defining it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which actuates the boby Which therefore must be idle when it has nothing to actuate as a Piper must be silent as to piping if he have no Pipe to play on Chap. 14. pag. 113. The ignobler and lower properties or the life of the body were languid and remiss vâ—… as to their proper exercises or acting for themselves or as to their being regarded much by the Soul that is taken up with greater matters or as to their being much relished but in subserviency to the enjoyment of those more Divine and sublime Objects as the Author intimates towards the end of his last Pillar Pag. 114. And the Plastick had nothing to do but to move this passive and easie body c. It may be added and keep it in its due form and shape And it is well added accordingly as the concerns of the higher faculties required For the Plastick by reason of its Vital Union with the vehicle is indeed the main instrument of the motion thereof But it is the Imperium of the Perceptive that both excites and guides its motion Which is no wonder it can do they being both but one soul. Pag. 114. To pronounce the place to be the Sun c. Which is as rationally guessed by them as if one should fancy all the Fellows and Students Chambers in a Colledge to be contained within the area of the Hearth in the Hall and the rest of the Colledge uninhabited For the Sun is but a common Focus of a Vortex and is less by far to the Vortex than the Hearth to the Ichnographie of the whole Colledge that I may not say little more than a Tennis-ball to the bigness of the earth Pag. 115. Yet were we not immutaâ—…ly so c. But this mutability we were placed in was not without a prospect of a more full confirmation and greater accumulation of Happiness at the long run as I intimated above Pag. 116. We were made on set purpose defatigable that so all degrees of life c. We being such Creatures as we are and finite and taking in the enjoyment of those infinitely perfect and glorious Objects onely pro modulo nostro according to the scantness of our capacity diversion to other Objects may be an ease and relief From whence the promise of a glorified body in the Christian Religion as it is most grateful so appears most rational But in the mean time it would appear most irrational to believe we shall have eyes and ears and other organs of external sense and have no suitable Objects to entertain them Pag. 117. Yea methinks 't is but a reasonable reward to the body c. This is spoken something popularly and to the sense of the vulgar that imagine the body to feel pleasure and pain whenas it is the soul onely that is perceptive and capable of feeling either But 't is fit the body should be kept in due plight for the lawful and allowable corporeal enjoyments the soul may reap therefrom for seasonable diversion Pag. 117 That that is executed which he hath so determined c. Some fancy this may be extended to the enjoying of the fruits of the Invigouration of all the three Vital Congruities of the Plastick and that for a soul orderly and in due time and course to pass through all these dispensations provided she keep her self sincere towards her Maker is not properly any lapse or sin but an harmless experiencing all the capacities of enjoying themselves that God has bestowed upon them Which will open a door to a further Answer touching the rest of the Planets being inhabited namely That they may be inhabited by such kind of souls as these who therefore want not the Knowledge and assistance of a Redeemer And so the earth may be the onely Nosocomium of sinfully lapsed souls This may be an answer to such far-fetched Objections till they can prove the contrarie Pag. 118. Adam cannot withstand the inordinate appetite c. Namely after his own remissness and heedlessness in ordering himself he had brought himself to such a wretched weakness Pag. 121. The Plastick faculties begin now fully to awaken c. There are three Vital Congruities belonging to the Plastick of the Soul and they are to awake orderly that is to operate one after another downward and upward that is to say In the lapse the Aereal follows the Aethereal the Terrestrial the Aereal But in their Recovery or Emergency out of the lapse The Aereal follows the Terrestrial and the Aethereal the Aereal But however a more gross turgency to Plastick operation may haply arise at the latter end of the Aereal Period which may be as it were the disease of the soul in that state and which may help to turn her out of it into the state of Silence and is it self for the present silenced therewith For where there is no union with bodie there is no operation of the Soul Pag. 121. For it hath an aptness and propensity to act in a Terrestrial body c. This aptness and fitness it has in the state of Silence according to that essential order of things interwoven into its own nature and into the nature of the Spirit of the World or great Archeus of the Universe according to the eternal counsel of the Divine Wisdom By which Law and appoyntment the soul will as certainly have a fitness and propensity at its leaving the Terrestrial body to actuate an Aereal oâ—…e Pag. 122. Either by mere natural Congruity the disposition of the soul of the world or some more spontaneous agent c. Natural Congruity and the disposal of the Plastick soul of the world which others call the Spirit of Nature may be joyned well together in this Feat the Spirit of Nature attracting such a soul as is most congruous to the predelineated Matter which it has prepared for her But as for the spontaneous Agent I suppose he may understand his ministry in some supernatural Birth Unless he thinks that some Angels or Genii may be imployed in putting souls into bodies as Gardiners are in setting Pease and Beans in the beds of Gardens But certainly they must be no good Genii then that have any hand in assisting or setting souls in such wombs as have had to do with Adulterie Incest and Buggery Pag. 123. But some apish shews and imitations of Reason Vertue and Religion c. The Reason of the unregenerate in Divine things is little better than thus and Vertue and Religion which is not from that Principle which revives in us in real Regeneration are though much better than scandalous vice and profaness mere pictures and shadows of what they pretend to Pag. 123. To its old celestial abode c. For we are Pilgrims and strangers here on the earth as the holy Patriarchs of old declared And they that speak such things saith the Apostle plainly shew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they seek their native country for so 〈◊〉
But whither am I going I would conclude here according to promise having rescued the Doctors Definition of a Spirit from Mr. Baxters numerous little Criticisms like so many shrill busie Gnats trumpeting about it and attempting to infix their feeble Proboscides into it and I hope I have silenced them all But there is something in the very next Paragraph which is so wrongfully charged upon the Doctor that I cannot sorbear standing up in his justification The Charge is this That he has fathered upon Mr. Baxter an Opinion he never owned and nick-named him Psychopyrist from his own â—…ction As if says he we said that Souls are â—…re and also took Fire as the Doctor does for Candles and hot Irons c. onely But I answer in behalf of the Doctor as I have a little toucht on this matter before That he does indeed entitle a certain Letter which he answers to a Learned Psychopyrist as the Author thereof But Mr. Baxters name is with all imaginable care concealed So that he by his needless owning the Letter has notched that nick-name as he calls it of Psychopyrist upon himself whether out of greediness after that alluring Epithet it is baited with I know not but that he hangs thus by the gills like a Fish upon the Hook he may thank his own self for it nor ought to blame the Doctor Much less accuse him for saying that Mr. Baxter took Fire in no other sense than that in Candles and hot Iron and the like For in his Preface he expresly declares on the Psychopyrists behalf that he does not make this crass and visible Fire the Essence of a Spirit but that his meaning is more subtile and refined With what conscience then can Mr. Baxter say that the Doctor affirms that he took Fire in no other sense than that in Candles and hot Iron and the like and that he held all Souls to be such Fire whenas the Doctor is so modest and cautious that he does not affirm that Mr. Baxter thinks any to be such though even in this Placid Collation he professes his inclination towards the Opinion that Ignis and Vegetative Spirit is all one pag. 20 21. I have oft professed saith he that I am ignorant whether Ignis and Vegetative Spirit be all one to which I most incline or whether Ignis be an active nature made to be the instrument by which the three spiritual natures Vegetative Sensitive and Mental work on the three passive natures Earth Water Air. And again pag. 66. If it be the Spirit of the world that is the nearest cause of illumination by way of natural activity then that which you call the Spirit of the World I call Fire and so we differ but de nomine But I have saith he as before professed my ignorance whether Fire and the Vegetative nature be all one which I incline to think or whether Fire be a middle active nature between the spiritual and the mere Passive by which Spirits work on bodie And pag. 71. I doubt not but Fire is a Substance permeant and existent in all mixt bodies on Earth In your bloud it is the prime part of that called the Spirits which are nothing but the igneous principle in a pure Aereal Vehicle and is the organ of the Sensitive faculties of the Soul And if the Soul carry any Vehicle with it it 's like to be some of this I doubt you take the same thing to be the Spirit of the world though you seem to vilifie it And pag. 74. I suppose you will say the Spirit of the world does this But call it by what name you will it is a pure active Substance whose form is the Virtus motiva illuminativa calefactiva I think the same which when it operateth on due seminal Matter is Vegetative And lastly pag. 86. I still profess my self in this also uncertain whether Natura Vegetativa and Ignea be all one or whether Ignis be Natura Organica by which the three Superiour he means the Vegetative Sensitive and Intellective Natures operate on the Passive But I incline most to think they are all one when I see what a glorious Fire the Sun is and what operation it hath on Earth and how unlikely it is that so glorious a Substance should not have as noble a formal nature as a Plant. This is more than enough to prove that Mr. Baxter in the most proper sense is inclined to ' Psychopyrism as to the Spirit of the world or Vegetative soul of the Universe that that Soul or Spirit is Fire And that all created Spirits are Fire analogicè and eminenter I have noted above that he does freely confess But certainly if it had not been for his ignorance in the Atomick Philosophie which he so greatly despiseth he would never have taken the Fire it self a Congeries of agitated particles of such figures and dimensions for the Spirit of the world But without further doubt have concluded it onely the instrument of that Spirit in its operations as also of all other created Spirits accordingly as the Doctor has declared a long time since in his Immortalitas Animae Lib. 2. Cap. 8. Sect. 6. And finding that there is one such universal Vegetative Spirit properly so called or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the world he could not miss of concluding the whole Universe one great Plant or if some obscure degree of sense be given to it one large Zoophyton or Plant-animal whence the Sun will be endued or actuated as much by a Vegetative Nature as any particular Plant whatsoever whereby Mr. Baxter might have took away his own disficultie he was entangled in But the truth is Mr. Baxters defectiveness in the right understanding of the Atomick Philosophy and his Aversness therefrom as also from the true System of the world which necessarily includes the motion of the Earth we will cast in also his abhorrence from the Pre-existence of Souls which three Theories are hugely necâ—…ssary to him that would Philosophize with any success in the deepest points of natural Religion and Divine Providence makes him utter many things that will by no means bear the Test of severer Reason But in the mean time this Desectiveness in sound Philosophie neither hinders him nor any one else from being able Instruments in the Gospel-Ministrie if they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a due measure If they have a firm Faith in the revealed Truths of the Gospel and skill in History Tongues and Criticism to explain the Text to the people and there be added a sincere Zeal to instruct their Charge and that they may appear in good earnest to believe what they teach they lead a life devoid oâ—… scandal and osfence as regulated by those Goâ—…pel-Rules they propose to others this though they have little of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly so called that reaches to the deepest account of things but instead thereof Prudence and Ingenuity will
presently reminds him of the whole scene of things represented in his sleep But neither Sun nor Clouds nor Trees nor any such ordinary thing could in any likelihood have reminded him of his Dream And besides it was the lively resemblance betwixt the Swans he saw in his sleep and those he saw waking that did so effectually rub up his memory The want therefore of such occurrences in this life to remind us of the passages of the former is a very reasonable account why we remember nothing of the former state But here the Opposers of Pre-existence pretend that the joyous and glorious Objects in the other state do so pierce and transport the Soul and that she was inured to them so long that though there were nothing that resembled them here the impression they make must be indelible and that it is impossible she should forget them And moreover that there is a similitude betwixt the things of the upper World and the lower which therefore must be an help to memory But here as touching the first they do not consider what a Weapon they have given into my hand against themselves For the long inuredness to those Celestial Objects abates the piercingness of their transport and before they leave those Regions according to the Platonick or Origenian Hypothesis they grow cooler to such enjoyments so that all the advantages of that piercing transport for memory are lost And besides in vertue of that piercing Transport no Soul can call into memory what she enjoyed formerly but by recalling herself into such a Transport which her Terrestrial Vehicle makes her uncapable of For the memory of external Transactions is sealed upon us by some passionate corporeal impress in conjunction with them which makes them whip Boys sometimes at the boundaries of their Parish that they may better remember it when they are old men which Impress if it be lost the memory of the thing it self is lost And we may be sure it is lost in Souls incorporate in Terrestrial Vehicles they having lost their Aereal and Celestial and being fatally incapacitated so much as to conceit how they were affected by the External Objects of the other World and so to remember how they felt them And therefore all the descriptions that men of a more Aethereal and Entheous temper adventure on in this life are but the Roamings of their Minds in vertue of their Constitution towards the nature of the heavenly things in general not a recovery of the memory of past Experience this State not affording so lively a representment of the Pathos that accompanied the actual sense of those things as to make us think that we once really enjoyed them before That is onely to be collected by Reason the noble exercise of which faculty in the discovering of this Arcanum of our Pre-existence had been lost if it could have been detected by a compendious Memory But if ever we recover the memory of our former State it will be when we are re-entred into it we then being in a capacity of being really struck with the same Pathos we were before in vertue whereof the Soul may remember this was her pristine condition And therefore to answer to the second Though there may be some faintness of resemblance betwixt the things of the other State and this yet other peculiarities also being required and the former sensible Pathos to be recovered which is impossible in this State it is likewise impossible for us to remember the other in this The second Argument of the Author for the proving the unlikeliness of our remembring the other State is the long intermission and discontinuance from thinking of those things For 't is plain that such discontinuance or desuetude bereaves us of the memory of such things as we were acquainted with in this World Insomuch as if an ancient man should read the Verses or Themes he made when he was a School-boy without his name subscribed to them though he pumpt and sweat for them when he made them could not tell they were his own How then should the Soul remember what she did or observ'd many hundreds nay thousands of years ago But yet our Authors Antagonist has the face to make nothing of this Argument neither Because forsooth it is not so much the desuetude of thinking of one thing but the thinking of others that makes us forget that one thing What a shuffle is this For if the Soul thought on that one thing as well as on other things it would remember it as well as them Therefore it is not the thinking of other things but the not thinking of that that makes it forgotten Usus promptâ—…s facit as in general so in particular And therefore disuse in any particular slackens at first and after abolishes the readiness of the Mind to think thereof Whence sleepiness and sluggishness is the Mother of Forgetfulness because it disuses the Soul from thinking of things And as for those seven Chronical Sleepers that slept in a Cave from Decius his time to the reign of Theodosius junior I dare say it would have besotted them without a Miracle and they would have rose out of their sleep no more wise than a Wisp I am sure not altogether so wise as this awkward Arguer for memory of Souls in their Pre-existent state after so hugely long a discontinuance from it But for their immediately coming out of an Aethereal Vehicle into a Terrestrial and yet forgetting their former state what Example can be imagined of such a thing unless that of the Messias who yet seems to remember his former glorious condition and to pray that he may return to it again Though for my part I think it was rather Divine Inspiration than Memory that enabled him to know that matter supposing his Soul did pre-exist Our Authors third and last Argument to prove that lapsed Souls in their Terrestrial condition forget their former state is from observation how deteriorating changes in this earthly Body spoils or quite destroys the Memory the Soul still abiding therein such as Casualties Diseases and old Age which changes the tenour of the Spirits and makes them less useful for memory as also 't is likely the Brain it self Wherefore there being a more deteriorating change to the Soul in coming into an earthly Body instead of an aereal or aethereal the more certainly will her memory of things which she experienced in that state be washed out or obliterated in this Here our Authors Antagonist answers That though changes in body may often weaken and sometimes utterly spoil the memory of things past yet it is not necessary that the Souls changing of her body should therefore do so because it is not so injurious to her faculties Which if it were not onely our Memory but Reason also should have been casheered and loft by our migration out of those Vehicles we formerly actuated into these we now enliven but that still remaining sound and entire it is a signe that our
Since these places have been more diffusely urged in a late discourse to this purpose I suppose he means in the Letter of Resolution concerning Origen Where the Author opens the sense of Philip. 2. 6. learnedly and judiciously especially when he acknowledges Christs being in the form of God to be understood of his Physical Union with the Divine Logos Which is the Ancient Orthodox Exposition of the Primitive Fathers they taking this for one notable Testimony of Scripture for the Divinity of Christ. Whenas they that understand it Politically of Christs Power and Authority onely take an excellent weapon out of the hands of the Church wherewith she used to oppose the Impugners of Christs Divinity But how can Christ being God verus Deus as Vatablus expounds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 empty himself or any way deteriorate himself as to his Divinity by being incarnate and taking upon him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the form of the terrestrial Adam For every earthly man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle seems to intimate Rom. 8. 21. as this ingenious Writer has noted and the Apostle likewise seems so to expound it in the Text by adding presently by way of Exegesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and was made in the likeness of men like that Gen. 5. 3. Adam begot a son in his own likeness a terrestrial man as himself was Wherefore the Incarnation of Christ being no exinanition to his Divinity there was an Humanity of Christ viz. his Soul in a glorious state of Pre-existence to which this voluntary exinanition belonged Pag. 87. Was it for this mans sin or his fathers that he was born blind For the avoiding the force of this Argument for proving that Pre-existence was the Opinion of the Jews and that Christ when it was so plainly implied in the Question by his silence or not reproving it seemed to admit it or at least to esteem it no hurtful Opinion They alledge these two things First That these Enquirers having some notions of the Divine Prescience might suppose that God foreknowing what kind of person this blind man would prove had antedated his punishment The other is That the Enquirers may be conceived to understand the blind mans original sin So that when they enquired whether the man was born blind for his own or his Parents sin they might onely ask whether that particular Judgment was the effect of his Parents or of his own original pravity This is Camerons But see what forced conceits Learned men will entertain rather than not to say something on a Text. What a distorted and preposterous account is that found that God should punish men before they sin because he foresees they will sin And he onely produces this example and a slight one too That Jeroboams hand was dried up as he stretched it forth to give a sign to apprehend the Prophet And the other is as fond an account That God should send such severe Judgments on men for their original Pravity which they cannot help And original Pravity being so common to all it could be no reason why this particular man should be born blind more than others Wherefore Grotius far more ingenuously writes thus upon the place Quaerunt ergo an ipse peccaverit quia multi Judaeorum credebant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 animarum And as our Saviour Christ passed it for an innocent Opinion so did the Primitive Church the Book of Wisdom being an allowable book with them and read in publick though it plainly declare for Pre-existence Chap. 8. 20. Chap. 12. p. 93. Therefore let the Reader if he please call it a Romantick Scheme or imaginary Hypothesis c. This is very discreetly and judiciously done of the Author to propose such things as are not necessary members or branches of Pre-existence and are but at the best conjecturaâ—… as no part of that otherwise-useful Theory For by tacking too fast these unnecessary tufts or tassels to the main Truth it will but give occasion to wanton or wrathful whelps to worry her and tug her into the dirt by them And we may easily observe how greedily they catch at such occasions though it be not much that they can make out of them as we may observe in the next Chapter Chap. 13. pag. 96. Pill 1. To conceive him as an immense and all-glorious Sun that is continually communicating c. And this as certainly as the Sun does his light and as restrainedly For the Suns light is not equally imparted to all subjects but according to the measure of their capacity And as Nature limits here in natural things so does the Wisdom and Justice of God in free Creatures He imparts to them as they capacitate themselves by improving or abusing their Freedom Pag. 100. Pill 3. Be resolved into a Principle that is not meerly corporeal He suspects that the descent of heavy bodies when all is said and done must be resolved into such a Principle But I think he that without prejudice peruses the Eleventh and Thirteenth Chapters with their Scholia of Dr. Mores Enchiridion Metaphysicum will find it beyond suspition that the Descent of heavy bodies is to be resolved into some corporeal Principle and that the Spirit of Nature though you should call it with the Cabalists by that astartling name of Sandalphon is no such prodigious Hobgoblin as rudeness and presumptuous ignorance has made that Buckeram Writer in contempt and derision to call it Pag. 101. As naturally as the fire mounts and a stone descends And as these do not so though naturally meerly from their own intrinsick nature but in vertue of the Spirit of the Universe so the same reason there is in the disposal of Spirits The Spirit of Nature will range their Plasticks as certainly and orderly in the Regions of the World as it does the matter it self in all places Whence that of Plotinus may fitly be understood That a Soul enveigled in vitiousness both here and after death according to her nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is thrust into the state and place she is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if she were drawn thither by certain invisible or Magical strings of Natures own pulling Thus is he pleased to express this power or vertue of the Spirit of Nature in the Universe But I think that transposition she makes of them is rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a transvection of them rather than pulsion or traction But these are over-nice Curiosities Pag. 101. As likely some things relating to the state of Spirits c. That is to say Spirits by the ministry of other Spirits may be carried into such regions as the Spirit of Nature would not have transmitted them to from the place where they were before whether for good or evil Of the latter kind whereof I shall have occasion to speak more particularly in my Notes on the next Chapter Pag. 102. Pill 4. The souls of men
have no bodies at all Not to add that at the Resurrection we become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though we have bodies then which is a shrewd intimation that the Angels have so too and that there are no created Spirits but have so Thirdly Mr. Baxter pag. 6. wrongfully blames the Doctor for being so defective in his studies as not to have read over Dr. Glisson De Vita Naturae and says he has talk'd with diverse high pretenders to Philosophie and askt their judgment of that Book and found that none of them understood it but neglected it as too hard for them and yet contemned it His words to Dr. More are these I marvel that when you have dealt with so many sorts of Dissenters you meddle not with so subtile a piece as that of old Dr. Glissons De Vita Naturae He thinks the subtilty of the Book has deterred the Doctor from reading it as something above his Capacity as also of other high Pretenders to Philosophie This is a Book it seems calculated onely for the elevation of Mr. Baxters subtile and sublime wit And indeed by the benefit of reading this Book he is most dreadfully armed with the affrightful terms of Quoddities and Quiddities of Conceptus formalis and fundamentalis of Conceptus adaequatus and inadaequatus and the like In vertue of which thwacking expressions he has fancied himself able to play at Scholastick or Philosophick Quarter-staff with the most doughty and best appointed Wits that dare enter the Lists with him and as over-neglectful of his flock like some conceited Shepherds that think themselves no small fools at the use of the Staff or Cudgil-play take Vagaries to Fairs or Wakes to give a specimen of their skill so he ever and anon makes his Polemick sallies in Philosophie or Divinity to entertain the Spectators though very oft he is so rapt upon the knuckles that he is forced to let fall his wooden Instrument and blow his fingers Which is but a just Nemesis upon him and he would do well to interpret it as a seasonable reproof from the great Pastor of Souls to whom we are all accountable But to return to his speech to the Doctor I will adventure to answer in his behalf That I marvel that whenas Mr. Baxter has had the curâ—…osity to read so many Writers and some of them sure but of small concern that he has not read that sound and solid piece of Dr. More viz. his Epistola altera ad V. C. with the Scholia thereon where Spinozius is confuted Which if he had read he might have seen Volum Philosoph Tom. 1. pag. 604 605 c. that the Doctor has not onely read that subtile Piece of Doctor Glissons but understands so throughly his Hypothesis that he has solidly and substantially confuted it Which he did in a faithful regard to Religion For that Hypothesis if it were true were as safe if not a saâ—…er Refuge for Atheists than the mere Mechanick Philosophie is And therefore you may see there how Cuperus brought up amongst the Atheists from his very childhood does confess how the Atheists now-a-daies explode the Mechanick Philosophie as not being for their turn and betake themselves wholly to such an Hypothesis as Dr. Glissons Vita Naturae But God be thanked Dr. H. More in the fore-cited place has perfectly routed that fond and foul Hypothesis of Dr. Glisson and I dare say is sorry that so good and old a Knight errant in Theologie and Philosophie as Mr Richard Baxter seems to be should become benighted as in a wood at the Close of his daies in this most horrid dark Harbour and dismal Receptacle or Randevouz of wretched Atheists But I dare say for him it is his ignorance not choice that has lodged him there The fourth Disingenuity of Mr. Baxter towards the Doctor is in complaining of him as if he had wronged him by the Title of his Answer to his Letter in calling it an Answer to a Psychopyrist pag. 2. 82. As if he had asserted that materiality of Spirits which belongs to bodies pag. 94. In complaining also of his inconsistency with himself pag. 10. as if he one while said that Mr. Baxter made Spirits to be Fire or material and another while said he made them not Fire or material But to the first part of this Accusation it may be answered That if it is Mr. Baxter that is called the Learned Psychopyrist how is the thing known to the world but by himself It looks as if he were ambitious of the Title and proud of the civil treating he has had at the hands of the Doctor though he has but ill repai'd his civility in his Reply And besides this there is no more harshness in calling him Psychopyrist than if he had called him Psycho-Hylist there being nothing absurd in Psychopyrism but so far forth as it includes Psycho-Hylism and makes the Soul material Which Psycho-Hylism that Mr. Baxter does admit it is made evident in the Doctors Answer Sect. 16. And Mr. Baxter in his Placid Collation as he mis-calls it for assuredly his mind was turbid when he wrote it pag. 2. allows that Spirits may be called Fire Analogicè and Eminenter and the Doctor in his Preface intimates that the sense is to be no further stretched than the Psychopyrist himself will allow But now that Mr. Baxter does assert that Materiality in created Spirits that belongs to bodies in the common sense of all Philosophers appears Sect. 16. where his words are these But custom having made MATERIA but especially CORPUS to signifie onely such grosser Substance as the three passive Elements are he means Earth Water Air I yield says he so to say that Spirits are not Corporeal or Material Which plainly implies that Spirits are in no other sense Immaterial than Fire and Aether are viz. than in this that they are thinner matter And therefore to the last point it may be answered in the Doctors behalf that he assuredly does nowhere say That Mr. Baxter does not say that Spirits are Material as Material is taken in the common sense of all Philosophers for what is impenetrable and discerpible Which is Materia Physica and in opposition to which a Spirit is said to be Immaterial And which briefly and distinctly states the Question Which if Mr. Baxter would have taken notice of he might have saved himself the labour of a great deal of needless verbosity in his Placid Collation where he does over-frequently under the pretence of more distinctness in the multitude of words obscure knowledge Fifthly Upon Sect. 10. pag. 21. where Mr. Baxters Question is How a man may tell how that God that can make many out of one cannot make many into one c. To which the Doctor there answers If the meaning be of substantial Spirits it has been already noted that God acting in Nature does not make many substances out of one the substance remaining still entire for then Generation would be Creation And
and our Reason certainly informing us as was noted even now that whatever is has a kind of Amplitude more or less or else it would be nothing hence we are confirmed that not Extension or Trina Dimensio but Impenetrabilitie and Discerpibilitie is the determinate and adequate nature of what we call Body and if there be any opposite species to Body our Reason tells us it must have opposite Modes or Attributes which are Penetrability and Indiscerpibility This is a plain truth not to be groped after with our fingers in the dark but clearly to be discerned by the eye of our understanding in the light of Reason And thus we see and many examples more we might accumulate That by the help of our Senses and Inference of our Understanding we are able to conclude not onely concerning like things but their contraries or opposites I must confess I look upon this allegation of Mr. Baxter as very weak and faint And as for his fifth I do a little marvel that so grave and grandaevous a person as he should please himself in such little flirts of Wit and Sophistry as this of the Indiscerpibility of an Atom or Physical Monad As if Indiscerpibility could be none of the essential or specifical Modes or Attributes of a Spirit because a Physical Monad or Atom is Indiscerpible also which is no Spirit But those very Indiscerpibilities are Specifically different For that of a Spirit is an Indiscerpibility that arises from the positive perfection and Oneness of the Essence be it never so ample that of an Atom or Physical Monad from imperfection and privativeness from the mere littleness or smalness thereof so small that it is impossible to be smaller and thence onely is Indiscerpible The sixth also is a pretty juvenile Ferk of Wit for a grave ancient Divine to use That Penetrability can be no proper Character of a Spirit because Matter can penetrate Spirit as well as Spirit Matter they both possessing the same space Suppose the bodie A. of the same amplitude with the bodie B. and thrust the bodie A. against the bodie B. the bodie A. will not nor can penetrate into the same space that the bodie B. actually occupies But suppose the bodie A. a Spirit of that amplitude and according to its nature piercing into the same space which the bodie B. occupies how plain is it that that active piercing into the same space that the bodie B. occupies is to be attributed to the Spirit A. not to the bodie B For the bodie A. could not get in These are prettie forc'd distortions of Wit but no solid methods of due Reason And besides it is to be noted that the main Character of a Spirit is as to Penetrability that Spirit can penetrate Spirit but not Matter Matter And now the Seventh is as slight as the Fifth Diverse Accidents saith he penetrate their Subjects as Heat Cold c. Therefore Penetrabilitie is no proper Character of a Spirit But what a vast difference is there here The one pierce the matter or rather are in the matter merely as continued Modes thereof the other enters into the matter as a distinct Substance therefrom Penetration therefore is here understood in this Character of a Spirit of Penetratio Substantialis when a substance penetrates substance as a Spirit does Spirit and matter which Matter cannot do This is a certain Character of a Spirit And his instancing in Light as Indiscerpible is as little to the purpose For the substance of Light viz. the Materia subâ—…ilissima and Globuli are discerpible And the motion of them is but a Modus but the point in hand is Indiscerpibilitie of Substance To the Eighth I Answer That Mr. Baxter here is hugely unreasonable in his demands as if Penetrabilitie of Spirits were not sufficiently explained unless it can be made out that all the Spirits in the world Universal and particular may be contracted into one Punctum But this is a Theme that he loves to enlarge upon and to declaim on very Tragically as pag. 52. If Spirits have parts which may be extended and contracted you will hardly so easily prove as say that God cannot divide them And when in your Writings shall I find satisfaction into how much space one Spirit may be extended and into how little it may be contracted and whether the whole Spirit of the World may be contracted into a Nut-shell or a Box and the Spirit of a Flea may be extended to the Convex of all the world And again pag. 78. You never tell into how little parts onely it may be contracted And if you put any limits I will suppose that one Spirit hath contracted itself into the least compass possible and then I ask Cannot another and another Spirit be in the same compass by their Penetration If not Spirits may have a contracted Spissitude which is not Penetrable and Spirits cannot penetrate contracted Spirits but onely dilated ones If yea then quoero whether all created Spirits may not be so contracted And I should hope that the Definition of a Spirit excludeth not God and yet that you do not think that his Essence may be contracted and dilated O that we knew how little we know This grave moral Epiphonema with a sorrowful shaking of the Head is not in good truth much misbecoming the sly insinuating cunning of Mr. Richard Baxter who here makes a shew speaking in the first person We of lamenting and bewailing the ignorance of his own ignorance but friendly hooks in by expressing himself in the plural number the Doctor also into the same condemnation Solamen miseris as if He neither did understand his own ignorance in the things he Writes of but will be strangely surprised at the hard Riddles Mr. Baxter has propounded as if no Oedipus were able to solve them And I believe the Doctor if he be called to an account will freely confess of himself That in the things he positively pronounces of so far as he pronounces that he is indeed altogether ignorant of any ignorance of his own therein But that this is by reason that he according to the cautiousness of his Genius does not adventure further than he clearly sees ground and the notion appears useful for the Publick As it is indeed useful to understand that Spirits can both Penetrate matter and Penetrate one another else God could not be Essentially present in all the parts of the Corporeal Universe nor the Spirits of Men and Angels be in God Both which notwithstanding are most certainly true to say nothing of the Spirit of Nature which particular Spirits also Penetrate and are Penetrated by it But now for the Contraction and Dilatation of Spirits that is not a propertie of Spirits in general as the other are but of particular created Spirits as the Doctor has declared in his Treatise of the Immortalitie of the Soul So that that hard Question is easily answered concerning Gods contracting and dilating himself That he does
neither he being no created Spirit and being more absolutely perfect than that any such properties should be competible to him And it is reasonable to conceive that there is little actually of that propertie in the Spirit of Nature it being no particular Spirit though created but an Universal one and having no need thereof For the corporeal world did not grow from a small Embryo into that vast amplitude it is now of but was produced of the same largeness it now has though there was a successive delineation and orderly polishing and perfecting the vast distended parts thereof And to speak compendiously and at once That God that has Created all things in number weight measure has given such measures of Spiritual Essence and of the facultie of contracting and dilating the same as also of Spiritual Subtilty of substance as serves the ends of his Wisdom and Goodness in creating such a species of Spirit So that it is fond unskilful and ridiculous to ask if the whole Spirit of the world can be contracted into a Nut-shell and the Spirit of a Flea extended to the Convex of the Universe They that talk at this rate err as Aliens from the Wisdome of God and ignorant of the Laws of Nature and indeed of the voice of Scripture itself Why should God make the Spirit of a Flea which was intended for the constituting of such a small Animal large enough to fill the whole world Or what need of such a contraction in the Spirit of Nature or Plastick Soul of the corporeal Universe that it may be contrived into a Nut-shell That it has such Spiritual subtiltie as that particular Spirits may contract themselves in it so close together as to be commensurate to the first Inchoations of a Foetus which is but very small stands to good reason and Effects prove it to be so As also this smalness of a Foetus or Embryo that particular Spirits are so far contracted at first and expand themselves leisurely afterwards with the growth of the bodie which they regulate But into how much lesser space they can or do contract themselves at any time is needless to know or enquire And there is no Repugnancie at all but the Spirit of Nature might be contracted to the like Essential Spissitude that some particular Spirits are but there is no reason to conceit that it ever was or ever will be so contracted while the World stands Nor lastly is there any Inconvenience in putting indefinite limits of Contraction in a Spirit and to allow that after such a measure of Contraction though we cannot say just what that is it naturally contracts no further nor does another so contracted naturally penetrate this thus contracted Spirit For as the usefulness of that measure of Self-Penetrability and Contraction is plain so it is as plain that the admitting of it is no incongruitie nor incommoditie to the Universe nor any confusion to the Specifick modes of Spirit and Bodie For these two Spirits suppose contracted to the utmost of their natural limits may naturally avoid the entring one another not by a dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in Bodies or Matter but by a vital Saturitie or natural Uneasiness in so doing Besides that though at such a contracted pitch they are naturally impenetrable to one another yet they demonstrate still their Spirituality by Self-Penetration haply a thousand and a thousand times repeated And though by a Law of life not by a dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are kept from penetrating one another yet they both in the mean time necessarily penetrate Matter as undergoing the diverse measures of essential Spissitude in the same So that by the increase of that essential Spissitude they may approach near to a kind of Hylopathick disposition of Impenetrability and thence by the Matter of the Universe out of which they never are be curb'd from contracting themselves any further than to such a degree and I noted at first that spiritual Subtilty as well as Amplitude is given in measure to created Spirits So that Penetrabilitie is still a steadie Character of a Spiritual Essence or Substance to the utmost sense thereof And to argue against Impenetrability its being the propertie of Matter from this kind of Impenetrability of contracted Spirits is like that quibbling Sophistrie against Indiscerpibility being the propertie of a Spirit because a Physical Monad is also indiscerpible The ninth Objection is against the Indiscerpibility of Spirits and would infer that because the Doctor makes them intellectually divisible therefore by Divine Power if it imply no contradiction a Spirit is Discerpible into Physical parts But this is so fully satisfied already by the Doctor in his Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit and its Defence to say nothing of what I have said already above to prove it does imply a contradiction that I will let it go and proceed To the tenth and last Allegation which pretends That these two terms Penetrable and Indiscerpible are needless and hazardous in the Notion of a Spirit But how useful or needful Peneâ—…rability is is manifest from what we have said to the eighth Objection And the needfulness of Indiscerpibility is also susficiently shewn by the Doctor in his Defence of the true Notion of a Spirit Sect. 30. But now for the Hazardousness of these terms as if they were so hard that it would discourage men from the admitting of the Existence of Spirits It appears from what has been said to the eighth Objection That Penetrability is not onely intelligible and admittable but necessarily to be admitted in the Notion of a Spirit as sure as God is a Spirit and that there are Spirits of men and Angels and that the Souls of men are not made of Shreds but actuate their whole grown bodie though at first they were contracted into the compass of a very small Foetus And that there is no Repugnancie that an Essence may be ample and yet indiscerpible Mr. Baxter himself must allow who pag. 51. plainly declares That it is the vilest contradiction to say that God is capable of division So that I wonder that he will call Penetrable and Indiscerpible hard and doubtful words and such as might stumble mens belief of the Existence of Spirits when they are terms so plain and necessary Nor can that Unitie that belongs to a Spirit be conceived or understood without them especially without Indiscerpibilitie And indeed if we do not allow Penetrability the Soul of a man will be far from being one but a thing discontinued and scatter'd in the pores of his corpcreal consistencie We will conclude with Mr. Baxters Conceit of the Indivisibleness of a Spirit and see how that will corroborate mens faith of their Existence and put all out of hazard Various Elements saith he pag. 50. vary in Divisibility Earth is most divisible Water more hardly the parts more inclining to the closest contact Air yet more hardly and in Fire no doubt the Discerpibility is
Ignes Fatui whenas it is most certain that Christ is the only way the Truth and the Life and he that does not clearly see that when he has opportunity to know it let his pretence to other knowledge be what it will it is a demonstration that as to Divine things he is slark blind But no man can really adhere to Christ and unwaveringly but by union to him through his Spirit nor obtain that Spirit of life but by resolved Mortification of his own will and a deadness to all worldly vanities that we may be restored at last to our solid happiness which is through Christ in God without whose Communion no soul can possibly be happy And therefore I think it not amiss to close these my Theoretical Annotations on these two Treatises with that more Practical and Devotional Hymn of A. B. that runs much upon the mortification of our own Wills and of our Union and Communion with God translated into English by a Lover of the Life of our Lord Jesus THE Devotional HYMN 1. O Heavenly Light my Spirit to Thee draw With powerful touch my senses smite Thine arrows of Love into me throw With flaming dart Deep wound my heart And wounded seize for ever as thy right 2. O sweetest Sweet descend into my Soul And sink into its low'st abyss That all false Sweets Thou mayst controul Or rather kill So that Thy will Alone may be my pleasure and my bliss 3. Do thou my faculties all captivate Unto thy self with strongest tye My will entirely regulate Make me thy Slave Nought else I crave For this I know is perfect Liberty 4. Thou art a Life the sweetest of all Lives Nought sweeter can thy Creature taste 'T is this alone the Soul revives Be Thou not here All other chear Will turn to dull satiety at last 5. O limpid Fountain of all vertuous Leare O well-spring of true Joy and Mirth The root of all contentments dear O endless Good Break like a floud Into my Soul and water my dry earth 6. That by this Mighty power I being reft Of every Thing that is not ONE To Thee alone I may be left By a firm will Fixt to Thee still And inwardly united into one 7. And so let all my Essence I Thee pray Be wholly fill'd with thy dear Son That thou thy Splendour mayst display With blissful rays In these hid ways Wherein Gods nature by frail Man is won 8. For joyned thus to Thee by thy sole aid And working whilst all silent stands In mine own Soul nor ought's assay'd From Self-desire I 'm made entire An instrument fit for thy glorious Hands 9. And thus henceforwards shall all workings cease Unless 't be those Thou dost excite To perfect that Sabbatick Peace Which doth arise When Self-will dies And the new Creature is restored quite 10. And so shall I with all thy Children dear While nought debars Thy workings free Be closely joyn'd in union near Nay with thy Son Shall I be one And with thine own adored Deitie 11. So that at last I being quite releas'd From this strait-lac'd Egoity My soul will vastly be encreas'd Into that ALL Which ONE we call And one in 't self alone doth all imply 12. Here 's Rest here 's Peace here 's Joy and holy Love The Hâ—…aven's here of true Content For those that hither sincerely move Here 's the true Light Of Wisdom bright And Prudence pure with no self-seeking mient 13. Here Spirit Soul and cleansed Body may Bathe in this Fountain of true Bliss Of Pleasures that will ne're decay All joyful Sights And hid Delights The sense of these renew'd here daily is 14. Come therefore come and take an higher flight Things perishing leave here below Mount up with winged Soul and Spright Quick let 's be gone To him that 's One But in this One to us can all things show 15. Thus shall you be united with that ONE That ONE where 's no Duality For from this perfect GOOD alone Ever doth spring Each pleasant thing The hungry Soul to feed and satisfie 16. Wherefore O man consider well what 's said To what is best thy Soul incline And leave off every evil trade Do not despise What I advise Finish thy Work before the Sun decline FINIS Books Printed for or Sold hy Samuel Lownds over against Exeter Exchange in the Strand PArthenissa that Fam'd Romance Written by the Right Honourable the Earl of Orrery Clelia an Excellent new Romance the whole Work in Five Books Written in French by the exquisite pen of Monsieur de Scudery The Holy Court Written by N. Cansinus Bishop Saundersons Sermons Herberts Travels with large Additions The Compleat Horseman and Expert Farrier in Two Books 1. Shewing the best manner of breeding good Horses with their Choice Nature Riding and Dieting as well for Running as Hunting as also Teaching the Groom and Keeper his true Office 2. Directing the most exact and approved manner how to know and Cure all Diseases in Horses a Work containing the Secrets and best Skill belonging either to Farrier or Horse-Leach the Cures placed Alphabetically with Hundreds of Medicines never before imprinted in any Author By Thomas de Grey Claudius Mauger's French and English Letters upon all Subjects enlarged with Fifty new Letters many of which are on the late great Occurrences and Revolutions of Europe all much Amended and Refined according to the most quaint and Courtly Mode wherein yet the Idiom and Elegancy of both Tongues are far more exactly suited than formerly Very useful to those who aspire to good Language and would know what Addresses become them to all sorts of persons Besides many Notes in the end of the Book which are very necessary for Commerce Paul Festeau's French Grammar being the newest and exactest Method now extant for the attaining to the Elegancy and Purity of the French Tongue The Great Law of Consideration a Discourse shewing the Nature Usefulness and absolute necessity of Consideration in order to a truly serious and Religious Life The Third Edition Corrected and much Enlarged by Anthony Horneck D. D. The Mirror of Fortune or the true Characters of Fate and Destiny Treating of the Growth and Fall of Empires the Misfortunes of Kings and Great Men and the ill fate of Virtuous and handsome Ladies Saducismus Triumphatus or full plain Evidence concerning Witches and Apparitions in Two parts the first Treating of their Possibility the second of their Real Existence by Joseph Glanvil late Chaplain to His Majesty and Fellow of the Royal Society The Second Edition The advantages whereof above the former the Reader may understand out of Dr. Henry More 's Account prefixt thereunto With two Authentick but wonderful stories of Swedish Witches done into English by Anthony Horneck D. D. French Rogue being a pleasant History of his Life and Fortune adorned with variety of other Adventures of no less rarity Of Credulity and Incredulity in things Divine and Spiritual wherein among other things a true and faithful account is given of Platonick Philosophy as it hath reference to Christianity As also the business of Witches and Witchcraft against a late Writer fully argued and disputed By Merick Causabon D. D. one of the Prebends of Canterhury Cicero against Catiline in Four Invective Orations containing the whole manner of discovering that notorious Conspiracy By Christopher Wase 〈◊〉 Jests being Witty Alarms for Melanâ—… Spirits By a Lover of Ha Ha He. FINIS To this sense All a vain Jest All Dust All Nothing deem For of mere Atoms all composed been
Annotations UPON THE Two foregoing TREATISES LUX ORIENTALIS OR An Enquiry into the OPINION OF THE EASTERN SAGES Concerning the Prae-existence of Souls AND THE Discourse of TRUTH Written for the more fully clearing and further confirming the main DOCTRINES in each TREATISE By one not unexercized in these kinds of SPECULATION LONDON Printed for J. Collins and S. Lounds over against Exeter-Change in the Strand 1682. Annotations UPON LUX ORIENTALIS THese two Books Lux Orientalis and the Discourse of Truth are luckily put together by the Publisher there being that suitableness between them and mutual support of one another And the Arguments they treat of being of the greatest importance that the Mind of man can entertain herself with the consideration thereof has excited so sluggish a Genius as mine to bestow some few Annotations thereon not very anxious or operose but such as the places easily suggest and may serve either to â—…ctifie what may seem any how oblique or illustrate what may seem less clear or make a supply or adde strength where there may seem any further need In which I would not be so understood as that I had such an anxiety and fondness for the Opinions they maintain as if all were gone if they should fail but that the Dogmata being more fully clearly and precisely propounded men may more safely and considerately give their Judgments thereon but with that modesty as to admit nothing that is contrary to the Judgment of the truly Catholick and Apostolick Church Chap. 2. p. 4. That he made us pure and innocent c. This is plainly signified in the general Mosaick History of the Creation that all that God made he saw it was good and it is particularly declared of Adam and Eve that they were created or made in a state of Innocency Pag. 4. Matter can do nothing but by motion and what relation hath that to a moral Contagion We must either grant that the figures of the particles of Matter and their motion have a power to affect the Soul united with the Body and I remember Josephus somewhere speaking of Wine says it does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regenerate as it were the Soul into another life and sense of things or else we must acknowledge that the parts of Matter are alterable into qualifications that cannot be resolved into mere mechanical motion and figure whether they be thus altered by the vital power of the Spirit of Nature or however it comes to pass But that Matter has a considerable influence upon a Soul united thereto the Author himself does copiously acknowledge in his fourth Chapter of this Book where he tells us that according to the disposition of the Body our Wits are either more quick free and sparkling or more obtuse weak and sluggish and our Mind more chearful and contented or else more morose melancholick or dogged c. Wherefore that he may appear the more consistent with himself it is likely he understands by this Moral Contagion the very venome and malignity of vitious Inclinations how that can be derived from Matter especially its power consisting in mere motion and figuration of parts The Psalmist's description is very apposite to this purpose Psal. 58. The ungodly are froward even from their mothers womb as soon as they are born they go astray and speak lyes They are as venomous as the poyson of a serpent even like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear That there should be such a difference in the Nativity of some from that of others and haply begot also of the same Parents is no slight intimation that their difference is not from their Boâ—… but their Souls in which there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eruptions of vitious Inclinations wâ—… 〈◊〉 had contracted in their former statâ—… 〈◊〉 pressed nor extinct in this by reason oâ—… 〈◊〉 lapse and his losing the Paradisiacal 〈◊〉 which he was created and which should 〈◊〉 had not been for his Fall been transmitted to his Posterity but that being lost the several measures of the pristine Vitiosity of humane Souls discover themselves in this life according to the just Laws of the Divine Nemesis essentially interwoven into the nature of things Pag. 5. How is it that those that are under continual temptations to Vice are yet kept within the bounds of Vertue c. That those that are continually under temptations to Vice from their Childhood should keep within the bounds of Vertue and those that have perpetual outward advantages from their Childhood to be vertuous should prove vitious notwithstanding is not rationally resolved into their free will for in this they are both of them equal and if they had been equal also in their external advantages or disadvantages the different event might well be imputed to the freedom of their Will But now that one notwithstanding all the disadvantages to Vertue should prove vertuous and the other notwithstanding all the advantages to Vertue should prove vitious the reason of this certainly to the considerate will seem to lie deeper than the meer liberty of Will in man But it can be attributed to nothing with a more due and tender regard to the Divine Attributes than to the pre-existent state of humane Souls according to the Scope of the Author Pag. 9. For still it seems to be a diminutive and disparaging apprehension of the infinite and immense goodness of God that he should detrude such excellent Creatures c. To enervate this reason there is framed by an ingenious hand this Hypothesis to vie with that of Pre-existence That Mankind is an Order of Beings placed in a middle state between Angels and Brutes made up of contrary Principles viz. Matter and Spirit indued with contrary faculties viz. Animal and Rational and encompassed with contrary Objects proportioned to their respective faculties that so they may be in a capacity to exercise the Vertues proper and peculiar to their compounded and heterogeneal nature And therefore though humane Souls be capable of subsisting by themselves yet God has placed them in Bodies full of brutish and unreasonable Propensions that they may be capable of exercising many choice and excellent Vertues which otherwise could never have been at all such as Temperance Sobriety Chastity Patience Meekness Equanimity and all other Vertues that consist in the Empire of Reason over Passion and Appetite And therefore he conceives that the creating of humane Souls though pure and immaculate and uniting them with such brutish Bodies is but the constituting and continuing such a Species of Being which is an Order betwixt Brutes and Angels into which latter Order if men use their faculties of the Spiritual Principle in them well they may ascend Forasmuch as God has given them in their Spiritual Principle containing Free Will and Reason to discern what is best a power and faculty of overcoming all their inordinate Appetites This is his Hypothesis mostwhat in his own words and all to his own sence as near as I could with brevity express
of them may with better pretence than the Pharisee cry out Lord we thank thee that we are not as these men are There is nothing permitted by God but it has its use some way or other and therefore it cannot be concluded because that an Event has this or that use therefore God by his immediate and free Omnipotence effected it A Pre-existentiary easily discerns that these Monstrosities plainly imply that God does not create Souls still for every humane Coition but that having pre-existed they are left to the great Laws of the Universe and Spirit of Nature but yet dares not conclude that God by his free Omnipotence determines those monstrous Births as serviceable as they seem for the evincing so noble a Theory Pag. 15. That God on the seventh day rested from all his works This one would think were an Argument clear enough that he creates nothing since the celebration of the first seventh days rest For if all his works are rested from then the creation of Souls which is a work nay a Master-piece amongst his works scarce inferiour to any is rested from also But the above-mentioned Opposer of Pre-existence is not at a loss for an Answer for his Answers being slight are cheap and easie to come by He says therefore That this supposeth onely that after that time he ceased from creating new Species A witty Invention As if God had got such an easie habit by once creating the things he created in the six days that if he but contained himself within those kinds of things though he did hold on still creating them that it was not Work but mere Play or Rest to him in comparison of his former labour What will not these men fancy rather than abate of their prejudice against an opinion they have once taken a toy against When the Author to the Hebrews says He that has entred into his rest has ceased from his own works as God ceased from his verily this is small comfort or instruction if it were as this Anti-Pre-existentiary would have it for if God ceased onely from creating new Species we may notwithstanding our promised Rest be tyed to run through new instances of labours or sins provided they be but of those kinds we experienced before To any unprejudiced understanding this sence must needs seem forced and unnatural thus to restrain Gods Rest to the Species of things and to engage him to the dayly task of creating Individuals The whole Aethiopian Church is of another mind Qui animam humanam quotidiè non creari hoc argumento asserunt quòd Deus sexto die perfecerit totum opus Creationis See Ludolfus in the place above-cited Chap. 3. pag. 17. Since the Images of Objects are very small and inconsiderable in our brains c. I suppose he mainly relates to the Objects of Sight whose chief if not onely Images are in the fund of the Eye and thence in vertue of the Spirituality of our Soul extended thither also and of the due qualification of the Animal Spirits are transmitted to the Perceptive of the Soul within the brain But how the bignesses and distances of Objects are conveyed to our cognoscence it would be too tedious to signifie here See Dr. H. Moore 's Enchiridion Metaphysicum cap. 19. Pag. 17. Were it not that our Souls use a kind of Geometry c. This alludes to that pretty conceit of Des Cartes in his Dioptricks the solidity of which I must confess I never understood For I understand not but that if my Soul should use any such Geometry I should be conscious thereof which I do not find my self And therefore I think those things are better understood out of that Chapter of the Book even now mentioned Pag. 17. And were the Soul quite void of all such implicit Notions it would remain as senseless c. There is no sensitive Perception indeed without Reflection but the Reflection is an immediate attention of the Soul to that which affects her without any circumstance of Notions intervening for enabling her for sensitive Operations But these are witty and ingenious Conjectures which the Author by reading Des Cartes or otherhow might be encouraged to entertain To all sensitive Objects the Soul is an Abrasa Tabula but for Moral and Intellectual Principles their Idea's or Notions are essential to the Soul Pag. 18 For Sense teacheth no general Propositions c. Nor need it do any thing else but exhibit some particular Object which our Understanding being an Ectypon of the Divine Intellect necessarily when it has throughly sisted it concludes it to answer such a determinate Idea eternally and unalterably one and the same as it stands in the Divine Intellect which cannot change and therefore that Idea must have the same properties and respects for ever But of this enough here It will be better understood by reading the Discourse of Truth and the Annotations thereon Pag. 18. But from something more sublime and excellent From the Divine or Archetypal Intellect of which our Understanding is the Ectypon as was said before Pag. 21. And so can onely transmit their natural qualities They are so far from transmitting their Moral Pravities that they transmit from themselves no qualities at all For to create a Soul is to concreate the qualities or properties of it not out of the Creator but out of nothing So that the substance and all the properties of it are out of nothing Pag. 22. Against the nature of an immaterial Being a chief property of which is to be indiscerpible The evasion to the force of this Argument by some Anti-Pre-existentiaries is that it is to philosophize at too high a rate of confidence to presume to know what the nature of a Soul or Spirit is But for brevities sake I will refer such Answerers as these to Dr. H. Moore 's brief Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit printed lately with Saducismus Triumphatus and I think he may be thence as sure that Indiscerpibility is an essential property of a Spirit as that there are any Spirits in the Universe and this methinks should suffice any ingenuous and modest Opposer But to think there is no knowledge but what comes in at our Senses is a poor beggarly and precarious Principle and more becoming the dotage of Hobbianism than men of clearer Parts and more serene Judgments Pag. 22. By separable Emissions that pass from the flame c. And so set the Wick and Tallow on motion But these separable Emissions that pass from the flame of the lighted Candle pass quite away and so are no part of the flame enkindled So weak an Illustration is this of what these Traducters would have Chap. 4. pag. 32. Which the Divine Piety and Compassion hath set up again that so so many of his excellent Creatures might not be lost and undone irrecoverably but might act anew c. To this a more elegant Pen and refined Wit objects thus Now is it not highly derogatory to the
infinite and unbounded Wisdom of God that he should detrude those Souls which he so seriously designes to make happy into a state so hazardous wherein he seeth it to be ten thousand to one but that they will corrupt and defile themselves and so make them more miserable here and to eternity hereafter A strange method of recovering this to put them into such a fatal necessity of perishing 't is but an odd contrivance for their restauration to Happiness to use such means to compass it which 't is ten thousand to one but will make them infinitely more miserable This he objects in reference to what the Author of Lux Orientalis writes chap. 2. where he says It is a thousand to one but Souls detruded into these bodies will corrupt and desile themselves and so make themselves miserable here and to eternity hereafter And much he quotes to the same purpose out of the Account of Origen Where the Souls great disadvantages to Vertue and Holiness what from the strong inclinations of the Body and what from National Customs Education in this Terrestrial State are lively set out with a most moving and tragical Eloquence to shew how unlikely it is that God should put innocent and immaculate Souls of his own creation immediately into such Bodies and so hard and even almost fatal condition of miscarrying Upon which this subtile Anti-Pre-existentiary Thus you see saith he what strong Objections and Arguments the Pre-existentiaries urge with most noise and clamour are against themselves If therefore these Phaenomena be inexplicable without the Origenian Hypothesis they are so too with it and if so then the result of all is that they are not so much Arguments of Pre-existence as Aspersions of Providence This is smartly and surprizingly spoken But let us consider more punctually the state of the matter Here then we are first to observe how cunningly this shrewd Antagonist conceals a main stroke of the Supposition viz. That the Divine Pity and Compassion to lapsed Souls that had otherwise fallen into an eternal state of Silence and Death had set up Adam for their relief and endued him with such a Paradisiacal body of so excellent a constitution to be transmitted to all his Posterity and invesled him in vertue of this with so full power non peccandi that if he and his Posterity were not in an happy flourishing condition as to their eternal interest of Holiness and Vertue it would be long of himself And what could God do more correspondently to his Wisdom and Goodness dealing with free Agents such as humane Souls are than this And the thing being thus stated no Objections can be brought against the Hypothesis but such as will invade the inviolable Truths of Faith and Orthodox Divinity Secondly We are to observe how this cunning Objector has got these two Pre-existentiaries upon the hip for their youthful flowers of Rhetorick when one says it is hundreds to one the other ten thousand to one that Souls will miscarry put into these disadvantages of the Terrestrial state by which no candid Reader will understand any more than that it is exceeding difficult for them to escape the pollutions of this lower World once incorporated into Terrestrial Bodies But it being granted possible for them to emerge this is a great grace and favour of the Divine Goodness to such peccant wretches that they are brought out of the state of eternal Silence and Death to try their Fortunes once more though incumbred with so great difficulties which the Divine Nemesis suffers to return upon them That therefore they are at all in a condition of recovery is from the Goodness and Mercy of God that their condition is so hard from his Justice they having been so foully peccant And his wisdom being only to contrive what is most agreeable to his Mercy and Justice it is not at all derogatory to the infinite and unbounded Wisdom of God thus to deal with lapsed Souls For though he does seriously intend to make them happy yet it must be in a way correspondent to his Justice as well as Mercy Thirdly and Lastly Besides that the Spirit of the Lord pervades the whole Earth ready to assist the sincere there is moreover a mighty weight of mercy added in the Revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ to the world so that the retriving of the Souls of men out of their Death and Silence into this Terrestrial state in which there is these helps to the sincere it is manifestly worthy the Divine Wisdom and Goodness For those it takes no effect with they beginning the world again on this stage they shall be judged onely according to what they have done here there being an eternal obliteration as well as oblivion of the acts of their Pre-existent state but those that this merciful Dispensation of God has taken any effect upon here their sincere desires may grow inâ—…o higher accomplishments in the future state Which may something mitigate the honour of that seeming universal squalid estate of the Sons of men upon earth Which in that it is so ill is rightly imputed by both Jews and Christians and the divinest Philosophers to a Lapse and to the Mercy and Grace of God that it is no worse From whence it may appear that that argument for Pre-existence that God does not put newly created innocent Souls into such disadvantageous circumstances of a terrestrial Incorporation though partly out of Mercy partly out of Justice he has thought fit lapsed Souls should be so disposed of that this I say is no aspersion of Divine Providence Pag. 36. And now I cannot think of any place in the sacred Volume more that could make a tolerable plea against this Hypothesis c. It is much that the ingenious Author thought not of Rom. 9. 11. For the Children being not yet born neither having done either good or evil that the purpose of God according to Election might stand not of works but of him that calleth This is urged by Anti-pre-existentiaries as a notable place against Pre-existence For say they how could Esau and Jacob be said neither to have done good nor evil if they pre-existed before they came into this world For if they pre-existed they acted and if they acted they being rational Souls they must have done either good or evil This makes an handsome shew at first sight but if we consult Gen. 25. we shall plainly see that this is spoke of Jacob and Esau yet strugling in the Womb as it is said in this Text For the Children being not yet born but strugling in the Womb as you may see in the other Which plainly therefore respects their actions in this life upon which certainly the mind of St. Paul was fix'd As if he should have expresly said For the Children being not yet born but strugling in the Womb neither having done either good or evil in this life as being still in the Womb it was said of them to Rebeckah The elder shall
it is plain that Justice and the execution thereof is for the best and that so Goodness not mere Will upon pretence of having a Supremacy over Goodness would be the measure of this sentencing such obdurate sinners to eternal punishment And this eternal punishment as it is a piece of vindicative Justice upon these obdurate sinners so it naturally contributes to the establishment of the Righteous in their Celestial Happiness Which this Opposer of Pre-existence objects somewhere if Souls ever fell from they may fall from it again But these eternal Torments of Hell if they needed it would put a sure bar thereto So that the Wisdom and Goodness also of God is upon this account concerned in the eternal punishments of Hell as well as his Justice That it be to the unreclaimable as that Orphick Hemistichium calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The fifth and last forcible Argument as he calls them for the proving the Soveraignty of Gods Will over his Goodness is this If Gods Goodness saith he be not under the command of his Will but does always what is best why did it not perpetuate the Station of Pre-existent Souls and hinder us if ever we were happy in a sublimer state from lapsing into these Regions of Sin and Death But who does not at first sight discern the weakness of this Allegation For it is plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an absurd thing and contrary to Reason to create such a species of Being whose nature is free and mutable and at the first dash to dam up or stop the exercise of that freedom and capacity of change by confining it to a fixt Station As ridiculous as to suppose a living Creature made with wings and feet and yet that the Maker thereof should take special care it should never flie nor go And so likewise that the mere making of such an Order of Beings as have a freedom of Will and choice of their Actions that this is misbecoming the Goodness of God is as dull and idiotical a conceit and such as implies that God should have made but one kind of Creature and that the most absolutely and immutably happy that can be or else did not act according to his Goodness or for the best Which is so obvious a Falshood that I will not confute it But it is not hard to conceive that he making such a free-willed Creature as the Souls of men simul cum mundo condito and that in an happy condition and yet not fixing them in that Station may excellently well accord with the Soveraignty of his Goodness nor any one be constrained to have recourse to the Supremacy of his Will over his Goodness as if he did it because he would do it and not because it was best For what can this freedom of Will consist in so much as in a temptableness by other Objects that are of an inseriour nature not so divine and holy as the other to which it were the security of the Soul to adhere with all due constancy and therefore her duty But in that she is temptable by other Objects it is a signe that her present enjoyment of the more Divine and Heavenly Objects are not received of her according to their excellency but according to the measure and capacity of her present state which though very happy may be improved at the long run and in an orderly series of times and things whether the Soul lapse into sin or no. For accession of new improvements increaseth Happiness and Joy Now therefore I say suppose several and that great numbers even innumerable myriads of pre-existent Souls to lapse into the Regions of Sin and Death provided that they do not sin perversely and obstinately nor do despight to the Spirit of Grace nor refuse the advantageous offers that Divine Providence makes them even in these sad Regions why may not their once having descended hither tend to their greater enjoyment when they shall have returned to their pristine Sâ—…tion And why may not the specifical nature of the Soul be such that it be essentially interwoven into our Being that after a certain period of times or ages whether she sin or no she may arrive to a fixedness at last in her heavenly Station with greater advantage to such a Creature than if she had been fixed in that state at first The thing may seem least probable in those that descend into these Regions of Sin and Mortality But in those that are not obstinate and refractorie but close with the gracious means that is offered them for their recoverie their having been here in this lower State and retaining the memorie as doubtless they do of the transactions of this Terrestrial Stage it naturally enhances all the enjoyments of the pristine selicitie they had lost and makes them for ever have a more deep and vivid resentment of them So that through the richness of the Wisdom and Goodness of God and through the Merits and conduct of the Captain of their Salvation our Saviour Jesus Christ they are after the strong conslicts here with sin and the corruptions of this lower Region made more than Conquerours and greater gainers upon the losses they sustained before from their own solly And in this most advantageous state of things they become Pillars in the Temple of God there to remain for ever and ever So that unless straying Souls be exceedingly perverse and obstinate the exitus of things will be but as in a Tragick Comedy and their perverseness and obstinacie lies at their own doors for those that finally miscarrie whose number this confident Writer is to prove to be so considerable that the enhanced happiness of the standing part of pre-existent Souls and the recovered does not far preponderate the infelicitie of the others condition Which if he cannot do as I am confident he cannot he must acknowledge That God in not forcibly fixing pre-existent Souls in the state they were first created but leaving them to themselves acted not from the Supremacy of his Will over his Goodness but did what was best and according to that Soveraign Principle of Goodness in the Deitie And now for that snitling Dilemma of this eager Opposer of Pre-existence touching the freedom of acting and mutabilitie in humane Souls whether this mutabilitie be a Specifick property and essential to them or a separable Accident For if it were essential says he then how was Christ a persect man his humane nature being ever void of that lapsabilitie which is essential to humanitie and how come men to retain their specifick nature still that are translated to Celestial happiness and made unalterable in the condition they then are To this I answer That the Pre-existentiaries will admit that the Soul of the Messiah was created as the rest though in an happie condition yet in a lapsable and that it was his peculiar merit in that he so faithfully constantly and entirely adhered to the Divine Principle incomparably above what was done by others
and bluntness of this rude Writer nor are at all surprized at it as a Noveltie that any ignorant rural Hobthurst should call the Spirit of Nature a thing so much beyond his capacitie to judge of a prodigious Hobgoblin But to conclude be it so that there may be other causes besides the pristine inurements of the Pre-existent Soul that may something forcibly determine her to one course of life here yet when she is most forcibly determined if there be such a thing as Pre-existence this may be rationally supposed to concur in the efficiencie But that it is not so strong an Argument as others to prove Pre-existence I have hinted alreadie Pag. 79. For those that are most like in the Temper Air Complexion of their Bodies c. If this prove true and I know nothing to the contrarie this vast difference of Genius's were it not for the Hypothesis of their Classical Character imprinted on Souls at their very creation would be a considerably tight Argument But certainly it is more honest than for the avoiding Pre-existence to resolve the Phaenomenon into a secret Causality that is to say into one knows not what Pag. 82. There being now no other way left but Pre-existence c. This is a just excuse for his bringing in any Argument by way of overplus that is not so apodictically concluding If it be but such as will look like a plausible solution of a Phaenomenon as this of such a vast difference of Genius's Pre-existence once admitted or otherwise undeniably demonstrated the proposing thereof should be accepted with favour Chap. 11. pag. 85. And we know our Saviour and his Apostles have given credit to that Translation c. And it was the authentick Text with the Fathers of the Primitive Church And besides this if we read according to the Hebrew Text there being no object of Job's knowledge expressed this is the most easie and natural sence Knowest thou that thou wast then and that the number of thy days are many This therefore was reckoned amongst the rest of his ignorances that though he was created so early he now knew nothing of it And this easie sence of the Hebrew Text as well as that Version of the Septuagint made the Jews draw it in to the countenancing of the Tradition of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Pre-existence of Souls as Grotius has noted of them Pag. 85. As reads a very credible Version R. Menasse Ben Israel reads it so I gave thee Wisdom which Version if it were sure and authentick this place would be fit for the defence of the Opinion it is produced for But no Interpreters besides that I can find following him nor any going before him whom he might follow I ingenuously confess the place seems not of force enough to me to infer the conclusion He read I suppose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Piel whence he translated it Indidi â—…ibi Sapientiam but the rest read it in Cal. Pag. 86. And methinks that passage of our Saviours Prayer Father glorifie me with the glorie I had before the World began c. This Text without exceeding great violence cannot be evaded As for that of Grotius interpreting that I had that which was intended for me to have though it make good sence yet it is such Grammar as that there is no School-boy but would be ashamed of it nor is there for all his pretences any place in Scripture to countenance such an extravagant Exposition by way of Parallelism as it may appear to any one that will compare the places which he alleadges with this which I leave the Reader to do at his leisure Let us consider the Context Joh. 17. 4. I have glorified thee upon earth during this my Pilgrimage and absence from thee being â—…ent hither by thee I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do and for the doing of which I was sent and am thus long absent And now O Father glorifie me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud teipsum in thine own presence with the glorie which I had before the world was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud te or in thy presence What can be more expressive of a Glorie which Christ had apud Patrem or at his Fathers home or in his presence before the world was and from which for such a time he had been absent Now for others that would salve the business by communication of Idioms I will set down the words of an ingenious Writer that goes that way Those Predicates says he that in a strict and â—…igorous acception agreed onely to his Divine Nature might by a communication of Idioms as they phrase it be attributed to his Humane or at least to the whole Person compounded of them both than which nothing is more ordinarie in things of a mixt and heterogeneous nature as the whole man is stiled immortal from the deathlessness of his Soul thus he And there is the same reason if he had said that man was stiled mortal which certainly is far the more ordinarie from the real death of his Bodie though his Soul be immortal This is wittily excogitated But now let us apply it to the Text expounding it according to his communication of Idioms affording to the Humane Nature what is onely proper to the Divine thus Father glorifie me my Humane Nature with the glorie that I my Divine Nature had before the world was Which indeed was to be the Eternal Infinite and Omnipotent brightness of the Glory of the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the Glory which his Divine Nature had before the World was But how can his Humane Nature be glorified with that Glory his Divine Nature had before the world was unless it should become the Divine Nature that it might be said to have pre-existed But that it cannot be For there is no confusion of the Humane and Divine Nature in the Hypostasis of Christ Or else because it is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature but if that be the Glory that he then had already and had it not according to the Opposers of Pre-existence before the world was So we see there is no sence to be made of this Text by communication of Idioms and therefore no sence to be made of it without the Pre-existence of the Humane Nature of Christ. And if you paraphrase me thus My Hypostasis consisting of my Humane and Divine Nature it will be as untoward sence For if the Divine Nature be included in me then Christ prays for what he has already as I noted above For the Glory of the eternal Logos from everlasting to everlasting is the same as sure as he is the same with himself Pag. 86. By his expressions of coming from the Father descending from Heaven and returning thither again c. I suppose these Scriptures are alluded to John 3. 13. 6. 38. 16. 28. I came down from Heaven not to do my own will but the will of him that
sent me I came forth from the Father and am come into the world again I leave the world and go to the Father Whereupon his Disciples said unto him Lo now speakest thou plainly and speakest no Parable But it were a very great Parable or Aenigm that one should say truly of himself that he came from Heaven when he never was there And as impossible a thing is it to conceive how God can properly be said to come down from Heaven who is alwaies present every where Wherefore that in Christ which was not God namely his Soul or Humane Nature was in Heaven before he appeared on Earth and consequently his Soul did pre-exist Nor is there any refuge here in the communication of Idioms For that cannot be attributed to the whole Hypostasis which is competent to neither part that constitutes it For it was neither true of the Humane Nature of Christ if you take away Pre-existence nor of the Divine that they descended from Heaven c. And yet John 3. 13 14. where Christ prophesying of his Crucifixion and Ascension saith No man hath ascended up to Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who was in Heaven So Erasmus saith it may be rendred a Participle of the present tense having a capacity to signifie the time past if the sence require it as it seems to do here Qui erat in Coelo viz. antequam descenderat So Erasmus upon the place Wherefore these places of Scripture touching Christ being such inexpugnable Arguments of the Pre-existence of the Soul of the Messiah the Writer of No Pre-existence methinks is no where so civil or discreet as in this point Where he saies he will not squabble about this but readily yield that the Soul of Christ was long extant before it was incarnate But then he presently flings dirt upon the Pre-existentiaries as guilty of a shameful presumption and inconsequence to conclude the Pre-existence of all other Humane Souls from the Pre-existence of his Because he was a peculiar favourite of God was to undergo bitter sufferings for Mankind and therefore should enjoy an happy Pre-existence for an Anti-praemium And since he was to purchase a Church with his own most precious Bloud it was fit he should pre-exist from the beginning of the world that he might preside over his Church as Guide and Governour thereof which is a thing that cannot be said of any other soul beside This is a device which I believe the Pre-existentiaries good men never dreamt of but they took it for granted that the creation of all Humane Souls was alike and that the Soul of Christ was like ours in all things sin onely excepted as the Emperour Justinian in his Discourse to Menas Patriarch of Constantinople argues from this very Topick to prove the Non-pre-existence of our Souls from the Non-pre-existence of Christs he being like us in all things sin onely excepted And therefore as to Existence and Essence there was no difference Thus one would have verily thought to have been most safe and most natural to conclude as being so punctual according to the declaration of Scripture and order of things For it seems almost as harsh and repugnant to give Angelical Existence to a Species not Angelical as Angelical Essence For according to them it belongs to Angels onely to exist a mundo condito not to Humane souls Let us therefore see what great and urgent occasions there are that the Almighty should break this order The first is That he may remonstrate the Soul of the Messiah to be his most special Favourite Why That is sufficiently done and more opportunely if other souls pre-existed to be his corrivals But his faithful adhesion above the rest to the Law of his Maker as it might make him so great a Favourite so that transcendent priviledge of being hypostatically united with the Godhead or Eternal Logos would I trow be a sufficient Testimony of Gods special Favour to him above all his fellow Pre-existent Souls And then which is the second thing for his Anti-praemial Happiness though it is but an Hysteron Proteron and preposterous conceit to fancie wages before the work had he less of this by the coexistence of other souls with him or was it not rather the more highly encreased by their coexistencie And how oddly does it look that one solitary Individual of a Species should exist for God knows how many ages alone But suppose the soul of the Messiah and all other souls created together and several of them fallen and the Soul of the Messiah to undertake their recovery by his sufferings and this declared amongst them surely this must hugely inhance his Happiness and Glory through all the whole order of Humane souls being thus constituted or designed Head and Prince over them all Anâ—… thus though he was rejected by the Jews and despised he could not but be caressed and adored by his fellowsouls above before his descent to this state of humiliation And who knows but this might be part at least of that Glory which he says he had before the world was And which this ungrateful world denied him while he was in it who crucified the Lord of life And as for the third and last That the Soul of the Messiah was to pre-exist that he might preside over the Church all along from the beginning of it What necessity is there of that Could not the Eternal Logos and the Ministry of Angels sufficiently discharge that Province But you conceive a congruity therein and so may another conceive a congruity that he should not enter upon his Office till there were a considerable lapse of Humane Souls which should be his care to recover which implies their Pre-existence before this stage of the Earth And if the Soul of the Messiah united with the Logos presided so early over the Church that it was meet that other unlapsed souls they being of his own tribe should be his Satellitium and be part of those ministring Spirits that watch for the Churches good and zealously endeavour the recovery of their sister-sister-souls under the conduct of the great Soul of the Messiah out of their captivity of sin and death So that every wâ—…y Pre-existence of other souls will handsomly fall in with the Pre-existence of the soul of the Messiah that there may be no breach of order whenas there is no occasion for it nor violence done to the Holy Writ which expressly declares Christ to have been like to us in all things as well in Existence as Essence sin onely excepted as the Emperour earnestly urges to the Patriarch Menas Wherefore we finding no necessity of his particular pre-existing nor convenience but what will be doubled if other Souls pre-exist with him it is plain if he pre-exist it is as he is an Humane soul not as such a particular soul and therefore what proves his soul to pre-exist proves others to pre-exist also Pag. 87.
the Soul has an Aethereal body already or an Aereal one which may be changed into an Aethereal body If they will alledge any Concinnity in the business or the firm promise of more highly compleating our Happiness at the union of our terrestrial bodies with our souls at the Resurrection This I say may be done as well supposing them to have bodies in the mean time as if they had none For those bodies they have made use of in the interval betwixt their Death and Resurrection may be so thin and dilute that they may be no more considerable than an Interula is to a Royal Robe lined with rich Furrs and embroidered with Gold For suppose every mans bodie at the Resurrection framed again out of its own dust bones sinews and flesh by the miraculous Power of God were it not as easie for these subtile Spirits as it is in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to enter these bodies and by the Divine Power assisting so to inactuate them that that little of their Vehicle they brought in with them shall no more destroy the individuation of the Body than a draught of wine drunk in does the individuation of our body now though it were immediately upon the drinking actuated by the Soul And the soul at the same instant actuating the whole Aggregate it is exquisitely the same numerical bodie even to the utmost curiosity of the Schoolmen But the Divine Assistance working in this it is not to be thought that the soul will loose by resuming this Resurrection-body but that all will be turned into a more full and saturate Brightness and Glory and that the whole will become an heavenly spiritual and truly glorified Body immortal and incorruptible Nor does the being thus turned into an heavenly or spiritual Body hinder it from being still the same Numerical body forasmuch as one and the same Numerical matter let it be under what modifications it will is still the same numerical matter or body and it is gross ignorance in Philosophie that makes any conceive otherwise But a rude and ill-natured Opposer of Pre-existence is not content that it be the same numerical body but that this same numerical body be still flesh peevishly and invidiously thereby to expose the Author of the Account of Origen who pag. 120. writes thus That the bodie we now have is therefore corruptible and mortal because it is flesh and therefore if it put on incorruption and immortality it must put off it self first and cease to be flesh But questionless that ingenious Writer understood this of natural flesh and bloud of which the Apostle declares That flesh and bloud cannot inherit the Kingdom of God But as he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body So if he had made application of the several kinds of Flesh he mentions of Men of Beasts of Fishes and Birds he would have presently subjoyned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is a natural flesh and there is a spiritual flesh And 't is this spiritual Flesh to which belongs incorruption and immortality and which is capable of the Kingdom of Heaven But for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the natural flesh it must put off it self and cease to be natural flesh before it can put on immortality and incorruption So little inconsistency is there of this Hypothesis as touching the souls acting in either an Aereal of Aethereal Vehicle during the interval betwixt the Resurrection and her departure hence with the Resurrection of the bodie But in the mean time there is a strong bar thereby put to the dull dream of the Psychopanychites and other harshnesses also eased or smoothed by it Now as for the third Argument which must needs seem a great Scare-crow to the illiterate there is very little weight or none at all in it For if we take but notice of the whole Atmosphere what is the dimension thereof and of the three Regions into which it is distributed all these Bugbears will vanish As for the Dimension of the whole Atmosphere it is by the skilful reputed about fifty to Italick miles high the Convex of the middle Region thereof about four such miles the Concave about half a mile Now this distribution of the Air into these three Regions being thus made and the Hebrew tongue having no other name to call the Expansum about us but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heaven here is according to them a distribution of Heaven into three and the highest Region will be part of the third Heaven This therefore premised I answer That though the souls of good men after death be detained within the Atmosphere of the Air and the Air it self haply may reach much higher than this Atmosphere that is bounded by the mere ascent of exhalations and vapours yet there is no necessity at all that they should be put to those inconveniencies which this Argument pretends from the company of Devils or incommodious changes and disturbances of the Air. For suppose such inconveniencies in the middle and lowest Region yet the upper Region which is also part of the third Heaven those parts are ever calm and serene And the Devils Principality reaching no further than through the middle and lowest Region next the earth not to advertise that his quarters may be restrained there also the souls of the departed that are good are not liable to be pester'd and haunted with the ungrateful Presence or Occursions of the deformed and grim Retinue or of the vagrant vassals of that foul Feind that is Prince of the Air he being onely so of these lower parts thereof and the good souls having room enough to consociate together in the upper Region of it Nor does that promise of our Saviour to the thief on the Cross that that very day he should be with him in Paradise at all clash with this Hypothesis of Aereal Bodies both because Christ by his miraculous power might confer that upon the penitent thief his fellow-sufferer which would not fall to the share of other penitents in a natural course of things and also because this third Region of the Air may be part of Paradise it self In my Fathers house there are many Mansions and some learned men have declared Paradise to be in the Air but such a part of the Air as is free from gross Vapours and Clouds and such is the third Region thereof In the mean time we see the souls of good men departed freed from those Panick fears of being infested either by the unwelcome company of Fiends and Devils or incommodated by any dull cloudy obscurations or violent and tempestuous motions of the Air. Onely the shadowy Vale of the Night will be cast over them once in a Nycthemeron But what incommodation is that after the brisk active heat of the Sun in the day-time to have the variety of the more mild beams of the Moon or gentle though more quick and chearful scintillations of the twinkling Stars This
variety may well seem an addition to the felicity of their state And the shadowyness of the Night may help them in the more composing Introversions of their contemplative mind and cast the soul into ineffably pleasing slumbers and Divine extasies so that the transactions of the Night may prove more solacing and beatifick sometimes than those of the day Such things we may guess at afar off but in the mean time be sure that these good and serious Souls know how to turn all that God sends to them to the improvement of their Happiness To the fourth Argument we answer That there are not a few reasons from the nature of the thing that may beget in us a strong presumption that souls recovered into their Celestial Happiness will never again relapse though they did once For first it may be a mistake that the Happiness is altogether the same that it was before For our first Paradisiacal Bodies from which we lapsed might be of a more crude and dilute Aether not so full and saturate with Heavenly glory and perfection as our Resurrection-body is Secondly The soul was then unexperienced and lightly coming by that Happiness she was in did the more heedlessly forgo it before she was well aware and her mind roved after new adventures though she knew not what Thirdly It is to be considered whether Regeneration be not a stronger tenour for enduring Happiness than the being created happie For this being wrought so by degrees upon the Plastick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with ineffable groans and piercing desires after that Divine Life that the Spirit of God co-operating exciteth in us when Regeneration is perfected and wrought to the full by these strong Agonies this may rationally be deemed a deeper tincture in the soul than that she had by mere Creation whereby the soul did indeed become Holy innocent and happie but not coming to it with any such strong previous conflicts and eager workings and thirstings after that state it might not be so firmly rooted by far as in Regeneration begun and accomplished by the operation of Gods Spirit gradually but more deeply renewing the Divine Image in us Fourthly It being a renovation of our Nature into a pristine state of ours the strength and depth of impression seems increased upon that account also Fifthly The remembrance of all the hardships we underwent in our lapsed condition whether of Mortification or cross Rancounters this must likewise help us to persevere when once returned to our former Happiness Sixthly The comparing of the evanid pleasures of our lapsed or terrestrial life with the fulness of those Joys that we find still in our heavenly will keep us from ever having any hankering after them any more Seventhly The certain knowledge of everlasting punishment which if not true they could not know must be also another sure bar to any such negligencies as would hazard their setled felicity Which may be one reason why the irreclaimable are eternally punished namely that it may the better secure eternal Happiness to others Eighthly Though we have our triple Vital Congruity still yet the Plastick life is so throughly satisfied with the Resurrection-body which is so considerably more full and saturate with all the heavenly richness and Glorie than the former that the Plastick of the soul is as entirely taken up with this one Bodie as if she enjoyed the pleasures of all three bodies at once Aethereal Aereal and Terrestrial And lastly Which will strike all sure He that is able to save to the utmost and has promised us eternal life is as true as able and therefore cannot fail to perform it And who can deny but that we in this State I have described are as capable of being fixed there and confirmed therein as the Angels were after Lucifer and others had faln And now to the fifth and last Argument against the state of Silence I say it is raised out of mere ignorance of the most rational as well as most Platonical way of the souls immediate descent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the first Mover or stirrer in this matter I mean in the formation of the Foetus is the Spirit of Nature the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Universe to whom Plotinus somewhere attributes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first Predelineations and prodrome Irradiations into the matter before the particular soul it is preparing for come into it Now the Spirit of Nature being such a spirit as contains Spermatically or Vitally all the Laws contrived by the Divine Intellect for the management of the Matter of the World and of all Essences else unperceptive or quatenus unperceptive for the good of the Universe we have all the reason in the world to suppose this Vital or Spermatical Law is amongst the rest viz. That it transmit but one soul to one prepared conception Which will therefore be as certainly done unless some rare and odd casualty intervene as if the Divine Intellect it self did do it Wherefore one and the same Spirit of Nature which prepares the matter by some general Predelineation does at the due time transmit some one soul in the state of Silence by some particularizing Laws that fetch in such a soul rather than such but most sure but one unless as I said some special casualty happen into the prepared Matter acting at two places at once according to its Synenergetical vertue or power Hence therefore it is plain that there will be no such clusters of Foetus's and monstrous deformities from this Hypothesis of the souls being in a state of Silence But for one to shuffle off so fair a satisfaction to this difficulty by a precarious supposing there is no such Being as the Spirit of Nature when it is demonstrable by so many irrefragable Arguments that there is is a Symptome of one that philosophizes at random not as Reason guides For that is no reason against the existence of the Spirit of Nature because some define it A Substance incorporeal but without sense and animadversion c. as if a spirit without sense and animadversion were a contradiction For that there is a Spirit of Nature is demonstrable though whether it have no sense at all is more dubitable But through it have no sense or perception it is no contradiction to its being a Spirit as may appear from Dr. H. Mores Brief Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit To which I direct the Reader for satisfaction I having already been more prolix in answering these Arguments than I intended But I hope I have made my presage true that they would be found to have no force in them to overthrow the Hypothesis of a threefold Vital Congruity in the Plastick of the soul. So that this fourth Pillar for any execution they can do will stand unshaken Pag. 103. For in all sensation there is corporeal motion c. And besides there seems an essential relation of the Soul to Body according to Aristotles definition thereof he
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies And truly if they had been mindful of that earthly country out of which they came they might saith he have had opportunity of returning But now they desire a better to wit an heavenly Hebr. 11. Pag. 124. But that they step forth again into Airy Vehicles This is their natural course as I noted above But the examples of Enoch and Elias and much more of our ever Blessed Saviour are extraordinary and supernatural Pag. 125. Those therefore that pass out of these bodies before their Terrestrial Congruity be spoyled weakened or orderly unwound according to the tenour of this Hypothesis c. By the favour of this ingenious Writer this Hypothesis does not need any such obnoxious Appendage as this viz. That souls that are outed these Terrestrial bodies before their Terrestrial Congruity be spoiled weakned or orderly unwound return into the state of Inactivity But this is far more consonant both to Reason and Experience or Storie that though the Terrestrial Congruity be still vigorous as not having run out it may be the half part no not the tenth part of its Period the soul immediately upon the quitting of this body is invested with a bodie of Air and is in the state of Activity not of Silence in no sense For some being murdered have in all likelyhood in their own persons complained of their murderers as it is in that story of Anne Walker and there are many others of the same nature And besides it is far more reasonable there being such numerous multitudes of silent souls that their least continuance in these Terrestrial bodies should at their departure be as it were a Magical Kue or Tessera forthwith to the Aereal Congruity of life to begin to act its part upon the ceasing of the other that more souls may be rid out of the state of Silence Which makes it more probable that every soul that is once besmeared with the unctuous moisture of the Womb should as it were by a Magick Oyntment be carried into the Air though it be of a still-born Infant than that any should return into the state of Silence or Inactivity upon the pretence of the remaining vigour of the Terrestrial Congruity of life For these Laws are not by any consequential necessity but by the free counsel of the Eternal Wisdom of God consulting for the best And therefore this being so apparently for the best this Law is interwoven into the Spirit of the World and every particular soul that upon the ceasing of her Terrestrial Union her Aereal Congruity of life should immediately operate and the Spirit of Nature assisting she should be drest in Aereal robes and be found among the Inhabitants of those Regions If souls should be remanded back into the state of Silence that depart before the Terrestrial Period of Vital Congruity be orderly unwound so very few reach the end of that Period that they must in a manner all be turned into the state of Inactivity Which would be to weave Penelope's Web to do and undo because the day is long enough as the Proverb is whenas it rather seems too short by reason of the numerosity of Silent souls that expect their turn of Recovery into Life Pag. 125. But onely follow the clew of this Hypothesis The Hypothesis requires no such thing but it rather clashes with the first and chietest Pillar thereof viz. That all the Divine designs and actions are laid and carried on by Infinite Goodness And I have already intimated how much better it is to be this way that I am pleading for than that of this otherwise-ingenious Writer Pag. 125. Since by long and hard exercise in this body the Plastick Life is well taâ—…ned and debilitated c. But this is not at all necessary no not in those souls whose Plastick may be deemed the most rampant Dis-union from this Terrestrial body immediately tames it I mean the Terrestrial Congruity of Life and its operation is stopt as surely as a string of a Lute never so smartly vibrated is streightways silenced by a gentle touch of the finger and another single string may be immediately made to sound alone while the other is mute and silent For I say these are the free Laws of the Eternal Wisdom but fatally and vitally not intellectually implanted in the Spirit of Nature and in all Humane Souls or Spirits The whole Universe is as it were the Automatal Harp of that great and true Apollo and as for the general striking of the strings and stopping their vibrations they are done with as exquisite art as if a free intellectual Agent plaid upon them But the Plastick powers in the world are not such but onely Vital and Fatal as I said before Pag. 126. That an Aereal body was not enough for it to display its force upon c. It is far more safe and rational to say that the soul deserts her Aereal Estate by reason that the Period of the Vital Congruity is expired which according to those fatal Laws I spoke of before is determined by the Divine Wisdom But whether a soul may do any thing to abbreviate this Period and excite such symptoms in the Plastick as may shorten her continuance in that state let it be left to the more inquisitive to define Pag. 128. Where is then the difference betwixt the just and the wicked in state place and body Their difference in place I have sufficiently shewn in my Answer to the third Argument against the triple Congruity of Life in the Plastick of Humane Souls how fitly they may be disposed of in the Air. But to the rude Buffoonry of that crude Opposer of the Opinion of Pre-existence I made no Answer It being methinks sufficiently answered in the Scholia upon Sect. 12. Cap. 3. Lib. 3. of Dr. H. Mores Immortalitas Animae if the Reader think it worth his while to consult the place Now for State and Body the difference is obvious The Vehicle is of more pure Air and the Conscience more pure of the one than of the other Pag. 130. For according to this Hypothesis the gravity of those bodies is less because the quantity of the earth that draws them is so c. This is an ingenious invention both to salve that Phaenomenon why Bodies in Mines and other deep subterraneous places should seem not so heavy nor hard to lift there as they are in the superiour Air above the earth and also to prove that the crust of the earth is not of so considerable a thickness as men usually conceive it is I say it is ingenious but not so firm and sure The Quick-silver in a Torricellian Tube will sink deeper in an higher or clearer Air though there be the same Magnetism of the earth under it that was before But this is not altogether so fit an illustration there being another cause than I drive at conjoyned thereto But that which I drive at is sufficient of it self to salve this Phaenomenon
A Bucket of water while it is in the water comes up with ease to him that draws it at the Well but so soon as it comes into the Air though there be the same earth under it that there was before it feels now exceeding more weighty Of which I conceive the genuine reason is because the Spirit of Nature which ranges all things in their due order acts proportionately strongly to reduce them thereto as they are more heterogeniously and disproportionately placed as to their consistencies And therefore by how much more crass and solid a body is above that in which it is placed by so much the stronger effort the Spirit of Nature uses to reduce it to its right place but the less it exceeds the crassness of the Element it is in the effort is the less or weaker Hence therefore it is that a stone or such like body in those subterraneous depths seems less heavy because the air there is so gross and thick and is not so much disproportionate to the grossness of the stone as our air above the earth here is nor do I make any doubt but if the earth were all cut away to the very bottom of any of these Mines so that the Air might be of the same consistency with ours the stone would then be as heavy as it is usually to us in this superioor surface of the earth So that this is no certain Argument for the proving that the crust of the earth is of such thinness as this Author would have it though I do not question but that it is thin enough Pag. 131. And the mention of the Fountains of the great Deep in the Sacred History c. This is a more considerable Argument for the thinness of the crust of the earth and I must confess I think it not improbable but that there is an Aqueous hollow Sphaericum which is the Basis of this habitable earth according to that of Psalm 24. 2. For he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the flouds Pag. 131. Now I intend not that after a certain distance all is fluid matter to the Centre That is to say After a certain distance of earthly Matter that the rest should be fluid Matter namely Water and Air to the Centre c. But here his intention is directed by that veneration he has for Des Cartes Otherwise I believe if he had freely examined the thing to the bottom he would have found it more reasonable to conclude all fluid betwixt the Concave of the Terrestrial Crust and the Centre of the Earth as we usually phrase it though nothing be properly Earth but that Crust Pag. 131. Which for the most part very likely is a gross and foetid kind of air c. On this side of the Concave of the Terrestrial Crust there may be several Hollows of foetid air and stagnant water which may be so many particular lodgings for lapsed and unruly Spirits But there is moreover a considerable Aqueous Sphaericum upon which the earth is founded and is most properly the Abyss but in a more comprehensive notion all from the Convex thereof to the Centre may be termed the Abyss or the Deepest place that touches our imagination Pag. 131. The lowest and central Regions may be filled with flame and aether c. That there was the Reliques of a Sun after the Incrustation of the Earth and Aqueous Orb is according to this Hypothesis reasonable enough And a kind of Air and Aether betwixt this diminished Sun and the Concave of this Aqueous Orb but no crass and opake concamerations of hard Matter interposed betwixt Which is an Hypothesis the most kind to the ingenious Author of Telluris Theoria Sacra that he could wish For he holding that there was for almost two thousand years an opake earthy Crust over this Aqueous Orb unbroke till the Deluge which he ascribes to the breaking thereof it was necessary there should be no opake Orb betwixt the Central Fire and this Aqueous Orb for else the Fishes for so long a time had lived in utter darkness having eyes to no purpose nor ability to guide their way or hunt their prey Onely it is supposed which is easie to do that they then swam with their backs toward the Centre whenas as now they swim with their bellies thitherward they then plying near the Concave as now near the Convex of this watry Abyss Which being admitted the difference of their posture will necessarilly follow according to the Laws of Nature as were easie to make out but that I intend brevity in these Annotations Onely I cannot forbear by the way to advertise how probable it is that this Central Fire which shone clear enough to give light to the Fishes swimming near the Concave of this Watry Orb might in process of time grow dimmer and dimmer and exceeding much abate of its light by that time the Crust of the Earth broke and let in the light of the Sun of this great Vortex into this Watry Region within which viz. in the Air or Aether there there has been still a decay of light the Air or Aether growing more thick as well as that little Central Fire or Sun being more and more inveloped with fuliginous stuff about it So that the whole Concavity may seem most like a vast duskish Vault and this dwindling over-clouded Sun a Sepulchral Lamp such as if I remember right was found in the Monuments of Olybius and Tulliola An hideous dismal forlorn Place and sit Receptacle for the Methim and Rephaim And the Latin Translation Job 26. 5. excellently well accords with this sad Phaenomenon Ecce Gigantes gemunt sub Aquis qui habitant cum eis Here is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Symmachus translates the word And it follows in the verse Nudus est Infernus coram eo Hell is naked before God And Symmachus in other places of the Proverbs puts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together which therefore is the most proper and the nethermost Hell And it will be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the highest sense whenever this lurid Light as it seems probable to me it sometime will be is quite extinct and this Central Fire turned into a Terrella as it may seem to have already happened in Saturn But we must remember as the Author sometimes reminds us that we are embellishing but a Romantick Hypothesis and be sure we admit no more than Reason Scripture and the Apostolick Faith will allow Pag. 132. Are after death committed to those squalid subterraneous Habitations c. He seems to suppose that all the wicked and degerate souls are committed hither that they may be less troublesom to better souls in this air above the earth But considering the Devil is call'd the Prince of the Air that he has his Clients and Subjects in the same place with him we may well allow the lower Regions of the
therefore would not adventure of any so called for the adjudging any matters Heresie But if any pretended to be such their Authority should no further prevail than as they made out things by express and plain words of Canonical Scripture And for other Synods whether the Seventh which is the second of Nice or any other that the Church of Rome would have to be General in defence of their own exorbitant points of Faith or Practice they will be found of no validity if we have recourse to the sixth seventh eighth and ninth Heads Fifthly In reference to the fifth Head This fifth Council loseth its Authority in anathematizing what in Origen seems to be true according to that express Text of Scripture John 16. 28. especially compared with others See Notes on Chap. II. I came forth from the Father and am come into the world again I leave the world and go to the Father He came forth from his Father which is in Heaven accordingly as he taught us to pray to him the Divine Shechina being in a peculiar manner there He leaves the world and goes to the Father which all understand of his Ascension into Heaven whence his coming from the Father must have the same sense or else the Antithesis will plainly fail Wherefore it is plain he came down from Heaven as he signifies also in other places as well as returns thither But he can neither be truly said to come from heaven nor return thither according to his Divine Nature For it never lest Heaven nor removes from one place to another and therefore this Scripture does plainly imply the Pre existence of the Soul of the Messiah according to the Doctrine of the Jews before it was incarnate And this stricture of the old Cabala may give light to more places of St. Johns Writings than is fit to recite in this haste I will onely name one by the by 1 John 4. 2. Every Spirit that confesseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh that is to say is the Christ incarnate is of God For the Messiah did exist viz. his Soul before he came into the flesh according to the Doctrine of the Jews Which was so well known that upon the above-cited saying John 16. 28. of our Saviour they presently answered Lo now speakest thou plainly and speakest no Parable because he clearly discovers himself by this Character to be the expected Messias incarnate Nor is there any possible evasion out of the clearness of this Text from the communication of Idioms because Christ cannot be said to come down from Heaven according to his Humane Nature before it was there therefore his Humane Nature was there before it was incarnate And lastly The Authority of the Decision of this Council if it did so decide is lessened in that contrary to the second Head as was hinted above it decides a point that Faith and Godliness is not at all concerned in For the Divinity of Christ which is the great point of Faith is as firmly held supposing the Soul of the Messias united with the Logos before his incarnation as in it So that the spight onely of Pelagius against Theodorus to multiply Anathematisms against Origen no use or necessity of the Church required any such thing Whence again their Authority is lessened upon the account of the third Head These things may very well suspend a careful mind and loth to be imposed upon from relying much upon the Authority of this fifth Council But suppose its Authority entire yet the Acts against Origen are not to be found in the Council And the sixth Council in its Anathematisms though it mention Theodorets Writings the Epistle of Ibas and Theodorus Mopsuestenus who were concerned in the fifth Council yet I find not there a syllable touching Origen And therefore those that talk of his being condemned by that fifth Coâ—…ncil have an eye I suppose to the Anathematisms at the end of that Discourse which Justinian the Emperour sent to Menas Patriarch of Constantinople according to which form they suppose the errours of Origen condemned Which if it were true yet simple Pre-existence will escape well enough Nor do I think that learned and intelligent Patriarch Photius would have called the simple Opinion of Pre-existence of souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but â—…or those Appendages that the injudiciousness and rashness of some had affixed 〈◊〉 it Partly therefore reâ—…lecting upon that first Anathematism in the Emperours Discouâ—…se that makes the pre-existent souls of men first to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if their highest felicity consisted in having no body to inactuate which plainly clashes with both sound Philosophy and Christianity as if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Rephaim were all one and they were not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 grown cold to the Divine Love and onely gathered body as they gathered corruption and were alienated from the Life of God which is point-blank against the Christian Faith which has promised us as the highest prize a glorified body And partly what himself adds that one soul goes into several bodies Which are impertinent Appendages of the Pre-existence of the soul false useless and unnecessary and therefore those that add these Appendages thereto violate the sincerity of the Divine Tradition to no good purpose But this simple Doctrine of Pre existence is so unexceptionable and harmless that the third collection of Councils in Justellus which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though it reckon the other errours of Origen condemned in the fifth Council omits this of Pre-existence Certainly that Ecclesiastick that framed that Discourse for the Emperour if he did it not himself had not fully deliberately and impartially considered the Dogma of Pre-existence taken in its self nor does once offer to answer any Reasons out of Scripture or Philosophy that are produced for it Which if it had been done and this had been the onely errour to be alledged against Origen I cannot think it credible nay scarce possible though their spight had been never so much against some loâ—…ers of Origen that they could have got any General Council to have condemned so holy so able so victorious a Champion for the Christian Church in his life-time for an Hâ—…retick upon so tolerable a punctilio about three hundred years after his death What Father that wrote before the first four General Councils but might by the Malevolent for some odd passage or other be doomed an Heretick if such severity were admittable amongst Christians But I have gone out further than I was aware and it is time for me to be think me what I intended Which was the justifâ—…ing of my self in my seeming to prefer the Discretion of our own Church in leaving us free to hold the Incorporeity and Immortality of the soul by any of the three handles that best fitted every mans Genius before the Judgment of the fifth General Council that would
unalterably and immutably as in its Idea in the Divine Intellect so in any Body or Material Substance that does exist So the Idea of a Spirit or of a Substance Immaterial the opposite Idea to the other contains in it immediately of its own nature Indiscerpibility Penetrability and Self-Activity as the inseparable fruit of the essential difference or intimate form thereof unalterably and immutably as in its Idea in the Divine Intellect so in any Immaterial Substance properly so called that doth exist So that as it is a contradiction in the Idea that it should be the Idea of Substance Immaterial and yet not include in it Indiscerpibility c. so it is in the being really existent that it should be Substance Immaterial and yet not be Indiscerpible c. For were it so it would not answer to the Truth of its Idea nor be what it pretendeth to be and is indeed an existent Being Indiscerpible which existent Being would not be Indiscerpible if any could discerp it And so likewise it is with the Idea of Ens summè absolutè perfectum which is a setled determinate and immutable Idea in the Divine Intellect whereby were not God himself that Ens summè absolutè perfectum he would discern there were something better than Himself and consequently that he were not God But he discerns Himself to be this Ens summè absolutè perfectum and we cannot but discern that to such a Being belongs Spirituality which implies Indiscerpibility and who but a mad man can imagine the Divine Essence discerpible into parts Infinity of Essence or Essential Omnipresence Self-Causality or necessary Existence immediately of it self or from it self resulting from the absolute and peculiar perfection of its own nature whereby we understand that nothing can exist ab aeterno of it self but He. And lastly Omniscience and Omnipotence whereby it can do any thing that implies no contradiction to be done Whence it necessarily follows that all things were Created by Him and that he were not God or Ens summè perfectum if it were not so And that amongst other things he created Spirits as sure as there are any Spirits in the world indiscerpible as himself is though of finite Essences and Metaphysical Amplitudes and that it is no derogation to his Omnipotence that he cannot discerp a Spirit once created it being a contradiction that he should Nor therefore any argument that he cannot create a Spirit because he would then puzzle his own Omnipotence to discerp it For it would then follow that he cannot create any thing no not Metaphysical Monads nor Matter unless it be Physically divisible in infinitum and God Himself could never divide it into parts Physically indivisible whereby yet his Omnipotence would be puzzled And if he can divide matter into Physical Monads no further divisible there his Omnipotence is puzzled again And by such sophistical Reasoning God shall be able to create nothing neither Matter nor Spirit nor consequently be God or Ens summè absolutè perfectum the Creator and Essentiator of all things This is so Mathematically clear and true that I wonder that Mr. Rich. Baxter should not rather exult in his Placid Collation at the discovery of so plain and useful a truth than put himself p. 79. into an Histrionical as the Latin or as the Greek would express it Hypocritical fit of trembling to amuze the populacy as if the Doctor in his serious and solid reasoning had verged towards something hugely exorbitant or prophane The ignorant fear where no fear is but God is in the generation of the knowing and upright It 's plain this Reasoning brings not the existence of God into any doubt For it is no repugnance to either his nature or existence not to be able to do what is a contradiction to be done but it puts the Indiscerpibility of Spirits which is a Notion mainly useful out of all doubt And yet Mr. Baxter his phancie stalking upon wooden stilts and getting more than a spit and a stride before his Reason very magisterially pronounces It 's a thing so high as required some shew of proof to intimate that God cannot be God if he be Almighty and cannot conquer his own Omnipotency Ans. This is an expression so high and in the Clouds that no sense thereof is to be seen unless this be it That God cannot be God unless he be not Almighty as he would discover himself not to be if he could not discerp a Spirit of a Metaphysical amplitude when he has created it But it plainly appears from what has been said above that this discerping of a Spirit which is immediately and essentially of its own nature indiscerpible as well as a Physical Monad is implying a contradiction it is no derogation to the Almightiness of God that he cannot do it all Philosophers and Theologers being agreed on that Maxim That what implies a contradiction to be done is no Object of Gods Almightiness Nor is he less Almighty for not being able to do it So that the prick-ear'd Acuteness of that trim and smug saying that seemed before to shoot up into the Sky flags now like the slaccid lugs of the over-laden Animal old Silenus rid on when he had a Plot upon the Nymphâ—… by Moon-shine Pardon the tediousness of the Periphrasis For though the Poet was pleased to put old Silenus on the Ass yet I thought it not so civil to put the Ass upon old Mr. Baxter But he proceeds pag. 80. Your words says he like an intended Reason are For that cannot be God from whom all other things are not produced and created to which he answers 1. Relatively says he as a God to us it 's true though quoad existentiam Essentiae he was God before the Creation But I say if he had not had the power of creating he had been so defective a Being that he had not been God But he says 2. But did you take this for any shew of a proof The sense implyed is this All things are not produced and created by God if a spiritual ample substance be divisible by his Omnipotencie that made it Yea Then he is not God Negatur consequentia Ans. Very scholastically disputed Would one think that Reverend Mr. Baxter whom Dr. More for his Function and Grandevity sake handles so respectfully and forbears all such Juvenilities as he had used toward Eugenius Philalethes should play the Doctor such horse-play having been used so civilly by him before What Buffoon or Antick Mime could have distorted their bodies more ill-favour'dly and ridiculously than he has the Doctors solid and well-composed Argument And then as if he had done it in pure innocency and simplicity he adds a Quaker-like Yea thereunto And after all like a bold Scholastick Champion or Polemick Divine couragiously cries out Negatur consequentia What a fardle of freaks is there here and illiberal Artifices to hide the Doctors sound Reasoning in the 28th Section of his Answer to the
Psychopyrists Letter Where having plainly proved that God can create an Indiscerpible Being though of a large Metaphysical amplitude and that there is nothing objected against it nor indeed can be but that then he would seem to puzzle his own Omnipotency which could not discerp such a Being the Doctor shews the vanity of that Objection in these very words The same says he may be said of the Metaphysical Monads namely that God cannot discerp them and at that rate he shall be allow'd to create nothing no not so much as Matter which consists of Physical Monads nor himself indeed to be For that cannot be God from whom all other things are not produced and created What reason can be more clear or more convincing That God can create a Spirit in the proper sense thereof which includes Indiscerpibility there being no reason against it but what is false it plainly implying that he can create nothing and consequently that he cannot be God Wherefore that Objection being thus clearly removed God as sure as himself is can create a Spirit penetrable and indiscerpible as himself is and is expresly acknowledged to be so by Mr. Baxter himself pag. 51. And he having created Spirits or Immaterial Substances of an opposite Species to Material which are impenetrable and discerpible of their immediate nature how can these Immaterial substances be any other than Penetrable and Indiscerpible Which is a very useful Dogma for assuring the souls personal subsistence after Death And therefore it is a piece of grand Disingenuity in Mr. Baxter to endeavour thus to slur and obscure so plain and edifying a Truth by mére Antick Distortions of words and sense by alterations and mutilations and by a kind of sophistick Buffoonry This is one specimen of his Disingenuity towards the Doctor who in his Answer has been so civil to him And now I have got into this Digression I shall not stick to exemplifie it in several others As secondly pag. 4. in those words And when I presume most I do but most lose my self and misuse my understanding Nothing is good for that which it was not made for Our Understandings as our Eyes are made onely for things revealed In many of your Books I take this for an excess So Mr. Baxter Let me now interpose a word or two in the behalf of the Doctor Is not this a plain piece of Disingenuity against the Doctor who has spent so great a part of his time in Philosophie which the mere Letter of the Scripture very rarely reveals any thing of to reproach him for his having used his understanding so much about things not revealed in Scripture Where should he use his Understanding and Reason if not in things unrevealed in Scripture that is in Philosophical things Things revealed in Scripture are Objects rather of Faith than of Science and Understanding And what a Paradox is this that our Understandings as our Eyes are made onely for things revealed When our Eyes are shut all the whole visible world by the closing of the palpebroe is vailed from us but it is revealed to us again by the opening of our eyes and so it is with the eye of the Understanding If it be shut through Pride Prejudice or Sensuality the mysteries of Philosophy are thereby vailed from it but if by true vertue and unfeigned sanctity of mind that eye be opened the Mysteries of Philosophy are the more clearly discovered to it especially if points be studied with singular industry which Mr. Baxter himself acknowledges of the Doctor pag. 21. onely he would there pin upon his back an Humble Ignoramus in some things which the Doctor I dare say will easily admit in many things yea in most and yet I believe this he will stand upon that in those things which he professes to know he will challenge all the world to disprove if they can And for probable Opinions especially if they be useless which many Books are too much stuffed withal he casts them out as the lumber of the mind and would willingly give them no room in his thoughts Firmness and soundness of Life is much better than the multiplicitie of uncertain Conceits And lastly whereas Mr. Baxter speaking of himself says And when I presume most I do but most lofe my self He has so bewildered and loâ—… himâ—…elf in the multifarious and most-what needless points in Philosophy or Scholastick Divinity that if we can collect the measures of the Cause from the amplitude of the Effect he must certainly have been very presumptuous He had better have set up his Staff in his Saints everlasting Rest and such other edifying and useful Books as those than to have set up for either a Philosopher or Polemick Divine But it is the infelicity of too many that they are ignorant Quid valeant humeri quid ferre recusent as the Poet speaks or as the Pythagoreans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so taking upon them a part in a Play which they are unfit for they both neglect that which they are fit for and miscarry by reason of their unfitness in their acting that Part they have rashly undertaken as Epictetus somewhere judiciously observes But if that passage And when I presume most I do but most lose my self was intended by him as an oblique Socratical reproof to the Doctor let him instance if he can where the Doctor has presumed above his strength He has medled but with a few things and therefore he need not envie his success therein especially they being of manifest use to the serious world so many as God has fitted for the reception of them Certainly there was some grand occasion for so grave a preliminary monition as he has given the Doctor You have it in the following Page p. 5. This premised says he I say undoubtedly it is utterly unrevealed either as to any certainty or probability That all Spirits are Souls and actuate Matter See what Heat and Hast or some worse Principle has engaged Mr. Baxter to do to father a down-right falshood upon the Doctor that he may thence take occasion to bestow a grave admonition on him and so place himself on the higher ground I am certain it is neither the Doctors opinion That all Spirits are Souls and actuate Matter nor has he writ so any where He onely says in his Preface to the Reader That all created Spirits are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Souls in all probability and actuate some matter And his expression herein is both modest and true For though it is not certain or necessary yet it is very probable For if there were of the highest Orders of the Angels that fell it is very probable that they had corporeal Vehicles without which it is hard to conceive they could run into disorder And our Saviour Christs Soul which actuates a glorified spiritual Bodie being set above all the Orders of Angels it is likely that there is none of them is so refined above his Humane Nature as to
Atoms then every created Spirit especially particular ones are so many subtil living Puppets made up of spiritual rags and clouts But if God can divide them neither into spiritual Atoms nor larger spiritual parcels he can't divide them at all And so according to what the Doctor contends for they will be as they ought to be absolutely indiscerpible I omit here to take notice of another absurdity of Mr. Baxters That though the substance of a Spirit he will have to be divisible yet he will have the form indivisible pag. 50 99. and yet both parts to be Spirit still which implies a contradiction For then one of the parts will be without the form of a Spirit and consequently be no Spirit and yet be a Spirit according to Mr. Baxter who makes Spirits divisible into parts of the same denomination as when water is divided into two parts each part is still water pag. 53. Ninthly That which occurrs pag. 48. is a gross Disingenuity against the Doctor where Mr. Baxter says And when you make all Spirits to be Souls and to animate some matter you seem to make God to be but Anima Mundi How unfair and harsh is this for you Mr. Baxter who has been so tenderly and civilly handled by the Doctor in his Answer to your Letter he constantly hiding or mollifying any thing that occurred therein that might overmuch expose you to represent him as a savourer of so gross a Paradox as this That there is no God but an Anima Mundi which is the Position of the Vaninian Atheists which himself has expresly confuted in his Mystery of Godliness and declared against lately in his Advertisements on Jos. Glanvils Letter to himself in the second Edition of Saducismus Triumphatus This looks like the breaking out of unchristian rancour in a Reply which bears the Specious Title of a Placid Collation Which is yet exceedingly more aggravable for that this odious Collection is not made from any words of the Doctor but from a siction of Mr. Baxter For the Doctor has nowhere Written nor ever thought that all Spirits but only all Created Spirits might probably be Souls that is to say actuate some matter or other And those words are in his Preface to his Answer to the Letter of the Psychopyrist as I noted before I might reckon up several other Disingenuities of Mr. Baxters towards the Doctor in this his Placid Collation but I have enumerated enough already to weary the Reader and I must remember I am but in a Digression I shall onely name one Disingenuity more which was antecedent to them all and gave occasion both to Mr. Baxters Letter and to the Doctors Answer thereto and to this Reply of Mr. Baxter And that was That Mr. Baxter in his Methodus Theologiae as he has done also in a little Pamphlet touching Judge Hales without giving any reasons which is the worst way of traducing any man or his sentiments slighted and slurred those two essential Attributes of a Spirit Penetrability and Indiscerpibility which for their certain Truth and usefulness the Doctor thought fit to communicate to the World But forasmuch as Mr. Baxter has in this his Reply produced his Reasons against them I doubt not but the Doctor will accept it for an amends And I as I must disallow of the Disingenuity of the omission before yet to be just to Mr. Baxter I must commend his discretion and judgment in being willing to omit them they appearing to me now they are produced so weak and invalid But such as they are I shall gather them out of his Reply and bring them into view First then pag. 13. It is alledged That nothing hath two forms univocally so called But if Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie be added to the Virtus Vitalis to the Vital Power of a Spirit it will have two forms Therefore Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie are to be omitted in the notion of a Spirit See also p. 22. Secondly pag. 14. Penetrable and Indiscerpible can be no otherwise a form to Spirits than Impenetrable and Discerpible are a form to Matter But Impenetrable is onely a modal Conceptus of Matter and Discerpible a Relative notion thereof and neither one nor both contrary to Virtus vitalis in a Spirit Thirdly pag. 14. He sees no reason why Quantity and the Trina Dimensio may not as well be part of the form of Matter as Discerpibilitie and Impenetrabilitie Fourthly pag. 15 16. Nothing is to be known without the mediation of Sense except the immediate sensation itself and the acts of intellection and volition or nolition and what the Intellect inferreth of the like by the perception of these Wherefore as to the modification of the substance of Spirits which is contrary to Impenetrabilitie and Divisibilitie I may grope says he but I cannot know it positively for want of sensation Fifthly pag. 16 17. If Indiscerpibilitie be the essential character of a Spirit then an Atom of matter is a Spirit it being acknowledged to be Indiscerpible Wherefore Indiscerpibilitie is a false character of a Spirit Sixthly pag. 17 18. Penetrable whether actively or passively understood can be no proper Character of a Spirit forasmuch as Matter can penetrate a Spirit as well as a Spirit Matter it possessing the same place See pag. 23. Seventhly pag. 40 41. Immaterialitie says he Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie in your own judgment I think are none of them proper to Spirit For they are common to diverse Accidents in your account viz. to Light Heat Cold. And again in his own words Eighthly pag. 77. If your Penetrabilitie says he imply not that all the singular Spirits can contract themselves into a Punctum yea that all the Spirits of the world may be so contracted I find it not yet sufficiently explained See also pag. 52 78 89 90. Ninthly pag. 50. Seeing says he you ascribe Amplitude Qâ—…antitie and Dimensions and Logical Materialitie to the Substantialitie of Spirits I see not but that you make them Intellectually divisible that is that one may think of one part as here and another there And if so though man cannot separate and divide them if it be no contradiction God can Tenthly and lastly pag. 90. The putting of Penetrability and Indiscerpibility into the notion of a Spirit is needless and hazardous it being sufficient to hold that God hath made Spirits of no kind of parts but what do Naturally abhor Separation and so are inseparable unless God will separate them and so there is no fear of losing our Personality in the other State But Penetrability and Indiscerpibility being hard and doubtful words they are better left out lest they tempt all to believe that the very Being of Spirits is as doubtful as those words are Thus have I faithfully though briefly brought into view all Mr. Baxters Arguments against the Penetrability and Indiscerpibility of Spirits which I shall answer in order as they have been recited To the first therefore I say that the Doctors Definition of
a Spirit which is A Substance immaterial intrinsecally indued with life and a faculty of motion where Substance is the Genus and the rest of the terms comprize the Differentia which Mr. Baxter calls Conceptus formalis and Forma I say that this Difference or Form though it consist of many terms yet these terms are not Heterogeneal as he would insinuate pag. 22. but Congenerous and one in order to another and essentially and inseparably united in that one substance which is rightly and properly called Spirit and in vertue of that one substance though their Notions and Operations differ they are really one inseparable specifick Disserence or Form as much as Mr. Baxters Virtus vitalis una-trina is that is to say they are specifick knowable terms succedaneous to the true intimate specifick Form that is utterly unknowable and therefore I say in this sense these knowable terms are one inseparable specifick Difference or Form whereby Spirit is distinguished from Bodie or Matter in a Physical acception Which the Universality of Philosophers hold to consist in Impenetrability and Discerpibilitie and Self-inactivitie Which if Mr. Baxter would have been pleased to take notice of viz. that a Spirit is said to be a Substance Immaterial in opposition to Matter Physical he might have saved himself the labour of a deal of tedious trifling in explication of words to no purpose But to shew that this Pretence of more Forms than one in one Substance is but a Cavil I will offer really the same Definition in a more succinct way and more to Mr. Baxters tooth and say As Corpus is Substantia Materialis where Materialis is the specifick Difference of Corpus comprized in one term so Spiritus is Substantia Immaterialis where Immaterialis the specifick Difference of Spiritus is likewise comprized in one term to please the humour of Mr. Baxter But now as under that one term Materialis are comprized Impenetrabilitie Discerpibilitie and Self-Inactivity so also under that one term Immaterialis are comprized as under one head Penetrability Indiscerpibility and Intrinsccal life and motion that is an essential facultie of life and motion which in one word may be called Self-Activity Whence Penetrability Indiscerpibility and Self-Activity are as much one Form of a Spirit as Mr. Baxters Vita Perceptio and Appetitus is one Form thereof For though in both places they are three distinct notions at least as Mr. Baxter would have it yet they are the essential and inseparable Attributes of one substance and the immediate fruit and result of the Specifick nature thereof They are inseparably one in their Source and Subject And this I think is more than enough to take off this first little Cavil of Mr. Baxters against the Doctors including Penetrability and Inseparability in the Form or Specifick difference of a Spirit For all that same is to be called Form by which a thing is that which it is as far as our Cognitive faculties will reach and by which it is essentially distinguished from other things And if it were not for Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie Spirit would be confounded with Body and Matter And Body or Physical Matter might be Self-Active Sentient and Intelligent To the Second I answer That whosoever searches things to the bottom he will sind this a sound Principle in Philosophie That there is nothing in the whole Universe but what is either Substantia or Modus And when a Mode or several Modes put together are immediately and essentially inseparable from a Substance they are lookt upon as the Form or the onely knowable Specifick difference of that Substance So that Impenetrability and Discerpibility which are immediately essential to and inseparable from Body or Matter and Self-Inactivitie as Irrational is made the specifick difference of a Brute may be added also These I say are as truly the Form or Specifick difference of Body or Matter as any thing knowable is of any thing in the world And Self-Inactivity at least is contrary to the Virtus vitalis of a Spirit though Impenetrability and Discerpibility were not So that according to this oeconomy you see how plainly and exquisitely Body and Spirit are made opposite Species one to another And 't is these Modal differences of Substances which we only know but the Specifick Substance of any thing is utterly unknown to us however Mr. Baxter is pleased to swagger to the contrarie p. 44 62. Where he seems to mis-understand the Doctor as if by Essence he did not understand Substance as both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Essentia usually signifie especially with the Ancients but any Being at large But of Substance it is most true we know it onely by its essential Modes but the Modes are not the Substance it self of which they are Modes otherwise the Substance would want Modes or every Substance would be more substances than one And Mr. Baxter himself saith pag. 62. To know an essential Attribute and to know ipsam essentiam scientiâ inadaequatâ is all one Which inadequate or partial knowledge say I is this the knowing of the Essential Mode of the Substance and not knowing the Substance it self Otherwise if both the Essential Modes were known and also the Specifick Substance to which the Modes belong more than that those Modes belong to that Substance the knowledge would be full and adequate and stretcht through the whole Object So that Mr. Baxters Scientia inadoequata and the Doctors denying the bare Substance it self to be known may very well consist together and be judged a mere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which is an exercise more grateful it 's likely to Mr. Baxter than to the Doctor To the third I say Any one that considers may find a necessarie reason why Quantitie or Trina Dimensio should be left out in the Form of Body or Matter especially why the Doctor should leave it out because he does professedly hold That whatever is has Metaphysical Quantitie or Metaphysical Trina Dimensio Which no man can denie that holds God is Essentially present every-where And no man I think that does not dote can denie that Wherefore allowing Matter to be Substance in that Generical nature Trina Dimensio is comprized and need not be again repeated in the Form But when in the Forma or Differentia Discerpible and Impenetrable is added this is that which makes the Trina Dimensio included in the Genus Substantia of a Corporeal kind and does constitute that Species of things which we call Corpora This is so plain a business that we need insist no longer upon it Now to the fourth I answer briefly That from what knowledge we have by the mediation of the Senses and inference of the Intellect we arrive not onely to the knowledge of like things but of unlike or rather contrary As in this very example we being competently well instructed indeed assured by our Senses that there is such a kind of thing as Body whose nature is to be Impenetrable and Discerpible
yet harder And if God have made a Creature so stongly inclined to the unitie of all the parts that no Creature can separate them but God onely as if a Soul were such it is plain that such a Being need not fear a dissolution by Separation of parts Ans. This is well said for an heedless and credulous multitude but this is not to Philosophize but to tell us that God works a perpetual Miracle in holding the small tenuious parts of the Soul together more pure and fine than those of Fire or Aether but here is no natural cause from the thing it self offered unless it be that in every Substance or rather Matter the parts according to the tenuitie and puritie of the Substance incline to a closer Contact and inseparable Union one with another which is a conceit repugnant to experience and easily confuted by that ordinarie accident of a Spinner hanging by its weak thread from the brim of ones Hat which seeble line yet is of force enough to divide the Air and for that very reason because it consists of thinner parts than Water or Earth As also we can more easily run in the Air than wade in the Water for the very same reason These things are so plain that they are not to be dwelt upon But Mr. Baxter is thus pleased to shew his Wit in maintaining a weak Cause which I am perswaded he has not so little judgment as that he can have any great confidence in And therefore in sundry places he intimates that he does allow or at least not deny but that Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie is contained in the Notion of a Spirit but not as part of the Conceptus formalis but as Dispositio or Modus substantiae but yet withal such a Dispositio as is essential to the substance that with the Conceptus formalis added makes up the true Notion of a Spirit See pag. 30 32 61 85. And truly if Mr. Baxter be in good earnest and sincere in this agreement without all equivocation that Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie is Essential to the true Notion of a Spirit onely they are to be admitted as Dispositio Substantiae not as Pars Formae I confess as he declares pag. 94. That the difference betwixt him and the Doctor lyeth in a much smaller matter than was thought and the Doctor I believe will easily allow him to please his own fancy in that But then he must understand the terms of Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie in the Doctors sense viz of a Spirits penetrating not inter partes but per partes materiae and possessing the same space with them And of an Indiscerpibleness not arising from thinner and thinner parts of matter as he imagines Air to be more hardly discerpible than Earth or Water forasmuch as by reason of its thinness its parts lye closer together as was above noted but from the immediate essential Oneness of substance in a Spirit according to the true Idea of an Indiscerpible Being in the Divine Intellect which whether in Idea or in Actual Existence it would cease to be or rather never was such if it were discerpible and therefore implies a contradiction it should be so But if a Spirit be not Penetrable in the Doctors sense it is really Impenetrable and if not Indiscerpible in his sense it is really Discerpible and consequently divisible into Physical Monads or Atoms and therefore constituted of them and the last Inference will be that of the Epigrammatist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thus the sairest and firmest structures of Philosophical Theorems in the behalf of the Providence of God the Existence of Spirits and the Immortality of the Soul will become a Castle of Come-Down and fall quite to the ground Whence it was rightfully done of the Doctor to lay such stress upon these two terms Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie they being the essential Characteristicks of what is truly a Spirit and which if they were taken out of the world all would necessarily be Matter I mean Physical Matter to prevent all quibblings and fiddlings about words and phrases and this Physical Matter would be the Subject and Source of all Life whatever Intellective Sensitive and Vegetative And Mr. Baxter did ill in not onely omitting these terms himself in his Notion of a Spirit but in publickly slighting and disgracing of the Doctors using of them and afterwards in so stomaching his vindication of the same in publick whenas we see that without them there can be nothing but Physical Matter in the world and God and Angels and the Souls of men must be such Matter if they be any thing at all and therefore in such an errour as this Mr. Baxter with Christian patience might well have born with the Doctors calling it not onely a Mistake but a Mischief And I hope by this time he is such a proficient in that Vertue that he will chearfully bear the publication of this my Answer in the behalf of the Doctor to all his Objections against these two essential and necessarie Characters of a Spirit and not be offended if I briefly run over his smaller Criticisms upon the Doctors Definition of the same which do occur pag. 80 81. and elsewhere as I shall advertise The Doctors Definition of a Spirit in his Discourse of that Subject Sect. 29. is this A Spirit is a Substance immaterial intrinsecally indued with life and the facultie of motion where he notes that Immaterial contains virtually in it Penetrability and Indiscerpibility Now let us hear how Mr. Baxter criticizes on this Definition First saies he pag. 80. Your Definition is common good and true allowing for its little imperfections and the common imperfection of mans knowledge of Spirits If by Immaterial you mean not without Substance it signifieth truth but a negation speaketh not a formal Essence Ans. How very little these imperfections are I shall note by passing through them all and for the common imperfection of mans knowledge of Spirits what an unskilful or hypocritical pretence that is the Doctor hath so clearly shewn in his Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit Sect. 16 17 18 19. that it is enough to send the Reader thither for satisfaction But as for Immaterial how can any one think that thereby is meant without Substance but those that think there is nothing but Matter in the Physical sense of the word in the world As if Substance Immaterial was intended to signifie Substance without Substance And lastly the Doctor will denie that In in Immaterial signifies negatively here more than in Immortal Incorruptible or Infinite but that it is the indication of opposite properties to those of Physical Matter viz. Impenetrability and Discerpibility and that therefore Immaterial here includes Indiscerpibility and Penetrability Secondly pag. 81. Spirit it self saies he is but a metaphor Ans. Though the word first signified other things before it was used in the sense it is here defined yet use has made it as good
as if it were originally proper With your Logicians in those Definitions Materia est Causa ex qua res est Forma est Causa per quam res est id quod est Materia and Forma are Metaphorical words but use has made them in those Definitions as good as proper nor does any sober and knowing man move the least scruple touching those Definitions on this account To which you may add that Aristotles caution against Metaphors in defining things is to be understood of the Definition it self not the Definitum but Spirit is the Definitum here not the Definition Thirdly Intrinsecally indued with life tells us not that it is the Form Qualities and proper Accidents are intrinsecal Ans. Mr. Baxter I suppose for clearness sake would have had Form written over the head of this part of the Definition as the old bungling painters were wont to write This is a Cock and this a Bull or as one wittily perstringed a young Preacher that would name the Logical Topicks he took his Arguments from saying he was like a Shoemaker that offered his Shoes to sale with the Lasts in them I thought Mr. Baxter had been a more nimble Logician than to need such helps to discern what is the Genus in the Definition what the Differentia or Forma And for intrinsecally indued I perceive he is ignorant of the proper force and sense of the word Intrinsecùs which signifies as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 onely which implies that this life is from the intimate Essence of a Spirit quatenus a Spirit and therefore can be no common qualitie nor a facultie clarted on as Mr. Baxter fancies God may clart on Life the specifick Form of Spirit as he himself acknowledges on Matter though Materia quatenus Materia implies no such thing but I say Spiritus quatenus Spiritus does which is both the Source and proper Subject of life But it is the effect of an ill perturbed sight to fancie flaws where there are really none And to fancie that a Vis Vitalis or Power of living can belong to Materia Physica immediately which power must necessarily be the Result of an Essence specifically distinct from Physical Matter I think may justly be called clarting of this Power on a Subject it belongs not to nor is intrinsecal to it there being no new specifick Essence from whence it should spring Fourthly The Facultie of motion saies he is either a Tautologie included in Life or else if explicatorie of Life it is defective Ans. It is neither Tautological nor Exegetical no more than if a man should define Homo Animal rationale risibile Risibile there is neither Tautological though included in Animal rationale nor Exegetical it signifying not the same with Rationale And the Definition is as true with Risibile added to it as if omitted But the addition of Risibile being needless is indeed ridiculous But it is not Ridiculous to add the faculty of motion in this Definition of a Spirit because it is not needless but is added on purpose to instruct such as Mr. Baxter that an intrinsecal facultie of motion belongs to Spirit quatenus Spirit and indued with Life whenas yet he pag. 35. will not admit that self-motion is an indication of Life in the subject that moves itself although it is the very prime argument that his beloved and admired Dr. Glisson useth to prove that there is universally life in Matter But it is the symptome of an over Polemical Fencer to deny a thing merely because he finds it not for his turn In the mean time it is plain the Doctor has not added the facultie of motion rashly out of oversight but for the instructing the ignorant in so important a truth That there is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but there is Life and Spirit This is so great a truth that the Platonists make it to be the main Character of Soul or Spirit to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you may see in Proclus Fifthly No man saith he can understand that the Negative Immaterial by the terms includeth Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie Ans. No man that rightly understands himself but must conceive that Immaterial signifies an opposite or contrary condition to Material and he knowing as who is ignorant of it that the proper and essential characters of Material in substantia materialis is to be Impenetrable and Discerpible he will necessarily even whether he will or no discover that Immaterial which signifies the opposite to these in substantia immaterialis must denote Penetrability and Indiscerpibility Sixthly You do not say here saith he that they are the Form but elsewhere you do and the Form should be exprest and not onely vertually contained as you speak Ans. What would you have him in the very Definition it self which is so clear an one say This is the Genus this the Form as those bunglers I mentioned above writ the names of the Animals they had so badly drawn And that the Form should be exprest is true but it is sufficient it be exprest in such a comprehensive term as contains under it all that belongs to such a Species As when we have divided Vivens into Planta and Animal if we then define Animal to be Vivens sensu praeditum that one word sensus is sufficient because it reaches any Species of Animal and none but Animals And yet here the Doctor is not so niggardly as to pinch the expression of all the Form or Difference into that one word Immaterial whereby he here onely intimates Penetrability and Indiscerpibility but for fuller explication addeth Intrinsecally induced with Life and the facultie of motion But lastly For his elsewhere calling Penetrability and Indiscerpibility the Form of a Spirit he nowhere makes them the whole Form of a Spirit but makes the Logical Form or Differentia of a Spirit to be all that which he has expressed in this Definition viz. Immaterial which denotes Penetrability and Indiscerpibility and Intrinsecal life and motion And it is evident that when he calls this Differentia in his Definition Form that he does not mean the very specifick Substance or Essence whereby a Spirit is a Spirit but onely essential or inseparable Attributes which onely are known to us and which are only in an improper sense said to be the Form it self or specifick Nature They are onely the Result of the Form and Notes of an Essence or Substance Specifically distinct from some other Substance It is not so in substantial Forms as in Geometrical Forms or Figures as to Visibilitie or Perceptibilitie Dic tu formam hujus lapidis says Scaliger to Cardan Phyllida solus habeto But there are inseparable and essential Properties of a substantial Form necessarily resulting from the Form it self as there are in external Forms or Figures As for example from the form of a Globe which is a round Form defined from the equalitie of all lines from one point drawn
from whence we conclude distinct Species of things For 't is too coarse and slovenly to conceit that these are clarted on them but the Specifick Powers arise immediately and inseparably from the Specifick Nature of the thing else why might they not be other powers as well as these Twelfthly and lastly pag. 32. But do you verily believe saith he that Penetrability or Subtility is a sufficient Efficient or Formal cause of Vitalitie Perception and Appetite and so of Intellection and Volition I hope you do not Ans. I hope so of the Doctor too and before this I hoped that Mr. Baxter had more insight into the nature of a Formal cause and into the Laws of Logick than once to imagine that any one in his Wits could take Penetrability to be the Formal cause of Intellection and Volition For then every Spirit being Penetrable every Spirit even of a plant at least of the vilest Animalculum would have Intellection and Volition Nor for the same reason can any body think that Penetrability is a sussicient Esficient cause of Intellection and Volition Nor is it so much as the Essicient cause of Vitality Perception Appetite much less the Formal So infinitely is Mr. Baxter out in these things But the case stands thus The Substance of that species of things which we call a Spirit and is so by that intimate specifick Form which I named before this substance is the cause of Vitality in such a sense as the round Form of a Globe or any matter of that Form is quatenus of that Form the cause of its own rolling Mobilitie I say therefore that Vitality is as immediate and necessarie a Fruit or Effect of the real and intimate Form of a Spirit as that easie mobilitie is of the Form of a Sphere or Globe And such a kind of Vitality Vegetative Sensitive Intellective of such a Species of Spirit These kinds of Vitalities are the Fruits or Effects necessarie and immediate of the abovesaid so specificated Substances that is to say they are immediately Self-living and all of them Penetrable and Indiscerpible of themselves quatenus Spirits all these essential attributes arising from the simple essence or specificated substance of every Spirit of what Classis soever created according to its own Idea eternally shining in the Divine Intellect As for example In the Idea of a Plastick Spirit onely Penetrability Indiscerpibility and Plastick Vitality whereby it is able to organize Matter thus and thus are not three Essences clarted upon some sourth Essence or glewed together one to another to make up such an Idea But the Divine Intellect conceives in itself one simple specifick Essâ—…nce immediately and intrinsecally of it self indued with these essential Properties or Attributes So that when any thing does exist according to this Idea those three properties are as immediately Consequential to it and as eâ—…ectually as Mobility to the Form oâ—… a Globe It is the specifick Substance that is the necessary Source of them and that acts by them as its own connate or natural instruments sitted for the ends that the etâ—…rnal Wisdom and Goodness of God has conceivâ—…d or contrived them for For it is manifest that those essential Attributes of a Spirit contrarie to Matter are not in vain For whenas a Plastick Spirit is to actuate and organize Matter and inwardly dispose it into certain forms Penetrability is needful that it may possess the Matter and order it throughout As also that Oneness oâ—… Essence and Indiscerpibility that it may hold it together For what should make any mass of Matter one but that which has a special Oneness of Essence in it self quite diâ—…erent froâ—… that of Matter And fâ—…rasmuch as all Sâ—…uls are indued with the Plastick whether of Brutes or Men not to add the Spirits of Angels still there holds the same reason in all ranks that Spirits should be as well Penetrable and Indiscerpible as Vital And if there be any Platonick Niâ—… that have no Plastick yet Penetrability must belong to them and is of use to them if they be found to be within the verges of the Corporeal Universe and why not they as well as God himself and Indiscerpibility maintains their Supposital Unitie as it does in all Spirits that have to do with Matter and are capable of a vital coalescencie therewith But I have accumulated here more Theorie than is needful And I must remember that I am in a Digression To return therefore to the particular point we have been about all this while I hope by this time I have made it good that the Dr.'s Desinition of a Spirit is so clear so true so express and usefully instructive and that is the scope of the Doctors Writings that neither he himself nor any body else let them consider as much as they can will ever be able to mend it And that these affected Cavils of Mr. Baxter argue no defects or flaws in the Doctors Definition but the ignorance and impotencie of Mr. Baxters Spirit and the undue elation of his mind when notwithstanding this unexceptionableness of the Definition he pag. 82. out of his Magisterial Chair of Judicature pronounces with a gracious nod You mean well but all our Conceptions here must have their ALLOWANCES and we must confess their weakness This is the Sentence which grave Mr. Baxter alto supercilio gives of the Doctors accurate Definition of a Spirit to humble him and exalt himself in the sight of the populacie But is it not a great weakness or worse to talk of favourable allowances and not to allow that to be unexceptionable against which no just exception is found But to give Mr. Baxter his due though the extream or extimate parts of this Paragraph pag. 82. which you may fancie as the skin thereof may seem to have something of bitterness and toughness in it yet the Belly of the Paragraph is full of plums and sweet things For he saies And we are all greatly beholden to the Doctor for his so industrious calling foolish Sensualists to the study and notion of invisible Beings without which what a carcass or nothing were the world But is it not pity then while the Doctor does discharge this Province with that faithfulness and industrie that Mr. Baxter should disturb him in his work and hazzard the fruits and efficacie thereof by eclipsing the clearness of his Notions of Spiritual Beings for Bodies may be also invisible by the interposition or opposition of his own great Name against them who as himself tells the world in his Church-History has wrote fourscore Books even as old Dr. Glisson his Patron or rather Pattern in Philosophy arrived to at least fourscore Years of age And Mr. Baxter it seems is sor the common Proverb The older the wiser though Elihu in Job be of another mind who saies there I said Days should speak and multitude of Years should teach Wisdom But there is a Spirit in man and the Inspiration of the Almighty giveth him Understanding
sufficiently enable them to be Guides to the people especially by adhering in Matters of moment to the Ancient Apostolick and unapostatized Church and presuming nothing upon their private spirit against the same Such questionless will prove able and safe Pastors and will not fail of being approved of by our Lord Jesus the great Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls But if any such as I noted above for that they conceit themselves also dapper fellows at Cudgils or Quarter-stafs shall leaving their Flocks solitary in the fields out of an itch after applause from the Country-Fry gad to Wakes and Fairs to give a proof of their dexterity at those Rural exercises if they shall I say for their pains return with a bruised knuckle or broken pate who can help it it will learn them more wit another time Thus much by way of Digression I thought fit to speak not out of the least ill-will to Mr. Baxter but onely in behalf of the Doctor hoping though it is far from all that may be said that yet it is so much and so much also to the purpose that it will save the Doctor the labour of adding any thing more thereto So that he may either enjoy his Repose or betake himself to some design of more use and moment In the mean time I having dispatcht my Digression I shall return to the main business in hand I think it may plainly appear from what has been said that it is no such harsh thing to adventure to conclude That the Truth of the Divine Intellect quatenus conceptive speculative or observative which a Platonist would be apt to call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Divine Intellect exhibitive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for though it be but one and the same Intellect yet for distinctness sake we are fain to speak as of two does consist in its Conformity with the Divine Intellect exhibitive with the immutable Idea's Respects and References of things there In conceiving and observing them as I may so speak to be such as they are represented in the said Intellect quatenus necessarily and unalterably representing such Idea's with the immediate Respects and References of them In this consists the Truth of the Divine Intellect Speculative But the Transcendental Truth of things consists in their Conformity to the Divine Intellect Exhibitive For every thing is true as it answers to the immutable Idea of its own nature discovered in the Divine Intellect Exhibitive To which also the same Divine Intellect quatenus Conceptive Speculative or Observative gives its suffrage steadily and unalterably conceiving these immutable Idea's of things in their Objective Existence what their natures will be with their necessary references aptitudes or ineptitudes to other things when they are produced into act From whence we may discern how that saying of this ingenious Author of the Discourse of Truth is to be understood Where he writes It is against the nature of all Understanding to make its Object Which if we will candidly interpret must be understood of all understanding quatenus merely conceptive speculative or observative and of framing of its Object at its pleasure Which as it is not done in the setled Idea of a Sphere Cylinder and Pyramid no more is it in any other Idea's with their properties and aptitudes immediately issuing from them but all the Idea's with their inevitable properties aptitudes or ineptitudes are necessarily represented in the Divine Intellect Exhibitive immutably such as they are a Triangle with its three Angles equal to two right ones a right-angled Triangle with the power of its Hypotenusa equal to the powers of the Basis and Cathetus both put together Which things seem necessary to every sober man and rightly in his wits our understanding being an Abstract or Copy of the Divine Understanding But those that say that if God would he might have made the three Angles of a Triangle unequal to two right ones and also the powers of the Basis and Cathetus of a right-angled Triangle unequal to the power of the Hypotenusa are either Bussoons and Quibblers or their Understandings being but creatural huffiness of mind and an ambition of approving themselves the Broachers and maintainers of strange Paradoxes has crazed their Intellectuals and they have already entred the suburbs of down-right Phrensie and Madness And to conclude Out of what has been insinuated we may reconcile this harsh sounding Paradox of our Author that seems so point-blank against the current doctrine of the Metaphysical Schools who make Transcendental Truth to depend upon the Intellectual Truth of God which they rightly deem the Fountain and Origine of all Truth whenas he plainly declares That the Divine Understanding cannot be the Fountain of the Truth of things But the seeming absurdity will be easily wiped away if we take notice of our distinction touching the Divine Understanding quatenus merely conceptive speculative or observative and quatenus necessarily through its own infinite and immutable pregnancie and foecundity Exhibitive of the distinct and determinate Idea's or natures of things with their immediate Properties Respects or Habitudes in their Objective Existence representing them such as they certainly will be if reduced into act His assertion is not to be understood of the Divine Understanding in this latter sense but in the former But being it is one and the same Understanding though considered under this twofold Notion our Author as well as the ordinarie Metaphysicians will agree to this truth in the sense explained That the Divine Understanding is the Fountain of the truth of things and that they are truly what they are as they answer to their Idea's represented in the Exhibitive Intellect of God How the Author himself comes off in this point you will better understand when you have read the fifteenth sixteenth and seventeenth Sections of his Discourse Let this suffice in the mean time for the removing all stumbling-blocks from before the Reader Pag. 168. Nor the foundation of the references one to another that is to say The Divine Understanding quatenus Conceptive or Speculative is most certainly not the Foundation of the references of things one to another but the Divine Understanding quatenus Exhibitive that represents the Idea's or natures of things in their Objective Existence such as they would be if reduced really into act represents therewith all the references and habitudes they have one to another Which habitudes are represented not as flowing from or arbitrariously founded in any Intellect whatsoever but as resulting from the natures of the things themselves that respect one another and are represented in the Exhibitive Understanding of God Which is the main thing that this ingenious Author would be at and such as will serve all his intents and purposes Pag. 168. It is the nature of Understanding ut moveatur illuminetur c. namely of Understanding quatenus Conceptive or Speculative not quatenus Exhibitive Pag. 169. No Idea's or Representations either are or make the things they
call the Intellectual World as the Author has observed above in this Section A Circle is a Circle and a Triangle a Triangle there nor can be otherwise without a Contradiction And so of a Globe Cylinder Horse Eagle Whale Fire Water Earth their Ideal fixt and determinate natures habitudes aptitudes and respects necessarily and immutably there exhibited are such as they are nor can be otherwise without a contradiction And because it is thus in the Divine Nature or Essence which is the root and fountain of the exteriour Creation the same is true in the created Beings themselves Things are there also what they are nor can they be a Globe suppose or a Cylinder and yet not be a Globe or a Cylinder at once or be both a Globe and Cylinder at once and so of the rest As this is a contradiction in the Intellectual World so is it in the Exteriour or Material World and so because it is so in the Intellectual For the steadiness and immutableness of the nature of all things and of their respects and habitudes arise from thâ—… necessity immutability and unchangeableness of the Divine Essence and Life which is that serene unclouded undisturbed and unalterable Eternity where all things with their respects and aptitudes their order and series are necessarily steadily and immutably exhibited at once P. 195. As they conform agree with the things themselves c. 〈◊〉 The more Platonical sense and more conformable to that we have given of other passages of this learned and ingenious Author is if we understand the things themselves at least primarily to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Plato which is the term which he bestows upon his Idea's which are the Patterns or Paradigms according to which every thing is made and is truly such so far sorth as it is found to agree with the Patterns or Originals in which all Archetypal Truth is immutably lodged All created things are but the Copies of these these the Original the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Writing it self from whence Plato calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if those Archetypal Forms were the forms or things themselves but the numerous created Beings here below only the Copies or Imitations of them Wherefore no Conception or Idea's that we frame or any Intellect else as Conceptive merely and Speculative can be true but so far as they agree with these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that sense we have declared or with creâ—…ted things so far as they are answerable to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Archetypal things themselves And from hence is sufficiently understood the nature of Truth in the Subject These few cursory Notes I thought worth the while to make upon these two learâ—…ed and ingenious Writers the Subjects they have written on being of no mean importance and use and the things written in such a time of their age as if men be born under an auspicious Planet best fits their minds for the relishing and ruminating upon such noble Theories For I dare say when they wrote these Discourses or Treatises they had neither of them reached so much as half the age of man as it is ordinarily computed Which has made them write upon these Subjects with that vigour and briskness of Spirit that they have For the constitution of Youth in those that have not an unhappy Nativity is far more heavenly and Angelical than that of more grown age in which the Spirit of the World is more usually awakened and then begins that Scene which the Poet describes in his De Arte Poetica Quoerit opes amicitias inservit honori their mind then begins to be wholly intent to get wealth and riches to enlaâ—…ge their Interest by the friendship of great Persons and to hunt after Dignities and Preferments Honours and Imployments in Church or State and â—…o those more heavenly and Divine Sentiments through disuse and the presence of more strong and filling Impressions are laid asleep and their Spirits thickened and clouded with the gross fumes and steams that arise from the desire of earthly things and it may so fall out if there be not special care taken that this mud they have drawn in by their coarse desires may come to that opaque hardness and incrustation that their Terrestrial body may prove a real dungeon cast them into an utter oblivion of their chiefest concerns in the other State Nec auras Respicient clausi tenebris carcere coeco Which I thought sit to take notice of as well for the instruction of others as for a due Appretiation of these two brief Treatises of these florid Writers they being as it were the Virgin-Honey of these two Attick Bees the Primitioe of their intemerated Youth where an happy natural complexion and the first Rudiments of Christian Regeneration may seem to have conspired to the writing of two such useful Treatises Useful I say and not a little grateful to men of refined Fancies and gay Intellectuals of benign and Philosophical tempers and Lovers of great Truths and Goodness Which natural constitution were a transcendent priviledge indeed were there not one great danger in it to those that know not how to use it skilfully For it does so nearly ape as I may so speak the Divine Benignity it self and that unself-interessed Love that does truly arise from no other seed than that of real Regeneration which Self-mortification and a serious endeavour of abolishing or utterly demolishing our own will and quitting any thing that would captivate us and hinder our union with God and his Christ does necessarily precede that too hastily setting up our rest in these mere complexional attainments which is not Spirit but Flesh though it appear marvellous sweet and goodly to the owner if there be not â—…ue care taken to advance higher in that Divine and Eternal Principle of real Regeneration by a constant mortification of our own will there may be a perpetual hazzard of this Flesh growing corrupt and fly-blown and sending up at lâ—…st no sweet savour into the nostrils of the Almighty That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit And all flesh is grass and the beauty thereof as the slower of the field but that which is born of the eternal Seed of the living Word abideth for ever and ever And therefore there is no safe Anchorage for the Soul but in a perpetual endeavour of annihilating of her own Will that we may be one with Christ as Christ is with God Otherwise if we follow the sweet enticing Counsels of mere Nature though it look never so smugly on it it will seduce us into a false liberty and at last so corrupt our Judgment and blind us that we shall scarce be able to discern him that is that great Light that was sent into the world but become every man an Ignis Fatuus to himself or be so silly as to be led about by other