptacles of the Heavenly Luminaries 2. Ad plurimum the nature of Terrestrial Animals was a more refined nature than that of Fowls and Fishes and therefore as the Matter might reasonably expect a longer mora for its Concoction so the Method of Creation caeteris paribus proceeded from the less elaborate Integrals of Mixt Bodies to the more elaborate concluding with Man And this preference of the Brutes above Fowls and Fishes appears 1. In the manner of their natural procreation the Brutes being ad plurimum vivipara the
The admirable accommodation of Faculties with subministring Faculties and Organs subservient appropriate and convenient for their exercise For Instance Local Motion is necessary to Mankind and accordingly he is furnished with Animal Spirit Nerves Muscles Tendons and Limbs admirably contrived and destined and fitted to Local Motion The Intellective Faculty is furnished with the organical Fabrick of the Brain and the subordinate Power of Sense Phantasie and Memory to assist it in its exercise while it is in the Body Facultati generativae prolisicae subministrans facultas seminificationis ac organa eidem deservientia appetitus naturalis voluptas quaedam alliciens organa generationi dicata distinctio sexuum sine qua juxta legem in natura post primam humanae naturae formationem insitam hujusmodi speciei propagatio fieri nequivit The Digestive Faculty furnishing the Blood the Blood increasing the Body and supplying the Treasuries of the Spirits the Spirits again supplying and maintaining the Offices of the Faculties So that not only the Blood but the whole Corporeal and Animal Nature is in continued motion and mutual subserviency I might be endless in this Contemplation but because it is evident to any Man that considers and I design a larger discussion of this Business when I come to consider the Parts and Faculties of the Humane Nature I shall not give farther Instances therein And the Use that I make of it is this That although it might be supposed possible that either Chance or Nature might in some simple narrow things produce very curious Appearances as the Configurations of Asterites of Crystals of Salts in their several shapes yet when in such a complicated Nature as Man is consisting of so many various Parts various in their position nature and use there shall be found such an exact adaptation of every thing one to another as to serve the whole and every part this in the primordial Constitution and Formation must needs be the Work of a most wise intelligent powerful Being that operates secundùm intentionem appropriationem intelligentiam 2. Let us come then to those Appendices and relative Respects of other things to the Humane Nature we shall easily find in it this Consideration also the Footsteps and Evidences of an Intelligent Nature in the Constitution of him by that admirable accommodation of things without him of different nature from him to his use and convenience In the Operations or Works of Intelligent Agents we may easily see that according to the degree or perfection of such Intelligence there is variety in their Work or Production An Intelligent Agent that is but of a narrow Intelligence as his Prospect is commonly short and weak so his Work seldom attains more than a narrow and single End But if the Agent be of a large and comprehensive Intelligence and Wisdom his ends are great and most times various and complicated and the same Operation or Work may have divers many 〈◊〉 Ends and Uses Almighty God therefore being of infinite Wisdom and Power foresees and effects great and various Ends in one and the same Work or Operation Take for Instance that goodly Creature the Sun What a complication of excellent Ends and Uses there are in that glorious Body It is the Fountain communicating Light to the Earth the Air and all the Planetary Bodies it is that which derives Heat and is the great Instrument of deriving Fruitfulness and Fertility to the inferior World it distinguisheth Times and Seasons by its Motion it raiseth and digesteth and distributeth the Watry Meteors for the benefit of this inferior World and infinite more advantages of this kind And therefore it is the narrowness of our Understanding that when we see one excellent End or Usefulness in any thing to conclude that God Almighty intended no other And therefore it is too hasty and vain a Conclusion to think that the glorious Bodies of the Celestial Host were made meerly for the service of Man and it is also folly and presumption to conclude that even the things of this inferior World though principally designed for the use of Man were meerly and only destined for the service of Man Almighty God hath the Glory of his own Greatness and the Communication of his own Goodness as the great End of all his Works Yea and we have reason to think that even in these inferior Beings of this lower World which are delivered over to the use and service of Men God Almighty had other Ends that possibly we know not nay possibly in the Effection of the least minute Animal Almighty God intended a Communication of so much of his Goodness and Beneficence to it as might give it a kind of complacency and fruition suitable to the capacity of its Existence though subordinate to other Ends. And yet not only in these inferior Existences of this lower World but even in the Fabrick Order and Oeconomy of the superior World there is to be found an admirable accommodation of them one to another and to this Steward and Tenant of Almighty God of this inferior World called Man 1. If we look upon the Celestial World we have an admirable accommodation thereof to the convenience of Mankind it presents to his View and thereby to his Understanding the most noble Spectacle of the Celestial Bodies their Order Beauty Constancy Motion Light conducting to the knowledge and acknowledgment of the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God it gives him an account of the progress and parts and succession of Time these are advantages that no Irrational Nature can make use of But the Influence of the Heavens are a common Benefit to Man and all Sublunary Natures but yet the inferior World seems in a great measure directed for the benefit of Mankind some in common to him and the Brutes as the Air for Respiration the Fire for Warmth the Water for Drink the Earth for Fruit and Habitation But in this lower World there seems many things directed to the special use of Mankind for besides Domestick Animals especially allowed for his Food there are some that serve for his Employment Motion Exercise and Food as the Tillage and Planting of the Earth for his Food some for his Medicine as Herbs and Gums and Minerals some for his Clothing as the Furrs Wool and Skins of Beasts some for his Habitation as the Timber and Stone some for his Fewel as Wood Coals and Turf some for his Defence and Manufacture as Iron and Steel some for Commerce as the Metals of Silver Gold Copper the very Situation of the Seas the Magnes some for his Ornament as Silk and Jewels some for his Journey and Labour as Horses Oxen Camels some for his Necessity some for his Delight Infinite more Instances may be given whereby it will evidently appear that this lower World is accommodated to the use and convenience of Mankind in a special and remarkable manner whereby it may be evident to any considerate Man that the Formation of the World and
Revelation to Moses there was a Divine Manifestation thereof to the first created Man in that fulness of his first illuminated and perfect state of created Nature and from him that Tradition was derived and preserved in that Line of the Patriarchs in which the most important Divine Truths were conserved and traduced from Adam to Moses That which may illustrate my meaning in this preference of the revealed Light of the Holy Scriptures touching this matter above the Essays of a Philosophical Imagination may be this Suppose that Greece being unacquainted with the curiosity of Mechanical Engins though known in some remote Region of the World an excellent Artist had secretly brought and deposited in some Field or Forest some excellent Watch or Clock which had been so formed that the original of its Motion were hidden and involved in some close contrived piece of Mechanism that this Watch was so framed that the Motion thereof might have lasted a Year or some such time as might give a reasonable Period for Philosophical Conjectures concerning it and that in the plain Table there had not been only the description and indication of Hours but the configurations and indications of the various Phases of the Moon the Motion and Place of the Sun in the Ecliptick and divers other curious indications of Celestial Motions and that the Scholars of the several Schools of Epicurus of Aristotle of Plato and the rest of those Philosophical Sects had casually in their walk found this admirable Automaton what kind of work would there have been made by every Sect in giving an account of this Phaenomenon We should have had the Epicurean Sect have told the by-standers according to their pre-conceived Hypothesis that this was nothing else but an accidental concretion of Atoms that haply faln together had made up the Index the Wheels the Ballance and that being haply faln into this posture they were put into Motion Then the Cartesian falls in with him as to the main of their Supposition but tells him that he doth not sufficiently explicate how this Engin is put into Motion and therefore to furnish this Motion there is a certain Materia subtilis that pervades this Engin and the moveable parts consisting of certain globular Atoms apt for Motion they are thereby and by the mobility of the globular Atoms put into Motion A third finding fault with the two former because these Motions are so regular and do express the various Phaenomena of the distribution of Time and of the Heavenly Motions therefore it seems to him that this Engin and Motion also so analogical to the Motions of the Heavens was wrought by some admirable Conjunction of the Heavenly Bodies which formed this Instrument and its Motions in such an admirable correspondency to its own existence A fourth disliking the Suppositions of the three former tells the rest that he hath a more plain and evident Solution of the Phaenomenon namely the Universal Soul of the World or Spirit of Nature that formed so many sorts of Insects with so many Organs Faculties and such congruity of their whole Composition and such curious and various Motions as we may observe in them hath formed and set into Motion this admirable Automaton and regulated and ordered it with all these congruities we see in it Then steps in an Aristotelian and being dissatisfied with all the former Solutions tells them Gentlemen you are all mistaken your Solutions are inexplicable and unsatisfactory you have taken up certain precarious Hypotheses and being pre-possessed with these Creatures of your own Fancies and in love with them right or wrong you form all your Conceptions of things according to those fancied and pre-conceived Imaginations The short of the business is this Machina is eternal and so are all the Motions of it and in as much as a Circular Motion hath no beginning or end this Motion that you see both in the Wheels and Index and the successive indications of the Celestial Motions is eternal and without beginning And this is a ready and expedite way of solving the Phaenomenon without so much ado as you have made about it And while all the Masters were thus controversing the Solution of the Phaenomenon in the hearing of the Artist that made it and when they had all spent their philosophizing upon it the Artist that made this Engin and all this while listened to their admirable Fancies tells them Gentlemen you have discovered very much excellency of Invention touching this piece of Work that is before you but you are all miserably mistaken for it was I that made this Watch and brought it hither and I will shew you how I made it first I wrought the Spring and the Fusee and the Wheels and the Ballance and the Case and Table I fitted them one to another and placed these several Axes that are to direct the Motions of the Index to discover the Hour of the Day of the Figure that discovers the Phasis of the Moon and the other various Motions that you see and then I put it together and wound up the Spring which hath given all these Motions that to see in this curious piece of Work and that you may be sure I tell you true I will tell you the whole order and progress of my making disposing and ordering of this piece of Work the several materials of it the manner of the forming of every individual part of it and how long I was about it This plain and evident discovery renders all these excogitated Hypotheses of these Philosophical Enthusiasts vain and ridiculous without any great help of Rhetorical Flourishes or Logical Confutations And much of the same nature is that disparity of the Hypotheses of the Learned Philosophers in relation to the Origination of the World and Man after a great deal of dust raised and fanciful Explications and unintelligible Hypotheses The plain but Divine Narrative by the hand of Moses full of sence and congruity and clearness and reasonableness in it self doth at the same moment give us a true and clear discovery of this great Mystery and renders all the Essays of the generality of the Heathen Philosophers to be vain inevident and indeed inexplicable Theories the creatures of Phantasie and Imagination and nothing else 1. This therefore is the first Advantage of the Mosaical Hypothesis of the Origination of things above the Philosophical Theories touching the same the latter are inevident conjectural and indeed apparently false the former contains an Evidence of it self by its consonancy to the only manner that can be sufficient for such a Discovery and the plain evident and congruous relation of it 2. All the Philosophical Theories except that which carries the Origination of things up to Almighty God are full of infinite intanglements difficulties and inconsistencies that ever and anon break out and discover themselves whereby they are enforced by a continual substitution of new Suppositions to piece up and mend the breaches that arise upon such
inconsistencies and so avoid those intollerable absurdities that their Suppositions do necessarily occasion And again sometime are fain utterly to lay aside some of their former Positions as utterly undisciplinable and ungovernable by any subsidiary Explication by reason of their gross absurdities and apparent impossibilities This appears by some of the former Debates touching the Epicurean and Aristotelian Suppositions and many more may be given in this matter But the first Chapter of Genesis as it is perfectly consonant to it self so it labours under no difficulties or absurdities but all parts thereof are easily and apparently reconcilable one with another and with the common reason of the things delivered upon the account of that common Supposition upon which the whole is bottomed namely the Efficiency of the most Wise and Powerful Intelligent Being Since therefore it is evident that Truth is ever consistent with it self and that which contains any irreconcilable absurdity or contradiction with it self or any other Truth can never be true we have all the reason imaginable to give the preference to the Mosaical Hypothesis as consonant to it self and to all other Truths that are and on the other side to reject the Epicurean and Aristotelian Theories in this matter each of which contains irreconcilable difficulties in themselves and contradictions to evident and demostrable Truths 3. The third observable is this That the Holy History gives us such an Efficient and such an Efficiency of things that gives us a plain and clear and evident Solution of all those admirable Phaenomena that we see both in the Universe in the Motions Orders Positions Influences and Conveniences of the whole Universe and of the several great Integrals thereof and likewise of that admirable Beauty Order Symmetry Usefulness of Parts and Organs of Faculties and Powers that are to be found in Animals and especially in Man of these admirable congruities of Powers Motions and Instincts not only in the Animal and Vegetable Province but also in the very inanimate Bodies by giving us the Almighty most Wise most Bountiful God to be the first Author of the World and of Mankind and to be the Contriver and Institutor of that Law in things created which we usually call the Law of their Nature which is nothing else but the Will the Rule the Institution of the most Wise Powerful and Intelligent Being And let Men toyl themselves till their Brains be fired and study and invent from Age to Age to give us any other Explication of most of the observable Phaenomena in Nature they will toyl in vain and substitute unto us nothing but empty watrish and unsatisfactory Solutions or meer Whimsies Chimaera's and Falsities instead of Truth and Reality And this is the admirable preference of the Divine History of the Origination of Things that it gives us a solid plain evident congruous Solution of all the admirable Phaenomena in universal and particular Beings wherein our Minds may rest and quiet themselves which those Philosophers neither do nor can do that use any other Method of the Origination of Things What reason can there be assigned of the position of the Elementary and Heavenly Bodies in that most convenient position and situation the usefulness order and regularity of their Motions Heat and Influence Why the Motions of every thing are directed with the most suitableness to the convenience of the Universe and to its own Why a Stone or a Bar of Iron moves downward what is within it or without it that excites or directs it What reason can there be assigned of that admirable accommodation of Meteors the Wind and Rain nay the very Thunder and Lightning to the use and benefit of the Elementary World What reason can be assigned of the admirable Fabrick of the Body of Man that singular beauty destination and symmetry and convenience of Parts and Organs that admirable constitution and ordination of his Faculties especially that of his Intellect What reason can be assigned of the wonderful order and procedure of the generation of Men yea and of common Animals All done with that order and uniformity with that convenience and regularity that it exceeds the imitation and even the the comprehension of the wisest Man in the World Touching these and infinite more of these admirable Appearances in Nature the first of Genesis gives us a plain reasonable evident Explication by letting us know that these were the Works of the most Intelligent Being the Works of the most Wise and Glorious God And the reason why they are so admirably wisely and excellently framed and ordered is because they were made and ordered by the great Skill Wisdom Power and Design of the Glorious God But now if we come to demand of these wise Philosophers a Solution of the admirableness of these Phaenomena we shall have such Solutions as must make us first unreason and unman our selves before we can subscribe to them or at least we shall have such a Solution as no way countervails the value of the Work or else shall give a Solution of Idem per idem or else by somewhat else that is utterly unintelligible Ask Democritus and Epicurus and by their favour some of their late the Atomists will tell us that all or the greatest part of this is by chance casual position and mode and motion and figure and texture of Atoms and he that believes this whiles he hears it or says it is in a full capacity of believing any thing though never so unreasonable Let any Man but ask his own Reason fairly whether he can believe this that he thus saith I appeal to that Man whether he doth or can really believe himself when he says it Ask another sort of Philosophers for their Solution of it they will tell you that Nature is the Cause and a sufficient Solution of all these things But what is that Nature where is it is it the nature or disposition of the things themselves Then it explicates it no otherwise but thus That things have this excellency and order because it is their nature to be so or they are so because they are so But if by Nature they mean some separate Existence what then is it Is it a Body or Spirit is it a reasonable an intelligent Being or is it a surd and stupid Existence or else is it a Law or a Rule self-subsisting If it be a reasonable intelligent Existence we differ but only de nomine that which I call God they will call Nature at least unless they suppose it an inferior intelligent Being and then the difficulty is only made somewhat more that a subordinate intelligent Being was able to produce such Effects which appear to all Men to be Works of the greatest Power and Wisdom imaginable On the other side if they suppose it to be a meer surd unintelligent Being how comes it to pass that they carry in them the greatest evidence imaginable of the most perfect and consequently of the most intelligent efficient Agent Again
Fish playing and Birds of several kinds some flying some swimming some perching yea various Flies and Worms and Insects and all contribute to the beauty and ornament and variety of the entire piece though each hath a particular beauty of its own So in this great and glorious Frame of the Universe not only the Celestial Bodies but all the Animals and Vegetables even to the least Fly or Worm or Flower or Herb contribute to the beauty glory ornament and variety of the whole and make up one common demonstration of the admirable Wisdom of that great God that made it valde bonum And certainly under this Consideration it is apparently evident that Man contributes no small portion of beauty and ornament to this goodly Frame of the Universe For if we should suppose that all the Integrals of the inferior World were as now they are only destitute of the Creature called Man it would soon appear that it wanted much of that beauty and comeliness and perfection which it now hath by the accession of this excellent Integral of the Universe which though it hath its residence in the lower region thereof yet in the common compute and estimate of the whole it contributes to its beauty and integrity The second Accommodation of every thing is to some other part or parts of the Universe and this though it may be single or a respect only between some one single part and some other single part of Nature yet for the most part we shall find every thing in Nature hath an accommodation unto very many other things the Wisdom of Almighty God being multifaria sapientia hath admirably evidenced it self in giving almost every thing in its nature a complexed and complicated accommodation to various other things of differing kinds and natures This is more eminently conspicuous in the Heavenly Bodies for Instance the Sun is accommodated to the use and convenience of the Planetary Bodies and of this inferior World and of every part thereof by his Position by his Light by his Heat by his Motion it procures Generation for the replenishing of the Earth raiseth Clouds and Vapours to irrigate and water it it occasioneth Winds to move and communicate those Irrigations it gives variety of Seasons measures of Times and infinite more accommodations to other things If we come lower to the Elementary World the Air is accommodated as a fit medium for the derivation of Light and Influence from the Celestial Bodies it is the vehicle of the Meteors the means of Respiration the food and life of the vital and animal Spirits and many the like accommodations If we consider of Animals we shall find admirable accommodations in them one to another and especially to Man the Horse high-spirited yet very docible fitted for swiftness carriage and agility by the make of his Body his Neck his Mouth his Back his Hoof the Ox patient painful strong fitted for draught the Camel fitted for strength and a natural Saddle for Burthen the Cow for yielding Milk the Sheep for Cloathing the Beasts and Birds of greatest use being most commonly made tame and affecting a spontaneous subjection to Man among the Vegetables some are for Food some for Medicines some for Smell some for Tast nay that seemingly most abject part of Nature the Insects even the worst as well as the best of them have their accommodation to other things some for Food to the more perfect Animals as Flies Worms c. some for Medicines both for Men and Animals nay the very venemous Insects are accommodated to the salubrity of the Earth and Waters collecting the unwholsom Juyce of either into their own consistency and many that are poisonous and hurtful yet carry with them Antidotes and Remedies as Vipers Scorpions and divers others Although in the lower World there are various accommodations of things one to another yet the chief and ultimate accommodation of things seems principally to terminate in Man The Grass of the Field is accommodate to the use of Animals for their food and so are the Insects for the food of Fish and Fowl but these in their last particular accommodation are for the food or other use of Man On the other side Man is accommodate to the convenience and use of the Vegetables and Animals but not in a way of Subservience or Service but in a way of Regiment Order Empire and Protection which he is enabled to exercise over the Creatures of greater strength and bodily force by the advantage of his Faculties wherein he exceeds them Thus he is accommodate to the Vegetable Nature by Planting and Husbandry to the Animal Nature by subduing the unruly and hurtful by the disciplining and managing the docible by protecting the domestick by providing for their wants The accommodation of Brutes to Men is an accommodation of an Inferior to a Superior the accommodation of Man to Brutes is an accommodation of a Superior to an Inferior an accommodation of Regiment and Protection The third sort of Accommodation is of every thing unto it self either in relation to its proper Species by propagation of its kind or in relation to its individual nature which is that which I principally mean to speak of We may observe at least in every Animal 1. An accommodation of Faculties suitable to his nature use and convenience which are principally these Cogitation Sensation Phantasie or Imagination Appetite and power to Move it self though in various degrees of perfection 2. That all these Faculties are terminated in a sensitive Life or Life of Sense and go no farther 3. That all those Faculties are exactly fitted with Organs proportionate to their Faculties and the specifical perfection of them the Organs subservient to the Faculties of the meanest Insect are as exquisitly accommodated and fitted thereunto as the Organs of a Horse or an Elephant are accommodate to the specifical Faculties of that Animal 4. That the wise God hath proportioned Objects of the Appetites of every Animal exactly suitable to those Appetites and a connatural prosecution and dexterity in the assecution of them so that no natural Desire or Appetite is in vain or notional only but really fitted and accommodated with an Object proportionable to it 5. That every Animal hath its highest complacency and contentment in the attainment of the suitable Object of its Appetite and this is its commensurate Happiness the Fox or the Lion or the Otter hath no greater dexterity in the getting of his Prey nor greater contentation in his acquest than the Bee hath in getting Honey or the Spider in catching his Fly These things being thus premised we have therein generally included the natural Method whereby we may by the Light of Nature search out the true and special End for which we have reason to believe the great and wise Efficient made Man It is true that some things Man hath in common with the rest of created visible Beings as that he is a corporeal Being hath Life and Sensation and is a
proportionate to their being nature and capacity 2. And as thus the contemplation of the Efficient and his Beneficence to other created Beings induceth us to conclude an end of fruition designed to Man so the contemplation of the Work it self concludes the same Man hath in the peculiarity of his nature these two great Powers and receptive Faculties whereby he is rendred amply capable of a great enjoyment namely his Understanding whose proper Object is Truth and the noblest Truth that is and its proper action is directed to that Object namely Intellection and Will whose proper Object is Good and the greater and more sovereign the Good is the more suitable it is to this power and the proper act of this power is to reach after and desire and embrace and delight in its Object and the filling of these two receptive powers with the chiefest intellectual Truth and with the chiefest and intellectual Good is that which perfects advanceth and enableth these Faculties or Powers And this doth lead us to a just discovery of what that end of fruition is for which Man was designed by his beneficent Creator namely such as is suitable answerable and proportionate to those Powers or Faculties in Man whereby he excells all inferior Animals his Understanding and his Will and herein consists his happiness his end of fruition or enjoyment 1. As to his Understanding the great and general fruition of Good therein is Knowledge Now I shall distinguish these Objects of Knowledge or Scibilia into two kinds 1. The Scibilia subordinata which being united to the intellective Power by that act or habit which we call Knowledge do advance and perfect this Power or Faculty in a subordinate way measure or degree such is the knowledge of Natural Causes and Effects of Arts Liberal or Manual of Rules of justum and decorum of Moral Truths and the like this gives a subordinate perfection and fruition to this Power varied and diversified according to the worth of the Objects and the perfection or clearness of their perception 2. The Scibile supremum which is the ever-glorious God his Perfection Attributes Wisdom Power Goodness his Will and Commands so far forth as that infinitely perfect Being is cognoscible by our finite Understanding This is the supreme Truth the highest fruition of the intellective Power and the greatest perfection of an intellective Nature as such 2. Again as to the power of the Will it hath likewise Objects of Good answerable to the former distribution 1. The subordinate Good of Moral Virtues Honesty Sobriety Justice Temperance and all the train of Moral Virtues these being united to the Will in their acts and constant habits the Will enjoys a great Moral Good tranquillity of Mind complacency and delight 2. The Sovereign Good which is the glorious God reached after by the Will as the chiefest Good and enjoyed in the manifestations of his Love Favour Presence Influence and Beneficence this fills the vastest motions of the Will fills it with Peace Contentation and Glory and keeps it nevertheless in a perpetual motion by returns of Gratitude humble Love Obedience and all imaginable extension of it self for the Service Honour and Glory of that God that hath thus bountifully given to the Soul a power in some measure receptive of his Infinite Self and fitted that power with a proportionate Good even the Goodness and Bounty of the ever-glorious God And now because Man hath a double state namely a state in this Life in conjunction of the Soul with the Body naturally dissolvible and a state of Immortality after this Life either in the Soul alone or in the Soul in conjunction with an immortal Body as shall be shewn in its due time therefore proportionable to this double state is that fruition which Almighty God designed for his End 1. In this Life the proportionable fruition of Man is that which is compatible to the state he hath here namely the knowledge of God and his Works in a measure suitable to the intellectual Capacity in this Life the sense of the Divine Love Favour Goodness and Protection the sense of his own Duty to God to Man to himself with a cheerful endeavour to observe it And from these arise dominion over his Passions and inferior Faculties and the due placing ordering and moderation of them a resignation of his Will to the Divine Will and a dependance upon his Goodness Power and All-sufficiency and from all these arise peace of Conscience contentation and tranquillity of Mind in which even the wisest of Heathens placed the greatest Happiness acquirable in this Life 2. After this Life an immutable state of everlasting Rest and Happiness in the Beatifical Vision of God and fruition of so much of his Goodness and Beneficence as a glorified Soul is capable of for it is reasonable that the end of fruition of an Immortal Nature should be an everlasting Good commensurate in its intention and duration to such an Immortal Nature And now if any Man shall enquire if this be the End of Almighty God in the Creation of Man How comes it to pass that all Men attain not this End or how comes it to pass that Almighty God comes to be frustrated of the End which he thus designed as well in relation to his own Glory as the Good of Mankind I Answer first in general That this Enquiry belongs to another way of Examination namely herein we must have the assistance of Divine Revelation both to answer this Enquiry and to guide us in it which in this place is not designed to be prosecuted 2. Yet more particularly thus much I shall say 1. That the wise God hath as it were twisted his own Honour and Glory with Man's Felicity and Happiness if Man decline to honour glorifie love and obey his Maker and casts off the primary and chief End of his Being it is just and necessary that he be deprived of the End of his own Fruition and Happiness which is the Reward of his Duty 2. The Liberty of the Will was the great Prerogative of the Humane Nature and Almighty God having furnished that Nature with all conducibles to enable him to obey and to continue him in that Obedience Man by the abuse of his own liberty deprived himself of his own felicity When we speak therefore of the End of Man we speak of it as God made him not as Man made or rather unmade himself But of this End of the means of his Restitution by Christ and the admirable System and Connexion of the Divine Providence in relation to Man in his Redemption belongs to another Discourse We are in this preceding Discourse but in the outward Court of the Temple where the Gentiles came or might come by natural Light or Ratiocination Therefore to conclude all Almighty God out of his abundant Wisdom Goodness and Beneficence as he hath made Mankind so he hath fitted him for a double End namely to glorifie his Maker and everlastingly to enjoy him and in order hereunto hath given him a double station and in each of these a differing kind of fruition of his Maker viz. a station in this lower World and a station in the glorious Heavens His station in this lower World is during the time of his mortal Life here below and in this station the glorious God hath furnished Mankind with all conveniencics and accommodations suitable to it as the comfortable Accommodations of his sensible Life the Comforts of humane Society the Use and Dominion of his Creatures the admirable Faculties of his Mind the Books and Instructions of his Word and Will the goodly Works of Creation and Providence the Tenders and Ayders of his Grace and Guidance the Effluxes and Manifestations of his Favours and Love the Anticipations and Hopes of Eternal Happiness these and many more such as these the Bountiful God affords to Mankind even in this state of Mortality which may and do render it in a great measure very comfortable But withall he lets us know and we must know That these are but as so many Bounties to render our passage through this Life the more easie and convenient to our selves and the more serviceable to our great Lord and Master This is not to be the place of our rest or final happiness but a place of exercise and probation a place of preparation for our future and more durable state we are here as it were but put to School to learn our Duty and our Lessons we are but as young Plants planted in a Nursery till we come to a convenient size and fitness to be removed and then we are to be transplanted into another and a richer Soil In this World we are as it were Seeds ripening upon the Trees or Stalks till they are fully digested and ripe and then as the Seeds drop into the Ground and become the Seminary of a new Plantation so by Death we drop into Eternity and become the Children the Embryones of the Resurrection and then we come into that second and blessed station the Country of our Rest and Happiness our Home and the End of our Being where we shall ever behold the Glory of the Glorious God and glorifie him for ever where we shall have the perpetual sensible vigorous satisfactory Manifestation and Influences of his Love to all Eternity and enjoy that Blessedness which Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither hath entred into the Heart of Man to conceive And this is the great End of the Glorious God in making this great goodly Creature called Man whose Body is but the Husk the Shell of that vital immortal Beam of Light Life and Immortality that Seminal Principle of Eternal Life the Soul irradiated and influenced by the Sacred Spirit of Life and Love and if God lend me Life and Strength shall in my next be handled FINIS A