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 â—ivil 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 CORPVS 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 no sober man believes that God assists any creature so in a natural course as to enable it to create And then I suppose that he that believes not this is not bound to puzzle himself why God may not as well make many substances into one as many out of one whenas he holds he does not the latter c. These are the Doctors own words in that Section In reply to which Mr. Baxter But to my Question saies he why God cannot make two of one or one of two you put me off with this lean Answer that we be not bound to puzzle our selves about it I think saies he that Answer might serve to much of your Philosophical disputes Here Mr. Baxter plainly deals very disingenuously with the Doctor in perverting his words which affirm onely That he that denies that God can make two substances of one in the sense above-declared need not puzzle himself how he may make one of those two again Which is no lean but full and apposite Answer to the Question there propounded And yet in this his Placid Collation as if he were wroth he gives ill language and insinuates That much of the Doctors Philosophical Disputes are such as are not worth a mans puzling himself about them whenas it is well known to all that know him or his Writings that he concerns himself in no Theories but such as are weighty and useful as this of the Indiscerpibility of Spirits is touching which he further slanders the Doctor as if it were his mere Assertion without any Proof As if Mr. Baxter had never read or forgot the Doctors Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit or what he has writ in the further Defence thereof See Sect. 26 28 30 31. Thus to say any thing in an angry mood verily does not become the Title of a Placid Collation Sixthly The Doctor in Sect. 11. of his Defence of his Notion of a Spirit writes thus I desire you to consider the nature of Light throughly and you shall find it nothing but a certain motion of a Medium whose parts or particles are so or so qualified some such way as Cartesianism drives at To this Mr. Baxter replies against the Doctor pag. 59. Really saies he when I read how far you have escaped the delusions of Cartesianism I am sorry you yet stick in so gross a part of it as this is when he that knoweth no more than motion in the nature of Fire which is the Active Principle by which Mental and Sensitive Nature operateth on Man and Brutes and Vegetables and all the Passive Elements and all the visible actions in this lower world are performed what can that mans Philosophie be worth I therefore return your Counsel study more throughly the nature of Ethereal Fire Satis pro imperio very Magisterially spoken and in such an igneous Rapture that it is not continuedly sense Does Mental and Sensitive Nature act on Brutes and Vegetables and all the Passive Elements But to let go that Is all the Doctors Philosophie worth nothing if he hold with Des Cartes touching the Phaenomenon of Light as to the Material part thereof It is the ignorance of Mr. Baxter that he rejects all in Des Cartes and Judiciousness in the Doctor that he retains some things and supplies where his
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 of 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 different from that of Matter And forasmuch as all Souls 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 Definition 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 slaws 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 for 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 Vnderstanding 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 insix 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 forbear 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 fiction As if says he we said that Souls are Fire 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
this to see whether I can find any such coincidences which a mans phancy dealing frequently in such matters might insensibly occasion If any there be let those that find them out pardon them as the slips of a too officious imagination or however else they treat them they shall not much displease the Author And now that this Discourse may pass with less controul among those that shall light on it I find my self ingag'd to speak a little to a double sort of Readers who are like to be offended at my design and averse to the Doctrine asserted in these Papers And 1 some will boggle at Praeexistence and be afraid to entertain it upon an apprehension that the Admission of this opinion will disorder and change the Frame of Orthodox Divinity which were there cause for such a jealousie were but a commendable caution but there 's hope this may prove but a panick fear or such a needless terrour as surpriseth Children in the dark when they take their best friends for some Bug-Bear that would carry them away or hurt them For 't is but supposing as I have somewhere intimated in the discourse it self that God created all souls together as he did the Angels That some of them sinned and fell with the other Apostate Spirits and for their disobedience were thrust into a state of silence and insensibility That the Divine goodness so provided for them that they should act a part again in terrestrial Bodies when they should fitly be prepared for them And that Adam was set up as our great Protoplast and Representative who had he continued in Innocence and Integrity we had then been sharers in that happiness which he at first was instated in but by his unhappy defection and disobedience we lost it and became thus miserable in our New life in these earthly bodies I say the Doctrine of Prae-existence thus stated is in nothing that I know of an enemy to common Theology all things hence proceeding as in our ordinary Systems with this only difference that this Hypothesis clears the divine Attributes from any shadow of harshness or breach of equity since it supposeth us to have sinned and deserved all the misery we suffer in this condition before we came hither whereas the other which teacheth that we became both guilty and miserable by the single and sole offence of Adam whenas we were not then in being or as to our souls as much as potentially in our great Progenitour bears somewhat hardly upon the repute of the Divine perfections So that if the wary Reader be afraid to venture upon the Hypothesis that I have drawn up at the end which I confess I would not give him the least incouragement to meddle with yet without danger he may admit of Praeexistence as accommodated to the Orthodox Doctrine Nor should I indeed have medled with the other scheme which is built upon the Principles of meer Reason and Philosophy but that those friends who drew the rest of the Discourâ—e from me ingag'd me to give them an Account of the Philosophical Hypothesis In which I know I have not in every particular followed the mind of the Masters of the Origenian Cabbala but kept my self to the conduct of those Principles that I judged most rational though indeed the things wherein I differ are very few and inconsiderable However for that reason I thought fit to intitle no body to the Hypothesis that I have made a draught of lest I should have affix't on any one what he would not have owned But for the main those that understand it know the Fountain and for others 't is no great matter if they be ignorant Now if any one judge me to be a Proselyte to those opinions because I call them not all to nought or damn not those that have a favour for them I know not how to avoid the doom of their severe displeasure having said as much in the place where I treat of those matters to purge my self of such a suspicion as I thought necessary to clear me in the opinion of any competently ingenuous As for others let me say what I can I shall be what their wisdoms think fit to call me And let that be what it will I am very well content to bear it I 'le only add to take off the ground of this uncharitable jealousie that among the favourers of Praeexistence I know none that are adherers to those opinions and therefore for me to have declaim'd against any on this account had been a piece of Knight-Errantry And those Dons that do so make Gyants of the Wind-mills of their own Imaginations But 2 There are another sort of Readers that I have a word to say to who contemn and laugh at every thing that their narrow noddles comprehend not This I confess is a good easie way of confutation and if we may take every fool's smile for a Demonstration Praeexistence will be routed But the best on 't is to call things by their right names this is but a vulgar childish humour arising from nothing but a fond doating on the opinions we were first instructed in For having made those the standard of truth and solidity these prepossest discerners presently conclude every thing that is a stranger to their ears and understandings and of another stamp from their Education-receptions â—alse and ridiculous just like the common people who judging all customs and fashions by their own account those of other Nations absurd and barbarous 'T is well for those smiling Coâ—â—uters that they were not bred in Mahumetism for then without doubt they would have made sport of Christianity But since they are so disposed let them laugh at the opinion I have undertaken for till they understand it I know who in the judgment of wise men will prove Ridiculous It was from this very principle that the most considerable truths that ever the world was acquainted with were to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness and 't was such a spirit as reigns in these Children of self-conâ—idence that call'd S. Paul a babbler And methinks till these narrow-scull'd people could boast themselves infallible and all their opinions an unerring Canon common modesty and civility should teach them better manners than at first dash to judge that a ridiculous absurdity which the greatest and wisest Sages that inlightned the antient World accounted so sound and probable a Conclusion Especially it being a matter not determin'd against but rather countenanc't in Scripture as will appear hereafter But Opinionative Ignorance is very weak and immoral And till those slight and Vulgar discerners have learn't that first principle of true wisdom To judge nothing till they throughly understand it and have weighed it in the Ballance of impartial Reason 't is to no purpose to spend ones breath upon them THE CONTENTS OF LVX ORIENTALIS Chap. 1. THE opinions proposed concerning the original of Souls pag. 1 Chap. 2. Daily creation of Souls is inconsistent
it shall go hard but that those whom their education or prejudice have engaged against this Hypothesis will light on some obscure pieces of texts and broken sentences or other that shall seem to condemn what they disapprove of But I am securely confident that there is not a sentence in the sacred volume from end to end that ever was intended to teach that all Souls were not made of old or that by a legitimate consequence would inferr it And if any there be that seem to look another way I dare say they are collateral and were never designed by the divine Authors for the purpose they are made to serve by the enemies of Praeexistence Wherefore not to conceal any thing that with the least shew of probability can be pretended from the sacred volume in discountenance of the Doctrine of Praeexistence I 'le bring into view whatever I know to have the least face of a Testimony to the contrary in the divine Revelations That so when it shall appear that the most specious Texts that can be alledg'd have nothing at all in them to disprove the souls praeexistence we may be secure that God hath not discovered to us in his written will that 't was not his pleasure to create all souls together Therefore 1. It may be pretended that the Doctrine of Praeexistence comports not with that innocence and integrity in which the Scripture determines Adam to have been made Since it supposeth the descent into these bodies to be a culpable lapse from an higher and better state of Life and this to be a state of incarceration for former delinquencies To this I answer 1 No one can object any thing to purpose against Praeexistence from the unconceiveableness of it until he know the particular frame of the Hypothesis without which all impugnations relating to the manner of the thing will be wide of the mark and but little to the business Therefore if the Objector would have patience to wait till we come to that part of our undertaking he would find that there was but little ground for such a scruple But however to prevent all cavillings in this place I 'le shew the invalidity of this objection Wherefore 2 There is no necessity from the Doctrine of Praeexistence to suppose Adam a Delinquent before his noted transgression in a terrestrial body for considering that his body had vast advantages above ours in point of Beauty Purity and Serviceableness to the Soul what harshness is there in conceiving that God might send one of those immaculate Spirits that he had made into such a Tenement that he might be his steward in the affairs of this lower Family and an overseer and ruler of those other Creatures that he had ordered to have their dwelling upon earth I am sure there is no more contrariety to any of the Divine Attributes in this supposition than there is in that which makes God to have sent a pure spirit which he had just made into such a body Yea 3 Supposing that some Souls fell when the Angels did which the process of our discourse will shew to be no unreasonable supposition this was a merciful provision of our Maker and a generous undertaking for a Seraphick and untainted Spirit For by this means fit and congruous matter is prepared for those Souls to reside and act in who had rendred themselves unfit to live and enjoy themselves in more refined bodies And so those Spirits that had sinned themselves into a state of silence and inactivity are by this seasonable means which the divine Wisdom and Goodness hath contrived for them put once more into a capacity of acting their parts anew and coming into play again Now if it seem hard to any to conceive how so noble a Spirit in such an advantagious body should have been imposed upon by so gross a delusion and submit so impotently to the first temptation He may please to consider that the difficulty is the same supposing him just then to have been made if we grant him but that purity and those great perfections both of will and understanding which orthodox theology allows him Yea again 4 I might ask What inconvenience there is in supposing that Adam himself was one of those delinquent Souls * which the divine pity and compassion had thus set up again that so so many of his excellent Creatures might not be lost and undone irrecoverably but might act anew though upon a lower stage in the universe A due consideration of the infinite foecundity and fulness of the divine goodness will if not warrant yet excuse such a supposition But now if it be demanded What advantage Adam's standing had been to his posterity had he continued in the state of innocence and how sin and misery is brought upon us by his Fall according to this Hypothesis I answer that then among many other great priviledges he had transmitted downwards by way of natural generation that excellent and blessed temper of body which should have been like his own happy crasis So that our apprehensions should have been more large and free our affections more regular and governable and our inclinations to what is good and vertuous strong and vigorous For we cannot but observe in this state how vast an influence the temper of our bodies hath upon our minds both in reference to intellectual and moral dispositions Thus daily experience teacheth us how that according to the ebb or flow of certain humours in our bodies our wits are either more quick free and sparkling or else more obtuse weak and sluggish And we find that there are certain clean and healthy dispositions of body which make us cheerful and contented others on the contrary morose melancholy and dogged And 't is easie to observes how age or sickness sowers and crabbs our natures I might instance in almost all other qualities of the mind which are strangely influenc't and modifyed according to the bodies constitution But none will deny so plain a truth and therefore I forbear to insist further on it Nor need I mention any more advantages so many and such great ones being consequent upon this But our great Protoplast and representative falling through his unhappy disobedience besides the integrity and rectitude of his mind he lost also that blessed constitution of Body which would have been so great a priviledg to his off-spring so that it became now corrupt weak and indisposed for the nobler exercises of the Soul and he could transmit no better to us than himself was owner of Thus we sell in him and were made miserable by his transgression We have bodies conveyed to us which strangely do bewitch and betray us And thus we all bear about us the marks of the first apostacy There are other sad effects of his defection but this may suffice for my present purpose Thus we see how that the derivation of original depravity from Adam is as clear in this Hypothesis as can be pretended in either of the
other And upon other Accounts it seems to have much the advantage of both of them As will appear to the unprejudiced in what is further to be discoursed of Finally therefore If the urgers of the Letter of Genesis of either side against this Hypothesis would but consider That the Souls that descend hither for their praevarication in another state lye in a long condition of silence and insensibility before they appear in terrestrial bodies each of them then might from the doctrine of Praeexistence thus stated gain all the advantages which he supposeth to have by his own opinion and avoid all those alsurdities which he seeth the other run upon If the Asserters of daily Creation think it clear from Scripture that God is the Father of Spirits and immediate maker of Souls they 'l find the same made good and assented to in this Hypothesis And if they are unwilling to hold any thing contrary to the Nature of the soul which is immortal and indiscerpible the Doctrine of Praeexistence amicably closeth with them in this also And if the Patrons of Traduction would have a way how sin and misery may be propagated from our first Parent without aspersing the divine Attributes or affirming any thing contrary to the phaenomena of Providence and Nature this Hypothesis will clear the business It giving us so fair an Account how we all dye in Adam without blotting the Wisdom Justice or Goodness of God or affirming any thing contrary to the Appearances of Nature I have been the longer on this Argument because 't is like to be one main objection And we see it is so far from prejudicing that it is no inconsiderable evidence of the truth of Praeexistence And now besides this that I have named I cannot think of any Arguments from Scripture against this Doctrine considerable enough to excuse a mention of them However if the candid Reader will pardon the impertinency I 'le present to view what I find most colourable Therefore 2 It may be some are so inadvertent as to urge against our souls having been of old that Sacred writ says We are but of Yesterday which expression of divine Scripture is questionless to be understood of our appearance on this stage of Earth And is no more an Argument against our Praeexistence than that other phrase of his Before I go hence and Be no more is against our future existence in an other state after the present life is ended Nor will it prove more the business it is brought for than the expression of Rachels weeping for her Children because they were not will inferr that they were absolutely nothing Nor can any thing more be made 3. Of that place in Ecclesiastes Yea better is he than both they meaning the dead and living which hath not yet been since besids that 't is a like scheme of speech with the former it seems more to favour than discountenance Praeexistence for what is absolutely nothing can neither be worse nor better Moreover we coming from a state of silence and inactivity when we drop into these bodies we were before as if we had not been and so there is better ground in this case for such a manner of speaking than in meer non-appearance which yet Scripture phraseth a Not being * And now I cannot think of any place in the Sacred volume more that could make a tolerable plea against this Hypothesis of our Souls having been before they came into these bodies except 4. Any will draw a negative Argument from the History of the Creation concluding that the Souls of men were not made of old because there is no mention there of any such matter To which I return briefly That the same Argument concludes against the being of Angels of whose Creation there is no more say'd in the first story than of this inferiour rank of Spirits Souls The reason of which silence is commonly taken to be because Moses had here to do with a rude and illiterate people who had few or no apprehensions of any thing beyond their senses and therefore he takes notice to them of nothing but what was sensible and of common observation This reason is given also why minerals were omitted 'T were an easy matter to shew how the outward cortex the Letter of this History is adapted to mean and vulgar apprehensions whose narrowness renders them incapable of sublimer speculations But that being more than needs for our present purpose I shall forbear to speak further of it I might 2 further add that great and learned Interpreters tell us that all sorts of Spirits Angels and Souls are symbollically meant by the creation of heaven and light And if it were directly in the way of our present business it might be made appear to be no improbable conjecture But I referr him that is curious in this particular to the great Restorer of the antient Cabbala the Learned Dr. H. More in his conjectura Cabbalistica And now from the consideration of the silence of the first History we descend to the last and most likely to be urged scruple which is to this purpose 5. We are not to step beyond the divine Revalations and since God hath made known no such Doctrine as this of the Souls Praeexistence any where in his word we may reasonably deny it or at least have no ground to imbrace it This is the most important objection of all the rest and most likely to prepossess timorous and wary inquirers against this Hypothesis wherefore I conceive that a full answer to this doubt will prevent many scrupulous Haesitations and make way for an unprejudic'd hearing of what I have further to alledge in the behalf of this opinion And 1. I wish that those that urge Scripture silence to disprove praeexistence would consider how silent it is both in the case of Daily Creation and Traduction we have seen already that there is nothing in Sacred writ to warrant either but only such Generals from which the respective Patrons of either Doctrine would inferr their own conclusion though indeed they all of them with better right and congruity prove Praeexistence 2. I suppose those that argue from Scripture-silence in such cases mistake the design of Scripture which is not to determine points of speculation but to be a rule of Life and Manners Nor doth it otherwise design the teaching of Doctrinals than as they have a tendency to promote the divine life righteousness and Holiness It was never intended by it's inspired Authors to fill our Heads with notions but to regulate our disorderly appetites and affections and to direct us the way to a nobler happiness Therefore those that look for a systeme of opinions in those otherways-designed writings do like him that should see for a body of natural Philosophy in Epictetus his morals or Seneca's Epistles 3. Christ and his Apostles spoke and writ as the condition of the persons with whom they dealt administred occasion as as did also the other pen-men
Therefore doubtless there were many noble Theories which they could have made the world acquainted with which yet for want of a fit occasion to draw them forth were never upon Record And we know sew speculative truths are deliver'ed in Scripture but such as were called forth by the controversies of those times And Praeexistence was none of them it being the constant opinion of the Jews as appears by that Question Master was it for this man's sin or his Fathers that he was born blind which supposeth it of the Disciples also Wherefore 4. There was little need of more teaching of that which those times were sufficiently instructed in And indeed as the case stands if Scripture-silence be Argumentative 't wil be for the advantage of Praeexistence since it being the then common opinion and the disciples themselves being of that belief 't is very likely had it been an errour that our Saviour or his Apostles would have witnest against it But there being not a word let fall from them in disapproval of that opinon though sometimes occasions were administred as by the Question of the Disciples and some other occurrences 't is a good presumption of the soundness of it Now that Praeexistence was the common opinion of the Jews in those times might be made good with full and convictive evidence were it worth our labour to insist much upon this Inquiry but this being only a by-consideration a brief touch of it will suffice us One of the great Rabbins therefore * Mr. Ben Israel in his Problems de Creatione assures us that Praeexistence was the common belief of all wise men among the Jews without exception And the Author of the Book of Wisdom who certainly was a Jew probably Philo plainly supposeth the same Doctrine in that Speech For I was a witty Child and had a good Spirit wherefore the rather being good I came into a body undefiled As also did the Disciples in their Foremention'd Question to our Saviour For except they supposed that he might have sinned before he was born the Question had been sensless and impertinent Again when Christ askt them whom men said he was they answered that some said John the Baptist others Elias others Jeremias or one of the Prophets which sayings of theirs suppose their belief of a Metempsychosis and consequently of Praeexistence These one would think were very proper occasions for our Saviour to have rectified his mistaken followers had their supposition been an errour as he was wont to do in cases not more considerable Therefore if the enemies of Praeexistence will needs urge Scriptures supposed silence against it they have no reason to take it amiss if I shew them how their Argument recoyls upon themselves and destroy their own cause instead of their Adversaries 5. Besides there were doubtless many Doctrines entertain'd by the Apostles and the more learned of their followers which were disproportion'd to the capacities of the generality who hold but little Theory There was strong meat for the more grown and manly Christians as well as milk for babes and weaker Constitutions Now Scripture was designed for the benefit of the most and they could little understand and less make use of a speculation so remote from common conceit as Praeexistence Among us wise men count it not so proper to deal forth deep and mysterious points in Divinity to common and promiscuous Auditories Wherefore the Apostles and others of their more improv'd and capable disciples might have had such a Doctrine among them though it were never expresly defined in their publick writings And the Learned Origen and some other of the Antients affirm that Praeexistence was a Cabbala which was handed down from the Apostolick ages to their times and we know those were early and had therefore better advantages of knowing the certainty of such a Tradition than we at so vast a distance Nor need any wonder how it came at length to be lost or at least kept but among a few who considers the grossness of succeeding ages when such multitudes could swallow the dull and course Anthropomorphite Doctrines much less if he reflects upon that black night of barbarick ignorance which spread it self over this western world upon the incursion of those rude and unciviliz'd Nations that ' ore-ran the Empire out of which darkness 't was the work of some Centuries to recover the then obscured Region of Civility and Letters Moreover it would allay the admiration of any one inquisitive in such researches when he shall have taken notice of the starting up and prevailing of School-Divinity in the world which was but Aristotles Philosophy theologiz'd And we know that Philosophy had the luck to swim in the general esteem and credit when Platonism and the more antient wisdom a branch of which Praeexistence was were almost quite sunk and buried So that a Theology being now made out of Aristotelian principles 't is no wonder that Praeexistence was left out nothing being supposed to have been said of it by the great Author of that Philosophy and his admiring Sectators were loath to borrow so considerable a Theory from their Masters neglected Rival Plato But 6 at once to remove this stone of offence out of the way I think Scripture is not so silent in this matter as is imagin'd And I 'm confident more can be said from those divine writings in behalf of Praeexistence than for many opinions that it's opposers are very fond of and think to be there evidently asserted And had this been a commonly received Doctrine and mens Wits as much exercised for the defence on 't as they have been for the common dogmata I nothing doubt but that Scriptures would have been heaped up in abundance for it's justification and it would have been thought to have been plainly witnest too in the inspired volume For as mens phancies will readily furnish them with a proof of that of whose truth they are strongly prepossessed So on the contrary they 'l be very backward to see any evidence of that which is strange to them and which hath alwaies been reputed an Absurdity But my Scripture-evidence is not so proper for this place I intending to make it an Argument by it self Therefore if the urger of this objection will but have a little patience till I come so far on the way of my discourse I hope he may be satisfied that Praeexistence is not such a stranger to Scripture as he conceits it CHAP. V. Reasons against Praeexistence answered Our forgetting the former state is no argument to disprove it nor are the other Reasons that can be produc'd more conclusive The proof of the possibility of Praeexistence were enough all other Hypotheses being absurd and contradictious But it is prov'd also by positive Arguments NOw therefore to proceed let us look back upon our progress and so enter on what remains We have seen that God could have created all Souls at first had he so pleased and that he hath revealed nothing
that this Hypothesis is most sutable to the divine goodness and the consideration of that alone would inferr it But how know we but his Wisdom contradicts it I return briefly That if it be confest to be so correspondent to and inferrible from one Attribute and cannot be prov'd inconsistent with another my business is determined Therefore let those that pretend an inconsistence prove it 2 The Wisdom of God is that Attribute and essential perfection whereby the divine actions are directed to their end which is always good and best Therefore to do that which is best cannot thwart the divine wisdom but always includes and supposeth it Whence it follows that what so comports with goodness cannot stand opposite to Wisdom Wisdom in God being indeed nothing else but goodness contriving and directing for the Creature 's good and happiness For we must remember what was said above that what is infinitely full and perfect can have no ends for any self-advantage and therefore the ends of the divine wisdom are something without himself and consequently the good and perfection of his Creatures So that unless it can be proved to have been contrary to ours or any other Creatures good that we should have been extant as soon as the Light it cannot be concluded to have any contradiction to the divine wisdom But it will be said again 3 Gods glory is his great end for the promoting of which his wisdom directs all his Actions and consequently that which may be best for the Creature may not be so conducive to the divine Glory and therefore not agreeable with his wisdom Now though I think the world hath a very mistaken apprehension of Gods glory yet I shall not here ingage in more controversies than I must needs 'T is enough for my present purpose to intimate That Gods glory is no by-end or self-accumulation nor an addition of anything to Him which he was not eternally possest of nor yet is it any thing that stands in opposition to the good of his Creation But the display and communication of his excellencies among the which his goodness is not the least considerable if it be not that most divine and fundamental Attribute which gives perfection to all the rest So that we may assure our selves that when ever his goodness obligeth him to action his glory never stands in opposition For even this is his glory to communicate to his creatures sutably to his own absolute fulness and to act according to the direction of his essential perfections yea though we should state his glory to consist alone in the honour and renown of his Attributes yet even then the Hypothesis of our having been made in the beginning will accumulate to his praises and represent him to his creatures as more illustrious since it is a more magnificent apprehension of his goodness and clears his other Attributes from those stains of dis-repute that all other suppositions cast upon them And though his glory should consist as too many fondly imagine in being praised and admired by his creatures even on this account also it would have obliged him to have made us all of old rather than opposed it since then his excellencies had been sung forth by a more numerous Quire in continual Hallelujahs Now if it should be urged * that God made all things for himself and therefore is not obliged to consult the good of his creatures in all his Actions I rejoyn that God's making all things for himself can argue no more than his making all things for his own ends viz. the ends of goodness Besides the best Criticks make that place to speak no more but this That God orders all things according to himself that is according to the rules of his own nature and perfections Thus then we see that for God to do that which is best for his Creatures is neither contrary to his will and pleasure his wisdom nor his glory but most consonant to all of them And therefore since the Praeexistence of Souls is so agreeable to the divine goodness and since nothing else in the Deity opposeth but rather sweetly conspires with it methinks this argument were enough to conclude it But yet there are other Evasions which would elude this Demonstration I shall name the most considerable and leave it to the judicious to determine whether they can disable it CHAP. VIII A second general Evasion viz. that our Reasons cannot tell what God should do or what is best overthrown by several considerations As is also a third viz. that by the same Argument God would have been obliged to have made us impeccable and not liable to Misery WHerefore the second general evasion is That our Reasons cannot conclude what God should do there being vast fetches in the divine wisdom which we comprehend not nor can our natural light determine what is best I answer 1 Our Saviour himself who was the best Judge in the case teacheth us that the Reason of a man may in some things conclude what God will do in that saying of his If ye being evil know how to give good things to your Children much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give his Spirit to them that ask him Plainly intimating that we may securely argue from any thing that is a perfection in our selves to the same in God And if we who are imperfectly good will yet do as much good as we can for those we love and tender with greater confidence may we conclude that God who is infinitely so will confer upon his creatures whatever good they are capable of Thus we see our Saviour owns the capacity of reason in a case that is very near the same that we are dealing in And God himself appeals to the reasons of men to judge of the righteousness and equity of his ways Ye men of Israel and inhabitants of Jerusalem judge between me and my vineyard which place I bring to shew that meer natural reason is able to judge in some cases what is fit for God to do and what is sutable to his essence and perfections And if in any Methinks 2 its capacity in the case before us should be own'd as soon as in any For if reason cannot determine and assure us that a blessed and happy Being is better than None at all and consequently that it was best for our souls to have been before they were in this state of wretchedness and thence conclude that it was very congruous to the divine goodness to have made us in a former and better condition I think then 1 That it cannot give us the assurance of any thing since there is not any principle in Metaphyâ—icks or Geometry more clear than this viz. That an happy Being is better than absolute Notâ—eing And if our reasons can securely determine this 't is as much as we need at present Or â—f this be not certain how vain are those Learned men that dispute whether a state of the extremest misery
and in little mechanical contrivances others love to be riming almost as soon as they can speak plainly and are taken up in small essays of Poetry Some will be scrawling Pictures and others take as great delight in some pretty offers at Musick and vocal harmony Infinite almost are the ways in which this pure natural diversity doth discover it self * Now to say that all this variety proceeds primarily from the meer temper of our bodies is me thinks a very poor and unsatisfying Account * For those that are the most like in the Temper Air Complexion of their bodies are yet of a vastly differing Genius Yea they that have been made of the same clay cast in the same mould and have layn at once in the same natural bed the womb yea whose bodies have been as like as their state and fortunes and their education and usages the same yet even they do not unfrequently differ as much from each other in their genius and dispositions of the mind as those that in all these particulars are of very different condition Besides there are all kind of makes forms dispositions tempers and complexions of body that are addicted by their natures to the same exercises and imployments so that to ascribe this to any peculiarity in the body is me seems a very improbable solution of the Phaenomenon And to say all these inclinations are from custom or education is the way not to be believed since all experience testifies the contrary What then can we conjecture is the cause of all this diversity but that we had taken a great delight and pleasure in some things like and analogous unto these in a former condition which now again begins to put forth it self when we are awakened out of our silent recess into a state of action And though the imployments pleasures and exercises of our former life were without question very different from these in the present estate yet 't is no doubt but that some of them were more confamiliar and analogous to some of our transactions than others so that as any exercise or imployment here is more suitable to the particular dispositions that were praedominant in the other state with the more peculiar kindness is it regarded by us and the more greedily do our inclinations now fasten on it Thus if a Musician should be interdicted the use of all musical instruments and yet might have his choice of any other Art or Profession 't is likely he would betake himself to Limning or Poetry these exercises requiring the same disposition of wil and genius as his beloved Musick did And we in like manner being by the â—ate of our wretched descent hindred from the direct exercising our selves about the objects of our former delights and pleasures do yet as soon as we are able take to those things which do most correspond to that genius that formerly inspired us And now 't is time to take leave of the Arguments from Reason that give evidence for Praeexistence If any one think that they are not so demonstrative but that they may be answered or at least evaded I pray him to consider how many demonstrations he ever met with that a good wit resolv'd in a contrary cause could not shuâ—â—le from the edge of Or let it be granted that the Arguments I have alledged are no infallible or necessary proofs yet if they render my cause but probable yea but possible I have won what I contended for For it having been made manifest by as good evidence as I think can be brought for any thing that the way of new creations is most inconsistent with the honor of the blessed Attributes of God And that the other of Traduction is most impossible and contradictioâ—s in the nature of things * There being now no other way left but Prae-existence if that be probable or but barely possible 't is enough to give it the victory And whether all that hath been said prove so much or no I leave to the indifferent to determine I think he that will say it doth not can bring few proofs for any thing which according to his way of judging will deserve to be called Demonstrations CHAP. XI Great caution to be used in alledging Scripture for our speculative opinions The countenance that Praeexistence hath from the sacred writings both of the old and new Testament Reasons of the seeming uncouthness of these allegations Praeexistence stood in no need of Scripture-proof IT will be next expected that I should now prove the Doctrine I have undertaken for by Scripture evidence and make good what I said above That the divine oracles are not so silent in this matter as is imagined But truly I have so tender a sense of the sacred Authority of that Holy volume that I dare not be so bold with it as to force it to speak what I think it intends not A presumption that is too common among our confident opinionists and that hath occasioned great troubles to the Church and diâ—â—epute to the inspired writings For for men to ascribe the odd notions of their over-heated imaginations to the Spirit of God and eternal truth is me thinks a very bold and impudent belying it Wherefore I dare not but be very cautious what I speak in this matter nor would I willingly urge Scripture as a proof of any thing but what I am sure by the whole tenor of it is therein contained And would I take the liberty to fetch in every thing for a Scripture-evidence that with a little industry a man might make serviceable to his design I doubt not but I should be able to â—ill my Margent with Quotations which should be as much to purpose as have been cited in general CATECHISMS and CONFESSIONS of FAITH and that in points that must forsooth be dignified with the sacred title of FVNDAMENTAL But Reverend ASSEMBLIES may make more bold with Scripture than private persons And therefore I confess I 'm so timorous that I durst not follow their example Though in a matter that I would never have imposed upon the belief of any man though I were certain on 't and had absolute power to enjoyn it I think the only way to preserve the reverence due to the oracles of Truth is never to urge their Authority but in things very momentous and such as the whole current of them gives an evident suffrage to But to make them speak every trivial conceit that our sick brains can imagine or dream of as I intimated is to vilifie and deflowre them Therefore though I think that several Texts of Scripture look very fairly upon Praeexistence and would encourage a man that considers what strong Reasons it hath to back it to think that very probably they mean some thing in favour of this Hypothesis yet I 'le not urge them as an irrefutable proof being not willing to lay more stress upon any thing than it will bear Yea I am most willing to confess the weakness of my Cause in
infinite fulness is to be communicating and overflowing And the most congruous apprehension that we can entertain of the Infinite and eternal Deity is * to conceive him as an immense and all glorious Sun that is continually communicating and sending abroad its beams and brightness which conception of our Maker if 't were deeply imprinted on us would I am confident set our apprehensions right in many Theories and chase away those black and dismal notions which too many have given harbour to But I come to erect the Second Pillar 2 Then There is an exact Geometrical Justice that runs through the Vniverse and is interwoven in the contexture of things THis is a result of that wise and Almighty Goodness that praesides over all things For this Justice is but the distributing to every thing according to the requirements of its nature And that benign wisdom that contrived and framed the natures of all Beings doubtless so provided that they should be suitably furnisht with all things proper for their respective conditions And that this Nemesis should be twisted into the very natural constitutions of things themselves is methinks very reasonable since questionless Almighty Wisdom could so perfectly have formed his works at first as that all things that he saw were regular just and for the good of the Vniverse should have been brought about by those stated Laws which we call nature without an ordinary engagement of absolute power to effect theâ— And it seems to me to be very becoming the wise Author of all things so to have made them in the beginning as that by their own internal spring and wheels they should orderly bring about whatever he intended them for without his often immediate interposal For this looks like a more magnificent apprehension of the Divine power and Prescience since it supposeth him from everlasting ages to have foreseen all future occurrences and so wonderfully to have seen and constituted the great machina of the world that the infinite variety of motions therein should effect nothing but what in his eternal wisdom he had concluded fit and decorous But as for that which was so it should as certainly be compast by the Laws he appointed long ago as if his omnipotence were at work every moment On the contrary to engage Gods absolute and extraordinary power in all events and occurrences of things is mâ—sâ—â—ms to think meanly of his wisdom as if he had made the world so as that it should need omnipotence every now and then to mend it or to bring about those his destinations which by a shorter way he could have effected by his instrument Nature Can any one say that our supposition derogates from the Divine concourse or Providence For on these depend continually both the being and operations of all things since without them they would cease to act and return to their old nothing And doubtless God hath not given the ordering of things out of his own hands but holds the power to alter innovate or change the course of nature as he pleaseth And to act by extraordinary means by absolute omnipotence when he thinks fit to do so The sum of what I intend is that Gods works are perfect and as his Goodness is discover'd in them so is his Justice wrought into their very essential constitutions so that we need not suppose him to be immediately engaged in every event and all distributions of things in the world or upon all occasions to exercise his power in extraordinary actions but that he leaves such managements to the Oeconomy of second causes And now next to this for they are of kâ—n I raise The third Pillar 3 Things are carried to their proper place and state by the congruity of their natures where this fails we may suppose some arbitrary managements THE Congruity of things is their suitableness to such or such a state or condition And 't is a great Law in the Divine and first constitutions that things should incline and move to what is suitable to their natures This in sensibles is evident in the motions of consent and sympathy And the ascent of light and descent of heavy bodies must I doubt when all is done * be resolv'd into a principle that is not meerly corporeal Yea supposing all such things to be done by the Laws of Mechanicks why may we not conceive that the other rank of Beings Spirits which are not subject to corporeal motions are also dispos'd of by a Law proper to their natures which since we have no other name to express it by we may call congruity We read in the sacred History that Judas went to his own place And 't is very probable that Spirits are conveyed to their proper states and residence * as naturally as the fire mounts or a stone descends The Platonists would have the Soul of the world to be the great Instrument of all such distributions as also of the Phaenomena that are beyond the powers of matter And 't is no unlikely Hypothesis But I have no need to ingage further about this nor yet to speak more of this first part of my Principle since it so nearly depends on what was said in behalf of the former Maxim Yet of the latter we need a word or two When therefore we cannot give account of things either by the Laws of Mechanicks or conceivable Congruities * as likely some things relating to the States of Spirits and immaterial Beings can be resolv'd by neither I say then we may have recourse to the Arbitrary managements of those invisible Ministers of Equity and Justice which without doubt the world is plentifully stored with For it cannot be conceived that those active Spirits are idle or unimployed in the momentous concerns of the Vniverse Yea the sacred volume gives evidence of their interposals in our affairs I shall need mention but that remarkable instance in Daniel of the indeavours of the Prince of Persia and of Grecia to hinder Michael and the other Angel that were ingaged for the affairs of Judea Or if any would evade this what think they of all the apparitions of Angels in the old Testament of their pitching their Tents about us and being Ministring Spirits for our good To name no more such passages Now if those noble Spirits will ingage themselves in our trifling concernments doubtless they are very sedulous in those affairs that tâ—nd to the good and perfection of the Vniverse But to be brief I advance The Fourth Pillar 4 * The Souls of men are capable of living in other bodies besides Terrestrial And never act but in some body or other FOr 1. when I consider how deeply in this state we are immersed in the body I can methinks scarce imagin that presently upon the quitting on 't we shall be stript of all corporeity for this would be such a jump as is seldom or never made in nature since by almost all instances that come under our observation 't is manifest that she useth
them should be taught by their miseries to renounce and forsake their impieties or should have any dispositions to vertue and divine love re-inkindled in them meer Philosophy would conclude that in time they might then be delivered from their sad durance But we know what Theology hath determined And indeed those brutish Apostates are so fixt and rooted in their sensual and rebellious propensions that those who are not yet as far distant from their Maker as they can be are still verging downwards And possibly being quite void of the divine grace and any considerable exercises of reason and conscience they may never stop till they have run through all the infernal stages and are arriv'd to the extremest degree of misery that as yet any are obnoxious to Wherefore the earth and all the infernal Regions being thus monstrously depraved 't is time for the Divine Justice to shew some remarkable and more than ordinary severity upon those remorseless Rebels and his goodness is as ready to deliver the virtuous from this stage of wretchedness and impiety When therefore those have compleated the number of their iniquities and these are sit for the mercy of so great a deliverance then shall the great decree for judgment be executed which though it cannot be expected that meer Philosophy should give an unerring and punctual account of yet we shall follow this light as far as it will lead us not intrenching upon the sacred rights of Divinity nor yet baulking what the ancient Eastern Cabbala assisted by later discoveries into nature will dictate But sincerely following the Hypothesis we shall leave all its errours and misguidances to be corrected by the more sacred Canons So that where we shall discern the wisdom of the World to have misdirected the most knowing and sedulous inquirers we may duly acknowledge the great benefit of that light which we have received to guide us in matters of such vast and concerning speculation The Conflagration of the Earth THerefore at length when the time preappointed by the divine wisdom for this execution is come * The internal central fire shall have got such strength and irresistible vigour that it shall easily melt and dissolve that fence that hath all this while inclosed it And all those other smaller fires which are lodged in several parts of the lower Regions joyning themselves with this mighty flame shall prey upon what ever is combustible and so rage first within the bowels of the earth beginning the tragick execution upon those damned spirits that are there confined these having been reserved in the chains of darkness to the judgment of this great day and now shall their hell and misery be compleated and they receive the full reward of their impieties which doubtless will be the most intolerable and severe torment that can be imagined these fierce and merciless flames sticking close to yea piercing through and through their bodies which can remove no where to avoid this fiery over-spreading vengeance And now the subterranean vaults being thus all on fire it cannot be long ere this prevailing cumbustion take hold of the upper regions wherefore at last with irresistible violence it breaks forth upon these also So that the great pyre is now kindled smoak fire darkness horror and confusion cover the face of all things Wherefore the miserable inhabitants of the earth and inferiour air will be seized on by the devouring Element and suffer in that fire that was reserved for the perdition of ungodly men But shall the righteous perish with the wicked And shall not the Judge of all the earth do right Will not the sincere and vertuous both in the Earth and Air be secured from this sad fate And how can their deliverance be effected Doubtless Providence that in all things else hath been righteous and equal will not fail in this last scene but provision will be made for their recovery from this vengeance that hath taken hold of the wicked But all natural causes failing here since their bodies are not pure enough to waft them up the quiet regions of the un infested aether and the higher congruity of life being yet but imperfectly inchoated they would be detained prisoners here below by the chains of their unhappy natures were there not some extraordinary interposure for their rescue and inlargement wherefore when we contemplate the infinite fertility of the divine goodness we cannot think that he will let those seeds of piety and vertue which himself hath sown and given some increase to to come to nought or the honest possessors of them fatally to miscarry But that he will imploy his power for the compleating what he hath begun and the deliverance of those who have relyed upon his mercies But for the particular way and method how this great transaction will be accomplisht Philosophy cannot determine it Happy therefore are we who have the discoveries of a more certain Light which doth not only secure us of the thing but acquaints us with the way and means that the Divine Wisdom hath resolv'd on for the delivery of the righteous So that hereby we are assured that our ever blessed Redeemer shall appear in the clouds before this fiery Fate shall have quite taken hold of the Earth and its condemned inhabitants The Glory of his appearance with his Coelestial Legions shall raise such strong love joy and triumph in his now passionately enamoured expectants as shall again enkindle that high and potent principle the Spirit which being throughly awakened and excited will melt the grossest consistence into liquid Aether so that our bodies being thus turned into the purest flame we shall ascend in those fiery Chariots with our Glorious Redeemer and his illustrious and blessed Attendants to the Coelestial habitations This is the Resurrection of the just and the Recovery of our antient blessedness Thus have some represented this great transaction But I dare warrant nothing in this matter beyond the declarations of the Sacred Scriptures therefore to proceed in our Philosophical conjectures However the good shall be delivered be sure the wicked shall be made a prey to the Scorching Element which now rageth every where and suffer the Judgment threatned But yet the most degenerate part of Mankind if we consult meer Reason and the Antient Eastern Cabbala who are detained Prisoners in the now inflamed Atmosphere shall not for ever be abandon'd to misery and ruin For they are still pretended to be under the eye and tender care of that Almighty goodness that made and preserveth all things that punisheth not out of malice or revenge and therefore will not pursue them to their utter undoing for ever But hath set bounds to their destruction and in infinite Wisdom hath so ordered the matter that none of his Creatures shall be lost eternally or indure such an endless misery than which not Being it self were more eligible Wherefore those curious contemplators phancy that the unsupportable pain and anguish which hath long stuck to those miserable
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 Station 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 felicitie 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 conflicts 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 folly 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 properly and essential to them or a separable Accident For if it were essential says he then how was Christ a perfect 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 of his Classis notwithstanding that he might have done otherwise and therefore they will be forward to extend that of the Author to the Hebrews chap. 1. v. 8. Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever the Scepter of Righteousness is the Scepter of thy Kingdom Thou hast loved Righteousness and hated Iniquity therefore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the Oyl of Gladness above thy Fellows to his behaviour in his pre-existent state as well as in this And whenever the Soul of Christ did exist if he was like us in all things sin onely excepted he must have a capacitie of sinning though he would not sin that capacitie not put into act being no sin but an Argument of his Vertue and such as if he was always devoid of he could not be like us in all things sin onely excepted For posse peccare non est peccatum And as for humane Souls changing their Species in their unalterable heavenly happiness the Species is not then changed but perfected and compleated namely that facultie or measure of it in their Plastick essentially latitant there is by the Divine Grace so awakened after such a series of time and things which they have experienced that now they are â—irmly united to an heavenly Body or ethereal Vehicle for ever And now we need say little to the other member of the Dilemma but to declare that free will or mutability in humane Souls is no separable Accident but of the essential contexture of them so as it might have its turn in the series of things And how consistent it was with the Goodness of God and his Wisdom not to suppress it in the beginning has been sufficiently intimated above Wherefore now forasmuch as there is no pretext that either the Wisdom or Justice of God should streighten the time of the creation of humane Souls so that their existence may not commence with that of Angels or of the Universe and that this figment of the Supremacy of Gods mere Will over his other Attributes is blown away it is manifest that the Argument for the Pre-existence of Souls drawn from the Divine Goodness holds firm and irrefragable against whatever Opposers We have been the more copious on this Argument because the Opposer and others look upon it as the strongest proof the Pre existentiaries produce for their Opinion And the other Party have nothing to set against it but a fictitious Supremacy of the Will of God over his Goodness and other Attributes Which being their onely Bulwark and they taking Sanctuary nowhere but here in my apprehension they plainly herein give up the cause and establish the Opinion which they seem to have such an antipathy against But it is high time now to pass to the next Chapter Chap. 10. p. 75. To have contracted strong and inveterate habits to Vice and Lewdness and that in various manners and degrees c. To the unbyassed this must needs seem a considerable Argument especially when the Parties thus irreclaimably profligate from their Youth some as to one Vice others to another are found such in equal circumstances with others and advantages to be good born of the same Parents educated in the same Family and the like Wherefore having the same bodily Extraction and the same advantages of Education what
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 And 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-souls under the conduct of the great Soul of the Messiah out of their captivity of sin and death So that every way 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 wherias 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. 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 sorced 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 Quoerunt ergo an ipse peccaverit quia multi Judoeorum credebant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
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 though 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 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 viz. 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 immutably 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 â—ouls 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 one 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 when as 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 chiefest 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 tamed 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 itâ— operation is stopt as surely as a string of a Lutâ— 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 fit 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 Air to him and to some wicked or unregenerate souls promiscuously with him though there be subterraneous Receptacles for the worst and most rebellious of them and not send them all packing thither Pag. 132. That they are driven into those Dungeons by the invisible Ministers of Justice c. He speaks of such Dungeons as are in the broken Caverns of the Farth which may be so many vexatious Receptacles for rebellious Spirits which these invisible Ministers of Justice may drive them into and see them commited and being confined there upon far severer penalties if they submit not to that present punishment which they are sentenced to they will out of fear of greater Calamity be in as safe custody as if they were under lock and key But the most dismal penalty is to be carried into the Abyss the place of the Rephaim I above described This is a most astonishing commination to them and they extreamly dread that sentence Which makes the Devils Luke 8. 31. so earnestly beseech Christ that he would not command them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to pack away into the Abyss This punishment therefore of the Abyss where the Rephaim or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 groan is door and lock that makes them whether they will or no submit to all other punishments and confinements on this side of it Michael Psellus takes special notice how the Daemons are frighted with the menaces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the menaces of the sending them away packing into the Abyss and subterraneous places But these may signifie no more than Cavities that are in the ruptues of the earth and they may steal out again if they will adventure unless they were perpetually watched which is not so probable Wherefore they are imprisoned through fear of that great horrid Abyss above described and which as I said is an iron lock and door of brass upon them But then you will say What is the door and lock to this terrible place I answer The inviolable Adamantine Laws of the great Sandalphon or Spirit of the Vniverse When once a rebellious Spirit is carried down by a Minister of Justice into this Abyss he can no more return of himself than a man put into a Well fortie â—athoms deep is able of himself to ascend out of it The unlapsed Spirits it is their priviledge that their Vehicles are wholly obedient to the will of the Spirit that inactuates them and therefore they have free ingress and egress every where and being so little passive as they are and so quick and swift in their motions can perform any Ministries with little or no incommodation to themselves But the Vehicles of lapsed Spirits are more passive and they are the very chains whereby they are tyed to certain Regions by the iron Laws of the Spirit of the Universe or Hylarchick Principle that unfailingly ranges the Matter everie where according to certain orders Wherefore this Serjeant of Justice having once deposited his Prisoner within the Concave of the Aqueous Orb he will be as certainly kept there and never of himself get out again as the man in the bottom of the Well above-mentioned For the Laws of the same Spirit of Nature that keeps the man at the bottom of the Well that everie thing may be placed according to the measure
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 Quantitie 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 Difference or Form as much as Mr. Baxters Virtus vitalis un a-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 senâ—e 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 trisling 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 Intrinsecal 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 thereoâ— 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 find this a sound
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To this sense All a vain Jest All Dust All Nothing deem For of mere Atoms all composed been And thus the fairest 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 a◠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 lise 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 over sight 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 indued 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 thence to the Superficies From this form does necessarily and inseparably result the Character of an easie rouling Mobilitie That a bodie of this Form is the most easily moved upon a Plain of any bodie in the world And so from the Form of a piece of Iron made into what we call a Sword Fitness for striking for cutting for stabbing and for defending of the hand is the necessarie result from this Form thereof And so I say that from the intimate and essential Form of a Spirit suppose essentially and inseparably result such and such properties by which we know that a Spirit is a distinct Species from other things though we do not know the very specifick essence thereof And therefore here I note by the by that when the Doctor saies any such or such Attributes are the Form of a Spirit he does datâ operâ balbutire cum balbutientibus and expresses himself in the language of the Vulgar and speaks to Mr. Baxter in his own Dialect For it is the declared opinion of the Doctor that the intimate Form of no Essence or Substance is knowable but onely the inseparable Fruits or Results thereof Which is a Principle wants no proof but an appeal to every mans faculties that has ordinarie wit and sinceritie Seventhly They are not the Form saith he but the Dispositio vel Conditio ad formam Ans You may understand out of what was said even now that Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie are so far from being Dispositio ad formam that they are the Fruits and Results of the intimate and Specifick Form of a Spirit and that they suppose this Specifick Form in order of nature to precede them as the Form of a Globe precedes the rouling mobilitie thereof In vertue of a Spirits being such a Specifick substance it has such inseparable attributes resulting from it as a Globe has mobilitie And as the Globe is conceived first and mobilitie inseparably resulting from it so the Specifick Nature of a Spirit which is its true and intimate Form and made such according to the eternal Idea thereof in the Intellect of God being one simple Specifick substance or Essence has resulting from it those essential or inseparable properties which we attribute to a Spirit itself in the mean time remaining but one simple self-subsistent Actus Entitativus whose Penetrabilitie and Indivisibilitie Mr. Baxter himself pag. 99. says is easily defendible And the Doctor who understands himself I dare say for him defends the Penetrabilitie and Indivisibilitie of no Essences but such Eighthly If such Modalities says he or Consistence were the Form more such should be added which are left out Ans He should have nominated those which are left out He means I suppose Quantity and Trina Dimensio which it was his discretion to omit they being so impertinent as I have shewn above in my Answer to his third Objection against the Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie of a Spirit Ninthly Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie are two Notions and you should not give us says he a compound Form Ans This implies that Penetrability and Indiscerpibility are the Form of a Spirit but I have said again and again they are but the Fruits
and Result of the Form A Spirit is one simple Specifick Essence or substance and that true Specifickness in its Essence is the real and intimate Form or Conceptus formalis thereof but that which we know not as I noted above out of Julius Scaliger though we know the essential and inseparable Attributes thereof which may be many though in one simple specifick Substance as there are many Attributes in God immediately and inseparably resulting from his most simple specifick Nature Tenthly Yea you compound saith he Peâ—etrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie with a quite different notion life and the faculty of motion which is truly the Form and is one thing and not compounded of notions so different as Consistence and Vertue or Power Ans I say again as I said before that neither Penetrability nor Indiscerpibility nor Life nor Motion are the specifick Form it self of a Spirit which is a simple Substance but the Fruits and Results of this specifick Form and all these have a proper Cognation with one another as agreeing in Immateriality or Spirituality and how the common sagacitie of mankind has presaged that the most noble functions of life are performed by that which is most subtile and most one as Penetrability and Indiscerpibility makes the consistence of a Spirit to be the Doctor has noted in his Discourse of the true notion of a Spirit Mr. Baxter in reading Theological Systems may observe That Attributes as much differing among themselves as these are given to the most simple Essence of God Eleventhly You say says he pag. 82. Life intrinsecally issues from this Immaterial Substance But the Form is concreated with it and issues not from it Ans I grant that the Form is concreated with the Spirit For a Spirit is nothing else but such a specifick simple Substance or Essence the Specifickness of whose nature onely is its real intimate Form And if we could reach by our Conception that very Form it self it would be but the Conceptus inadaequatus of one simple Substance and be the true Conceptus formalis thereof and the Conceptus fundamentalis to speak in Mr. Baxters or Dr. Glissons language would be Substance in general which is contracted into this Species by this real intimate Form which both considered together being but one simple Essence they must needs be created together according to that Idea of a Spirit which God has conceived in his eternal mind And life will as naturally and necessarily issue from such a Species or Specifick Essence or from Substance contracted into such a Species by the abovesaid Form as Mobility does issue from the form of a Globe From whence it is plainly understood how Life does intrinsecally issue from immaterial Substance nor is the Form it self but the Fruit thereof And as it were but trifling to say that the power of easie rolling every way on a Plain were the very Form of a Globe the word Power or Vertue being but a dark loose general dilute term and which belongs to every thing and is restrained onely by its Operation and Object but it is the Form or Figure of the Globe that is the immediate cause that that Vertue or Power in general is so restrained to this easie rolling so it is in Mr. Baxters pretended Form of a Spirit which he makes Virtus vitalis a power of living Power there is such a dark dilute term loose and general But that it is determined to life it is by that intimate specifick Form which we know not but onely this we know That it is to the Power of living as the Figure of a Globe is to the Power of easie rolling and that in neither one can be without the other There must be a Specifick Essence which is the root of those Powers Properties or Operations 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 Animalonium would have Intellection and Volition Nor for the same reason can any body think that Penetrability is a sufficient Efficient cause of Intellection and Volition Nor is it so much as the Efficient 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 fourth Essence or glewed together one to another to make up such an Idea But the Divine Intellect conceives in itself one simple specifick Essence 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 effectually as Mobility to the Form of 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 fitted for the ends that the eternal Wisdom and Goodness of God has conceived or contrived them for For it is manifest that those essential
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 Vniverse 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 Vniverse 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 difficultie 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 necessary 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 of scandal and offence as regulated by those Gospel-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 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-staff 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 Vnderstanding 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