the Soul quick of apprehension that presently enlarges much further upon it and many Instances there are of those who have cut their own way to Knowledge and such a one as hath been altogether untrodden before them Notwithstanding this the advantage of Instruction is evident and most evident in that part of Knowledge which concerns us towards God the Knowledge of his gracious Intentions towards us and our Duty to him wherein Divine Revelation hath been always the first and is ever the most sure and undoubted Guide Yet even in this the Spirit of Man is the Candle of the Lord For God doth not that he may make known himself create any new Understanding but applies himself in Grace to his first Creation the Soul of Man of which there is no abolition by Divine Illumination but as the Scripture speaks of the Sun the Light of it grows seven-fold The Candle that burnt dim and was even choak'd up is trimm'd and becomes Light on all sides and sends out its Beams from every part The Sum then is this The Soul of Man is the same Candle of the Lord whose Natural Power of Understanding is rais'd and made more clear by the Irradiation of Instruction whether the Power be an innate Force of Trying and Judging of Things by it self as it is a Faculty able to try and judge by the Nature of its Being or by some implanted Sentiments given to it with its Being or by Maxims to be collected by it self through the ministery and mediation of Sense However these things be it is always of the Nature of Understanding that there be a Resentment and Feeling of the agreeableness of Truth to it self There must be a Knowing in its own Spirit by every Intelligence the Reasonableness and Verity of the Things propos'd or there can be no Understanding Even Faith it self is an Intellectual that is an Explicite not an Implicite Act else it would be but a meer childish Memory of what hath been receiv'd as Catechism But all true Acts of Understanding have a Taste and Relish and what is propos'd to Mind must have a Gustfulness to it Knowledge and Faith not at all differing in this but onely that in things of Knowledge the Understanding arrives at that Knowledge or at least acquiesces in it upon Grounds more its own in things of Faith by Assurances more out of it self yet having Instruments of its own for the acceptation of such when so offer'd Characters and Tests within it self of what is offer'd whether it be worthy to be believ'd Resentments within it self of Pleasure or Trouble according to the Quality of what it hath receiv'd when so offer'd To draw all this that hath been spoken to what is mainly to be intended that is That the Understanding is the Candle of the Lord especially lighting us to himself Let us therefore inquire after some Principles that are Standards in the great Concernments we have with God which whether they are settled in the Soul by the Hand that created it or do immediately result from the Observation of Things without improved by the Mind running through its own Circuits and Trains of Reason concerning them or whether it is led into them by the Instructions God is still giving into the World or whether all these concur to their establishment in the heart of Man yet they are such as are universally consented in and are the Foundation of Religious Practice and also such a Receptacle for supernatural Revelation that there it may be tasted acknowledged and savoured as Divine with these as with a Helm the great Governour of Spirits turns them whither soever he listeth either for Conviction or Conversion Repentance and Reformation or as he pleases to Self-condemnation And all the boisterousness of their contrary affections are overrul'd and controll'd hereby Such Principles I esteem these Four Princip 1 That there is a God The Soul cannot move but it acknowledges God a Soul cannot look up but it sees God and this Principle in the Soul is a great Light God hath so carved himself into Understanding that there cannot be an Understanding in Motion and Activity but there must be a sight a conception an apprehension of such a Being as God as the Eye cannot open but it sees the Light or if it seems to lye hid yet upon the least collision as between the Flint and Steel upon any conflict of Thought with it self or with the Propose of this Truth from without this Light breaks forth It is manifest in men because God hath shewed it to them Rom. 1. 19. that is In the very making them Souls he hath set it in them In the first solemn action of the Understanding the acknowledgment of a Supreme Being rebounds and leaps up to them the Soul no sooner sees any thing by inward sense but it sees God the Author as a Man that sees the impression in the Wax presently thinks of the Seal Many Men endeavour to reject and disannul this Principle but they cannot deface it much less wear out the apprehension And when the Soul hath considered further and more vehemently the more it reasons the more it confirms and settles it self in the assurance of the Divine Being even when it endeavours to Reason out this Belief of it it prevails the more And besides what it hath within concerning God The invisible Things V. 20. of him from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by the Things that are made and done even his eternal Power and Godhead So that the Soul can neither consider without nor within but it sees God Princip 2 That we have a Soul Many have violently oppressed this Sense thus far as to deny a Soul a Spirit distinct in its Essence yet they cannot but acknowledge a vehemency of Motion an Activity that teaches us more than the Beasts of the Field Every man must say There is a Spirit in Man above any other Creature a force and excellency of Motion the Motion of Reason and Understanding No Man can stir but he finds There is a Breath of the Almighty that gives him Vnderstanding Now these two Principles as they do mutually enlighten one another so they give great and illustrious light to all holy Practice they enlighten themselves for he that apprehends a God whose very Being is absolute Perfection retires out of all things bodily and weak to conceive aright of him and find him out and when he is thus understood the Notion of an inferiour and subordinate Spirit that yet hath a likeness to him is easie And whoever finds out in himself a diviner part than Body hath an easie ascent to God in whom all the lesser Perfections of his own Being are transcended and at the height And how do they both shine upon holy Practice seeing God is the great both Exemplar and Argument of all Goodness And no Man can suppose himself to have received such great powers of Understanding for mean much
and more especially as they are Divine and relate to God Because the knowledge of the Things themselves is most lost and the Understanding so cramp'd concerning them To be able therefore in such Treaties to speak so as to compare Spiritual things with Spiritual that is to observe the Decorum Spiritual Things require to be spoken with there is necessary the Divine Revelation of Scripture and the assistance of the Holy Spirit For so to speak is that Divine Vtterance or Elocution which the Apostle joins with Knowledge and magnifies as an Act of Grace to Fallen man in order to his Recovery derived from Jesus Christ the restorer of Humane Nature and is in various degrees distributed to the professors of Christianity and conveyed to them in the diligent Exercise of themselves in Sacred Writings 2. The Dulness and Inattentiveness of Hearers makes things hard to be interpreted especially things of great Retreat from ordinary Apprehension We cannot speak them plainly enough to make people conceive of them so as to be affected with them Yet notwithstanding we having so often occasion to converse with these great Sounds A Soul An Immortal Spirit and its Eternal State there is as great an obligation to search the Things as far as we can lest they appear to us no more than great sounds without as great a Substance whereas indeed their Substance and Reality exceeds their Sound how great soever And to encourage us in this most industrious search we are first to oppose to the Difficulty this Consideration That it is not so much the Unintelligibleness of the things themselves as the want of a due Intention of Mind in our inquiries as also an humble application of our selves to the Divine Assistance that makes it so hard to speak and hear of these Spiritual Subjects as Wise men and Christians For Discourses of them made up of such words as the spirit of God teaches jointed and put together by the same Wisdom and then aright received how significant and potent would they be how clearly representative to the Understanding how perswasive upon the whole Soul And seeing in these things we have a kind of natural Knowledge and Experience like Natural Arithmetique and Mathematiques which yet being adorn'd and cultivated by Art are much improved but especially because we have the Word of God so great a light to our feet and lamp to our paths in our Discourse concerning them and the promise of the Blessed Spirit to assist our Inquiries into Truth There is great reason of Confidence the closer our Researches and the more industrious our Explanations of the things are the brighter our apprehensions and the more prevailing our Knowledge of them will grow so as to enlighten and perswade others also Committing then this Undertaking to Divine Assistance I have chosen this great assumption of Elihu concerning Man to rest this Discourse upon There is a Spirit in Man and the Inspiration of the Almighty giveth him Vnderstanding Not that the Soul of Man and its excellent Nature deriving it self in Creation from God inspiring it is precisely and in the first place here intended or the original proceeding of the Finite Vnderstanding from the Infinite But the mighty Vigor and Force of this Spirit stirred up by God and the Understanding acted to the Height by a more gracious inspiration enlivening assisting and setting it on work in some peculiar persons and to some peculiar ends and employment is that which this Eloquent Reasoner immediately means and hath a particular respect to himself in it as notably assisted by God in his following Discourses Yet it plainly appears he alludes to that History of the First Creation the Tradition of which all Wise and Good men had conveyed and assured to them by undoubted Monuments for it very much agrees with and resembles that relation There is a Spirit in man says Elihu a mighty and Gen. 1. 26. excellent Spirit In the Image and Likeness of God as Moses describes it And the Breath of the Almighty giveth him understanding as Elihu speaks Which in the words of Moses is thus expressed God breath'd into his Face Gen. 2. 7. the Breath of Life and Man became a living Soul That Inspiration gave that Soul of Life whose Nature is Vnderstanding or Intellect and its Life Rational and Intellectual And herein rest fundamentally those extraordinary Vigors of which Elihu here speaks when God by a secondary Donation and Grace enables this Spirit and Vnderstanding to act like it self and to appear as it is For all excellent motions of Soul inspired by God into eminent personages are but Fairer Exemplifications of Creation and the Vniversal Nature of mans Soul So that while Elihu intends something further he assures the main position That Man in general hath a Great Spirit or Soul in him and an Vnderstanding or Intellect given him by immediate inspiration from God in Creation To give then a description of this Great Soul of man as a foundation of the whole Treaty concerning it I shall do it under these three following Heads 1. As it is considered in its substantial and Essential Nature and so I describe it An Invisible Spirit and Immortal made in the Image and Likeness of God and nearly allyed to Angels the very Nobleness and Excellency of mans Being above Brutes and Common matter 2. As it is to be understood in its immediate Emanations and Motions of it self and so it is An Intellectual Light indued with all the powers of Rational and Moral Action It is that by which a man breaths in the free and open Air of Reason and Intelligence It is the principle of such Action as is far above sense for if rightly ordered it bears the lofty Characters of Good Holy Virtuous and because it cannot sink upon a Common level if disorderly and irregular it carries the black indeed but Tremendous names of Sin Wickedness Vice 3. As it is to be known in its Resentments and so It is that which tastes and enjoys all Good or feels and endures discerns and perceives Evil and Misery If that be well the whole is well If that be wounded and in Torment there can be no Ease or Remedy And it is prepared to be a Great and Ample Receipt of and a most vehement Agent in its own Everlasting Happiness or Misery This Soul is that which is Eternally Happy or Miserable And though this Spirit be hid in the Body and the Body seems to be All yet it can indeed do nothing nor feel any thing but as the Soul does by it and this Body because as it is now it is an Instrument unfit is laid aside in Death without any prejudice to the Souls Action or Resentment but to the unspeakable Exaltation of it and at last a Body more fit for its use is given to it and which is every way proportion'd to its state whether of Happiness or Misery Now whosoever shall well weigh and consider this Soul will stand
turns them for Creation Conservation or the Change of Things as he pleases What is his Favour or Displeasure but the highest Efficacies of Kindness or Severity of Joy unspeakable and full of Glory or of weeping and wailing without all ease or remedy How do all Spirits Good and Holy cast their Crowns before him and laud him with eternal Acknowledgments of both their Being and Happiness to his Grace and Goodness and Acclamations to his Praise And that Stream from himself that feeds with Being and Spirituality those so unhappy and wretched Spirits deposed from their Glory and Perfection necessitates them to survive the Instances of his Justice and Holiness to the admiration and everlasting wonderment of the Blessed yet with profoundest Reverence of unstain'd Holiness and their own astonishment and horror without end 2. If the Soul is a Being so excellent how foul is Sin that defiles it like a Poyson that presently darkens a Diamond or infects the very Beams of the Sun or soils the Light We should ever resist Temptations to sin with the sad consideration of defiling so excellent and immortal a Spirit 3. It shews how excellent the Price must be that redeems such a Spirit Great is the Redemption of the Soul by Christ the Renovation of the Soul by the Holy Spirit 4. We should consider this Spirit that though now it is enclos'd in the Body yet seeing it is prepar'd to much higher and more excellent motion it must burst out it cannot be always held it must have a freedom that it may expatiate it self Else so great Powers having so little Action now must have been prepar'd in vain 5. We should meditate much upon this great Character of a Spirit It cannot die It is so it-self that it cannot die It s very Being is Intellect Life and Motion so that it cannot cease to live except it cease to be God who alone hath power over it hath design'd it to be for ever and fram'd it for perpetuity and so that it can have no Adversary of its Life or Being It is so separate from all things else that nothing of Body can come near its Essence or Life What Sword or Fire can cut off or consume Thought much less the Soul the Original or Spring of it What most subtle thing in Nature can destroy the Affection of Love or Fear much less so attaque the Judgment or Reason as forcibly to suppress them They can kill the Body but they have no more that they can do No created Spirit how principal soever can come near the Being of the lowest orbed Soul thus to touch it Sathan the great Enemy of Spirits knows this so hopeless an attempt as never once to plot it All his intendments against Humane Spirits are onely to sway them to Evil and so precipitate them into Misery but yet they cannot be master'd by the highest Archangel so much as in the Government of themselves except they surrender and betray their own Absoluteness One Spirit may imprint Thought upon another offer Argument endeavour to induce Affection but the Soul is at its own choice for acceptation and whether it accept or not its Being is still the same its Power of Self-reservation the same so double-guarded is the Soul in this great Privilege of being It self Guarded in its Essence or Life guarded in its Liberty and Freedom which argues it a Being of greatest account Now in that it must always live Holiness and Happiness the enjoyment pleasure and perfection of its Life are with greatest earnestness and upon greatest necessity to be sought Sin and Misery such a degradation of its Life that the Scripture calls them Death are by all means to be avoided and escaped from And seeing it hath a Secret of its own Freedom that no Spiritual Principality or Power can enter into or invade it can onely charge its Ruine upon it self But in the Supreme Spirit God himself is all its strength who perpetuates his first Inspiration maintains its Immunities guides its Motions aright when it had lost it self redeems it from that great enemy-Enemy-Spirit by his Son the Lover and great Friend of Souls governs it by his own Holy and Good Spirit and is the Happiness and Glory of it for ever Oh the care that is due to such a Soul as this A care due from it self to it self yet miserably neglected by it self in its true self for it self as engag'd in a Body out of which it is yet always hasting and leaves it in death it self being in greatest danger of a death exceedingly worse though of another nature in the bringing about of which the malice of Hell is always busie and employ'd chusing that as a much higher effect of its spite and cruelty than Annihilation if it had been within the Power of Devils to turn a Soul into nothing 6. Lastly What unspeakable Sentiments of Happiness or Misery doth a self-moving a self-communicating Spirit enter into when it enters into its own place For there it meets those immense Objects God his Favour or Displeasure the true appearances of Sin and Holiness the General Assembly of Spirits happy and miserable with their universal and endless Condition It self appearing to it self in its full extent of Nature Duration and Relation to all these Now its self-motion and self-communication which are its very Being and therefore perfect in its own native Element are active to the highest Self-motion turns it every way with unutterable swiftness upon these Objects and Self-communication makes all its own converts unintermittingly all its Observations upon them into most beatifying or afflictive Resentments according to the Order it stands in to those Objects of Happiness or Misery Two principal Accounts of the Soul of Man are now dispatch'd the first of Invisible Beings the second of the Nature of a Spirit in which I laid down for a Ground That the Right apprehension of the Divine Nature and Being is the Key of the Knowledge of Mans Soul As therefore I endeavour'd to explain those two Points by it so I come now more fully to pursue the Resemblance the Soul of Man hath with God and in this next place to speak of it in the Potency Force and Excellency of its Being and Faculties first taking occasion to make this industrious Reflexion upon the Souls likeness to God It is an usual Observation That every Creature resembles God in that very regard that it hath a Being however obscure it be and the more any Creature advances in Being the clearer the Representation of God till the Scale of Creatures leads us up to those that God hath exalted into the nearest likeness to himself that Created Natures are capable of and these are Rational Spirits Angels and Souls of Men of which Angels are a higher Order and at greater Freedom being out of Bodies and the Souls of Men a lower Order being under the disadvantage of Bodies yet in themselves like to God and like to Angels Now it is the Privilege
of Spirits to behold in the whole Creation especially in their own Natures the great Perfections of God surmounting themselves and much more the rest of the Creatures as Infinite doth Finite that so God may be understood and accordingly ador'd by them seeing Spirits in his own Image of Understanding and Likeness can alone so far know him as in a true and proper sense to adore him and the Glory of God in such an Adoration being the end of Creation it argues the necessity of such Creatures and so accomplish'd thus to give him his Glory As therefore by reviews of the Creatures in general and particularly of our own Minds and by Observations of what excells amongst all it is possible without Scripture though more darkly to find out the Perfections that are to be ascrib'd infinitely to God and when we come to Scripture and find that agreeing with though exceeding Natural Knowledge in its Attributions to God we have by this combination of Scripture and Reason Revealed and Natural Knowledge the praeeminence being easily yielded to Revealed the most satisfying Assurances of God we can have On the other side by considering the Excellencies and Perfections attributed to God in his Word and finding the same Lines drawn upon our own Minds observable both in the Discourses of Scripture concerning them and in our own experience though but according to the degree and model of Creatures we understand our own Souls more fully so that as the consideration of our selves the Creatures leads us without Revelation to understand God though not so clearly so these Oracles revealing God and all his Attributes more certainly and evidently to us reveal also our selves more plainly because they tell us we are made in his Image and Likeness and so by knowing God with greatest clearness we know our selves also most clearly for the Knowledge of our selves as to what concerns the clearness of it depends upon our Knowledge of God by the Scriptures more than our Knowledge of God depends upon the Knowledge of our selves by Natural Knowledge without Scripture Yet still the Knowledge of our own Souls where Men have no Revelation leads them best to the Knowledge of God as the Knowledge of God by Revelation leads us best to the Knowledge of our own Souls because God and the Soul do mutually represent one another God the Original Prototype and Infinite Exemplar Man's Soul the humble Representation and Copy Upon which Reason the Apostle having said We are his off-spring Acts 17. 28 29. immediately argues Forasmuch as we are the off-spring of God we ought not to think the Godhead like to silver and gold Our own Nature deriving from God instructs us better concerning him for seeing we our selves far excel all those things however heightned by Art he that gave us those Excellencies must needs have them in himself and in a transcendency As he that built the house hath more honour than the house and the Life excels the Picture So on the other side the Excellencies and Perfections of the Divine Being are every where given us in Scripture as the Rule of Composure for Man's Soul which could not be reasonable were not the being of it first given in the Image and Likeness of God and susceptive of the Divine Nature that is of the Virtues of it Touching the Souls Likeness to Angels we need not labour much but rather in comparing them with God the Original of both and occasionally onely illustrate the Doctrine of the Soul by observation of what we are taught in inspir'd Leaves concerning them though Philosophy hath not been altogether ignorant herein In general they are of a middle state between God and us nearer to God in that they are a higher Rank of Spirits disengag'd from Body much nearer to us in that they are Finite Spirits and God infinitely above them In speaking then of the Likeness of Man's Soul to God we must again have recourse to his Creation and when God had said Let us make Man in our own Likeness and Image and form'd the Body as a curious Statuary doth a most exact Statue he then breath'd into it the Breath of Life Now this Breathing of God argues he gave a great semblance of himself and that God deriv'd something from himself to Man's Soul that should more immediately express himself and was taken from himself as the Life Thus our Saviour breath'd upon his Apostles and made them Partakers of a Spirit that had a great Likeness to his own in the Infallibility and Heavenliness of his Doctrine the Power of working Miracles the Holiness of their Ministry and whole Apostolick Function God breathing Mans Soul it became so like him that some have call'd it A Particle of the Divinity a Kiss of God an Imprint of himself Now this Likeness of Man's Soul to God I believe not to be first in those moral Resemblances of the Truth Holiness and Goodness of God which speak God the best and in which to be like God is Mans Rectitude and Integrity and the Foundation of his Happiness as a Rational Agent nor onely in the Intellectual Faculties but also in those Attributes which speak God the Greatest though these be in this present state of Man much obscured even as the other Of the Soul of Man an Invisible Spirit hath been already discours'd Of other the Greatnesses of God giving a glance an eye of themselves upon Mans Soul we may also apprehend There is a Resemblance of his Infiniteness and Ubiquity of Presence in that swift and sudden Motion of Mans Soul from East to West summoning things of farthest distance into its presence by Thought and Intellectual Consideration the Intelligence he endeavours to hold with all the Action and Business of the World both Natural Civil and Moral the Correspondency he hath with Things Divine and Heavenly The Freedom and Liberty of the Increated Will is reflected in some degree in the Liberty of Mans Will that can be no way forc'd or compell'd in the vastness of his Appetite and Desire which though now irregular yet speaks the Original Greatness of his Soul and that Joy unspeakable he was intended for The Dominion of God in Mans Dominion over the Creatures and the vast and restless Ambition and Desire of Power and Empire so natural to him The Eternity of God in the Immortality and at last Unchangeableness given to Mans Soul The Divine Blessedness in the Lustre and Glory Man affects the Well-being he so inseparably from his Nature desires the Happiness he is capable of to which he was design'd and to which he is exalted by the Salvation of Christ From hence there is something like Creation in the great Works that have been done by Men and something in Humane Contrivances and Administrations like Providence And that there is a Force and Potency of Mans Spirit in a proportion resembling that Power of God that brings Things to pass in Matter or like the force of Angels that have wrought
upon Matter beyond all the Activity that Matter can be set into by any Material Agency is not without probability from the more than ordinary vigorous Action and great Strength of some Men as Samson and some others of unusual Force For I am much inclin'd under the Divine Efficacy concurring to ascribe such Might to the Soul either acting it self by extraordinary Organs and Instruments of Body prepar'd and fitted for that Might as in Gyants and such like or that God may have made use of some Good Men in a degree like the Angels letting out the Powers of their Souls through their Bodies into Actions above the generality of Mankind to which I am very subject to attribute those Famous Acts recorded by the Apostle Hebr. 11. 33 34. They subdued Kingdoms stopped the mouths of Lions quenched the violence of Fire escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness were made strong waxed valiant in Fight put to flight the Armies of the Aliens For though these are miraculous compar'd with the ordinary State of Mankind yet they may be natural to the unconfined State of the Soul in its Efficacies upon Matter even as working Righteousness obtaining Promises not accepting deliverance that they might be partakers of a better Resurrection require as supernatural an assistance of Mind in this degeneracy of Mankind and do as much exceed the Possibilities of the Soul so sunk and degraded as the other do the Powers of a Spirit shut up in Flesh and in this State of Humiliation And yet certainly all Acts of Goodness and Obedience to God are connatural to the true and unfallen Condition of Mankind Now what the Skill and Force of a Spirit not restrain'd and confin'd to work by just such Instruments of Body is in moving Matter with greatest advantage and most successful operation is to us hard to be defin'd for the Motion and Activity of it is Intellectual and as we ordinarily conceive that alone is a feeble thing yet when we come to observe what is attributed to Divine Understanding That by Wisdom the Lord Prov. 3. 19. founded the Earth and by Vnderstanding he established and garnished the Heavens and that he onely declared by his Word the Pleasure and Determination of his Understanding in the creating every thing we may be very ready to conceive Infinite Understanding is Infinite Power and when Wisdom says I am Vnderstanding Prov. 8. 14. I have Strength it gives us the Notion of Infinite Understanding as Infinite Strength and if we consider Wisdom and Power are one in God it still heightens the apprehension and further if we understand with many Divines the Son of God to be this Wisdom the Notion is yet rais'd higher and we understand the more by it the Omnipotency of Wisdom Creation then is the very Effect of Infinite Understanding and as all Conceptions Arguments Reasons of Discourse are the unquestionable Creatures of our Understanding so all things that are in the World are the Effects of Infinite Understanding the World is the Creature of Divine Understanding His very conceiving things with a pleasure they should be gave them Being He spake the word Psal 33. 9. and it was done he commanded and it stood fast He called to the Heavens and they stood up together There was no other Power us'd by God that we read of Thus Men of great Authority sit still and speak things into their Execution As for the mighty Acts of Angels recorded in Scripture they are veiled as to the manner of their being brought to pass and the Efficiency that did produce them onely we read in that Emblem of the Prophet Ezekiel wherein all Worldly things are presented as governed by God and administred by Angels that the various Rotations and Changes in this World shadowed by Wheels are full of Eyes that is of the Wisdom of God the Supreme Moderator of them and that they are mov'd on by the Motion of Angels For the Spirit of the Living Creatures Ezek. 1. 18 20. by which Angels are express'd was in the Wheels and when these went the Wheels went and when these stood still the Wheels stood still This Spirit of the Living Creatures managed all So that it looks to us as if the Angels did all by their Spirit or Essence and that we know is Intellectual Eyes in the Wheels and the Spirit in the Wheels turn'd all about The Angels are Understandings inferiour to God onely and their Efficacy is represented to us by Lightning or the most vehement Flame of Fire When we come down to Man we find the Creatures in great subjection to Adam and there is reason Genes 2. 20. to think it was to his Understanding they paid their Homage For as an Introduction to his Rule over them they were brought to him by God to receive their Names from him and according to his insight into their Natures he called them all by their Names and so entred into his Dominion over them by understanding them and declaring his understanding of them This was the solemn Act of his Inauguration into his Intellectual Government Even as God who governeth the Stars by his Infinite Understanding telleth the number Psal 147. 4. of the Stars and calleth them all by their names thus the known Wisdom of Men of great Understanding commands the Regard and Obedience of those whom they have impos'd Names of Office and Service upon In the generality of Mankind let us consider how immediately any or all the Members of the Body move upon the most silent intimations of the Understanding and follow its guidance twining every way even into the greatest Curiosities of Art stretching themselves to the most industrious and laborious Employments adventuring themselves upon the greatest Hazards We see that indeed all things that are done by Men in the World begin at the Counsel Design and Intendments of Understanding and that the Contrivance of one Mans Understanding dictating to the Understandings of those that are under hath been the Spring and given production to the mightiest Effects the wisest Polities the most excellent Laws huge Volumes the greatest Atchievements of Armies the most magnificent Buildings Establishments of Empire the most memorable Projects and Works of Art the Force of strange Engines or whatever is accounted of Grandeur in the World The Force of Understanding hath been given and conveyed from Hand to Hand insinuated into Matter and so pass'd from one Piece and Part of it to another till it hath reach'd unto and rested in the Effect All this put together may be an Essay concerning the Power of Understanding Now what ways Understanding hath to move Matter immediately by it self we are no competent Judges that have indeed Understandings but generally so restrain'd and imprison'd that they can find the way of doing little in comparison of what may be done by that uncontrovertible way of accomplishing Effects by the mediatory Services of Matter Onely this we know When there was neither
less unworthy ends but that he should be holy and like God by them Princip 3 The excellency of Holiness and true Goodness and the Evil of Sin and Vice are immediately felt by the Soul A distinction between Good and Evil is the next thing to an Understanding and hereupon excusing Apologies and Accusations are transacted within the Soul concerning all our actions Princip 4 An after state of Reward or Punishment All these the Soul hath very near it and though it may be disturbed by contrary pretences yet the Images of these can never be wiped out but even when it seems to be perswaded otherwise yet it is still encountred with these appearances The Soul is so imprinted with these Notions that it can never look into it self but it finds them and they are the very light of its Countenance which it cannot but see and see by whenever it acts it self And by these Principles either created with Man or further communicated to him he tryes and searches and is able to discern the things offered to him by God for I am fully perswaded there is no greater tryal nor assurance of Revelation than the Principles of Natural Religion cleared and confirmed by that Revelation giving a lasting and setled assurance to the mind in its coolest and most quiet debates after it hath been alarmed and approached by Miracles By these a Man is able to move yet further into the concatenations and connexions of Truth with Truth and judges by them as a Touch-stone within it self and being aided and assisted by the Spirit of God the Spirit of Man becomes a much higher Light For by that higher illumination of the Supreme Light the Spirit of God It judges as the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 15. says all things searches into all points of Knowledge tryes and examines determines and pronounces of every Thing proposed to it either by God or Men Yet it self is judged by no Man that is No Man is able to give a clear and perfect account of it in this life either in its Nature as a Spirit or its gracious state as renewed by the Spirit of God But in Eternity this Lamp thus enlightened by Grace shall perfectly shine out and break forth It shall be as the Stars of the Firmament full of greatest Glory and most comfortable Influence They that be wise shall shine Dan. 12. 3. as the Firmament and Stars and as the Sun that is This Lamp shall shine out with all the addition of Light and Lustre Oriency and Beauty both of Knowledge and Purity Glory and Happiness If it be not thus it will be as a Fire-brand as a Furnace of enraged Fire as a flaming Torch tormented with its own Light and tortured without end in its own Flame For this Light of the Soul is the very Light of Heaven it is a Light that is Divine and can never be put out It is a Beam of that Light and cannot be quenched The Soul in its own Essence is a Spark from Heaven like the Light of a Diamond a substance so solid that it cannot corrupt nor moulder The Light of Truth shining in these Principles is Divine and of Eternal Truth These with their Consequences are always true even as those acknowledged Principles of Science which all Understandings do and must acknowledge The Soul then being a Light so unquenchable more lasting than those Lamps of ancient Times that have been found burning many Ages after and the Principles of Truth inlaid into its very Essence being as lasting as it there must be ever a lustre of Glory and Happiness about it or a Blaze of Torment according to the sense the Soul hath of its friendship with God and the Light he hath enlightened it with or the enmity and resistance it hath made thereunto for accordingly this Light is again friendly and the God of it gracious to the Soul and in the just indignation of that God the Light also seeing it can neither be friendly nor extinguished must needs vex and amaze like an angry Light that scorches and dazles together Thus I have discovered the first part That the Soul is a Light The second part is That this Light is reflected It is the Candle of the Lord searching the innermost parts of the Belly that is Turning it self inward upon all the secrets and retirements of a Man This Light is a Light not only shining forward and looking into things without but shining backward and looking upon it self So far as the Soul goes back so far this Light goes back upon and into it self The Soul may be resembled to that Breast-plate of Vrim and Thummim upon Aarons Heart the Vrim as Lights discerning Things abroad and the Thummim as perfection or sincerity judging the goodness and integrity of it self This Light is not only reciprocated with it self after the manner of an Understanding but after the manner of a Conscience Both ways it differs from the Sun and Stars they shine but they do not know upon what they shine they bring home no light or observation concerning all those things upon which they shine Herein the Soul differs as an Understanding for it confers with it self concerning all things upon which its Light shines Again The Sun and Stars they shine but do not know they shine nor can reflect upon themselves as such Bodies of Light and Glory nor can they at all judge of themselves or what they do how glorious they are or what spots are upon them when they are shadowed or eclipsed or when they shine in their full Lustre Herein they differ from the Soul as a Conscience The Soul knows it knows as well as what it knows it cannot but know and feel it knows and is especially knowing of it self and its own Motions Thus it excels Natural Light yet Light gives some resemblance hereof Light comes into a Room it comes in at one end of the Room and leaps to the other it leaps back again and shines in its own face The Soul is this through-light which meets it self and reciprocates with it self incircles it self within it self This is the Soul which shines upon and back into and within and round about it self As to instance first in the Light of Direction it gives It knows that it knows what is to be done When the Soul hath shined to it self concerning doing good and avoiding sin it knows it hath done so and God will challenge men upon their own Knowledge and they will never be able to deny their Knowledge No man can deny his Knowledge to God or to himself even as a man cannot deny his Knowledge to another man that knows his Knowledge together with him much less to God or to himself who are so perfectly acquainted with him and all his ways For the Soul in all cases is made to shine in its own Face and the secrets of it are in the greater Light of Gods Countenance 2. For Conviction of what a man is and hath done Every
is the Favour of God in Christ his Frown Wrath and Rebukes are the most fundamental reason of Misery His Favour and reconciled Face on one side his Wrath for sin on the other We are not able yet to understand the absolute dependence of the Soul hereupon because the present course of Providence allows men in their seeming subsistencies upon the Comfort they receive from the Creatures of this World God himself in the mean time retiring from their Observation But this is certain the smiles of God unexpressibly enliven encourage and bear up the Soul his Rebukes daunt deject and amaze it However these are now for the most part closely conveyed under the appearances of the Creatures for us or against us yet God is indeed under them but it is much more plain and manifest in the more immediate angry or gracious touches of God upon the Conscience and will be far more evident in the state of the World to come His loving kindness is better than life and when he with rebukes corrects Man for iniquity he maketh his beauty to consume away like a moth whatsoever seems most flourishing being so blasted withers immediately All the horrours we have heard or read of have received their sting from this Wrath and all Consolations from his Favour for in his Favour is life the Eyes of all Creatures are upon God Every created Thing in its proper way turns its Eye upon the Creator much more the Soul the Spirit immortal turns upon God the Father of Spirits that it may live It is not consistent with the Glory of God that he should allow any Thing to be Happiness but Himself and his Favour Even all the inward Rectitude of Mind cannot be this Happiness immediately For as if there were a Goodness of which Gods Nature were not the Rule and Measure and that Will which always stands just with that Nature that would be above God and so God would not be the Supreme Righteousness that is Not God So if there were any implanted Happiness in any Creature and that it needed not God as to the Essence of its Happiness God would not be God to it or if its happiness were in any Thing out of it self and not in God that would be a God to it This Consideration presses to this That Happiness is in the Light of Gods Countenance shining out upon the Rational Soul There is nothing necessary as the Fountain of Happiness but God nothing can supply his place In thy presence is fulness of Joy at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore with thee is the Fountain of Life In thy Light shall we see Light but if thou hidest thy Face we are troubled if banished and driven from thy everlasting presence we are for ever miserable for whom can we have in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth besides thee 2. Subordinately to this there can be no peace but in the Heart made truly and inwardly Good besides all storms from without there is an estuation a tide from corruption within full of trouble and vexation Every sin loved and delighted in is a secret hollow where an Earthquake is bred it is a wound that secretly disquiets it All impure Affections Passions of Dishonour in the Soul make it like the troubled Sea that cannot rest Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost make their repose in Righteousness The effect of Righteousness is quietness and assurance Isa 32. 17. for Ever Even as the Favour of God never embraces any but a holy Soul so hath he ordained that the Evil and corrupt Heart should be in it self unpeaceful and full of turmoil within both in regard of the foulness and deformity very horrible to the Thoughts whenever understood as also in regard of the great distraction and horrible convulsion the mind is forced into when it comes to any thing of true Sense 3. The actuation or gracious motion of the Favour of God towards the Soul and the actuation of his Holy Spirit upon the Soul made inwardly Holy and Good are highly necessary for the making the Spirit of a Man truly sound and vigorous in encountring Evil happy and comfortable in it self for else the Soul may be becalmed if these Motions of Grace from God lye still and not able to bear up it self And therefore Men sincerely good are often in great discomposures when God withdraws himself from them In the cloudings of his Face they are troubled in retreats of his Grace not exciting them they languish and cannot stir up themselves to take hold of him and then their sinful Calm ends in trouble On the other side the reasons of horrour and amazement are not seen by senseless and secure Men till Conscience enlightened discovers them and the flamings of Divine Displeasure make them boil up These then are the true substantial solid and natural Reasons of Happiness or Misery rejoycing or tribulation to the Soul and the Soul is plainly the Sense of them And as for the lesser and smaller interests of this present World and the life of it the observation of these two following Principles will determine and state the case of the soul in relation to them and so that it will further appear that all the touches of Good and Evil upon Man are originally and principally in his Soul 1. The first is That if God is pleased to let out his Favour in any of these outward Things and to moderate the desires and motions of the Soul so that there is a proportion between those motions and desires and the condition in which a Man is there is nothing further of necessity to him he is well enough But whenever the desires run out beyond the measures and proportions of his Condition it is with great disquiet and incredible restlesness of Mind though the thing beyond what he has be but small in it self and nothing compared with what is enjoyed When Haman had that abundance of Esth 5. 13. Glory yet his desires running out to a very little thing beyond what he had a very nothing to it the obeisance of poor Mordecai yet it made a nothing of all he had for it all availed him nothing 2. When the goodness of God is pleased to restrain outward Evils in fit degrees and to preserve the mind from ingaging it self by too close reflexions upon any disadvantage or to bend it so close upon better considerations to lessen and make tolerable that disadvantage the Spirit of a Man thus guarded will bear any infirmity but when the Spirit is let out to a continual pondering and aggravating to it self a very small Counter-accident and the Reasons that should abate it are hidden and carryed off from it a very little thing becomes unappeasably vexatious and the Spirit so wounded is it self its own insupportable burden Who can when God gives a sting to such a Cross bear it And when the Spirit of a Man runs forcibly upon it that Man may turn back and
THE Great Soul OF MAN OR The Soul in its likeness to God its Nature Operations and everlasting State DISCOURSED By Tho. Beverley LONDON Printed for William Grantham at the Black Bear in S. Pauls Church-yard 1675. THE PREFACE TO THE READER THE Discourse of a Soul may be censured a Nicety by some who think all expence of Time and Pains for the refining Mens Intellectuals in Religious Matters a waste and prodigality either from sloth and stupidity which having seised upon them they lay themselves down upon the first Rudiments of the Doctrine of Christ and resolving themselves to stick there are angry with all that endeavour to go on to Perfection as making too much ado and aspiring to be over-wise not remembring the severe reproof upon those who notwithstanding their standing in the Profession of Christianity are still such as have need of Milk and not of Heb. 5. 12 13 14. strong Meat through the not exercising their senses to discern betwixt Good and Evil. Or else in others it arises from the little love and regard they bear to Religion and a secret favour for Atheism upon which they design to keep all Divine Things under as gross and course Representations as may be that so they may take advantage against them as if they were of the same Leaven with Mahometane or Popish Fictions To this purpose they are carried with great vehemency against the whole nature of Spirit and particularly against the Soul of man as a distinct Being from the Body well knowing the Doctrine of a Future State is both ascertained and ennobled from a clear understanding and assurance of such a Spirit whereas on the other side by wrapping up all in Body that Future State becomes Bodily and Material also and so the Happiness or Misery of it may be blown off as pleasant Tales or frightful Stories for the Body so plainly mouldring into Dust and Rottenness it easily becomes a matter of greatest incertainty whether ever it shall rise again or not Besides how doth it derogate from the Glory and Certainty of the Divine Being when for the denying the spirituality of Mans Soul all things are plunged down into the thick Matter and the Nature of Spirit deemed an aiery and phantastick or downright an incompossible Notion so that hereby all foundations are destroyed But now if the Soul of Man be as particularly as may be understood and reasoned into in its Faculties and Operations if its immortality and continuing life and motion after it leaves the Body be clearly asserted and upon as great moments of Argument as can be desired be demonstrated if its sentiments of Good and Evil its apprehensions of a Supreme Justice be so illustrated that they may be even felt and perceived within us so that they can be no more denyed than the several impressions made upon the Body if what the Scripture in great condescention vests under such Symbols as that it may strike common Imagination and alarm the most vulgar apprehension be by a Compare of Scripture with it self and the use of manly Reason sublimated to its true spiritual intention there will arise from all this a daily improvement of Divine Knowledge and Vnderstanding a substantial sense and assurance of the Supreme Spirit and his Being liveliest fore-thoughts strongest assurances of a Future State and consequently the most powerful engagements to lay hold upon Eternal life and to fly from the wrath that is to come which are those two immense Globes of the Future State or the World to come To which ends this following Discourse is endeavoured and that it may be blessed by God with success is the Prayer of T. BEVERLEY The omission of distributing this Treatise into several Chapters is supplyed by the following Table The HEADS of this TREATISE THE Introduction pag. 1 Of Invisible Beings and the proof of them 11 Of the Soul a Spirit distinct from the Body 41 Of the Nature of a Spirit precisely considered 76 Of the Souls Activity and Self-Motion 81 Of the Souls Immortality 84 Of the Souls Self-communication and so being an Vnderstanding 96 Of the Souls likeness to God in its Puissance 115 Of Eternity and the Souls participation of it 156 Of the Soul considered distinctly in its Intellectual Powers 184 Of the Soul considered in the Activity of its Powers 219 Of the Soul of Man the true seat of Happiness or Misery present and everlasting 235 Practical Conclusions arising from the whole Discourse 296 A Brief Inference concerning the Resurrection 308 ERRATA PAge 13. line 26. read Rind of Matter p. 57. l. 10. after Beasts read in regard of their Souls l. 12. for thus read that l. 16. for returning read returns p. 229. l. 6. for contracting read contrasting p. 250. l. 7. blot yet p. 225. l. 26. read Cariere p. 275. l. 9. for another read others THE Great Soul OF MAN Job 32. 8. There is a Spirit in Man and the Inspiration or Breathing of the Almighty giveth them Understanding IT is a great Subject The Soul of Man and the whole estate of it Now and for Ever of which we have so dark and confused apprehensions that we can express very little clearly Darkness of Conception issues it self into Darkness of Expression For the forming of the apprehensions of the Mind the Dictates and Results of our Reason into clear and eloquent expression fit to instruct and perswade is a gift of the Divine Wisdom and Goodness in appendage to our Reason and it much follows the state and degree of our Reason Christ the wisdom of God spake as never man spake The Tongue of Angels excels even as the Vnderstanding of Angels Adam understanding the natures of the Creatures and fully comprehending them gave them fit names and such as carried the Images and very presences of things imprinted upon them as some sounds now create the words that signifie them Since so great a ruine of our natures in him as our Reason is much declined and degraded so is also our Eloquence For though words because they are known agreed upon to signifie such and such things call the mind to the consideration of those things and the more advantagiously they are put together the more they prevail yet those words and our contexture of them are as much beneath the primitive Eloquence as the Understandings of men now fall below the wisdom of Innocency Nevertheless still according to the Readvancement of the Understanding so the Faculty of Discourse rises also Solomon in his Wisdom and clear Understanding spoke with Grandeur of whole Nature from the Cedar in Lebanon down to the Hyssope that grows upon the Wall and of all Piety and Morality in words of greatest acceptance and recommendation And proportionable have been the Discourses and Writings of the Men of Great Name for Learning and Knowledge in every Age. But in nothing is the Faculty of Discourse more maim'd and imperfect than in Things of a Nature spiritual and retired from Body
to highest and truest Beings is inconsiderable though it seem great to us especially those gross and dull ones we converse in or are to converse with and it is in greatest indulgence to us that they stoop down into them as wise men sometimes comply a little while with the fansies and humours of children 4. Their superiority to visible Beings in that they form their appearances with some extraordinaries or do things so great in them as convince them to be of a higher order Now for the assurance of these appearances I especially rest upon the Histories hereof in the Scripture those sensible evidences of the Divine Presence the appearances of the good Angels recorded in it which are so many and so plain as to make up a full proof of invisible Beings and not so much as with any likelihood of truth to be eluded by those who profess to believe those sacred Records The sallies of evil Angels upon the world and the possessions they took of the bodies of men doing things in them beyond the general Laws of Body related also to us in Scripture may be reduced hereunto As additional proof hereof we may entertain those memories of such appearances in common story that are writ with greatest judgment sobriety and arguments of veracity Now all this is applicable to the Souls of men thus far first as it gives a common proof there are Invisible Beings of which order we affirm the Soul to be and secondly seeing the Soul was made in the Image of God and in an allyance with Angels it hath a substantial greatness like them lastly it must as they be independent it self upon matter and have a force much above it though it be for a time subjugated to the laws of a Body and so cannot shew it self in its own nature till it be in a separated state or joined to a Body more suited to its operations If any should say why are not these appearances more frequent and usual The answer is That were altogether unsuitable to the state and majesty of these invisible Beings which like that of the Eastern Princes stands much in retirement and as they were rarely seen and not but upon great occasions when they had weighty designs to manage or when it had been called into question whether they were alive or not because not seen for some space of time Thus invisible Beings good and holy have in visible shapes though rarely visited the sublunary world and for great ends of service to God and also that they might thereby refute atheistick and unbelieving conceipts and give assurance of themselves Unholy spirits chained up by Divine Power appear but at command so often and no oftner than God pleases for it may be supposed the Devil would not thus appear but upon necessity and constraint laid upon him by Divine Providence because his Kingdom suffers so much by the knowledge of Beings removed from sense yet when he must appear it is most agreeable to so insolent a Spirit to do it to excess and with greatest troublesomness if not restrained by God But God for the general in this riper Age of the world and under the settled light of the Gospel teaches mankind by rational and intellectual evidences that are so easily to be drawn into observation by us and by those clear and spiritual documents given us in his Word especially since such a testimony as hath been granted to men of heavenly and invisible powers in a humane body acting with a virtue so divine and miraculous and so apparent to sense For what could be greater than the whole History of the Life and Death the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ our Lord to all that are indeed Christians an invisible power transacting so lively before sense all those so high demonstrations of it self and then framing and propagating a Doctrine every way agreeable to it self and spreading it through the whole world If notwithstanding all this the man of Sense will not apprehend nor accept any proof of such Beings except our Senses were daily Spectators of them he very ridiculously exacts the tryal of those things by Sense which are plainly affirmed to be out of the compass of Sense and all its reach he demands to see and touch that which cannot be seen or felt Now it is certain that which is out of the sphere of any faculty whatsoever cannot be tryed and judged by that faculty any more than the eye can judge of sounds or the ear of colours or light be heard or an excellent noise of musick be seen Sense ought not to be called to sit in judgment upon things that are above it as finite knowledge cannot measure the possibilities of omnipotency Ants may as well be consulted with whether a Palace may be built over their heap or Beasts decide whether there be any reflexes of Reason as Sense be put to judge those things that are only to be discerned by Reason or to measure by an unequal Reason what Faith which is Reason advanced by Revelation can alone give us an account of How liberal an allowance is it to Sense that there is in so many particulars as we have already taken notice of a foundation laid in it for Reason and Faith to ground their further search and assurances upon And as for the great perverseness of such men that would make Sense usurp higher and their presumptions against invisible Beings in the confidence of that the sager consents of wise learned and pious men and the general inclination the universality of mankind have discovered to a belief of such Beings make those presumptions appear no other than a diffidence or distrust in every thing but Sense and is no more considerable than a Scepticks suspicion of other things most assured to other men by sense it self or an ignorant mans difficulty to believe the Sun and Stars any bigger than they seem to be From this Discourse of Invisible Beings Inference very justly arises an expostulation with our selves for our irreligious brutishness and sensuality that we do not more mind these invisible natures and consider God our Souls the eternal state our neglect chiefly arising because they are not seen although we have other great assurances of them As Beasts we are only affected with what strikes our Sense But let us observe every thing the more invisible it is that indeed of the greater force and efficacy it is The Spirits of things lye hid and concealed from the eye till they issue out into operation There are some very few things quick upon the Sense that are also full of power as light fire a flash of lightning and we use by these to express spiritual Beings because they are of greatest separation from dull Body and ordinary gross matter and too mighty for Sense to be too free with But let us consider how worthy these Invisible things are of our thoughts by this plain instance If any of those Beings should make an appearance
of the coursness and thickness of matter as Breath Wind Air. This way of expressing these Beings hath been common to Language in general and particularly to Scripture which attributes to God that he is a Spirit and to Angels and the Souls of men under him And yet it may without injury to the cause be granted that this name may not have been original to these natures but derived from those things that have been more removed from Sense than others and from thence transferred to the most excellent part of the Temperament or whatever is most vigorous in any Being and yet least under the cognisance of Sense and so at last ascribed to Beings supposed to be wholly removed from Sense and all this doth but still enlighten the main notion of a Spirit for hereby it was intended to represent them in their native purity and separation from Body by those things that had least of the dregginess of matter and yet were well known so comprehending at once both their spirituality and reality their spirituality expressing them by things most refined their reality in that those things how fine soever were yet sufficiently known to be and to be of greatest reality and effect Hereunto may be reduced the mention Scripture makes of the Spirit of a Eccl. 3. 21. Beast Touching which leaving to Philosophical Disputes the abstrusity of its nature whether it be the highest of material or lowest of spiritual natures I only observe It deserves not the name of a Spirit in compare with the Soul of man in that it is most evident the Scripture speaks nothing of its likeness to God power of Reason moral action or immortality but degrades it from these when it says while the Spirit of a man goes upward the Spirit of a Beast goes downward that is as it is prepared for lowest uses so its state motion and last rest are altogether here below and therefore it cannot correspond in what is now to be spoken of a Spirit yet because it extends it self to actions beyond the measure of other material Beings unaccountably to Sense it is called a Spirit and yields light also to the general notion of a Spirit and shews the infinite Wisdom and Architecture of the Author of all created Beings who formed these Spirits so as to excel the possibilities of matter supposing they do excel them so little as to be disputed with some appearance of Reason whether they are any more than matter mechanized with highest and most curious skill that is to say the handy-work of God in matter But to return Whatever can be spoken in relation only to the word Spirit is of smaller moment the greatest concern is what is intended by it Whether it be no more than a meer mode notion or manner of speaking used to express the lively Temperament vigour or force of a Body only Or whether it mean a substance of an excellent nature distinct and separate from a Body In answer to which That the generality of those that have or do use this word Spirit concerning the Soul of man have and do understand it in this latter Sense is of very little dispute and that the Scriptures do as much as words or expressions can do to assure us they mean so also I shall endeavour to make good by observing what the Scriptures say concerning 1. The original of mans Soul and its first entrance into the Body 2. What expressions it makes use of to shew the distinction of the Soul from the Body while in it 3. How it expresses its distinction from Body and separation from it in death For the first The original of mans Soul we must have recourse to the History of mans Creation and we shall Gen. 1. 24 26. Gen. 2. 7. find that the wisdom of Scripture puts a great difference between the Creation of man and the other Creatures of life in that God consults and resolves to make him in his own Image and likeness and by an immediate hand first builds a Body as a receptacle for the life he intended him and when his Body was framed raised and contrived with all its organs offices and ministeries so that there wanted nothing that should complete and sum up the perfection of a Body he breathed into his nostrils the Breath of Life and from that breathing of God he became a living Soul A Soul living that life that proceeded from himself a life that proceeded from God and entered into that prepared Body and quickened it whereas God only commanded the Earth and it brought forth every other living Thing That and its life together The Command of God impregnated the Earth and then as at once it brought forth the living Creature and its life so that in the creation of this lower life and the subjects of it there appears nothing of that method and solemn order observed in mans creation nor did the Breath of God pass into them as it did into man when it filled all the several organs and instruments of the Humane Body with the motions proper to a Body and such a Body and which is far beyond all this The same Breath of God gives man Reason and understanding as we have already expounded this Breath out of Elihu's words and as he speaks in another place The Spirit of God made him and the Breath of the Almighty gave him life This inspiration of the Almighty comprehends this lower life in man that sensitive Beings live and that yet higher life of Religion and obedience to the Creator with which Body hath least to do For in the very Creation God put Wisdom into the inward parts and gave understanding to the heart and by the word of Creation he said to man The fear of the Lord that is wisdom and to depart from evil that is understanding That is As God created all things by saying Let it Be and pronouncing it good in confirmation of his Creation so he said to man by implanting it in his heart and approving it for very good The fear of the Job 28. 28 Lord that is wisdom and to depart from evil that is understanding As in the universal Creation he saw and declared he prepared and searched out wisdom that is he found out v. 27. within his own understanding fit natures for all things This was his preparing and searching out wisdom and then he gave the proper natures he had designed that was his declaring wisdom thus at the same time he both made up the beauty of the Universe and proclaimed his own infinite understanding And so particularly in the frame of man he was infinitely wise forming man into the propriety of such a nature as man should be that is a Soul whose perfection it should be to fear God and to depart from evil that was made with a power to do so upon Reason and Counsel in which at once the wisdom of God the original wisdom and the wisdom of man the derivative wisdom
was the habitation of the Spirit or Soul renewed and purged from sin that Spirit or Soul being it self the habitation of the Divine Spirit this Body because it hath still a relation to such a Soul loses its sinful taint while it moulders into dust and is raised a Body incorruptible and spiritual that is a habitation fit for the Spirit now made perfect and is filled thereby with the glory of life and immortality which is eternal life and all by virtue of that Divine Spirit that dwelt in that Soul while it was lodged and dwelt in that Body And herein lying the true substantial sense of this most weighty Paragraph of the Apostle how plainly doth it express the distinction of the Soul from the Body and that the Soul is a substance of it self independent upon Body and Body altogether dependent upon it even while it is most immers'd into Body For first The Soul it self gives all the life to its own impure pleasures and sinful reposes in bodily delights to which else Body is able to contribute no more than Oyl to the Flame which of it self we know always lyes still and dark 2. Spirit it self assisted by Grace retires into spiritual enjoyments and quenches and dryes up its own sensual affections to Body and blasts the satisfactions received from thence even before that Oyl be wasted by the decays of Body or dryed up by death Lastly It self carries its own fate if I may so call it and the fate of the Body along with it into eternity for according to what the Soul it self is so is its own happiness or misery and the Body of necessity follows its condition so that it self is plainly All and the Body only a Cypher attending the state of this principal Figure 3. The distinction of Spirit and Body in death is conveyed to us in very plain and easie terms and such as carry their meaning very open if not disturbed and prevented by ill interpretation Let us take a view of the clearness of Scripture herein First Solomon in his Ecclesiastes having considered with some passion and vehemency the little or no apparent preheminence of men above Beasts in their death that as one dies so dies the other they send out one common vital breath and go all to one place he then casts the account of this into the common heap of vanity and comes to a very warm enquiry Who knoweth Eccl. 3. 21. the Spirit of a man that goes upward and the Spirit of a Beast that goes downward Yet thereby resolving the main case enough viz. that these outward appearances laid so much to disadvantage are but only in the Body and outside the difference between the Spirit of a man and the Spirit of a Beast is still very great as great as between Heaven and Earth and the motion as contrary when they dye as upward and downward but still he complains that this is not possible to be seen by Sense and there are very few that reach it to any purpose by Reason and Religion and this saith he is one of the great points of the vanity of all worldly condition that both so great a principle of Truth and so great a dignity of Humane Nature should lye so far off be so indiscernable Here is then an equality in the outside or Bodies of men a dying and Beasts but a great inequality or excellency of men above Beasts which comes home to what we are asserting And thus Solomon understood of the Spirit of a man as is now explained he makes us more certain when after his travel over all things he comes to describe man in his end and does it thus The Dust returning to the Earth Eccl. 12. 7. as it was and the Spirit returns to God that gave it he allots to the several parts into which he distributes man a several motion and a several rest according to the several originals of each The Dust or Body returns to the Earth from whence it was taken the Spirit survives and hastens back to God that gave it Agreeably the care of holy men at death or in any great apprehensions of danger that presented death to them was to commend their Spirit to God as David Into thy hand I commend Psal 31. 5. my Spirit which words were prophetick of the dying words of our Saviour Father into thy hand I commend Luc. 23. 46. my Spirit and thus Stephen breathed out his Soul Lord Jesus receive Acts 7. 59. my Spirit Now in that Solomon affirms of the Spirit of man in general that it returns to God the Judge of all whether it be the spirit of a good man or a bad man or whether it be for happiness or misery and that thereupon holy persons recommended their Souls into the hands of God as a faithful Creator I know not how any thing can be more determinative of the distinction of Body and Soul in death For such words are not words of meer resignation of life back again to the Fountain of Life but an entrustment and dependent recommendation and not of a life to be secured only for the Resurrection but of a Spirit immediately going to God for else they might with as much care have committed Body to him who weighs the dust of the Earth in a Ballance much more that of the Bodies of men whom he will raise again most of all that of his Saints which he will raise to glory If there were not such an immediate return of good mens Spirits to God why doth the Apostle chuse to be Phil. 1. 23. dissolved or set at liberty that he might be with Christ Or why doth he profess in the name of Christians in general we desire rather to be absent 2 Cor. 5. 6. from than at home in the body that we might be present with the Lord What tolerable account can be given of such speeches for what composition is it that suffers dissolution that some part and what part is that might have immediate being with Christ Or who is it that would be set at liberty Or that is absent from the body or at home in it if not this supreme man the Soul Or why should death be preferred for the sake of a nearer and more immediate presence with Christ if all the man dye with the body Or what man is it that the Apostle speaks of caught up into the third Heaven and makes a doubt whether in the body or out of it Or how could there be such a being in the body or out of the Body if the body were all if there were nothing but body Or lastly why doth our Saviour amplifie the dread of the vengeance of God upon man above theirs that kill the body and have no more that they can do whereas the hand of God destroys Luc. 12. 4 5. both body and soul in Hell For let it be expounded to the greatest advantage of the opinion that encounters the Souls immortality
Spirits whose property it is more perfectly to do this Now that these are true Characters of a Spirit besides that we have some kind of intuitive knowledge or down-right look into these things by the very virtue of a Spirits knowledge of it self and that general sense and experience we have of our own Beings and the motions and activities of them it may yet farther be assured by what we find and perceive daily to be the disadvantages of bodies for we find by effects as hath already been insisted upon that there must be a higher order of Beings than body which we call Spirits and that of this order the Supreme Being is the first and that inferiour natures are so because they are made in his Image and likeness we must then ascribe to the Supreme Spirit such essential Attributes and Characters wherein he is infinite as may answer those effects for which we seek so great a Cause and so in created Spirits seeing there are depressions and inconveniences that peculiarly belong to body by reason of which we cannot allow to them such and such effects that are plainly above them we must therefore fix such Characters upon these spiritual Natures which we say are created in Divine likeness as may ennoble them above those inconveniences which befall mean matter As when first we ascribe to Spirit simplicity It is easie to argue that the more any thing is simple sincere and one with it self with the more certainty it doth hold its own subsistence in that it can run no hazard but of its entire single essence whereas compounded Beings are in perpetual danger of a dissolution and the more one and single any thing is with the more force and power it proceeds to its effects seeing it moves at once with its whole self and a perfect union of its strength whereas also compounded Beings must be accountable for their parts which must be made good that there may be a full force for the effect but parts being but loosly set together if any be lost the whole is impaired and weakened according to the nobleness and value of the part it hath lost Lastly that self-communion and communication whereby any Being hath its center every where in it self and hath in every point of it self the center of its own Intelligence of it self is vastly necessary that any efficient may work with counsel and design and the full improvement of it self to every thing it would bring to pass so that these things are hereby manifested to be true Characters of such a Being as we call Spirit infinite in the infinite Spirit in created Spirits sutable and proportionable to the rank of their Creation and so in the Soul of man though under the restraint and disadvantages of a Body joined with it in which we are particularly to take notice of the great force and consequences of these Characters 1. From hence it follows The Soul is a most active Being of greatest life vigour and motion in a perpetual intellectual self-motion like the Sun that is always playing its beams and light God hath prepared the Soul for such a motion in its very creation he designed it for motion and set it into motion a rational motion of understanding will affection imagination and remembrance self-reflexion and conscience In these it hath a most lively agitation of it self as soon as ever it was in being from the very first moments of its being and in the very nature of its being it became a perpetual motion a self-motion or mover of it self we may perceive it in the quick and free motion of Thought the continual motion of Thought that never rests The purity fineness and simplicity of it assures it cannot but be natural to it to move and move it self God impressed it with life and action in the very make of it seeing it is all self and all of it received motion alike from the first mover it can have no heavy and sluggish parts to heave from their rest and carry along with it by which its motion being controlled should grow dull The most vivacious parts of Body and which are most active having so much load so much dull matter to inspire and move on are easily damped but it is not so with Spirit And then from without Bodies continually have their motion arrested by encountring other Bodies of a contrary intention imprinted with the just opposite motion but Spirit finds nothing abroad to cool but every thing provokes every thing stirs up their motion For it is moved to move self by every thing that presents it self to it and the more object the more motion like a violent recoil from a hard body the motion back is made fiercer Every thing the Soul meets instead of abating its motion reflects it with a new force and returns it upon more vehement examination and enquiry that is more earnest motion if it be in things pertaining to its knowledge but if in things related to its affection the action is more forcible upon it self with pleasure or vexation according to the nature of what is encountred Whatever is to be abated from this account of the Souls motion must be imputed to the inconvenience of its working by Body whose chanels are so tender and brittle and cannot endure too great vehemency in compassion to which the motion is moderated the conduits are so strait and obstructed through the Senses unexercised to the uses and ends of the Soul that its action cannot stream out like it self Lastly the instruments and organs grow weary and heavy by the disadvantages and rencounters the parts of matter have between themselves upon which the Souls motion seems slower and tired also Yet there is no time wherein Thought stands still though in the narrowest Soul and how meanly soever it be employed as it is in ignorant and sordid minds But further there are at all times great Examples of the lively motions of the Soul of man in wise and excellent persons and of the greatness and vehemency thereof which is yet a thousand fold greater and will be perfect in the everlasting state Its motion will be then wound up to the highest and there will be no allay from a heavy Body then all the thoughts affections powers will sally out with an unimaginable life Oh how necessary is it that we prepare by holy motion and action now to that motion that it may be blessed seeing there is no rest from it there is no quieting it nor so much as slackning the swiftness of it If it be not a motion that makes happy and blessed it is yet as high a motion but in misery and to the perfection of misery 2. Hence it follows the Soul is immortal because it is perfectly it self and so separated from all things else for the alteration of things in matter is from their composition one thing having many meeting to make it up and these either struggling and contesting among themselves the stronger subduing
then of the Souls coming to an end must be by Annihilation or being crush'd to Nothing by Infinite Power Concerning which let us further consider It is true the Essence and Existence of the Soul are several things that is There is the Nature of the Soul in general and this is one thing and is call'd its Essence and this considered in a possibility of Actual Being or not Being as it may be or may not be When it is we call it Existence or Actual Being and this is another thing from its Essence Therefore it might either not have come into Being at all or after it is come into Being it may be turn'd out of Being by the immediate Power of God who gave it Being who onely can annihilate or bring to nothing that which is In all these things the Soul is beyond all expression excell'd by God who onely as the Apostle speaks hath immortality For he it is alone that in the truest sense is what he is so inconceivably and perfectly Himself that he is onely of and from himself and Himself so infinitely that he comprehends and embraces in himself the whole Divine Nature and there is not a second God He is alone and besides him there is no God he knows not any other with him there is no variation nor shadow of turning neither in his Being nor in any of the Attributes of his Being Most Great and Good Most Happy and for ever Best For he hath all within himself and there is nothing without him of any compare with him not any thing but what receives Being from him so that neither from within nor from without can there be any occasion of change in him He it is whose Essence and Existence are one and the same Thing His Essence in the very true Notion of it rises up into immediate and absolute Existence For there is no other Notion of his Essence but in his Existence It is his very Essence or Nature to Be. He is never so little as in a possibility to Be but always so great that it is impossible he should not Be. He is without the allay of a possibility to Be which also includes a possibility not to Be. He is the highest and most perpetual Act of Being Eternal in the very Life of Being To grant the Nature of God no incompossible Notion is to wrap up a Mans self in the conclusion he is and that unchangeably For he is a necessary Being a Being that cannot but Be. And it is of much consideration concerning his Being that there should be such a Lock upon the Mind of Man that it can no sooner grant There may be a God but it is surpriz'd with this There must be a God for the very Nature of Deity concludes a necessity of Being Absolute Being God is Paramount in these Prerogatives of Being and the Soul cannot be likened to him from whom it hath its All. But yet a much truer and nobler Immortality have the Spirits and Souls of Men than Matter and Motion before spoken of seeing Spirit is design'd prepar'd for and in its own Nature and immediately in it self of much higher Excellency Purity Self-motion fit for Intelligency and all Rational Enjoyment as much above any Notion of Matter or appearance of it in any Form or acted by any Motion or into any Nature whatever as Heaven is above Earth And beyond this It is the Nature of Spirits having their Substance Nature Motion all within themselves to be always distinct and to have Subsistence in themselves proper and peculiar to themselves and divided from all others whereas the others as they are made up in such and such Natures and out of which they are not found are continually altering and changing and passing out of one Form into another and have no other actual Subsistence in themselves but what they have in these so continually variated Appearances For the whole Stock of Matter and Motion that is in the World is made use of by God in common and these two are always running every way into all the successive Compositions the Creator hath design'd them for and as they are govern'd by him But all the whole Nature of Spirit that hath ever been in the Creation from the very Beginning hath without any confusion or running one Spirit into another been preserv'd in strictest distinction and separation one from another so many proper Subsistences always known to God understood and taken notice of by him in this their distinctness and so are and shall be known to themselves for ever and as such they shall be manifested and exposed to the universal Assembly of themselves Angels and Men and judg'd according to their Works because they have been their own and not anothers with them So then though the Spirits and Souls of Men even as Matter and Motion are dependent upon the Pleasure of the Creator whether they shall continue in Being or not if we speak of the thing absolutely yet it is very evident from the consideration of the whole state of the matter that Spirits are the most proper and natural Inhabitants of Immortality and howsoever it may please the Creator to determine upon the other Parts of the Creation yet there is as great assurance as Reason can rise unto and higher yet from Divine Revelation that he intends that our Souls should be for ever seeing he hath made them with Faculties and Powers of Action Intellectual Moral and immediately respecting himself which are so connatural to the true state of Immortality and so plain an approach to and resemblance of him who only hath Immortality that it is almost impossible to a serious Considerer to think that there could be any other designation of them by God but for an immortal duration seeing he hath so prepared them for such a Condition who does nothing in vain nor does so debase his own Image as to draw the Lineaments of it in Dust It remains then That the Soul in the Nature given it by Creation and in the designation of the Almighty who gave it that Nature is an Immortal Spirit 3. From the Character of a Spirits self-communication it follows The Soul is an Vnderstanding For the highest degree of Self-communication is Understanding Even in things artificial when any thing seems to communicate with another and to receive Intelligence from another and imparts it again to it there is a semblance of understanding as in the Sympathetique answer of one Lute to another When the Heaven hears the Earth in the Prophets phrase it seems to understand it The mutual Returns of one Creature to another are a kind of Understanding in them or rather that Great Understanding of God runs through them all and is an Understanding in their behalf Life within the compass and sphere of that Being that hath it is self-communicated Motion for all the Parts are in a confederacy one with another and at an agreement among themselves for the motion of the whole
Frame as if they had treated and still held intelligence one with another But in Diseases they grow strange to one another their Language like that of Babel is confounded and in death utterly silenc'd But the higher the Life still the more appearance of Understanding because there is a higher Self-communication till we come indeed to the Life of Understanding and so up to the highest Life and highest Understanding which is also the highest most true and perfect Self-communication that is the Life and Vnderstanding of God who hath not onely a Life and Understanding within himself but also of and from himself An Eternal Self-communication or Reflection of himself to and within himself upon himself And this Infinite Spring of Being and Self-communication never ceases nor can cease to communicate himself to himself ever knowing understanding himself enjoying conversing with himself which is Eternity of Life for he that does thus can never have been out of Being nor can ever die A perpetual Circle of deriving himself from himself to himself A purest Intellect and Mind ever beholding and most divinely resenting it self in unintermitted Knowledge and understanding of it self and so living for ever For what understands lives and what understands highest lives highest and what understands for ever lives for ever All Creatures of Life even of highest Life the Life of Understanding have in an abated sense onely Life within themselves or a Self-communication having receiv'd it at first and receiving it still every moment from God In Christ was Life as in the Johan 1. Fountain that is that high Life of Vnderstanding and this Life was the Light of Men that is the Spring and Original of their Understanding And this Understanding in resemblance of God's Life is the proper Life of the Soul For the Soul lives by feeling it self in these Self-communications by perceiving its own Cogitations Conceptions Comprehensions Affections and whatever else are the natural Results and Activities of a Rational and Intellectual Life even as we feel and perceive Natural Life by the several Motions and Self-communications of that Life And this Life if we speak strictly of it as it is a Life of Reason and Understanding hath no Contrary it hath no Adversary to encounter nor is there any Privation of it conceivable except by the destruction of the Soul it self into nothing For this Life is as near to the Soul as Lustre and Splendor is to Light if you take it away the very Nature it self is lost all the Wickedness and Misery in Hell cannot quench it For who more knowing sagacious restless in all Motions natural to Spirits than the Devils That which comes nearest to the stupefying this Life is being sunk down into Body in the lower state of which yet this Life remains though greatly cover'd and conceal'd and it cannot be long so conceal'd This Life is therefore in this regard plainly a Life immortal except God himself by an immediate hand extinguish it and this cannot be believ'd seeing it is so near a resemblance of his own Life For that he should make an Intellectual Life so high in its Nature to so low a purpose is not agreeable with the Wisdom of all the Works of God Now this Understanding as we have said is Self-communication For as Reasoning or Ratiocination is the communicating of Things one with another in a way of compare a collating of them one with another and ballancing them together and then giving the account and the quicker and more sudden this motion is made the more lively is the Ratiocination and the more excellent is the Understanding So the Principle of this Ratiocination every moment confers with it self what it hath attain'd by this course of Reason and reciprocates with it self all it hath observ'd God in an infinite manner knows himself within himself and all that is in a moment by an Omnipresent Understanding but according to the advantage the Soul hath to work with as it is in the Body or in the state of separation from it so the Understanding of Man goes a greater or lesser Circle for the communicating with Things but every moment it communicates with it self what it gathers by its communication with other things This self-communication both of the Divine and Humane Spirit the Apostle thus expresses to us The Spirit 1 Cor. 2. 10 11. searches the deep or most retired things of God There is nothing in God reserv'd or afar off from himself he eternally communicates his whole self with himself so he hath given to Man to understand himself The things of a man knows no man but the spirit of a man that is within him and that knows them So then a Man hath a power of self-communication or understanding the things within himself Yet God communicates with Mans Soul nearer than he can with himself that is he understands more of Man than Man himself does he is greater than our 1 Joh. 3. 20. Psal 139. 2. hearts and knows all things he understands our thoughts afar off The Reason is He is the Fountain of this Life of Understanding In him we intellectually live and move and have our being and he knows in himself what is done in us by the vertue that goes out of him for the doing of it for he communicates with himself all that he enables his Creatures to do From all this then it appears That to understand any thing is to communicate with it The Mind communicates with all it understands and the Nature of Understanding is communicating with Things and self-communication The Mind communicates with it self all it receives by communication with other Things The Understanding goes out to understand things at a distance from it It communicates with them It enters into their Natures as far as it can Yet it is not in this chiefly an Understanding but that it reflects within it self its own Observations in that it communicates with it self all the while it communicates with other things and feels within it self its own Perceptions as the Eye perceives its own Receptions In this it is chiefly an Understanding not like a dead Instrument or Trepan that enters within things and knows not that it does so that takes hold without any apprehension or like the Eye of a Beast that looks upon things without Knowledge and comes no nearer them than Sense can do Things that cannot communicate themselves within themselves cannot understand Understanding encreases it self by more plentiful and continual Self-communication Understandings encrease one another by mutual communication and grow greater Understandings and as it were into one common Understanding This is the proper Nature and the Specification of an Understanding and the Soul in its very Essence is an Understanding 4. The fourth Consequence from the Nature of a Spirit is That the Happiness or Misery of it must needs be exceeding great For since such a Being cannot but have great Capacities for one of these States whichsoever of them it
is it must needs be exceeding great both because it feels it self throughout in either of them and must needs do so in regard of the Reciprocation Self-communication of all its Powers and Motions and in regard of the Fineness and Purity of its Being not abated by Grosness Distance and Distinction of Parts but the Whole running into it self as also in regard of the Forcible motion of a Spirit which carries therefore its Griefs or Pleasures with the rapidness of its own motion and either blesses or torments it self according to the vehemency of its Nature The Spirit or Soul of Man in the Body discovers somewhat hereof but in lower degrees by reason of the distribution of it self to the several Parts Pleasures Pains and various Concernments of Bodily Nature which while the Soul condescends to and complies with it seems to imitate so that it tastes generally intermixed Pleasures onely and suffers but alleviated Griefs because this agrees most with the Condition of Body that hath nothing pure And further while it is thus interested it s own proper Motions and Activities are both damp'd and confin'd For Body is dull and strait and if the Soul dwells in it and acts by it it must proportion it self to it or else it cannot be its Instrument Yet these Properties of the Soul are not altogether imperceptible even in Bodily state for as the Soul is conform'd very far to the Body in those Regards so hath the Body its Conformities to the Soul and those much more necessary seeing it is acted and moved by it For even Bodily Sense pays this resemblance to Spiritual that in every Part it bears Sympathy with what is felt in any one Part Yet this is because the Soul enlivening the whole Body and undertaking for every Part feels in it self as in the Center the state of every Part though it feels according to the manner nature and situation of the several parts of the Body In some degree of Likeness also the vigour of the Souls Resentments are seen in the most spirituous Pleasures or acute Pains of Body that are able to move Nature high which fall out onely in a lively Constitution and not taken off so as to chill the Pleasure or dull the Pain because the Soul hath more Active Bodily Powers to shew it self by and wherein it can give greater Testimony of its own vivid Motion though but in concernedness for the Body Thus the Pains of Stone and Gout are much sharper because they abate so little from the Constitution and the vigours of Health are necessary for the receipt of Pleasure But the Soul is much more in things proper to it self All Center where every one of its proper Pleasures and Pains meet that is Spiritual Joys and Sorrows and then the liveliness persistency of its Nature carries up to a height all its Enjoyments or Sufferings But this is never so clear as in its separated and free estate for then especially as it is said of Eternity It is all drawn as it were into every Moment So whatever can be suppos'd in any Point of the Intellectual Nature if we could so distinguish in the same instant runs through all which is the first Height of the Happiness or Misery of a Spirit In the next place the Happiness or Misery of a Spirit can be no other than a Happiness or Misery of a Spiritual nature and so cannot but be great for that is the Nature of every thing Spiritual It is all what it is and nothing else Every thing but Spirit hath a great deal of cumber a great deal of Clothes and Habiliments upon it But Spirit is purely it self Spiritual Happiness hath no clog upon it Spiritual Misery hath no Sheath upon it it is all Edge And when we are entred into the Region of Spirits there will be no heaviness of Body nor diversions of that in the way The Bodies of the Resurrection when we receive them will be fitted to the velocity and swiftness of our Minds and prepar'd so wholly for them as most perfectly to attend their condition Object But because we see the Body now such an Obstruction to all Motions of Soul it may be doubted whether there may not be a state of Souls as insensible or more insensible than now To resolve this the Scripture tells us God makes the Happiness of his Saints like a River of highest Pleasure and the punishment of Evil like a sea of flaming Brimstone both to the height therefore it withal appears the Faculties are rais'd to the height also Else there could be no such Happiness nor any such Punishment Insensible things enjoy nothing endure nothing and the lower the Sense the lower of necessity is also the Enjoyment and the Pain There must be therefore an exaltation of the Faculties to the highest Life that in the meeting of the Object and the Faculties there may be greatest Satisfaction or Misery Yet it may be understood upon this very account there may be Glories and Punishments of higher and lower degrees according to the advancement or low estate of the Faculties and that the state of the other World may be proportion'd to this that he who by a Soul more enlarg'd in this World he who by five Talents gain'd Luc. 19. 17 19. Luc. 12. 47 48. ten or that knew his Masters will and yet did it not these being agreeably of higher apprehensions and quicker motions in this World are in the World to come by the continuing elevation of those Powers made Rulers over more Cities or beaten with more stripes but those of fewer Talents and meaner Sentiments keep still their Ranks being Rulers over fewer Cities or beaten with fewer stripes Yet in each of these the state of their Souls here and in Eternity differs as much in regard of their apprehensions and the clearness of their Faculties as Twilight and Noon-day From this state of things that hath been given it may be briefly inferr'd in these Particulars following 1. If the Souls of Men that are an Inferiour Spirit are so active and high in their motion then how exalted and infinitely adorable are all the Perfections of that Supreme Spirit lifted up out of all Height That Eternal-Fountain-Author-Spirit how infinitely pure is his Being without any variation or shadow of turning dwelling in such a Light and Lustre of his own Divinity that nothing can so much as approach or come within any distance of Although his Spirit runs through All yet there is an infinite separation of Excellency between God and all things How clear and bright is his Understanding before whom Hell is naked and Destruction hath no covering Darkness and Light are all one to him because Light and Glory are always round about him and Hell is but the displeasure of his Holiness against Sin like a Flame that dazles and scorches together A Fire devours before him and burns up his Enemies on every side How potent are his Efficacies which way soever he
fall down into a Dead Thing and so it could retain its own Life against any one but the Author of it and lose none of that for this power it had received from God and what it found fitted by God to its Activity and convenienc'd to its Life it could act quicken and manage But it was not a Quickning Spirit that is It had not power to make or give a new Life to continue a Body in Life or to raise a Dead Body or make it more Excellent or Lively than it found it prepared by God It had not a Power like the First-begotten from the Dead who can make corruptible put on Incorruption and mortal put on Immortality and be even swallowed up of Life who can change our vile Bodies that they may be made like his glorious Body by a Power that subdues all things to it self So then though the Soul could work to the utmost extent of Matter and Body and fill all Bodily Capacities yet it could not exceed them nor act according to it self because it was confin'd in Body but must work and act onely as the Soul of such a Body nor could it quicken and advance Body as it would it self nor better it above its Rank and Order set by the Creator and therefore the Soul could display it self and its own Spirituality onely so far as Body made by God the Body of this Soul could receive and convey into Action And though this was enough not onely to prefer Man to the top of this Lower Creation and to make him under the Creator Lord of All but to assure enough a greater than Body even a Spirit was there yet it could not discover how great and potent this Spirit was Thus the Soul was submitted by the wise Ordination of God to retire keep home and dwell in a Body being at the very first set in an Orb lower than it self and to manage fewer and lesser Talents according to the State of the Lower Creation and so by its Obedience Fidelity and Improvement to be advanc'd to richer and more Talents and to a Rule over greatest Cities that is to be exalted to the Heights and full Glory of a perfectest Immortality Thus was the State of Innocency wherein Body was much more fitted to the Excellency of the Soul though not to all its Excellency fitted to it onely according to the Lower State of Man in this World not according to that Supreme State of Immortality but differing as much from that as Possibility not to die doth from an Impossibility to die or as a Body Natural just fit to entertain a Soul in a temporary condition and to yield it self to its displays in a degree convenient to that differs from a Body Spiritual fram'd to bear and discharge all the highest Spiritualities of a Soul in its unchangeable Estate Yet this was much above the present Condition of Body under Sin even as Innocency and the Order Beauty and Goodness wherein Man was first enstated by God excell the Guilt unnatural Deformity and Confusion he labours under now Since Sin and Disobedience the Souls manner of Habitation in Body is fallen much lower and it is carefully to be consider'd how it fell lower for it cannot be conceived that any thing should be abated from the Life Vigour and Force of the Soul it self The Soul loses onely in the Holy and Happy State of it without any diminution in its Esence or Essential Life for it cannot lose in the degrees of those It must lose in the whole or not at all being one whole intire indivisible Self as hath been before asserted And thus it is onely a competent Subject for the Happiness or Misery of Eternity of which Fallen Angels are a plain Instance who notwithstanding their Fall continue Principalities and Powers and Dominions and though Wickednesses yet Spiritual Wickednesses and in High Places The Soul then losing nothing thus the Life Vigour and Vertue of its Nature must lie close accumulated and folded up where there is not room for an Explanation and free Expatiation as Light that could reach much further when stopp'd by any Dark Body is reverberated into it self We must therefore conceive that as a Punishment upon the Sin of Man there is a great withdrawing of Divine Blessing from the Lower Creation upon which ensues an interruption of the benign Order of Things one towards another so that they are continually at feud and in contest one with another hindering disturbing and mutually abating the Force and working to the destruction one of another to all which Inconveniences the Humane Body becomes subject and both in regard of its Temper and Composition more subject than many other parts of Matter for its Strength is not the Strength of Stones nor its Flesh of Brass nor clear and pure like the Heavens that abide of old Further It being the Body of that Soul that is the great Offender it is most liable to the Curse The Soul then whose Body was at first too narrow for all its Efficacies is now limited to one unequal to any one of them and very disturbing of their Execution For sometimes by the oppression of other Parts of Matter upon this Body all the livelier and brisker Particles of it are squeez'd out and exhaled whereby it becomes dull and instagnated sometimes it is overheated into furious and inordinate motion and so weakned and disordered in its great end of serving the Soul The Soul on the other side losing nothing of it self yet being sunk down from the Intellectual Spiritual Life and from the Happiness therein to be found which is its true Sphere becomes also negligent of acting and invigorating the Body and guiding the Service of it to such worthy Ends and with a wilful supineness falls down into the Animal Life and presently finding what State and Temper that Body with which it is joyn'd is of carries it self with all its Powers almost wholly thither If it be a duller Matter or Body it stays its own Effluxes the Stream of its Motion and tastes its Life and Enjoyment in that sloathfulness and sluggishness of Flesh as it were forgetting it hath any greater Virtue Force or other Office than what serves to the maintenance of so low a Life that the Soul wilfully enervates and deadens its own Activity by slumbring it in the drowsiness of a lazie Body so that this Sloath becomes the greatest of all Sloath because of the Pleasure this mighty Spirit hath in that Sloath having found it to be the Temper of that Matter wherein it hath sheath'd it self there being in this very Sloath as Philosophers teach of Rest of Bodies as forcible and great a Cause as there is of Motion Thus the great Force of a Soul is defeated this way the Body being like damp'd Powder that will not take the Fire and so the Fire lies still and does nothing to such Solomon cries out Yet a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands
have to do with and so straitned by them that they think of nothing further and if they do yet finding no scope or opportunity they repent the Attempt and retreat back again For alas the Necessities of Mankind in these Bodies are so consuming and expensive and the Riches of the Creation hidden deep and removed far from use or else scanty and daily wasted that but some of Mankind can be set out for Glory and their Undertakings equipp'd for Grandeur for what one Man hath and uses another wants the Abundance of that one Man is the Poverty of many about him How few then can make proof of the Designs and Action of a Soul Further there are continual Supplantations and Underminings of Humane Nature and the Virtue of it by it self the Endeavours of some to rise are surpriz'd and counter-wrought by the Jealousies of others who thereupon suspect their own diminution or Ruine The World is full of Suspicion Surmise Envy and ill Apprehension because there is not enough for this Soul of Man whereby to shew it self as great as it is and would fain appear to be This Region is so stinted that every Greater Intelligence in it thinks it could it self enlighten and move the whole and is offended with a Joynt-Light as eclipsing and drowning some of its own Heaven onely entertains an innumerable Company of Glorious Spirits in their full Lustre Their number is Ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands without the jealousie or envy of any one Yet in this very low condition of Souls the Soul it self is not the less but conceal'd as many excellent and most potent Things in Nature A Diamond may be easily cover'd that none of the Beams of it can be seen the sharp Steel lies quiet in the Sheath the Fire that could inflame the whole Course of Nature is hid in the Flint How often is the Glory of the Sun muffled up in a Cloud And to ascend higher not onely the Angelical but the Divine Glory is much reserv'd while it is much seen Verily Isa 45. 15. thou art a God that hidest thy self O God of Israel the Saviour of thy People Now this thing ought not to be to Practical Inference us a Matter of meer Notion or Speculation but of most serious consideration for this Greatness and Potency of our Souls determines it self supremely and finally into an Ability and Power to bear Eternal Happiness or Misery and all else is but accidental and by the By to it It was not made great for any Name of things that is named in this World or call'd Great here how great soever All things that are Arguments of Potency now do but fall in the true intention of the Souls being made so puissant a Being is that it might sustain those weights of Glory Likeness to God Everlasting Enjoyment of him without being fainted or overwhelmed But if it miscarry from this Happiness or fall short of this Glory all this its Might and Puissance enable it still to survive and bear the massie displeasure of God angry for Sin and the most forcible and terrible Recoils of its own guilty and enraged self upon it self Now a Being thus Potent and Great as to subsist in that Everlasting Blessedness or Misery can together and comprehensively do those smaller Great things that are esteem'd so in this World and yet if it should never do any such nor have the occasion of doing them to be created to the Intents and Purposes of an Eternal Condition makes it compleatly necessary it should be made so Great as we have asserted And if it were not so we could make but a very imperfect account to what ends the Souls of some Princely and incomparable Young Men are prepared whose rising and growing Vertue appears onely so long as to spring Heroickly and to give proof of a Divineness in the Bud and then by Death to fade in this World as early as it blossoms and have no opportunity left to ripen In these at once we see both the Greatness of a Soul and that this World is not its proper Sphere or so much as near it for if it were such Souls had been made in vain so Great But the State of Eternity justifies the Wisdom of God in breathing so rich a Principle of Life notwithstanding so little Action here because what is so superabundant now is then all of use and nothing to spare And to press this Consideration further and more generally the State of Eternity reduces the Souls of Men universally to thus much of Equality that they are all alike stripp'd out of the Cumber and Incommodiousness of a Body and brought to the nakedness and simplicity of Spirit which is the greatest Advancement of Being in an abstract Notion of Being that a Creature is or can be receptive of Nor is Spiritual Motion fetter'd or tied up any longer by indigency of subservient Ministeries All have that which is full enough to their State Souls are then at the height of Immortality and Unchangeableness under a Full-sail Activity every way equal to so great a Nature whether it be employ'd in Fruitions or Indurances Let us then expatiate thus into Meditation We that are but of so many Foot of Body and must be lodg'd in so many Foot of Earth the measure of the Grave have Souls whose Capacities and Action are vaster than the whole Creation of Matter We that dwell in houses of clay and Job 4. 19. have our foundation in the dust have yet great and potent Souls If we could perswade our selves we are more than this Hand-breadth of Bodily Condition and present Life we should prepare our selves for so great a State of Being the State that is proper to Souls All we toil and sweat for that we design and care for in the World is Self-preservation Self-enjoyment and Well-being Why then should we not mind these in our largest and most excellent Quality We value our selves in that which is least and throw our selves away in the main and whole Sum. Let us then continually reason with our selves Our Souls are great when we go out of the Body we become Great Spirits However the Soul keep up close in the Body yet it may be dilated beyond all possible Imagination as they say An Angel of Gold may be beaten out to cover a whole Acre of Ground We see to what a vastness Education Study Advancement in the World extends the Souls of some Men that made little appearance at first To how much a more immense Amplitude will the State of Eternity stretch out the Receipt of a Soul and what an abundance of Happiness or Misery will it then take in How little then or how great soever we seem now all will then be resolv'd into this final Condition of our Immortal Souls and the Happiness of these rests in the Favour of God a Likeness to him in Holiness springing out into an Eternal Enjoyment of him And while we
are here in the World in this State of our Souls lies our true Greatness and Worth Some that seem so inconsiderable that no Man looks after them yet being greatly Holy greatly favoured of God Great Spirits all Heavenly the world Hebr. 11. 37 38. is not worthy of them though they wander up and down on montains in sheep-skins and goat-skins and be hid in dens and caves of the earth Others Great in the World and being also truly Good the Back-parts of their Greatness are onely seen Yea even in Bad Men how small or great soever they are in the World yet that they pertain to an Everlasting Condition that they have Immortal Souls this makes them of greatest consideration To convert them to God is therefore a great and excellent Work To save a Soul from death how great is the Service and how great is the Reward They that do it shall shine as the Stars in the Firmament How great a Regard to the meanest or worst of Men should it draw that they pertain to an Eternal Judgment The Consideration of the Soul as a Being Invisible and a Spirit having invited an often mention of its Eternal or Unchangeable Condition to which this present State is subordinate and disembogues it self into it as the Rivers do into the Ocean I come in the next place to make a modest Research into the Nature of Eternity and the Souls Relation to it But in speaking of Eternity I know he alone is able to declare it who inhabits Isa 57. 15. it God himself or the Angels those Blessed Spirits who were early assum'd into larger Participations of it Yet seeing we also are design'd to the same Participations it concerns us as far as we can to understand the Wonder of it Eternity then in its first and highest Sense is not any thing distinct from God but his stable unchangeable Being from everlasting to everlasting There is no other Eternity than this properly and strictly taken from which is cast upon the Mind that contemplates a Being so surrounded with it self and its own invariable Perfection a Notion of Everlasting Duration and that which is comprehended by it because by reason of the narrowness of our Understanding it is conceiv'd in a distinction from the Divine Being it self we in a secondary Sense call Eternity But even as what we term Vbiquity is that which results to us from the Notion or Apprehension of God the Immense Being filling all so much as even Imaginary Space while he himself is the onely true Vbiquity even so Eternity is the Infiniteness of God's Being filling all Imaginary Duration and so filling it that the Divine Being it self is that very Eternity of which Everlasting Duration is but the Shadow that falls from it as Unbounded Space does from his Omnipresence God then the Supreme Eternal or rather Eternity is a Being that must always have been and ever must be It is most impossible to conceive he should ever not have been or ever not be And he is a Being that never could and can never be otherwise than he is So that there are no Marks of Distinction that could ever be taken from his Being or from the State and Condition of his Being He is He was He is to come are all Rev. 1. 8. united into one Eternal Point or Period in him and thus express'd I Exo. 3. 14. A M A Being without any variation Jam. 1. 17. or shadow of turning A thousand years to him are but 2 Pet. 3. 8. as yesterday when it is past and one day as a thousand years And if it had been said Ten thousand millions of Years are but as a Minute when it is past it had been all one in this Case for there is no New Thing to him or in him but all is a Just now For his Being is the most solid substantial Being that cannot possibly submit to any Alteration What is Infinitely Perfect can admit no Change This is the One Just Even Smooth Eternity And understanding God thus we understand Eternity And though it be no where but in himself and where he communicates the Likeness of it yet Eternity in a secondary Sense becomes a distinct Notion or Sense of a Mode of Being in our Minds and it is a changeless Duration of any Being in the self-same State for if there be not Duration there must be Change and if there be Change it is not a Duration on all sides for then there could be no Change Now this Notion of Eternity could never have come into our Minds if it had not been planted there by his Hand who dwells in it on purpose that we might know himself by it nor had there been a substantial Rest for such a Conception if his Being had not given it All else is but Imaginary Duration Eternity then in this our apprehension of it is one great smooth Sea without any Curl of Change or as a vast unmeasurable Plain wherein the Eye hath no bound nor so much as Note of Distinction no Rise no Fall like a great Mountain that all Generations have pass'd and repass'd one hath gone another come and that hath slidden away too but the Mountain hath stood firm It is like a Rock that hath stood innumerable Ages without so much as scaling about which the huge Waters have continually wav'd and roll'd themselves and dash'd asunder by which smaller Vessels have pass'd to and again gallant Ships and Potent Armadaes have sail'd by and sunk or moulder'd away this in the mean time without any variation It is like an Hour spent in highest Pleasure no Moment no Minute of which is so much as felt It is like a deep Contemplation in which the Mind is so lost so retir'd from Body that it reckons not any Motion it keeps no account of Time for it nor observes whether any Time pass'd It is like an undefinable Point of Just now In the next place to give the greater Light to Eternity let us state the Nature of Time And Time to speak substantially of it is nothing but the Coming of a Thing or a World of Things into Being that were not in Being before For this makes a new Note in what we conceive as Duration And therefore when the World was made the Scripture says In the Beginning There was then a new Date because there was something then that had not been before In Whole Eternity there was nothing New All was alike One Now these things coming in by the way of Change viz. the exchange of the State of Nothing for the State of Existency are also every Moment subject to change and in a continual hover up and down and while all these things are performing their Motion in their Changes and Vicissitudes the Mind of Man considering them under such a Mode or Circumstance of their Being there arises a Notion or Representation of that whole Space which putting all together we call Time in the largest sense
herein This then is the Eternity of God his always alike Being infinitely Happy infinitely Blessed This is the Eternity of Jesus Christ the Son of God the Son of God eternally begotten that though he proceeded and came forth from God the Father yet he made no new Date no Beginning Eternally begotten without the least shadow of turning to denominate Time as the Creatures do by Beginning but as a Beam from the Sun as soon as it is making no new thing in the Sun or as Apprehension from the Mind as soon as the Mind is or as the immediate Image and Likeness of the Face as early as the Face is thus and infinitely more even incomprehensibly is Christ the Son of the Father coeternal with him This is the Eternity of the Son of God but what is the Fathers Name or what is his Sons Name in Eternity none Pro. 30. 4. can tell for who can declare his generation but Before all things that were made and by being made made a Beginning before all things that beginning to be cast the shadow of Time even before all things is the Col. 1. 17. Saviour of the World that is he is Eternal Indeed as he is the Son of Man he gave great and the greatest Characters to Time it hath the richest Aera and Epochs it hath His Incarnation in dating it self from which Latter Time glories and triumphs His Death and Passion his Resurrection and Ascension His Appearance the second time from Heaven to give a Period to Time Thus as the Son of Man he hath enrich'd and ennobled Time But as the Son of God he onely governs Time that is the Things of Time and changes Times and Seasons by setting up and pulling down what he pleases whence Time is variously imboss'd but by any Change in himself he doth not give the least Shade of Time The Eternity of Angels is much below this perfect this absolute Eternity for they had a Beginning they came out of the State of Not Being into Being but this of Eternity they have that their Being given them continues for ever lasts for ever Indeed even this Duration is not by any necessity of Nature as in the Son of God the onely begotten of the Father for he can neither have begun to be begotten nor cease to be begotten but it must make a Change in God a substantial Change Thus also incomprehensibly stands the Eternity of the Divine Spirit proceeding Eternally from the Father and the Son But the Everlastingness of Angels hath its certainty from the Purpose of God unchangeable concerning it Further Their Eternity is not like to the Eternity of the Divine Being the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit in that as they receiv'd a Beginning so there was a Space wherein their Condition was alterable as appears by the Fall of some and the generally receiv'd Confirmation of others And that it is alterable in Degrees may be argued by their daily increase in Knowledge Additions to which Good Angels receive from the Church while they stoop down to look into the things of the Gospel daily Experience in both sorts Increases of Glory to the Holy ministring Spirits as a Reward of their Ministry Aggravations of Punishment to the Fallen Angels for their many and great Hostilities to God his Son and Servants The Complement therefore of either State is not till the Day of Judgment be past These things already spoken lead to the Description of the Eternity of the Souls of Men consisting in three things 1. That they shall continue for ever in Being the unchangeable Decree of God upholding them in a never-ending Existence 2. That the Substance of their Condition shall never be alter'd upon which account the Scripture often speaks of a For Ever as a Happiness incorruptible and that fadeth 1 Pet. 1. 4. not away on the other side of Eternal Punishment of a Worm that never Mat. 25. 46. Marc. 9. 44. dies a Fire that is never quenched All which speak as much as Words can convey to us such an unchangeable State 3. There is no Interruption or Alteration in the Degrees of their State there are no Marks of Distinction that these Souls should say Now more happy now less happy Now more miserable now less miserable But as highest Delight takes away all sense of the Motion of Time in this Life as sense of extreme Pain makes an Hour like an Age how much more in Eternity does the Perfection of Happiness and the Extremity of Misery the substantialness and absoluteness of either State swallow up all Notes of Distinction God is no more Happy by any addition of Moments we suppose in the Duration of his Happiness I say we suppose for indeed he is his own Happiness and his own Duration So in proportion this State is its own Duration Heaven one intire united Moment of endless Delight Hell of Misery 1. Now this State of the Souls of Men in Eternity arises first from the fitness such a Nature as Mans Soul is of that is a Spiritual Nature as I have already discours'd to be Everlasting A Nature which God hath with Infinite Wisdom and Power contriv'd to be a resemblance of himself Thus the Heavens as they are more durable are also of choicer Matter and less corruptible than other Parts of the Creation And those things that by God are design'd for For Ever are made so perfectly agreeable to their State that they need not be altered as if a Vessel of purest Metal were made so substantial that it could suffer no change in the Quantity Weight Figure Oriency of it either by Fire Hammer or the several Accidents that fall out in length of Time nor that there could be so much as a possible Reason to desire the change of it 2. From the Will of God and his unchangeable Decree that it should be so which he makes good and effectual by continually feeding these Beings with Eternity that is from himself he sends them all the Powers of Life and Motion So that to ask When shall these Souls and the several States of them in Happiness or Misery have end is to ask When will a Stream be dry that is fed by a Fountain that can never be exhausted nor the Supply of it be possibly cut off from that Stream His Favour is an Eternal Principle of Life and Blessedness His Presence of Wrath and the Glory of his Power set against us is as great a Source of Misery and Torment While therefore he will uphold our Beings and Faculties and keep up their Motion so long they must be and while he pleases either to shine out graciously upon us or to dart against us the Lightning of his Displeasure so long we must be either happy or miserable And when either of these is done to the height and perfection of either as they are in the World to come then according to the Revelation of his Will guided with that Wisdom by
endure one Posture of Misery for ever most adverse to all our Faculties and yet they so rais'd and held up as perfectly to take in and endure that Misery and that Misery so extracted and spirituous as to penetrate them throughout and not coming in by Drops and lesser Rivulets but Eternity being all alike crowds in upon every Moment whereas now either the Torment is dull'd and rebated or instill'd and proportion'd by such a Succession as carries hope of Change or if it be extreme it presently does all it can do for it consumes what it hath to work upon On the other side How great is the Happiness of Eternity One smooth plain undisturbed Blessedness without any diversity For Ever The highest Faculties in their perfectest State gratified with highest Enjoyment Faculties so strong that they cannot flag the Enjoyment so unfathomable that we can never feel Bottom in it One Moment of endless Pleasure A Moment for it hath no Tediousness A Moment for it hath no Change but is all one and yet it is endless and eternal An Eternity the Duration of which we cannot so much as take notice of being in one Ecstasie of Enjoyment When we see miserable Men and Women going up and down the World living and dying without any Observation it damps the sense of these things and who would think that such are prepared for such an unchangeable State But how strange is it that Men hearing so often of Immortality out of the Gospel and that there is so much in their own Souls resounding to it that they are not Men concern'd to lay hold upon Eternal Life and to fly from the Wrath that is to come Let us look upon this great Level Ocean that hath not so much as one Wave of Change rising up in it this huge and vast Champaign swelling with no Hills sinking with no Dales And this know Men may go down to Hell in a moment thinking they die and end together They may perish without feeling it before-hand or so much as a Conceit about it But whoever are sav'd by Christ they perceive themselves Immortal Christ 2 Tim. 1. 10. brings Life and Immortality to light in their Souls and kindles the sense of it within them those to whom he gives Eternal Life they find this Life begin in the apprehensions they have now of Eternity 4. O how vain are those troublesom turmoiling Thoughts and Cares we have about Time and the Things of it Trundling rolling wheeling Time that hath no continuance that is so made on purpose the Things that cast it are so weak that they are restless in their sudden Changes O Wheel as it was cried out in Ezekiel Ezek. 10. 13. O changing Time every Moment something differing Let us onely mind it as it hath reference to Eternity for therein it is onely of moment Eternity that bears it up it self unconcern'd in its changeableness yet receives it into it self and swallows it up in it self 5. How necessary is it to change while we may from Sin to God to take the advantage of Time in the true Conversion of our selves to God seeing Eternity endures no Change To be wicked in our Eternal State is Wickedness unalterable there are no Reviews or Amendments there To turn is the Advantage offer'd to Sinners within Time In Eternity Repentance finds no place On the other side Eternal Life is Love of God Delight in Holiness without end The Motions of Spirits in Eternity are so swift and perpetual one way that there is not the least Moment to design a Change in A Motion that is always one and the same and is a Rest while a Motion Even as the most rapid Motion of a Globe round that is so swift and rapid that it is not discern'd and so even and just that it looks like standing still So is the State of Eternity Action to the height and most unalterable What I have hitherto discours'd of the Soul hath tended chiefly to illustrate it in those things that do immediately concern its Natural Perfections or its very Being and the Privileges it therein hath as it was made in the Image of the Divine Being and its Perfections For that it is an Invisible Spirit Immaterial Immortal of such mighty Operations and vehement Motions is of immediate Relation to its Being simply considered Now these Excellencies of the Soul I have endeavoured so to abstract in the Discourse of them that they might appear so far as is possible in their so abstract and distinct Consideration and yet as the very Thred and Nature of the Thing led me I have taken care to follow their close and inseparable Connexion or to speak more truly their perfect Union or Sameness with Intellect and to observe the Operations to be the same with Intellectual and Moral Operations that flow from an Understanding To which purpose I have laboured in this Assertion That such a Being as the Soul of Man is must be an Understanding and such Operations as those proper to Mans Soul must be Intellectual Operations however clouded and obscur'd while in the Body But I shall now address my self more fully to treat of the Soul as it is this Intellectual Spirit in its Intellectuality or Intelligency it self and of its Intellectual and Moral Operations wherein it is universally acknowledg'd to be made in the Image of God So that the former Parts of the Discourse describ'd what a kind of Being and of what exalted Motion this Intellect or Understanding is and that an Intellect can be no less than such a Being or no less a Being than such a one and of such a Motion can be an Understanding and that such a Being so moving must be can be no less can be no other than an Understanding What now follows shall be design'd more closely to discover what the Intellectuality of this Great Being and its Self-motion are or what Understanding it self and the Motions of Understanding are In which pursuit I will first make some display upon this great Matter in that frequent Resemblance of it by Light the Scripture so much delights to use concerning it The Spirit of a Man is the Candle Prov. 20. 27. of the Lord shining into and searching the innermost parts of the Belly The Soul of Man as it is an Understanding is a great Light reflected upon it self This is the Soul a Beam from the Sun a Candle lighted from the Light of Heaven and the Light of this Candle is ever streaming out and reflowing upon it self like a Diamond always playing with and in its own Light It may be cover'd over and hid it may be masqued with the thickness and grosness of Earthly Vapours from Body but it is inseparable from its Nature to be Light It cannot but in some degree shine and send out it self though its Beams be but pale and wan but when it hath any greater freedom or when it industriously and resolvedly moves it self there is a Circle of
man must confess and cannot deny his own Actions a man must confess and cannot deny his own Actions to himself nor a general Character of himself to himself every man is accused or defended by his own Knowledge Every man knows his own sincerity good intention good action and is conscious of the contrary Hence the condemnation and the horrour a man receives within himself and so the comfort and joy of a man is clear and certain The heart knows its own sickness Prov. 14. 10. and its own joy and a stranger cannot intermeddle with either he cannot interpose against the judgment of the Soul upon it self This is our 2 Cor. 1. 12. rejoycing the testimony of our Conscience A man proves himself and Galat. 6. 4. his own work and hath rejoycing in his own good sense of himself or trouble in his own Censure and not in that of another As a man knows and finds himself in himself in a natural sense so in a moral The Spirit of a Man knows the things that are within him We may say in this case as in things of secrecy I know what I know and as in things of certainty what I know I know The sum is this In things that are under direction no man can refuse deny or resist the presence of his own Knowledge in what he does know any more than he can resist the day To him therefore that knows it is sin and commits it or good and omits it to him it is sin of a deep dye In things of sentence and judgment upon a mans self if a mans heart condemns him God is greater than his Heart His Knowledge and purity are greater and therefore condemns him more but yet God knows a man together with his heart and condemns him together with it and most of all within it If a mans heart condemn 1 Joh. 3. 20 21. him not he hath confidence and just ground of it towards God because the very witness of a mans heart concerning him is true and is no lye There may be some very particular cases in which a man may be so clowded as to deem more severely of himself than his state deserves and there may be some dreams in which a man fancies himself better than he is but not such as deserve to abate from this general account of mans Soul for these mistakes are but temporary and by close attention it may vindicate it self from them But the great objection against the Soul being such a Light is this Object If the Soul of man be such a Candle of the Lord how comes it to pass that men are so ignorant of things and of themselves Answ 1. These things are to be discoursed according to their own Truth their first Nature and Constitution Now the Soul of Man was created so and it is still so in its own Nature though there are many accidental Coverings and Obscurings of it in Men as sometimes the Light of the Sun hath grown pale and wan and the shinings of it withdrawn 2. There fell indeed a great dimness upon this Light by the sin of Man and there need Lights from without and much Exercise from within to recover it so in great Judgments the Sun hath been turned into Sackcloth and the Moon into Blood 3. There is much to be attributed to its present state as thrust down into a gross Body where it is covered like a Diamond inclosed in Clay or like those Lamps that burnt in Vaults and under ground 4. How much is to be imputed to those Steams and Vapours of Lust and Fogs of Sensual Appetite that rise up and obscure the Soul like the Sun in a Cloud or Mist 5. There is a freedom of the Soul and Understanding like that of the Eye though some things dart in upon it that it must see and though turning it self every way it must also see what it would not see yet it can endeavour and in part effect the turning it self from the observation of things most proper to it and consider those that pertain only to the present life whither with all its vehemency it carries its Light But lastly and especially There is much more a Man knows of himself and Things than he seems to know How many things that are not found nor can be drawn into the discourse of some ignorant men much less into their practice that yet when you tell them of they receive not as things they never knew but only as such they have not dealt with or usually conversed with and upon more notable occasions they break out from them in whom they were not suspected to have a place And concerning men themselves though in their careless demeanour towards themselves they flatter their own hearts and do not bring their full Eye and Light upon themselves yet they have a secret notice of themselves a private mark of their own condition which they know is much more true than that forced or false Opinion they endeavour to breed and nurse up of themselves In sum therefore I think the most ignorant man hath this Light in his Soul however covered he hath it though it doth not outwardly shew it self but lyes still now as it doth in Children without the notable discoveries of what it notwithstanding truly is and will one day appear to be We should all therefore seriously consider what we are what Souls we have There is such a Lamp in us though it be but as under a Bed or Bushel As it is most necessary to consider what Dust we are in our Bodies so to apprehend what Spirit we are in our Souls it is a great degree of wisdom to know the frail condition of our Mortality but it is a far greater to know the Immortality of our Souls As Princes in their Glory and in whom Mortality was advanced to the highest were admonished by Remembrancers chosen on purpose that they were of the same Clay with other men capable of the same Corruption Disease Death so they that carry their Souls lowest should be put in mind by Men of greatest Understanding Piety serenity of Conscience and others of quickest Anguish and trouble of mind what Souls they have Every man may see in them what themselves are and that those Spirits within them will be at last either shining Suns or flaming Torches For ever For in Eternity God will certainly call out all Souls to their Office and Function in Light whether it be to Life and Happiness or to Condemnation and Misery How great is the Mercy then when God calls out and uncovers this Light now and puts it into Motion and enlightens it far higher with the Knowledge of himself in Christ so making it directive consolatory healing light from the healing wings of the Sun of Righteousness so making us Lights Burning Burning and Shining Lights in his Light which always makes happy Let us continually ascend to the Father of Lights in Christ That Light that we may be
recoil with highest Rage and Cruelty upon himself As we see Ahitophel though but 2 Sam. 17. 23. an ordinary thing befell him yet his Spirit being wounded with it he went and hanged himself whereas David 1 Sam. 30. 6. besieged with outward Distress on every hand and finding the surges of Grief within yet was upheld by Divine Reasons He at the same time both diverted his own Spirit from the Evil qualified the Evil it self and fortified his mind encouraging himself in the Lord his God Thus all Contentation and Pleasure Enjoyment and Happiness and the contrary Discontent Vexation Suffering and Misery both here and in Eternity are laid in the disposes of God upon the Spirits of Men filling those capacities he hath therein contrived with such infusions of his Favour or Displeasure as in Wisdom Righteousness and Goodness he hath and shall determine to them and also putting themselves upon such Exercise and Motion and that upon such principles within themselves as must perfectly own acknowledge and agree with those his Divine Attributes and the determinations he makes upon the Souls of men according to them Yet there is always this difference between this present state and the things pertaining properly to it and that of Eternity and the things proper to that that the former are altogether indifferent and nothing more needs but that the Mind be in an equal posture towards them But the things of an eternal consideration are of a perfect necessity so that Happiness and Misery will be for ever in act according to them Upon these Grounds thus laid we may judge of many cases of ordinary and evident experience that concern both Natural and Religious Affairs 1. We see some Men in a low and mean condition with a little of the World much more contented than those in a higher the desires of the one being no larger than their Condition but the minds of the other running out beyond their greater Estate from whence it is evident that man liveth not by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God nor by the abundance of any thing they have but by God giving a suitableness between the Desire and the Enjoyment when God lets out the desire beyond that all else is as nothing at all 2. Again Some men bear far greater Crosses with much more ease than others do far lesser the Spirit of one man centring upon the grief and inconvenience and the other gliding off from it 3. The generality of men having their minds level and but equal at best with their Bodies are very sensible of all the disadvantages and inconveniences of Body Some more heroick and singular persons are far above them and little concerned in them and some strangely insensible and unactive in their Souls bear them without any more than the just pressure upon the Body requires lumps of Clay their Souls are so sheathed in their Bodies that they discover no Soul give no sign of a Spirit they live and dye like Beasts they bear all with the strength of sensitive Nature they shew no Spirit at all till at last they split into innumerable and endless Complaints and Crys except we suppose a loathsom stupidity and fearful darkness of utter want of Consolation and Enjoyment to be the second death of such persons On the other side Some that have great force of Mind and yet are deeply affected to Body exasperate and inflame any bodily Distemper and aggravate it by their terrible impatiences and the same thing falls out to them in Infamy Disgrace Loss or great Disappointment according to the measure business and activity of the Spirit about them so is the thing great or small in mens own account and resentment 4. From an Over-Ballance of Mind it comes to pass that upon several accounts Men become wholly inattendant to their Bodies Some separating themselves with desire Prov. 18. 1. to intermeddle with all Knowledge have been wholly careless of all things else Others ingaged in motions of great Valour and Enterprise have so little valued the Fate of a present life that in the heat of Valour and Fight they have not so much as felt the wounds they have received their Minds being as it were separated from their Bodies Some plunged in deep sorrow and trouble have without the least relenting and compassion done the greatest cruelty upon themselves Some under great disappointment of their Designs have revenged it with greatest rigour and resolution upon their own Flesh as Scaevola with an undaunted constancy burnt the hand that missed in killing Porsenna and so deprived him of the Glory he so earnestly designed himself in that Action Others touched with the Conscience of a great Offence through the vehemency of that have thought all other pains of Nature worthy only of neglect as Cranmer held that hand in the Flame that had signed his Recantation Yea very Debauchees in the Risque of their Vices though their name even their Flesh and their Body have been consumed mourn not while they are in their Carrier but at last they are so restless and importunate in wickedness plotting and performing it doing it with both hands that they have no leisure to think of any thing else and are afraid indeed to offer any such leisure to themselves and to avoid it are always driving on in wickedness they prolong their days Eccl. 8. 12. in and as it seems by it thus far that their earnestness bears them up so that they do not fall into reflexions upon the sad end of it their Spirits are carried so whole and together to it that they have no interruption And if their pursuit be crossed and vexed with hindrances and contrariety of accidents it becomes very outragious and is a continual sickness for so it is said Amnon was 2 Sam. 13. 2. sick for his Sister Thamar All these and multitudes of the like are plain Instances of the Mind governing our Contentment or Discontent in these Affairs and however it inslave it self as it seems to the Body and its satisfactions yet still it is indeed the Vigour Force and mighty action of this Mind that is ever superiour when it doth most debase it self and it is not the Body of Flesh but it self in that Body or that Flesh or as the Apostle calls it a Fleshly Mind that thus designs and acts with a high hand for its own satisfactions And if it be thus in things wherein it seems to be fleshly how much more in those things wherein Body hath no Feeling no Interest From these Grounds we may also discern the several states of Men in Religion 1. The great Insensibleness of it in the minds of most men makes them without any desire or motion after it they see no beauty in it why they should desire it 2. Hereupon also though Men have the greatest reason of trouble in relation to their state towards God yet having no reflections they are wholly untroubled
as half measures of our selves and provisions accordingly 3. We have need to pray That God would draw out our whole Minds upon himself and Christ our Lord in a way of Desire and Affection of Joy and satisfaction and that we may be replenished with such assurances of the love of the Father in his Son that we may have no occasion to be cruel to our selves For as extremity of want and hunger turns men as Tygers upon their own Flesh so the Horrours arising from the Wrath of God and the unappeasable want of him enrage the Soul against it self but the enjoyment of him infinitely blesses and satiates it with pleasure sweetens it into greatest love and kindness to its own self And the Spirit thus supported will bear any other infirmity as David having God for his Light and Salvation feared nothing Habakkuk deprived of all favourable appearances neither the Fig-tree blossoming nor any Fruit on the Vines the labour of the Olive failing the Flock cut off from the Fold and no Herd in the Stalls yet he rejoyced in the Lord and gloried in the God of his Salvation In the second place We may upon this Head of Discourse make these doctrinal Recollections 1. There is a high pitch of Happiness or a very low degree of Misery to which every Man is prepared For the further description of which let us consider the two great Orders of Spirits Happy and Miserable Spirits to one of which we shall ever have a likeness The Head the Supreme the Prince of the first Order is Jehovah himself who in the highest and most perfect Act of his own Infinite Understanding and Will and the highest Satisfaction in Himself and enjoyment of Himself lives from Eternity to Eternity the most Happy and only Potentate with his Eternal Son and Spirit without any Dissatisfaction Discomposure Weariness or Tediousness to Himself or the least Shadow of impression upon him from Without This is infinitely clear concerning God In his Presence is fulness of Joy at his Right Hand are Pleasures For Evermore If we could imagine as indeed we cannot because Experience so mightily contradicts it that any Prince should live in all those Delights and Pleasures the most splendid Court affords without any tediousness or satiety ten thousand years what a dark representation were this of God though he could do and enjoy all he would Let us then imagine higher That a Prince of wisest most refined and delightful Speculation could live in the Height and perfect Rest of a most pleasurable Contemplation without the least disquiet how lowly an Emblem would this be of the infinite Blessedness of God Now God made Man in his own Image and likeness so that the Soul of Man is capable of a communication of this Blessedness in the perfection of his Understanding and Will enjoying God with unexpressible Joy and Peace and yet in the highest Life of Action Under God are the Blessed Angels of whom the Scripture speaks both of their Knowledge Perfection and Power joined with Holiness and Obedience to God who have been Participants of the Glory and Blessedness of God from the first Dawn of Creation and in all this time have not had least tiredness or satiation but highest Bliss and Joy Next to these are the Spirits of Just Men made perfect who are by succession as they go out of the World taken into this Happiness Now in all these Instances it plainly appears to what a height of Happiness Holy Men are designed being made like God equal to Angels in the assurance of which good Mens Souls enjoy the Consolations of that better state in this and are daily removed into it when they dye For the Order of Spirits Miserable and Unhappy Spirits of which the Devil is the Prince although indeed there cannot be such a Misery as should stand a counterpoise to Gods Happiness for Misery is but a retreat from God and his Happiness from his Favour and Grace as Darkness is from Light and being under the Executions of his Wrath yet all this is within the inclosure of a Finite Being and were there not an unchangeable Will of God and a Decree of his Justice that he will not reverse all Misery might be removed off from the most Unhappy of Beings and taken quite away But as things are The Misery of Spirits may be thus understood in the great Exemplar of it the Misery of Fallen Angels and the Prince of them the Devil 1. There is a Height and utmost stretch of Action The Devil is represented as always in Motion from the first beginning of Misery he hath no Rest even while he is in Chains as fierce Mastives he moves as far as he can and rages at the shortness of his Chain he hath had no sleepy moments of Non-action since the day of his fall no Breathing Time no Truce Thus the Soul in Misery is extended as we now speak day and night that is perpetually without intermission with an endless Action and Motion Consider what is Rest and Sleep to a Man of a tormented Mind and wearied Thoughts a Sleep wherein he is not scared with Dreams and terrified with Visions how unhappy doth he think himself in the want of it how unwilling is he to be awakened out of it And from thence understand the Misery of being perpetually awake in Misery 2. There is an ignobleness a baseness in all his Motions he goes upon his Belly and eats Dust he hath no Motion that can give him comfort from any glimmering of worthiness or generosity in it in all the multitude of his Motions he has none that can in the least cool the Furnace of his tormented Thoughts Any Degree of Worthiness in his Action would abate his Unhappiness All is full of Cruelty Envy Black and Malicious Design breathing the Fire and Smoak of Hell He goes up and down Angry Fierce Malecontent Cruel to himself and full of Rage against others as a Ravening roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour This is the state of miserable Souls There is a continual gnawing and scorching of wickedness without any thing to cool the tip of the Tongue any the least intention and motion of Goodness that might cool one flaming hellish Thought There is a Rage against God an Envy at the Blessedness of Heaven returning with unexpressible Misery upon those unhappiest of Beings a Hatred an Execration of themselves 3. There is a Horrour Amazement and trembling Sense of the Supreme Justice Holiness and Power of God over him with the Conscience of his own Guilt The Devils believe Jam 2. 19. and tremble The Fountain of Life Beauty and Happiness is Hell from Heaven to them because they find nothing in themselves but distance and contrariety horrid enmity and hatred They are convinc'd of that High Justice and Righteousness in the midst of so great Wrath and Vengeance upon them and this without leisure or intermission and therefore perpetually shake with Fear and Horrour while
the eternal enjoyment of him and the comforts of God delighting all these and the Oyl of Grace gliding along upon them even down upon the Body like the precious Oyntment on the Head of Aaron going down to the skirts of his Garments how sweet would these interweavings of the Soul and its truest and everlasting Joys be even unspeakable and full of Glory On the other side when a Man is first racked and stretched into vast and insatiable Desires without satisfaction and rolled up and down upon a thousand uneasie Thoughts concerning them and instead of mitigation and cooling allays hath the guilt of his unworthy Actions and the fears of a Justice to disquiet him how uneasie must such a Mans Soul of necessity be to him and if these are wreathed close about him and pressed home upon him by the Indignation of God let out against him as the former is a little Image of Heaven so is this of Hell Now it is certain No man hath power over his own Spirit either to damp the gracious and merciful movings of his Divine Spirit or to keep out and forbid the angry entrances of Divine Displeasures and Revenges God is the God of the Spirits of all Flesh and acts them as he pleases No man can imprint upon himself the reasons of Comfort or Disquiet or flash into his own Soul Joy or Sorrow but under the guidance and supreme government of God who giveth quietness so as none can make trouble and so hides his face that none can behold him As he pleases he casts down and raises up and none can stay his hand so much as within themselves or say unto him What dost thou So great is his Freedom herein that he sometimes answers Men that are strangers to him in the joy of their hearts all their lives and his word of Blessing goes along with the ordinary favours he does them so that the Fears of Wrath to come are hid from them and on the other side those whom he hath made his Friends and will use so for ever are covered with a Cloud nay sometimes he sets them as a mark for his arrows and even cuts them off with his Terrours For he is the great Actuator of Mens Spirits without whom as the first Mover the whole Motion of Nature would stand still and he disposes them so that a Man doth nor can to any satisfactory account find out himself and he therefore feels his greatest security in resting upon God and being guided by him 4. But Eternity is that vast season in which God brings all to a righteous certainty and which he hath appointed for Happiness without allay or Misery without mixture which may be made out three ways 1. In that in Eternity the whole power of the Soul runs together one and the same way In this life the holiest Men have great allays of their holiest and best Motions and counter-motions of Discontent and Unbelief to their greatest Comforts Evil men have generally at least some pleasures hopes motions to their advantage notwithstanding all the crosses they meet with in the World or the secret sounds of horrour they have at certain times in their Consciences In this World the Soul sends out parties of it self divers ways or to several ends The Judgment may be pleased in the main and yet the Affections disturbed or these more still and yet the Judgment dissatisfied and disturbed One Thought goes out in high discontent another flyes after it recalls and reconciles it On the other side one Thought leaps out of the Soul with pleasure another reproves daunts and dejects it with a correction of its haste But in Eternity the Soul is united in its Motions which way one Faculty goes all go and the Thoughts are all concentred as in one whole and entire Thought of Joy or Torment 2. In Eternity there is but one state of the Soul and the prospect of the Soul is but one In this World change of place conversation difference of Events raise different Affections and Motions of Mind varieties of businesses occasions and tempers upon them do so distract and move all sorts of Men up and down that there is nothing pure and unconfounded In Eternity there is one state of Soul and so one action there is nothing to mix with either condition It is one Happiness or one Misery Even the most sad and dismal prospect the prospect upon Hell and Eternal Misery gives to the Saints reason of admiration and highest adoration of God in their deliverance from it On the other side the most glorious Blessedness and Happiness of Heaven is to Men in Hell when they look up to it their highest Amazement and inflames their Torment by reason of their envy against God and those that dwell with him in Heaven their reflections upon their own Misery and Rage against themselves Thus one State one Action one Happiness one Misery and all to the height fill Eternity 3. Then it is that God proceeds to the highest actuation of the Soul drawing out all the powers of it and setting open all the Windows of Heaven upon it pouring into it all the always full and ever flowing Vials of his Love Grace and Mercy or of his Power Wrath and Justice which as they are unintermitted themselves in their streams so it is impossible the Soul that is moved or driven by them should rest from an action answerable to them 4. In Eternity there is a Body fitted to the Happiness or Misery of the Mind In this World Happiness is dulled by the stupidities or clogged with the slowness of the Bodies Motion or grows cloying by its incapacity to receive more The pains and griefs of it call the Mind from its enjoyments to take pity on it so that the inconveniences of the Body allay the happiness of the Mind on the other side this Body submits it self to speedy dissolution if its own pains are extreme and its griefs if leisurely and tolerable are abated by being so as if over burdensome they destroy The troubles of the Mind are much blunted by the grossness of Body in which the Mind cannot feel perfectly its own sentiments and the pleasures and divertisements of that Body do often allay the anguish of Conscience as Cain grew to some quiet with himself by building a City But in Eternity Gen. 4. 17. the Body is also spiritual that is wholly prepared to the use and service of the Spirit and to receive and attend and display its Motions and condition to feel its pleasures and pains to bear its Glory or Deformity openly all kinds of these present bodily Pleasures and Pains Beauties or Deformities being then wholly removed For either the Happiness or Misery of meer Body is neither worthy of God nor of the Soul but would be on the one side a sottish Pleasure on the other side like the tormenting of a Beast and so not agreeable to God or the discourse of Scripture however things may be
represented to our sense and however the display of these things may pass into the Body and be all seen there yet we know the most excessive pleasures of Body interrupt the proper motions of Soul in which true Happiness or Misery lye for neither is a man drenched in an irrational pleasure nor tormented and he knows not why but there is an orderly motion a sense of sin and guilt of the supreme Justice of God in his righteous Executions of Judgment in Happiness an adoring of Infinite Grace and Mercy a Rational Taste of Holy and Divine Pleasures I shall now as a Conclusion draw up all this Discourse into these practical Conclusions flowing from the whole 1. Hereby I understand I have an immortal and everlasting Soul to take care of we look upon our selves as Flesh and Blood but we do not consider these Immortal Spirits and their great Powers Understanding Imagination Will Conscience Affections and the motion of these to be Everlasting We do not examine whether our Souls have a true Health Peace and Safety and a good Provision made for them Whether our Consciences are quiet and upon good grounds Whether our Affections are purified and holy For a man to consider his Soul thus is indeed to consider a mans self What shall it Luc. 9. 2â— profit a man if he gain the whole World and lose himself The Soul is a true Self and how dreadful will the mistake appear to men who have counted the Body and the Interests of that the only Self and this other true the greatest Self starts out A Self that now lyes under as many Covers as a Body under a multitude of Garments and so is concealed But then it breaking out and not being provided for that great principle of self preservation finding now its greatest Object will force a man to cry out with a most dreadful Ejulation and Complaint Oh this false Self that I have laboured for how hath it deceived me My very Self I never thought of and so have lost it What shall I give now in exchange for this my true Self 2. I hereby understand I am made for Holiness as the true Peace and Greatness of my Spirit for a converse with God for an attendance upon him for an observation of his Favour and Countenance towards me and that herein is the Life of my Spirit and on the other side I am very apt to be tempted to sin and drawn away from God to live at a distance from him to lose him and herein at last will be found the Torment and Hell of Souls and therefore I have greatest reason to be awakened about these things and earnestly to pray to God that he would put me into a high and vigorous action concerning them and to be extremely unsatisfied when I find my self insensible concerning them and therefore to labour earnestly to be in a good state and condition in relation to them 3. I hereby understand I am made and designed and shall certainly be unexpressibly Happy or Miserable to extremity and who can say this to himself without highest concern upon his own Soul If any one should tell us we were ordained to be one of these extraordinarily happy and prosperous or deplorably unhappy and were about to read our Fate or Doom to us and that we had considerable Reasons to believe such a one who would not with a most trembling suspense of mind wait what it should be When any one is to receive the Issue of his Cause from a Judge or Jury how high and impatient is his expectation But how much more should our Thoughts wait for this Issue of Things and God hath placed it in the motions of these our own Thoughts for when they move enlightened with his Countenance cleansed and annointed with his Grace ennobled with his Spirit delighted with his Consolations this is Heaven begun this is Happiness growing up When they are base for want of his Spirit impure with Lust and dishonourable Affections full of rancour and bitterness and all spotted and stained with guilt this is Hell in the Foundations of it laid And however my Soul lye still now yet when I see how many things draw out mens Souls even in this Life Education better Converse Solitude some great danger or loss in the world higher Condition Sickness some notable Discourse as in Foelix how much more must I needs think the change into Eternity will do it and therefore no silence of my Soul now can encourage me upon serious consideration to be careless of it 4. I hereby understand my unspeakable dependence upon the Grace of God and his Free Favour and hence learn to humble my self before him to nothing seeing my Happiness consists in those free Beams of his Favour in the light of his Countenance in his setting my Soul into a gracious Motion by his Spirit and raising the Motions of my Spirit to a high communion with him in Bliss for seeing I can so little yield my self the accounts of Happiness and receive them all from him and can so little move my self upon them when they are offered by him I am inconceivably bound and beholden to him both to open the Fountain of Life that is himself to me and to move me by his Spirit that I may move On the other side If he leaves me to my self what Evils shall I run into and treasure up torment and sharpen stings against my self by it and how can he inflame my Soul with his Indignation and to what degrees he pleases both now and for ever For if he hide the face of his Mercy who can behold him What Reason have I therefore to reverence him with Godly Fear and to acknowledge him with greatest dependency I humbly therefore say as the Apostle not only by the Grace of God I am what I am but by the Grace of God alone I hope what I hope to be 5. I hereby understand what a great necessity I have of Jesus Christ my Lord the Son of the Wisdom Glory Power and Holiness of God the Son of his Love for he is the Attonement His Blood offered by the Eternal Spirit is the most excellent Thing in Heaven or Earth and that only which can purge the Conscience the most excellent and divine Instrument of Pacification with God and within the Conscience it self Through him the Holy Spirit is given by him is there an entrance into that Holy of Holies that Heaven within the Veil for as the value of Souls for which our Lord gave himself exalts his Redemption the greatness of the Misery from which they are rescued the greatness of the Happiness to which they are exalted all glorifie the Saviour of Souls so do these Souls of a Nature so supreme require so great a Ransom and Mediator no lower no lesser a Price can countervail them and it argues them to be a Nature so supreme that so great a Mediator undertook so infinitely for them 6. Hereby I understand