at present to follow this Argument as far as it would lead me It suffices now to observe that this Hypothesis seems generally alluded to in the Sacred Writers especially of the New Testament and therefore cannot indeed be thought so precarious as our Adversaries might otherwise conceive if they will suffer themselves to be led away with popular Prejudices without examining it The New Testament plainly enough distinguishes the Gift of Healing which Cured Diseases not caus'd by Devils directly from the Curing Infirmities caus'd by Devils which were sufficiently Cured by casting out the Devils that caus'd them And I think also that they mention no Aylings of the latter sort which may not be accounted for by their Power allow'd them by God on the Parts now mention'd However this Difference between Divine Prophecy and Diabolical Enthusiasm seems to have been generally agreed on that Prophecy requir'd Imagination but perfected and duly subordinated to the Nobler Faculties but Enthusiasm went no farther than the Imagination and therefore disorder'd and hindred the Understanding and the immaterial Faculties depending on it And our Adversaries must be very difficult indeed in their Concessions if they can doubt whether Instrumental Musick can affect the Imagination so as to Compose or Disorder it Yet this alone is sufficient for disabling Devils to Influence it if their Power be confined by Providence to disposed Matter and Musick may indispose the Imagination for their Influences and it be not withal in their Power to make or hinder Dispositions BUT our Adversaries have a strange XIII Such a Notion of the Spiritualness of our Religion as makes uncapable of Sensible Assistances is fundamentally inconsistent with the Doctrine of the Apostolical Age. Notion of the Spiritualness of our Christian Religion as if all Bodily and External Assistances were now perfectly useless and inconsistent with the Nature of our present Dispensation On this account they are averse to all Assistances of our Senses as well as this of Instrumental Musick But why should God have Instituted Sacraments for Assisting our Senses if the whole kind of such Assistances had been so derogatory to the Nature of his new Establishment Why should he have allow'd even Vocal Musick if even our Senses could contribute nothing to the raising of the Devotion of our Spirits I know our Adversaries are more willing to impute this Usefulness of Instrumental Musick rather to the extraordinary Interposition of God seconding his own Institution But why should they think it derogatory to the Providence of God that he should make use of the Power himself has given to the Natures of Things Or why should they deny the Experience of so many Heathens who tho' they regarded not the Institutions of the God of the Jews yet receiv'd the same Practice of Instrumental Musick on account of the Devotion they pretended to feel rais'd in themselves by it in their several false Religions This could be imputable to nothing but the Natures of the things themselves But where have they learned such a Notion of the Spiritualness of the Christian Religion that should exclude the Use or even the Necessity of Corporeal Assistances The Scripture is not more express in requiring a Spiritual Worship than it is in requiring that also of the Body Our Bodies are Temples of the Holy Ghost and we are accordingly requir'd to Glorifie God in our Bodies as well as our Spirits which are his 1 Cor. vi 19 20. The unmarried Woman is so to care for the things of the Lord that she may be Holy both in Body and in Spirit vii 34. We are to present our Bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable to God which is our reasonable Service Rom. xii 1. And our whole Spirit and Soul and Body are to be preserved Blameless unto the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Thes. v. 23. If Service be expected from the Body as well as the Spirit How can it be disagreeable to the Nature of our Spiritual Religion that such Parts of Bodily Worship may be retain'd or introduc'd as may in their own Nature contribute to the Worship of the Spirit There was indeed near the Apostles times an Opinion introduc'd among the Philosophers Numenius perhaps may be the first that brought it in from whom Porphyry owns Plotinus to have borrowed what he has to this purpose That the Soul alone was the Man and that the Body was no part of the Man but a Prison to the Soul and therefore preternatural to it and to be avoided by it that it might be qualified for a perfect State And these did indeed so insist on the Spiritual Nature of Religion as to discharge the Body from any share in it The Good Man with them was the only Priest the Soul it self the only acceptable Temple the Devotion of the Mind the pleasing Sacrifice And the the way to union with God was to alienate themselves as much as was possible from the Body and from the external Societies of Men and to enure themselves to abstracted Operations of the Mind in order to the Cultivating of the Spirit which was the only Power that they thought capable of an Union with the Supreme Being This is that Philosophical Religion so much Celebrated by Plotinus Porphyry himself and Hierocles and several other of the later Philosophers Porphyry particularly was very much pleas'd with it as appears from his Sentences and his Books de Abstinentiâ but especially from his Epistle to Anebo where he does by these Principles undermine all Obligation to the Externals of the Heathen as well Ap. Jambli de myst Egypt Porphy vit Plotin as the Christian Religion This put him on Starving himself in his Lilybaean Retirement if his Master Plotinus whom he follow'd in these Opinions had not reclaim'd him This seems to be the Original of all that Enthusiasm that has decry'd the external Ordinances and Sacraments even of Christ himself upon Pretences to greater Perfection and several Fancies of the old Monks relating this way in Anastasius Sinaita of the Popish Mystical Divinity and Quietism of the Familists and Quakers of the Bourignonists and Philadelphians c. It is strange our Presóyterian Adversaries who dislike these Consequences in others so destructive of their own Discipline are notwithstanding insensible of the advantage they have given to others of justifying Separation from themselves by these Pretences of the Spiritual Nature of the Evangelical Worship by which themselves defended their own Separation from their own Superiours This might at least have warned them to a more accurate Examination of the Principle when they found they could not justifie the Consequences which followed from it For us it is abundantly sufficient that this Doctrine tho' taught by the Adversaries of the Apostles Age was notwithstanding perfectly different from the Sense of the Apostolical Church it self The Hereticks by this means evaded the Resurrection of the Body pretending the Resurrection promis'd was already past in their mystical Resurrection
those that are Eucharistical and such all ours are now but were not so in the Days of the Apostles And the use of Hymns neither is nor can be denied by our Adversaries as well in the private Synaxes of the Apostolical Christians as in the Worship of the Temple The Hymn to Christ as a God in Pliny appeal'd to in the latter end of the second Pli. l. x. Ep. 97. Century as a very early evidence of the belief of his Deity seems to have been joined with the Eucharist For Pliny tells us on the same occasion of the Covenant the Christians entred into against all the liberties us'd by wicked Persons And the publick Singers are mention'd in the earliest distinct Accounts we have of their Offices not as newly introduc'd but as actually obtaining without any memory of a late Original Had the reasons of the things been all that had been requisite for raising of the Affections I cannot conceive any need our Adversaries can pretend for Singing That does no otherwise contribute to the raising of the Affections than as the assistance and Improvement of the Imagination may be supposed to contribute to it The Singing does not add a new Reason nor improve the old ones why the Affections should be raised But however they do dispose the Affections to follow Reason more readily and more vigorously than they would if they had not the assistance of a favourable Imagination and that by the Nature of the things themselves and in that regard Musick Instrumental also was acknowledged to have the same influence that Singing had by the Imagination over the Affections and to add to the advantages of Singing Vocally So it was that David's playing on the Harp cured Saul of the evil Spirit by curing that Melancholy which disposed him to receive the Influences of the evil Spirit So it was that the like use of Instrumental Musick dispos'd Elisha for the Influences of the good Spirit by composing that Passion which his Zeal against the Idolatry of the King of Israel had put the Prophet into it made him capable of being acted by the Spirit of Prophesy For chearfulness of Temper is one of the Dispositions required by the Rabinical Jews themselves for fitting Men for Prophesie That may possibly be the Reason why the Scriptures mention Instrumental Musick as receiv'd in the Schools of the Prophets especially when they were actually Prophesying as it should seem 1 Sam. x. 5. 1 Chr. xxv 1. to dispose them for the freer Influences of the Divine Spirit The Singing Hymns to such Instruments is call'd Prophesying in the places now mention'd So far the nature of the Spiritual Worship of the Gospel is from superseding this assistance of Instrumental Musick as our Adversaries would have us believe that on the contrary it contributed to it if we would rather believe the Scriptures and the actual Opinions of the sacred Writers So Miriam Prophesied with a Timbrel the Instrument most us'd by Women So Samuel's Disciples the Sons of the Prophets the Candidate expectants of that sacred Gift They also Prophesie with a Psaltery a Tabret and a Harp and a Pipe So the ordinary Officers in the Jewish Liturgicks were to Prophesie with Harps and Psalteries and Cymbals according to the order of King David 1 Chr. xxv 1 2. And Jeduthun is said to Prophecy with a Harp to give Thanks and to Praise the Lord v. 3. Why should we therefore think it strange that the Church of Jerusalem in the Revelations should be represented Rev. v. 8. xiv 2. xv 2. Harping with the Harps of God We see it was the proper Employment of Prophets according to the sense of the sacred Writers that is of those wherein that Church of Jerusalem did so much abound How could those Sacred Writers judge Instrumental Musick improper for a Spiritual Dispensation when they thought it so useful in an ordinary way to dispose Men for the receiving the Spirit of Prophecy IF our Adversaries would learn from XI The Benefit of Musick in Holy Offices thought natural and not ascrib'd to any extraordinary Providence the Scriptures they should reason from the Opinions received in the Ages of the Sacred Writers rather than from prejudices imbib'd from Modern Systems That would be the way to reason as they did then and the best expedient for finding the Sense of them who were us'd to that way of Reasoning They pretend that all the efficacy of Instrumental Musick then was due to a particular Interposition of God seconding his own Institution Had the Institution been singular and different from the Customs of other Religions or the event other than what would have been expected according to the opinions then receiv'd among those who had no regard to the Mosaical Institution there had been indeed some pretence for ascribing the Benefit rather to the extraordinary Interposition of God than to the Natures of the things themselves The jealous God who will not give his Glory to another makes choice of the most unlikely means in the opinions of those with whom he has to deal when he designs to challenge the Glory of the event entirely to himself So it was when he was pleas'd to restore the Sight of him that was born Blind by anointing his Eyes with Clay So when Naaman was to be Cured of his Leaprode by Washing in Jordan rather than in Abana and Pharpar the Rivers of his own Country So when he reduc'd the Numbers of Gideon's Army from many Thousands to 300. Here on the contrary those very means are us'd which even the Heathens themselves had agreed on as most naturally conducive to the same end and which least needed an extraordinary Interposition of Providence in the Opinions of those who were to use them It was easy to foresee that they would ascribe the event to the natural Course of second Causes themselves and that in the way of reasoning suited to their Capacities they would also think they had reason to do so and that Gd intended they should do so whilst he signified nothing to the contrary And therefore God must have indeed intended they should think so if he did at all intend they should understand him rightly And who can think Sauls Servants particularly inspired when they recommended a Musician to their Master as an expedient against the Ailings caused by the evil Spirit The reason in all likelihood why they recommended it was because they knew it a likely Cure of Melancholy and they believed withal that when the Melancholy was cured the evil Spirit who was confin'd to Rules could not exercise his Malignity on a subject indisposed to receive his Influences This is a plain Account how the thing might be done in their Opinions by Instrumental Musick as an ordinary means without any pretence to Revelation which they neither did nor had any reason to pretend to The like Account seems most probable of the Case of Elisha when he also made use of Instrumental Musick
for disposing himself to receive the Spirit of Prophecy He pretends no Revelation for it nor indeed could he do so if he was yet indispos'd for it till he had us'd the remedy of Musick For if he had been capable of Inspiration without the use of Musick he might as easily have answered the principal Question demanded of him as have used one Revelation for an expedient to qualify him for a second But it has appeared that the practice was already received in the Schools of the Prophets which might easily put Elisha in mind of it when he found his case required it And for its being receiv'd in those Schools no divine Revelation is that I know so much as pretended The most likely original therefore is its natural conduciveness to dispose the Mind for being acted by Prophetick Inspirations The Heathens used it for that end purely on account of its natural usefulness for that purpose The Priests of Cybele the Galli advanc'd their Enthusiasm by the use of Cymbals So did the Bacchae in the Rites of Bacchus who for the time were transported besides themselves and knew not what they did so absolutely they were under the power of that emotion of Mind which they believed Prophetick They brought themselves to that Condition among other means by this also of Instrumental Musick The Passage of Nero ridicul'd by Persius is famous to this purpose Torva Mimalloneis implerunt cornua bombis To the same purpose I conceive may be referr'd those Passages of the New Testament that require our rejoicing always that forbid our grieving as well as quenching of the Holy Spirit that require perfect Concord between married Persons that their Prayers might not be hindred By all these things it appears that in the received Opinions of those Ages Cheerfulness of Temper was thought to dispose for the Influences of the good Spirit and Melancholy for the Influences of the evil one and that Musick Instrumental as well as Vocal contributed to promote that Cheerfulness and to remove that Melancholy These Opinions being supposed and alluded to in the Scriptures ought therefore to be taken for the measures of Interpreting them And what is there in this Hypothesis that can in Reason be suppos'd Temporary Can we suppose God to have made new Rules for the Influences of the two Spirits now that were not in the Age of the Apostles Or supposing the Rules the same Can we suppose any Change in the Nature of Instrumental Musick that may now make it unuseful for those very same ends for which it was then believ'd so very Advantageous OUR Adversaries who have been always XII The Influences of Good and Evil Spirits upon Man such as may be promoted or obstructed by Instrumental Musick more intent on the Words than the Reasonings of the Scriptures have not I think so well consider'd the Rules of Providence by which both Spirits are confin'd in Acting upon Mankind The rather because they are rather supposed than delivered in express Terms But God does not deal with Mankind Arbitrarily nor suffer Spirits to Influence him otherwise than may be consistent with that Free will that he has given him in order to the making him capable of Rewards and Punishments and of Political Government That the good Spirit suggests good Thoughts and that the evil Spirit tempts by injecting evil ones is undoubtedly supposed in the Scriptures But the manner how this is done is not so clearly Explain'd Yet it is certain that neither of them do it to the uttermost of their Natural Power The Holy Spirit being Omnipotent could do more Good and the Evil Spirit tho' Finite yet being so much Superiour to Man could do more Mischief than we see is done by them They might assume Bodily Shapes and propose their Arguments as visibly to us as we do to one another But this is not the way of Conversation observ'd They might impress Ideas immediately upon our Imagination if God had been pleased it should have been so But that had been too great an Imposition upon our Humane Liberty As for that immediate Conversation with them which separated Spirits have with each other of that we are incapable whilst we our selves are in Bodies Even our superiour Soul uses the Imagination and is incapable of framing any distinct Ideas of things that are not Material The way therefore remaining how Spirits may Influence us without violence to our Liberties is by their Exciting or Compounding Ideas already in us on fit Occasions when external Objects are before us that may Invite us to what is Good or Insnare us to what is Evil. So the Inspiration of the Good Spirit is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a putting us in Mind of what we knew before on the Season wherein we are to Practice For the adapting Thoughts to the Seasons of Practice is that upon which the Event does principally depend This therefore the Good Spirit may do undoubtedly as well in Ideas of the Understanding as of the Material Faculties And there was no sort of Prophecy wherein both sorts of Faculties were not concern'd Prophetick Dreams had their principal Scene in the Imagination Prophetick Visions not only there but also perhaps in the External Senses The Bath Col. was to the Sense of Hearing Even the Mosaick Degree of Prophecy was a Conversation with the Deity under a sensible Representation tho' not of any particular living Creature that might have been Represented by an Image The Jews therefore do reasonably require in him who would be dispos'd for the Spirit of Prophecy a lively Imagination as well as a good Understanding So that no good Man who wants either of them is by his Goodness alone dispos'd as is requsite for receiving the Gift of Prophecy But the Imagination requisite for the Influences of the Good Spirit was such as was Calm and Sedate free from tumultuous Passions and ungovernable Fancies and consistent with the most accurate use of Reasoning This therefore was the Reason why the first Christians imputed the Heathen Divinations of the Pythiae the Sibyls the Bacchae c. rather to Enthusiasm and malignant Spirits than to a Gift of truly Divine Prophecy because of the Brutish Transports and indecent undisciplin'd Behaviour into which those Persons were driven when they surrendred themselves to the Conduct of those pretended Deities And what difficulty is there why grave and grateful Tunes of Instrumental as well as Vocal Musick might not contribute to the allaying the Passions and to invigorate the Imagination to such a degree as would still be consistent with Decorum and perfect Subjection to the Nobler Faculties which this Divine Principle kept in possession of their Native Right of Government On the other side the Evil Spirits were not believed in the Apostles Days so pure from Matter as they have been since the modern Aristotelean Philosophy received at Second-hand from the Spanish Arabians has prevail'd It was rather the Grossness of their Aërial Cloathing that was then thought