object of thy infinite mercy and as thy Apostle S t Peter in his diffidence was supported by thy graciously extended Arm from being drowned in the sea of waters so was my soul secured by thy stupendous compassion from being overwhelmed by the consequences of my sin Most dear Jesus inflame my soul I beseech thee so with thy love that being set on fire with thee it may like unto these elementary flames which thou hast made be still tending upwards in heavenly aspirations till its desire shall arrive to a most happy fruition Sweet Jesus my Redeemer pardon thy Creature who dare thus to expostulate with thee the enquiries into Men and Books return upon us with a retinue of errours unless we come to Thee who art the Oracle of Divine Truth It is most true Lord that we must use those means to attain Knowledge which thou hast laid before us and not dream for infusions of truth to drop from thy treasures of wisdom into the gaping idleness of our life such Enthusiastick Spirits must know their ignorance of the value of truth that it should be so poorly attainable before they can be in a capacity of further information A Prayer O Eternal and most merciful Lord God whose eyes are alwayes upon the Children of men look down I humbly beseech thee upon me who in great distress of mind and anguish of spirit do here prostrate my self both soul and body before thy Divine Majesty beseeching thee who art the God of all consolation to assist and comfort me thy poor Servant though exceeding sinfull with refreshments from thy self and let thy heavenly support be alwayes ready to hold me up that I may not sink under the burthen of sad and melancholy apprehensions which so incessantly oppress my soul Lord let thy holy spirit from above so raise my dejected spirit from the depth of sorrow and frightfull imaginations which do continually assault me Dear Father I confess that my life hath been a continual reiteration of sin and daily repetition of all wickedness and impiety that time which should have been measured out in praising and magnifying thy holy Name hath been spent in the service of Satan that grand enemy of thy Truth and our Salvation I have made a profession of godliness in outward appearance but have denied the power thereof as if I had favoured Religion for no other end but to preserve my Name from scandal and reproach and so O Lord have preferred my own temporary credit before the honour of thy holy Name and my own eternal safety all the sins that in thy decalogue for a Christians life thou hast forbidden to be done do I stand guilty of O Lord and all the duties thou hast commanded thy people to perform O Lord I have neglected and therefore all the judgments thou hast denounced against sinners O Lord I have most justly deserved so that most righteous God when I look upon thy Justice recorded in thy sacred Word and then behold my own sinfulness which I cannot see but in the same glass I find such a disproportion that nothing is then left to me but the expectation of thy everlasting displeasure But dear Father if thou whose most pure eyes cannot behold the least sin with approbation should'st strictly enquire into the Lives of men even the best men and be extream to mark what they have done amiss none were sufficient to stand before thee and endure thy touch for there is none that doth good no not one But thou Lord hast another look wherein Mercy reigns in abundant measure and casts so sweet regards towards the souls of repenting sinners as can in one moment raise them from death to life for which we bless thee for which we praise thee O sweet Jesus the author and finisher of our salvation who hast satisfied thy Fathers wrath and hast given us access by Grace through thy infinite merits and here O Lord I am emboldened to renew my petition first for the pardon of all my sins past in his blood and then dear Father for all spiritual blessings and temporal which thou seest conducible for me but especially O Lord in this Prayer I beg for a chearfull heart without which I cannot serve thee as I ought being indisposed to those holy Duties which thou requirest from me by the incumbency of sadness and a disturbed phantasie strange fears and deep imaginations do take hold upon me but remove them I beseech thee and establish in me the fear of thy Name and no other fear sorrow or sadness for having sinned against thee that I may be alwayes merry in Jesus Christ and may run with chearfulness the race which thou hast set before me Lord hear me for the sake of thy beloved Son and my sweet Saviour let my prayers and daily cryings come before thee but let my sins be never heard O Lord I will ever be lifting up my voice unto thee Lord send me comfort from thy Holy Place that while I live in this world I may be a comfort and a delight unto my self and not a burthen but above all things a persevering Christian through Jesus Christ. Amen FINIS PHYSIOLOGIA OR The Nature of EXTERNALS briefly discuss't SHEWING That no true Pleasure can be deriv'd from SENSIBLE OBJECTS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plut. contra Chrysip LONDON Printed by J. M. for Henry Bonwicke at the Red Lyon in S. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXI TO THE Highly Honourable GEORGE DUKE of BUCKINGHAM His GRACE My Lord I Am encouraged from Your Graces former Respects to me and the honour of being related to Your Person to dedicate to Your Grace this Enchiridion The matter of the discourse in it out of my Duty to Virtue I dare not but call good though not the management of it since by the Rule of Morals Good doth Constare ex Integris and will not admit of the least Evil or smallest Errour into its composition The simplicity of my intentions will only endure this touchstone which I may safely say are to promote Truth and no wayes to obtrude Falsities I humbly offer to Your Graces Patronage only that part of it which hath escap't misprisions as for the other it will be enough that it be defended from the rude attacques of the world under the Authority of Your Graces Protection though not of Your Approbation Your Graces most humble and firmly devoted servant George Freman PHYSIOLOGIA Or the Nature of EXTERNALS briefly discuss't BElzebub the Lord of Flies as his Name signifies in the Hebrew is with his swarms of revolted spirits continually buzzing about the Souls of Men and suggesting to our minds falsities for truths perswading us that not Internal but External things are the matter of true Pleasure that so causing us to erect our hopes upon a rotten foundation at the time of our death when that shall fail the structure may fall to the ground nay much lower even into the Abyss of despair The sad issues of this suggestion are much
which was not long after but in the midst of my idle and sensual life I had intermissions of consideration not without some trouble my bashfulness which I always had in a measure more than ordinary did much incline me to drink finding that did embolden me for which reason I have wisht I had been brought up at some publick School rather than in my Fathers House supposing that strange company and being from under the tender wing of my dearest Mother I might have been rouzed up by being put more to my shifts and my bashfulness abated by being accustomed to the company of strangers And indeed I found manifestly that being so much confined to home through the carefull fear and love both of my Father and Mother bashfulness and melancholy did so gain upon and take root in me that it was always a great disturbance to my life I found likewise my memory both slow and not retentive occasioned by that fixtness which was upon me and that occasioned by the want of business to employ my memory and inform my judgment and excite my thoughts which contributed much to fix me more in melancholy and want of confidence which though not so considered of by my Father and Mother yet I found manifestly in my self it was a great occasion of mischief to me and did expose me to a loose life But Lord had I stirred up in my self that stock of Grace and those Divine Principles which were infused into me by thy self the fountain of holiness and purity and the instiller of holy motions thou wouldest undoubtedly have come into my soul with such controuling power as would have reduced my disordered mind to an obedience to thy heavenly will the absence of which hath bred in me so great matter of discomfort but if thy goodness shall spare me for so much future obedience as may place me in the favour of thy self I shall more esteem it than thousands of Gold and Silver A Prayer I Desire Eternal Jesus to call upon Thee from the depth of my sorrows upon Thee O Divinity incarnate whose mercies are bottomless and whose Merits can bury the most vast extuberances of repented sin from the eye of thy Fathers Justice and secure the relenting sinner from the stroke of his Omnipotent hand which nothing can intercept but thy self who art all and whose intire Obedience can answer all the objections of Divine fury and out-wrastle Justice when she makes her greatest assaults But O my presumptuous soul though it be true that the Mercies of God in Christ exceed all proportions and that there are continuall springs of compassion which are ever flowing from the breasts of his goodness yet how can that avail thee while thou art bathing thy self in sensuality and courting thy treacherous lusts who were the murtherers of the blessed Jesus whom if thou chase from thee which thou must needs do if thou welcome thy sins she goes along with the blessed Lamb and never leaves him where he is she is still to be sound and had not he come into the visible world she had never presented her self to mankind but they must have been ever separated from the Glories of Eternity What can the best extracted cordial do to a man who is naturally dead neither can these cordials of salvation advantage thee who art spiritually so Most blessed Lord make me a subject capable of thy mercy by faith and repentance for else the preparations of thy mercy will be my greatest misery to see redemption at a distance causeth a languishment of the soul here if she have any residues of Grace while mercy is not irrecoverable but to see her removed when she can never return yet so many times offered in the day of Grace is the most bitter ingredient of eternal misery Suffer me most glorious Jesus who am but dust and ashes to speak unto my Lord and let me ask at the mouth of wisdom how it comes to pass that my heart should pant after thee now and anon grow cold and disobedient can Christ and Belial be inmates together If I love thee and desire thee above all things to day why do I leave thee next since thou art more delectable the second day than the first and the third day than the second since thy essential sweets do not like those thou hast created glut the appetite but become the more gratefull the more frequently they are tasted Oh it is my original corruption which strives to demolish those reparations of Grace which are in my soul by thy death and to obscure those reinfused sparks But Lord let thy additional Grace joyned to that twinkling light which yet remains in me improve it to such a flame by thy frequent supplies that by its light I may discover my sins and by its heat they may be consumed who would betray me into that fire which should ever light me and ever burn me but never consume me Blessed Redeemer I have not onely my own inherent sinfulness and the spirit of spirits separated from thy self to encounter withall but there is another cause in nature which depresses my soul from rising up to her Lord the flesh which is ever warring against the spirit and besides the usuall evils of it there is more in me than the bodies of men do often bring with them thou know'st it Lord for thou made'st me and since thou did'st I am silent I know thou madest me to thy Glory what though I have more of earth in the composition of my body than others have by which the motion of my animal and vital spirits is obstructed though my apprehension and memory be not so quick and retentive if I obey my Redeemer and hearken to his charms the spirit of Jesus shall inspire and quicken my soul which if it be nimble and active in its correspondencies to the Rules of Christ I shall have a large amends for the splene and dulness of my body But when I have been troubled with the incumbency of this weight I have not looked up unto my blessed Jesus whom I might have seen through my thickest blood since that excellent spirit which I am by Creation doth not require the body to its sublime operations but instead of this most injured Saviour I have run to thy Creatures for help yet that I might have done for they had not been but to preserve my being and support my natural life but ah wretch that I am I have made an inordinate use of them and turned thy blessings into my own curses instead of putting my soul into a more serviceable estate for thy glory by correcting the disproportions of my temperament I have defaced her beauty with intemperance and exposed her to the assaults of Lusts and Devils But Oh most meek and mercifull Jesus though I made a resignation of my self thou didst not give me away by substracting the residues of thy Grace but my spirit even in her most deliberate aberrations from thy Rule was the
promoted by our Essential consistency of Spirit and Body the material and bodily part always disposing us to the pursuance of Outward things contrary to the approbation of the Intellectual But since the depravation of Mans Will by the fall of Adam we are united to Errour and need not a Tempter to lead us out of the way for both the Principles of our Being do now dispose us to wrong Objects therefore to lay open this grand Fallacy it being in a matter of so great concernment as is the Eternal happiness or perdition of Men let us examine what is requisite to the constituting of true Pleasure To the making up then of true and real Pleasure I shall lay down these three Conditions as requisite First That the Object be suitable to the Soul Secondly That the Soul be put into Fruition of this suitable Object Thirdly That the perpetuity of this Fruition be ensur'd to it Now let us enquire whether External things considered simply in themselves and not relatively as they have respect to greater ends have these three Conditions in them or no. First then Is any External thing an Object suitable to the mind of Man I answer That no External thing is because they all want two Qualifications which are requisite to make an Object suitable to the mind the first of which is That it be congeneal and of the same nature with the Soul that is a substance immaterial or spiritual The second that it have in it a sufficiency to gratifie all the Appetites of the Soul First No outward thing is immaterial or spiritual for a spiritual substance comes not within the notice of our senses and though in Scripture we read of the appearing of Angels as three to Abraham two to Lot one to Cornelius another to S t Peter yet this must be suppos'd to have been by the assumption of bodies to which they were united not essentially but occasionally and pro tempore for in other places the Scripture tells us what their natures are calling them Spirits Psal. 104. vers 4. Heb. chap. 1. vers 14. and although I find no decisive Text for that Opinion of the Church of Rome that there is a Tutelary and a seducing Angel attending upon every Man and Woman and likewise Children which was indeed held amongst the Heathen under the terms of bonus and malus Genius yet it speaks indefinitely Heb. 1. 14. that they are all ministring Spirits for the Elect but notwithstanding their presence appears not to them when they come in their own Natures So likewise the Souls of Men are not within the notice of our senses being Spirits and incorporeal substances as Angels are for which we have the testimony of Scripture Man was made after the Image and Similitude of God But since the sense of these words Image and Similitude is much controverted in the Schools let us look into the twelfth of the Hebrews at the ninth verse Furthermore we had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of Spirits and live where Souls are called Spirits in opposition to flesh Besides the Testimony of Scripture we have a demonstration of their nature in the death of every Man for though the Soul be separated from the body yet the standers by see it not we hear nothing but the groans of the dying person caus'd by the motion of Parts we feel nothing but a coldness in the extremities of the body caused by the cessation of motion we smell nothing but a putrid savour caus'd by the corruption of humours neither do we tast any thing On the contrary all outward and corporeal things are obvious to some one of our senses for instance though we cannot hear the Light we can see it though we cannot see the Air we can feel it and though we taste not the white of an Egg yet we can see it or feel it and though we cannot smell a piece of Glass yet we can likewise see it or feel it and so of all material things that are at a due distance from the organs of our sense And here before we look into the second thing requisite let us examine why it is necessary that the Object be of the same nature with the Soul Thus then the Soul of Man being immaterial that which makes it happy by the fruition of it self must likewise be immaterial for as it is a fundamental in Physick that Nutrition is made by Similaries so likewise is this assertion true in the Metaphysical complacency between the Soul and the Object it cannot receive a proper supply from any thing that doth not bear an affinity with it in its substance and qualities This reciprocall delight between Parties is discoverable in every species of Created Beings and in every action in Natura naturata In Physicks flame and flame embrace one another but a furious conflict ariseth from the convention of fire and water in Morals goodness accords with goodness but vice will not be suffered to dwell with virtue and in the Metaphysical action of the contemplation of the Soul we see experimentally that she cannot content her self with inferiour Objects but is still seeking to her self some more excellent matter of delight which desires of the mind intelligent men may take notice of in themselves if they will be self-observers This appetite of the Soul is the reason why Solomon was not contented with all his clusters of delights though he turn'd over the whole world as it were yet he arrived not to the summ of his desires but still there remained in his spirit an appetite after something more than any exteriour thing could furnish him withall so that at last he openly proclaims them all to be excuse the catachresis but full of emptiness Seneca saith of Augustus Caesar that he delighted to talk of laying down the Scepter and of betaking himself to a recluse life And we read that the Emperour Charles the fifth resigned up the Low-Countries and Burgundy and afterward all the rest of his Dominions to his Son Philip in his life-time And of the Emperour Theodosius that he delivered up the charge of the Empire to his two Sons Arcadius and Honorius though with power to resume it which he never did and many other precedents of the same kind doth History present us withall of which it is reasonable to think that it was not only the troubles which usually attend Crowns caused this in them others being deputed to bear the greatest burdens in that kind but rather that all their enlargements could not present them with any thing agreeable to those secret appetites of their minds and this dissatisfaction there is in all the entertainments of sense by which it appears that the great capacities of the Soul can never be filled up with these lean and scanty Objects and whiles that Capacity is unsupplyed there will be a coveting of those things which are