Heaven if I understand the word nor that reason can demonstrate what God is though it may tell us what God is not And therefore I think reason may be as well too blame for marching too far or soaring too high for its learning or knowledg as sitting quite still or groveling on the earth and permitting the imagination to introduce what forms of a Deity will or best may gratify any the most predominant present affection an habit which has been too much in fashion of late and now a little withdrawing makes way for the other excess I may have said too much my self in this little it has exceeded my original intent and purpose yet this further I must say and begg your pardon and others who shall chance to see it if I say amiss that my wishes are we may all in this great concern carefully avoid extreams and that as we do not set up such a God by faith as reason is able daily to confront so we set not up such a God by reason as there needs no faith to lay hold on For my weak opinion is nay my present resolution is As never wholly to desert my reason for the adoration of any God So never to adore any thing for God my reason is able fully to comprehend EPIST. II. Wherein he treats of the cause of Action or Motion under the notion of Spirit and endeavours to shew our often mistakes in applying our thoughts and actions to the operation of that Spirit of truth in us which though good in themselves may proceed from other cause and advises to solitude at particular seasons as the most ready and likely way to behold in some degree the light of truth BEcause Soul or Spirit hath been heretofore at special seasons the subject of my thoughts and because there are many amongst us who would seem to have great knowledge of a Deity and may be thought too familiar with God under a colour or pretence of being daily enlightened with his Holy Spirit affirming its constant working in them And others quite Aliens and strangers to God not barely by their life and conversation but by their outward profession too and who deny in words as much or more than in the deeds that there is any such thing as a Spirit which in St. Iohn our Saviour tells us God is and that what we term Spirit is a mere Chimaera fansied in our brains Both which kind of persons being equally to modest Society and civil conversation and I may say enemies to true Religion I have adventured with all submission to your more weighty thoughts and solid judgement to present you with my sometimes opinion in reference to what we most properly and peculiarly term Spirit and wherein I say ought in relation to that Spirit of truth I humbly implore its aid that nothing escape my Pen which may in any wise if seen lead others into error or in the least diminish the goodness power glory might Majesty c. dominion of the Almighty First I have thought and do think That we can not rationally attribute or impute the cause of any action or motion whatsoever to ought else than somewhat which we in no wise able to comprehend by our sense term or call a Spirit and that without some such thing the world were an insignificant Lump That from such thing all things live and move and have their being is not to be doubted whether we call it Nature or ought else This Spirit gone forth or sent into the visible world which now has visible effects as I take it to be some emission of that Eternal spirit at the Creation from the Word so I think it generally worketh unknown to its self the will of that Eternal Spirit neither can it cease of it self to work but if re-assumed or gathered again as is expressed in Iob all flesh would perish together c. And that all flesh and all other things Sun Moon c. do not perish is the work of Gods ordinary I trust I may so call it Providence the confirmation Seal of his Creation Such vivifying Spirit as this which men may call nature if they please is gone out into the world and shall continue working every where no doubt until the appointed end of the world yet not apprehensive of its being nor capable of understanding in the least to what end it works may probably cease to work after the manner it now worketh And this kind of Spirit receives no new influence nor seems capable of any new influence from above yet is ordered by what we call Providence But where there is any Spirit conscious of its own working and in some measure capable to conceive from whence it is or at least desirous to enquire after or know the original of its being that Spirit seems to me to be some special emission more than ordinary at the beginning or Creation of the visible world to be of duration and continuance A thing now as it were subsisting of it self and which vanishes not nor can vanish or will be re-assumed again But being as I may say the very Spirit or breath of the Almighty and able to look back towards its original and fountain is capable of some new influence and as I may say regeneration and such is the Spirit of man And therefore we in no wise deny but that the Spirit of man may receive some new light for its motion otherwise than barely and simply by sense the Organ of the body And that no other though intellectual Spirit inferiour thereto can so do or is capable so to do Now of created Spirits superiour to our selves or of greater capacity in point of intellect than our selves as I read or hear of none save Angels created all good as well as we so I cannot conceive that any created or circumscribed Spirit from any power of it self to intermix it self with our Spirit or so move in us as that it may be properly said we are possessed with any other Spirit than our own and therefore 't is most properly said When we are tempted we are drawn away of our own lusts Though I confess I think objects may be brought by the assistance of some such spirit and laid down before our senses or presented to our fancy whereby our lust may seem to begin to move though indeed our lusts be the original of our error But forasmuch as our own spirit is some image of and has its being from the Almighty that is one eternal all powerful spirit it being capable by its reason for no otherwise 't is so to distinguish between good and evil in some measure and to know the will of that almighty One It doubtless may be and is capable also not only to have its reason enlightned from thence but to receive some such new accession of light as that it may not only have a clearer sight of that bountiful Creator than reason is able to afford it but be
seats and cells fit for its proper work and operation towards the conservation of that body whereof it is a more refined part as necessary and requisite thereto and without which we cannot so much as imagine it were capable to have duration and continuance in that form it is But yet withal no ways comprehending or desiring any matter or thing further than in relation to the sustentation or preservation of the same body And therefore for such a Soul or Spirit to perish with the body and to resolve again into its first elements is not altogether incongruous to our reason And we may I think further conjecture in reason that though for his pleasure all things are and were created Yet he being worthy to receive glory and honour voluntary from some terrestrial creature For whose sake next and immediately after his own Glory and Honour it may seem to us all others were made He might endow the most excellent of his terrestrial creatures us men with such a spirit as might not only have some glimmering light of him here but might have continuance to magnify him for ever when the Earth and Heavens should be no more Yet herein again I must acknowledge that the thoughts of the immortality of our soul are more apt and ready to encounter and stagger our reason than the mortality or vanishing of that of Brutes Since we are not able with reason to imagine but that as I have already said in my Treatise de Anima whatsoever thing had a beginning may or will have an end and that there is nothing Eternal but God alone the Maker and Creator of all things out of nothing And therefore there is no perfect Medicine to cure those reeling cogitations of ours about our immortality but Gods promise in his Holy Word with his special grace to believe it to be his Word Nor any thing else to strengthen us therein more than some specifick and not barely gradual difference to be found out and espied between our Spirit and that of Beasts That is some acts or thoughts of man even extra-corporeal or peculiar to a soul or Spirit wholly separate and disjoined from a body and which indeed are no ways discernable in the wisest Animal whereof I have made some mention in my Treatise de Anima and which seriously and duely weighed and considered I leave to the World to judge of and shall repeat nothing of it here in relation to our present subject only or chiefly now inquiring about their Mortality or Immortality without questioning our own There are indeed many and various different kinds of operation between the soul of Beast and that of us in many things as not only sufficiently distinguish us without appropriating to our selves and wholly ingrossing the word rational but seem plainly to demonstrate their Soul rather essential with the Body and a peculiar substance of the body than ours and therefore more probably terminating in and with the body some whereof having now and then occurred to my thoughts and drawn my reason to accept and allow thereof I here present you and submit the weight and consequent thereof to your more serious or solid judgement though they have already somewhat prevailed over mine to conclude the Spirit of Beast though an admirable work in nature to be a thing only temporary and fading or mortal There is in all living Creatures whatever not humane either immediately upon their first being and motion or so soon as there is any vigorous bodily strength for motion a perfect clear and evident apparency of that intellect they at any time have or enjoy as a special present attendant of their being and subsistence And whatever Adages we have of a cunning old Fox or proverbial interdiction of catching old Birds with chaff I could never yet discern but that the young Fox or the young Hawk had the same compleat stratagems to preserve themselves as the old and that if they sooner fall as a prey to the Dog 't is want of strength rather then subtilty The Kitling sure needs no instruction to catch a Mouse with a kind of cunning watchfulness as soon as it hath strength and the young Bird makes her nest with as much curious art as the old one And what is somewhat wonderful most creatures at their first production into the world are able to distinguish sounds and capable to understand the very language of their kind I have observed a very young Lamb to distinguish the bleating of its Dam from twenty other doing the like almost at the same instant and to move at her bleat only and not otherwise 'T is observable in Fowls and I have taken more special notice of it in the Turky that whereas they use three or four several notes or tones to their young ones one of allurement for food another of attraction for covering with their wings a third for progression or motion along with them when they move a fourth of admiration and wonder or warning to preserve themselves upon apprehension of danger and approach of Birds of prey they have within an hour or two after they have been brought forth apprehended the differences of these several tones and readily observed the old one's dictates Especially it would almost amaze one to behold these little things of an hour or two old upon that alarm of danger how instantly they will couch down and approach the next covert to hide themselves Nay many of these Creatures need little of document from their Parents or Dams or yet our Mistress experience there being in them a Native intellectual perception as I may say of every special and more peculiar destructive nature or quality towards them in as much as we may observe Birds taken out of the Nest never so young and bred up in a Cage shall upon the first sight of an Hawk or other Bird of Prey brought into the room presently by their fluttering and otherwise discover a kind of knowledge of some approaching danger or adstant peril which upon the sight of any other Fowl or Beast they will not Whereas most probably or undoubtedly rather to a man brought up in a Have or otherwise never beholding before any creature save humane A Lyon and a Calf would prove equally terrible upon their first approach And whereas there are many Herbs Plants and Insects too of a poysonous nature and of an absolute destructive quality to Man and Beast if received into the body for food What creature is there to be found young or old except man not able by sense or otherwise to distinguish between what is agreeable and what destructive to his nature and will at all times most certainly avoid and reject the latter unless by man inserted or intermixt with some food agreeable to its nature We see many of these brute creatures even Physicians to themselves and all of them naturally avoiding such of the Elements as are destructive to them Let a Duck hatch Chickens trial whereof
Air and the Fishes of the Sea too and so far as we can discern we find them agree in their desires and delights with one another of the same species They have each their particular Food and rest contented satisfied and pleased therewith during their whole course of nature 'T is not with them as with us what one loves another loathes 'T would be a difficult matter to find an hungry Ox that would refuse Hay either when he is young or old A man may well ask Iob's question Doth the wild Ass bray when he hath grass or loweth the Ox over his fodder 't is man doth only that or the like when he hath what his fleshly heart can desire The Beasts are more constant and content and their Soul seems settled and the inhabitant of its proper Region they neither fear nor joy in excess their choices and elections are still alike and every Cock like Aesop's Cock will yet to this day prefer the Barley-corn before a Jewel though amongst men some prefer the one and some the other I speak thus much for this cause only that viewing the Soul of man in its very inferiour faculties and finding it so various and disagreeing so little at a stay or at rest so fighting and combating so snatching and catching at it knows not what things neither useful nor profitable for the body or the mind it somewhat convinces me 't is a thing very capacious and that there is a place of fulness of joy or fulness of sorrow for it hereafter SECT VI. The Immortality of the Soul of man illustrated from the difference thereof between Parents and Children BEsides this some enquiry might be made into the different qualities of the Souls of men beyond those of Beasts in their ordinary workings though they inhabit or actuate Bodies which have their being from one and the same production For if the Soul of man were the ordinary work of Nature only a fine rarified vigorous quality in the Bloud Man receiving his body from his Parents by the ordinary course of Nature as other creatures do his Soul would always somewhat resemble that of his Parents too and Brethren twins especially would resemble one another in the faculties of their Souls as well as 't is often seen they do many ways in the Body But there is generally found as between Iacob and Esau such dissimilitude in the Spirits of Brethren and those of Father and Son Mother and Daughter as greater is not to be found between meer strangers in bloud which thing daily experience will not only demonstrate upon search but may be readily found in the Histories of Princes in all Ages Now the Soul of Beast being the bare product of flesh only and necessarily taking its rise and essence from the substance of its Parents if I may so call them for the word may be proper enough pario being only to bring forth or produce never varies much or altogether at any time from that of the Parent We shall never find an absolute Jadish Spirit in a Horse begot from free and well-bred ones nor a meer Curr from right good Hounds no not in one of his senses the Nose or smell But if in any case they excell or degenerate from their Stock 't is by degrees and not per saltum which thing per saltum may be found and observed in the Race of men And besides this variation of the Souls of men from Birth there sometimes happens on the sudden a strange kind of total Metamorphosis of the Soul of man so as one would scarce adjudge it the same but according to Scripture phrase that one becomes a new man and this without any alteration at all of the Bodies constitution Now if the Soul of man were not a substance of it self capable to be wrought on ab extra by somewhat without any introduction by the senses then no such alteration without the Bodies alteration could be made but through the senses and if such alteration were made from sense through the Organs of the Body then upon the shortest obstruction or letting in of prior forms again the Soul would consequently return to its pristine state according to that simile of the dog to his vomit c. which change or alteration in the Soul of man we see sometimes settled and remaining notwithstanding all interposition during a long following life Thus we find that men have utterly contemned and hated without any offence raised from the thing it self even with a perfect hatred that which was formerly their delight which kind of hatred never yet happened or was discernible in Beast Now if any man shall ask me At what time the Soul of man being a substance of it self distinct from the Body enters and possesses the Body I can make him a reply with as difficult a question At what instant doth this other arising product Soul from the Bloud begin its circulation and move If we know neither why should it seem more wonderful and strange to us for the God of Nature upon man's conception in the womb to create and have ordained a Spirit to actuate that conception which Spirit should continue for ever notwithstanding that conception should decay and perish for a time as well as that there should arise a Spirit from the Bloud to actuate move and govern the Body for a certain period of time which time we could never define certainly from any course of Nature And further that the wise Creator and Governour of all things should ordain that if the first created Spirit to inhabit a Body both together being Man should wander in disobedience from its Creator all others sent and entring into Bodies product from the Loyns of the first Body should be infected with the same wandring disease and have no cure but by Grace from the first Creator But I would not wander too much my self nor desire to pry into any of God's secrets further than he has thought fit to reveal by his Holy Word and so shall lay aside my thoughts of the manner of Man's creation every way wonderful as the Psalmist expresses it as also the consideration of the inferiour faculties for the present and try and see if there be not some sparks in the Soul of man which give such a light as can by no means naturally arise from any thing barely and simply terrestrial SECT VII The Immortality of the Soul of man illustrated from its unweariedness in searching c. and its reflex acts and operations WHy has the Soul of man in all Ages when it has been at any time withdrawn from that quick intromission of worldly objects by the senses and has not been hindred or obstructed by some mists fogs or lets of the flesh wherein at present 't is confined to work hunted after wearied and tired it self to find out and comprehend what it is not able to comprehend The first sin of man shewed at once the Soul's error and its
less than the quick and violent agitation of some Divine flame thawing all the vital parts and drawing the moisture through the chief and clearest Organ of the body the Eye and not to be caused by any thing which is part of it self I do agree that every living Soul whether arising from the Body or by a greater Divine gift infused into or sent to actuate a Body has equally in either some influence upon the visible Body and according as the affections with the imagination are moved worketh visible effects therein and that Man and Beast such as have their parts similar may and do equally tremble for fear and the like But yet as to this kind of motion or extasie mentioned that is weeping for I know not how to term that or laughter either a passion but both strange attendants or consequents of some kind of passions I cannot adjudge it to arise from the acceptance of a bare representation of an offensive object through sense but by some inward distinct conception of a Soul as of it self though at the same time agitated or rouzed by passion For if it were from the first barely then the same effect could never proceed from any pleasing object the contrary whereof we find and men to weep as well upon the predominancy of joy in the Soul as sorrow nay weeping is a concomitant often of a weak anger which not able otherwise to satiate or satisfie it self has this help to vanish and resolve into tears as may be observed in Women and Children Now tears being the attendant the effect as may seem to some of clean contrary passions such as joy and sorrow are they cannot really be the proper and bare effect of any passion nor the sole work of any such Spirit as is no other than the refined and most curious part of the Bloud For that were able to cause only different effects upon different occasions or representations and still the same effect upon the same occasion so far forth as we are able to look into the ordinary works of Nature Indeed salt brackish and chrystal tears flowing in that abundance as at some time is to be seen would puzzle the most learned Physician as well as a Poet to alledge a right fountain as well as a cause and wonder in searching after the original Spring-head of them in the Body If I should alledge or affirm Laughter to be some denotation or demonstration of a pure intellectual Spirit separable from a Body and no ways arising from any other single or primary cause then such I hope I should not incur the censure or become the subject of laughter to all men though I might to some By Laughter I do not mean a bare dilatation or contraction of the mouth or lips and other parts of the face such a kind of grinning as is incident to Apes and no less to Dogs and such as in the latter we term fawning a kind of habit or faculty some men take up for peculiar purposes as seeming pleased with others actions and sensible of some such involuntary motion voluntarily counterfeit one nor yet any agitation of the lungs with expulsion of breath and other odd motions of the Body in others whereby perhaps they would seem to please themselves But I mean an absolute involuntary motion upon some sudden slight pleasing touch of the Spirits by some bare conception in the intellect different in notion from what is represented by the senses It is a thing that differs much from true joy and is often extorted from men in their greatest griefs and sometimes tortures of Body as is storied of that Villain who murthered the Prince of Orange that in the midst of his pains and while he was tormented with burning Pincers for a confession laughed at the fall of a number of Spectators from a Scaffold It is one of the first unnecessary as I may say motions in Infants it is incident to wise men as well as foolish and old as well as young though not in the same measure or degree and is and happens sometimes as well sleeping as waking Now I do take it to arise properly and peculiarly from the intellect's judging on the sudden though that Judgment is not always aright of somewhat of folly lapse or oversight in a rational creature or some ill or shrewd turn happening thereupon which from prudence might have been prevented and have been done or acted otherwise and I do not judge it to arise unless we will allow something of voluntariness in it after the manner I spake before upon any sight or action proceeding from an irrational or brute creature Therefore I do think that I my self should not with Crassus the Grandfather of Marcus that wealthy Roman as is so storied of him and that he never laughed but that once have laughed at the beholding an Ass eating of Thistles I think the Beast does it with a great deal of Art to save the pricking of his mouth but had I seen a man smelling on a Thistle to gratifie that sense and thereby in pricking his Nose much more offended another I do think I should have laughed Now though laughter be a thing more incident to the Fool than the Wise whose clearer Judgment is best able to correct its rise yet it proceeds from apprehension of the intellect ready to judge at all turns and quickest often in that notion when weakest and may denote at once some kind of inherent wisdom together with folly or frenzy in man that we being created to act most regularly and prudently from a disturbed intellect become often the most giddily erring and foolishest of creatures so as if Solomon said of mirth what doth it he might well say of laughter It is mad As for Speech which is a power or ability the Soul has so to move the Tongue and other Organs of the Body that from thence shall result such a modulation of the Air that each rational Soul from an articulate voice might apprehend others meaning and intent This formation of words made to be the Idea of the mind appears not nor could ever break out from the earthly extracted Soul of other creatures not that there is any absolute defect in their Organs for then no other Spirit could frame an articulate voice by them and we must deny the Devil 's speaking in the Serpent and some other Spirit for a time in Balaam's Beast for they have curious and admirable Notes and some of them have framed as plain a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with many other words as man can utter which has been a resultance from the ear when they were taught but no Index of the mind This gift and power of Speech I say is the chief outward livery badge or cognizance of the Soul by which Mankind is distinguished from and hath the advantage of all other creatures Brutes do indeed fellow together and apprehend and if I may so say understand one another by signs
and inarticulate voices And so we find Trade and Commerce maintained betwixt us and the Indians and that Mutes do act and understand by signs to admiration But whatever faculty is in the Beasts or whatever necessity may have taught and brought Men to that could not converse by words yet all the dumb signs in the World though managed to the best advantage can never equal the benefit we enjoy by Speech when we can thereby communicate our thoughts and maintain converse with freedom ease and pleasure This indeed is the Soul and life of Society and by the means of which we do as much exceed the other creatures in the happiness of it as in the principle that guides it which is our Reason We often abuse this Heavenly gift as other noble faculties of our Soul and not only say in our hearts that is silently by our actions but some of us in our tongues and by our Pens That there is no such thing as an Immortal Soul in man but 't is a Chimaera first forged in some melancholick brain and by consequence that there is no God For I must agree that if it can be made out that the World is a fortuitous juggling of Atoms and our Souls are only a natural fine product from thence and to vanish again with our Bodies Nature as we call it and term it is no such revengeful Deity that we need fear the disobeying of her private dictates but may safely challenge our tongues for our own and say Who is Lord over them But surely we must want sense to let in so many various works of Nature into our Souls view or any thing of reason to consider or judge of them after they are let in or else we should be convinced from the wise disposition thereof that there is somewhat more than chance and that Nature it self which is but a Law made by God to work by has dependance upon some infinite eternal wise Being call it some men what they please which we call God And for our Souls immortality the seeds thereof sown in our hearts and arising now and then in every one into doubts and fears if not more must be strangely trampled on by some evil one who is willing to let self-valuation in man grow as rank as may be in any case but this of the Souls immortality when all besides it is vanity Otherwise man of himself would never so undervalue his own Original and instead of revering himself an excellent old precept of the Philosopher as if there were some petty Deity within him unman himself become in a wrong sense poor in Spirit for so we may well think that Spirit is which has its rise and essence from the flesh only sully the Word of God with his own and falsly conclude in generalities from particulars that what befalleth man befalleth beasts as the one dieth so dieth the other that they have all one breath and that man hath no preheminence above a beast All go to one place all are of the dust and all turn to dust again And some have been so afraid of living hereafter and so desirous surely of companions to die with them like Beasts that in their Writings and Arguments for their vanishing or vanity I have seen the words of the following verse misplaccd for their purpose and instead of Who knoweth the Spirit of man that goeth upward and the Spirit of beast that goeth downward to the Earth by changing that which was an affirmation of the place whither the Spirit goeth though an interrogation of the knowledge of the Spirit what it is which I say indeed is difficult into an interrogation they have set it down thus Who knoweth that the Spirit of man goeth upward c. as if allowing these words for Apocrypha God created man to be immortal and made him to be an image of his own Eternity the wise man in the following chapter where he expresly says Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it had quite forgot what he said before whose meaning there in comparing Man and Beast together and concluding a like end to both no sober man ever thought to extend further than their Bodies For he begins There is a time to be born and a time to die our Bodies are born as theirs are nourished as theirs feel pain like theirs and die and rot as theirs and so shall continue no doubt till it shall please God at the last day to raise them again in incorruption And therefore all provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof whether in reference to a mans self or to his posterity that wise man found and held to be vanity and acknowledgeth it in his great works and buildings in his Vineyards Gardens and Orchards in his variety of Trees and Plants in his Pools of Water in his Villains and Cattel in his Riches and Power c. And upon his review as well as at first sight confirming our Saviours question What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole World c. he agrees there was no profit under the Sun of his labour which term or words under the Sun he often uses after and gives his reason besides the vexation of Spirit to our selves while we live here we know not whether we shall leave our labour to a wise man or a fool But if he had had any thoughts of our utter extinction after death he would not immediately in the following verse after he had proposed the question Who knoweth the Spirit of a man that goeth upward c. have said Who shall bring man to see what shall be after him which supposes an existence somewhere nor have concluded his Book with the fear of God and keeping his Commandments as the whole duty and proper labour of man telling us God shall bring every work into judgment whether good or evil if all were to be finished under the Sun But these men only at present are about to ratifie and make good the only thing that Solomon found which indeed he affirms with an Ecce as nothing else so sure That God had made man upright but they had sought out many inventions Were there not a possibility of that which seems a contradiction viz. that a man may sometimes as we say cum ratione insanire none would believe that a man should strive to argue and reason himself into nothing and yet this we find to proceed from otherwise very rational men and who would be angry at peculiar seasons if we should compare them to the Beast that perish and therefore let us beg of them and humbly intreat them to become fools with us and to consider and think whether so much as Desire of the remembrance and good opinion of others can be fixed and inherent in a material earthly substance necessarily and certainly to vanish again
any of the four things mentioned by Agur and I may confidently speak in the words of Solomon to any such diver As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit nor how the bones do grow in the womb so thou knowest not the work of God who maketh all 'T is not a thing I dare undertake to discover nor a thing I have absolutely desired to know But only to quiet and satisfie my self I have endeavoured to make some little search or enquiry which of the faculties of the Soul may seem a visum est only primary or most potent in operation not which in truth are for that shall never man certainly define And therefore let no man till he be able to find out himself the circulation of the Soul and the origine of that circulation and be assured to convince others in reason of that his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blame me of sloth or ignorance but allow me something of intellect if it be but in finding out my own defect therein And yet because I am willing in some degree to satisfie my self and others too but not wade herein further than some light from Scripture which I believe to be the true proper light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world may seem to direct and mark out I shall set down somewhat of my thoughts concerning the priority precedency or prevalency in the faculties of the Soul one before or above another Whereabout though I may seem to dissent from the received opinion and learning of the World and therein be exploded by some yet I trust and hope I shall in no wise wrench or screw that Sacred Word for my purpose nor much swerve from the true and genuine meaning of that which I alledge to be the principal if not the only ground of my opinion I am not able to find out any great ground of contest to arise between any faculties of the Soul for priority or precedency that is any dispute or question thereabout unless between the Imagination and the Affections barely Now that which we call the Imagination or cogitation in the Soul of man we find to be an unconstant fluttering as well as a restless faculty which at no time can be found settled or made to fix long nay much or often upon any one single object unless some affection do first seem to draw it and set it on work and in a manner fasten it as its attendant for a time though then also it have some momentary flyings out and extravagancies And though it be a thing undeniable that the imagination may often move or rouze some affection which was quiet before yet it is a thing as undeniable that the imagination or cogitation never created or made any affection more than any affection ever created that for we must agree they are contemporary in the Soul and so neither hath the precedency But yet where one seems to work more often in obedience and to some ends and designs or safe lodging or pleasing of another we may allow that other some kind of excellency and so priority And this I am ready to afford to some affection lodged in the center of the Body or innermost place of recess for the Soul there secretly fixed by its Creator with some reason to direct and guide as well as imagination to whet it Indeed the imagination and the affections when they are orderly or regularly working if not at all times and seasons do whet and as it were give edge to each other but surely as the Love of God far exceeds the thoughts of him so the Soul being an emanation at first from that Spirit of Love Love of him may be said to be a cause of thoughts of him and that if the Soul were not naturally capable to love and tend some whither we could not so much as think Sense must be agreed while we live in the Body to be the chief though not the only inlet or Port to the Soul and that every object by and through sense has some touch in its entrance upon the imagination or else we shall make a strange Chimaera of the Soul But not barely resting upon sense we may allow some prior inherent quality upon which by sense the imagination may seem attendant and in subjection to And though at some times the imagination do appear as the usher of the affections yet the least affection once kindled and something there must be allowed to be kindled whether of it self bursting out into flame or however inflamed or kindled will often hale the thoughts to the object without any farther help of sense But many things are presented to the imagination by sense upon which no affection seems to stir or move that we are able to discern and thereupon we may allow the imagination's work or motion to be chiefly from something occult whatever use it sometimes makes of sense to which it is or may be in subjection and not prior but rather posterior SECT II. That it seems to be in the Affections rather then any other from Scripture THere is a common saying how true I know not that life is first and last in that part of man's Body which we call the Heart and it is generally agreed and believed and I find no reason to dissent much from that opinion that there is the principal seat of the affections and that That is the Cell wherein they chiefly move and work Now nothing is so much called upon in Scripture as the Affections nor any part of man's Body so often named as the Heart the chief and principal seat thereof as if that part were taken for the whole and the content for the contained and whole man Soul and Body were included in that one word Heart and no act or thought of man were significant without affection or did arise or work but from an affection I shall not in this place going about to shew some peculiar prerogative the affections seem to have over the other faculties of the Soul scrape up together and cite the multitude of Texts wherein God by his Prophets and Apostles seems to strike only at the root of the affections the Heart and call upon that particularly to be given him or inclined or bent towards him they are obvious enough and I believe a thousand such are readily to be found But I shall only mention some peculiar places occurring at present to my thoughts which seem to allow not only a native or dative power in the affections over the whole intellective faculty whether Imagination Memory or Reason but also some primary influence which they have upon them all or as if the other faculties had their rise or spring from them Thus generally whensoever the intellect is mentioned in Scripture it is coupled with the seat of the affections and taken for them as if from thence it rose and had its influence For if the very imagination had any motion of it self or by sense
led into the paths of truth and righteousness and become acquainted with his will And this we look upon as effected by his Holy Spirit through his Word one God blessed for ever Such new accession of light and such a blessed gift as this were the Writers of Holy Scripture no doubt endowed withal whose words and actions were in demonstration of the spirit and with power the effects whereof we have heard and beheld and felt in a great part of this visible world Now for that we have a promise this admirable strange effect in man shall not wholly cease but that God will be with us to the end of the world and we talk much now a days of the light of the Holy Spirit It may not be amiss since we have a caveat Not to believe every spirit and withall authority given us to try the spirits whether they are of God for every man to try his own spirit at least and see whether that of it self already sent be not the spirit only which he often mistakes and vouches for the immediate dictates of the Almighty and calls it a new light the spirit of God within him and so becomes a little too bold with the Almighty I am afraid it has in some men and that many a man has so little understood himself and less his Maker that he has mistaken the suddain and strange flashes of some kind of lightning from his own inherent affections for another spirit which feeding with conceit he has brought to such a flame in himself that at last his reason has given place and approved it to be something more than what is under its regiment or correction even the light of that spirit of truth whereas did a man by his reason keep a narrow watch over his affections it might observe every the most ordinary affection able to raise its peculiar spirit that is such a flame in the soul as with the assistance of the imagination shall hurry it with the body in obedience to it and force reason into a belief for the present that its motion is from the light of truth of which in time it may stand convinced to have been mislead and misguided We do not improperly call the product of that predominant affection in man Pride the spirit of pride and the consequent thereof the spirit of contradiction and these may be the spirits which for the present enthral our reason and make us believe better of our selves than others do of us and think God worketh in us immediately and of his gracious dispensation that which is effected by our own spirit through his most just and wise providence To exclude God that is One eternal omnipotent wise working spirit out of any action especially that which is good might prove of evil and dangerous consequence Yet since his way is in the sea his paths in the great waters and his footsteps are not known as is expressed We may be too presumptuous in being too confident of the knowledge of his present manner of working in our selves I do own it is he that hath endowed us all with an intellectual mind or Soul and given some of us that strength of reason which is in some measure capable to search after him and behold some of his ways and doubtless many of the heathen were not excluded from such a sight and he has enlightened others by his holy spirit to declare unto us his good will and pleasure which we call his Word And to others of us has he by that Holy spirit with which those holy Writers were inspired given grace to lay hold on that word and all the promises therein Notwithstanding which and a saving faith at the last we may not for the present safely challenge that good spirit of God to be the sole or chief guide of all our thoughts and actions for if it were so then were it impossible for us to err as I conceive which daily we do and grieve that Holy spirit as is expressed by which we are sealed to the day of redemption There are as I of my weakness am best able to conceive for I never saw or searched Writers on such subject either towards the enlightning or confirming me therein four more especial ways by which God worketh over us and in us 1. By his common and ordinary Providence 2. By his merciful Providence 3. By his liberal and bountiful Providence 4. By his Spirit His ordinary providence I call that which extends over all the works of his creation as well irrational as rational which though irrational bodies are no ways sensible of or its working yet has he therein an eye over them in their bodily preservation and feedeth the young ravens that call upon him And within this care or eye of his are we comprized too and no way excluded By his merciful providence I mean his withholding us from committing those enormous crimes to which we are prone by nature through the lusts of the flesh even against the very light of reason which thing perhaps you will term his common restraining grace and this he extends to Heathens as well as others as may be observed in the story of Abimelech and his withholding him from touching of Sarah By his liberal and bountiful providence I mean this That God having endowed our souls with that more than ordinary gift of reason by which we seem originally capable in some degree or measure to discern good from evil He more especially overlooks that gift of his and more especially worketh therein towards the enlightning thereof So that of his bounty and goodness alone it is that our humane reason is at any time brought to a clearer sight than ordinary of justice mercy temperance patience or the like and beholds the beauty thereof above their contraries whereby we imbrace them with our affections and this I hope I may without offence allow the name of his Common renewing grace to In which sence or notion if any shall alledge his capacity of coming to the knowledg of the present work of the spirit of God in him I mean not to contradict him because I behold every mans reason his rational soul to be in some sence the spirit of God which being enlightned from him a-new for the inclining the affections to imbrace that which is morally good we may more properly say then 'T is the spirit of God that worketh in us But many Heathens as well as Christians have doubtless in great measure participated of this grace for so I call it now it being from the mere good will and pleasure of God without any motive or inducement from man and owned the same to be his good work in them and yet never otherwise enlightned missed of the truth and could not be said to have any light from his Holy spirit but to err even to perdition notwithstanding the aforementioned grace I and justly to perish too For such is the wise just disposition
of our minds and consequently our actions by that Eternal Majesty from whose spirit David seems to infer we cannot well go that every man if there were not some default or neglect in him might receive the Seal of that other Spirit the Holy Ghost as we call it one God blessed for ever However in the end we shall all set forth his glory and if we miss of Eternal happiness we shall behold it so much our own fault as that we shall take upon our selves shame and confusion of face By Spirit which is the thing I conceive other men mean when they talk of their enlightning I mean something more than God's barely enlightning our reason or barely working through that His very light of truth above the reach of our reason viz. That Spirit which he has promised by his word to such as lay hold on that word by Faith and yet without which we cannot truly believe That Comforter co-equal and co-eternal with himself and with the word one God blessed for ever Which work in man by and from that good Spirit you ordinarily call as I suppose God's special renewing grace or his grace of Sanctification And truly if even words could be so laid open and plain to our capacity by you as that we might rightly distinguish things thereby 't were well and happy for us For certainly those three words Spirit Grace and Faith for want of distinguishing the true signification of each in the several places where they are found have caused many errors and begat no little disputes amongst us Now according to these several workings beforementioned do I think we may safely invocate the Divine Majesty For instance were I about to take a journy through some desart place frequented with Savage beasts or infested with Robbers or to pass some dangerous current I do believe I should invocate God in his Almighty power and providence over all his works to preserve me from bodily danger Were I about to resort to some place or company in which I suspected any allurement or enticement towards the committing of those facts I found my self most inclinable to by nature and which my reason had already judged of to be crimes or sins I do think I should beg of him in and through his goodness and mercy to lay some reine upon and over my Passion and withhold me from running into those snares to which I found my self most prone and more especially to keep me from presumptuous sins lest they should get the dominion over me Were I about to enter upon and execute some office or place wherein the good of others as well as my self might depend and which necessarily required a more than ordinary circumspection wisdom and prudence or foresight in the management Or were I about to deal with men in any action that might in my present opinion require the like I do then think I should implore him in and through his infinite wisdom to enlighten my understanding and reason that it might be profitable to others and that it become not clouded through any desire of gain or other passion whereby I should be hurried away to commit any unjust or unseemly action but that I might approve my self in the sight of all men discreet and righteous Were I about any present act whereupon I conceived my Eternal estate and well-being necessarily and consequently depended as whether I should go to Mass or suffer imprisonment and my reason had weighed both and could not well or readily determine I should earnestly beseech him through his infinite goodness and mercy to all mankind that believe in him to send the light of his Holy Spirit into my heart to direct and guide me therein Now in the first case were I preserved from imminent and apparent bodily danger I should readily without hesitation asscribe it to his mighty power who stilleth the rageing of the Sea and setteth bounds to the same saying hitherto shall thou pass and no further In the second case should I upon some consideration after find my self to have been as it were manacled or the course of my passion diverted by some unexpected accident so as I did not at that time perhaps what I would I should impute it to restrictive mercy which is always ready to withhold men from sinning against him In the third case should I not only receive applause from men but from some present comfort in my own heart be satisfied of my prudent and just managery of my affair I should readily impute it to his wisdom that giveth light and understanding to the simple But in the fourth and last case what ever Election I made although I owned my Election to be guided by God's good providence I durst not presume to say it was from his Holy Spirit though that might be for that it was or ought to be my reason which determined my Election in all appearance to my self It seems to me a matter of dangerous consequence to play with that fire and call for it down from Heaven upon any ordinary occasion or yet for a man to avouch its moving in himself almost upon any occasion But we have those of late days who in the decision of meaner points than those of Virginity and Marriage seem to exceed St. Paul and not only think but would seem to know in their determination thereof They have the Spirit of God These men I would undeceive if I were able or indeed any one whom I conceive to be in an error But first by the way give me leave to tell you without the least personal reflection on your self whom I never observed to go about to amuse men with strange notions but to inform their intellect in the plainest rational way you could for the introduction of truth This bold assertion of an habitual converse with God by his Holy Spirit has received I think if not its first rise and conception yet its strength and vigour from our Pulpits or little Pamphlets such I may call some of Godliness Where some men for want of force of argument and dint of reason to convince their Auditors or Readers of the falsity of the opinions of that Church they would they should desert and forsake have first endeavoured through strange mazes to elect and saint them in opinion and to quiet their reason often put them in mind of the promise of that Spirit to all Gods Elect and its light to lead them in the truth and by this means viz. other mens in estimation blowing strange notions into their heads has opinion in some men usurped the Chair of reason For I do not think that plain simple meaning men could ever of themselves or from barely reading of the Scriptures which condemns pride and every high thought have raised so good an opinon of themselves as to think they were led almost in all things by the very Spirit of God if they had not seen their teachers who we are ready to agree receive their
commission from thence too familiar with it Now whether this too often talking of the Spirit in Pulpits has been a feeding with milk or the same be not a thing of difficult digestion and may be of evil consequence if not well digested and whether they had not done much better only to have smoothed the way for the coming of that Spirit by instilling into men the principles of obedience justice and honesty and integrity of life and conversation than talk of its being and effects which are only known to God himself I leave to their Conscience that is their reason who have preached and do usually preach of it Such a salve there is as that of the Spirit to comfort us but if it be too often and ill applied it may cause a Lethargy in the soul rather than ought else And such a Sword there is as that of the Spirit to beat down our adversaries withall and indeed it may be said of it as that of Goliah There is none like it But if men be told of the force of that spiritual Sword and have not judgement to discern it They will be prone to catch up an imaginary one such a strange Weapon as they will be able to puzzle if not foile their very Masters with So as if God in his infinite and wonderful mercy prevent it not instead of a spiritual one every mans temporal Sword will be drawn against his brother at the last We have justly deserted without doubt that infallible Church with the head thereof for its strange arrogance of ingrossing the Holy Spirit and presumption that it cannot err But methinks it might be no imprudent caution or wariness in each of us particularly that we carry not about us every man a Pope as is said in our belly which will in time after some maturity if we take not good heed break forth and usurp the Chair with as great confidence as that whom at present we condemn and reject and at last for want of strength to defend it self yield the prerogative to and set up the old one again in his full power and strength Certainly did we believe some men enlightned or possessed after the manner they talk of averring as much a real presence of the Deity in themselves as the Papists do in the Sacrament we should adore them rather than the Host the adoration whereof we equally condemn and think gods were come down to us in the likeness of men And therein perhaps these kind of men would not blame us nor seem so angry as Paul and Barnabas with the men of Lycaonia Yet surely all men are men and of like passion with us And truly 't were to be wished 't were not the spirit of pride rather than ought else which makes some of us seem to our selves not like other men though we seem to thank God for it as well as that Pharisee The Scripture seems plain and I think there is no true Christian that ever questioned but that the very spirit of God that ever blessed third person in the Trinity may and does dwell in some men How else could a man constantly and cordially and pleasingly retain a belief of that thing which his reason is not able to comprehend nay that which it combates with and is sometimes ready to condemn since no belief can be without the consent of reason as I shall make plainly appear in another place and therefore my enquiry only is in relation to its effects Whether thereabout we do not often alledge that for its effect which is not its effect It is a dangerous thing we are told to sin against it and from that sin whatsoever it be good Lord preserve us Now this light of the Holy spirit and its special work in man further than that true faith with its necessary concomitants is certainly effected thereby No man in my opinion can have such an assurance of at this day as that he can safely and without danger avouch it in any particular cases of action or opinion to be his immediate present guide much less with ostentation challenge it for his peculiar and reject and condemn others as void of that true light For as without it I do believe there can be no true faith so too great a confidence in any man of its present infallible operation in him as to other matters which necessarily depend not thereon in some sign in my opinion that his faith is not true and such as it should be For surely he whose faith is such will daily and hourly pray for that enlightning grace and fear he has it not which he who seems assured of it neglects by consequence to do Saint Paul concerning spiritual gifts willing not to have us altogether ignorant and about to shew us that there are diversities of operations but it is the same God which worketh all in all Giveth us to understand that No man can say Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost which thing I do believe but yet I take his meaning there to be not a bare outward profession and confession by the tongue for surely there are many who have professed so much and uttered as much with a clear audible voice at that very instant they have intended to deceive and with a very intent to deceive which could never be the work of that good spirit of truth in them And therefore we cannot take his meaning there to be other than an intus dicens A cordial and total from the whole soul embracing and laying hold on that word by faith as the alone Saviour and so Lord of the whole world And this thing we cannot as of it self behold in any man He has given us to understand likewise in another place that there are fruits proceeding from the work of that spirit and enumerated some of them yet since no man now a days can or will I think pretend to any inmediate gift of discerning the spirits more than he can or will pretend to working of miracles prophecy divers kind of tongues without study and labour or the interpretation of tongues which Saint Paul has linked together in one verse and placed that gift of discerning the spirit in the very midst How shall we judge of the reality of those fruits otherwise than by our reason And therefore why do men talk to us so much of that blessed spirit and seem to take it unkindly we do not believe their works proceed from thence if at any time our reason as sometimes it do's inform and satisfy us they may be and often are without it Some of those fruits there mentioned by Saint Paul as temperance patience goodness c. have appeared much more real in many Heathen than some of us and yet our reason is not convinced that they proceeded from any thing more than that bountiful goodness of God in his providence over them nor until we have that special gift of discerning the spirits
the spirit of God worketh or should work in us As if we were as familiarly acquainted with that spirit as our own which few of us little regard much less understand that eternal that omnipotent that incomprehensible that dreadful spirit I may say for certainly no man can seriously exercise his thoughts thereabout without fear and trembling by whose breath we are as easily consumed as made therefore let us fear to be too bold with it Well! can it be any offence against that good spirit for a man to behold his own unworthiness to doubt or fear its absence or to question whether we mistake not some pleasing motion of our own spirit for it 'T is not the present comfort we receive from our cogitations nor yet our actions that is any infallible sign that we have thought or acted from that good spirit merely 'T is an infallible sign rather that we have not wilfully acted against the present superintendent of our own spirit our reason and that is the utmost we can be assured from thence I may mean well and please my self with the sincerity of my present cogitations in relation to this very subject of the spirit think I have spoken the words of truth and soberness yet it would be a strange presumption in me though I acknowledge the favourable assistance of a divine power in every good thought to affirm that good spirit more especially working in me unless I could be able to convince the world and rest assured too my self of the indubitable truth of that which I have said But that I do not I rather fear I have in many particulars thought amiss and surely he who has not that fear always moving in him is very arrogant and who has it must necessarily discard such high thoughts in himself at least he must keep them from reigning in him Have not many men thought they have done God good service in some action and yet repented them of the action Have not every of us now and then pleased our selves with beholding as we thought the light of some divine truth which upon second cogitations and second weighing we have rejected as our own false conceipt and seemed to be angry and vexed with our selves which is the chief ingredient of repentance for receiving or allowing such an opinion Now as it is impossible to err from the immediate light of that good spirit so I am confident God was never so unkind to any as to suffer any inward vexation of mind in relation to the embracing of that he immediately inclined the mind to by his Holy spirit And therefore let not some honest well-meaning men as doubtless there are many from the present comfort they receive of the integrity or innocency of their own heart be induced through that song of requiem as I have mentioned chanted to them from others to think that all that which they for the present verily believe is the demonstration of that spirit of truth dwelling in them There is a vast and wide difference between God's working in and through our spirit by his providence as I have mentioned and by his Holy spirit We may err by the first and those errors foreseen by him are ordered to his glory but never by the second nay give me leave to say as well as think we may wilfully sin by God's providence Not that he is the author of sin but by leaving us sometimes unto our selves he so after a manner as it were leads us into temptation which we are taught to pray against by one that well knew our infirmities in the flesh though he sinned not And therefore 't were well we mistake not the one for the other There is no man that I know so uncharitable to think any good meaning Christian man wholly devoid of that good spirit But wishes that from thence he may in due time have a clear sight of the truth A thing at present very remote from the prospect of the best or wisest of us Let him be but so charitable to himself as to wish the same We have our desire He lays aside his present confidence and boasting There are many well-meaning men and of a seeming humble spirit to themselves who are ready perhaps therefore to impute all their good thoughts to the work of that good spirit in them but I wish their own spirit deceive them not For I take this delusion to arise not always or so commonly from humility and the love of truth as it does from secret pride and the love of liberty Saint Paul has told us Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty and if we are led thereby we are not under the law This pleases us so in a literal sense that we are ready to let go our reason to believe we have the spirit to guide us in all things But we might rationally suspect that those who harp to us so much upon that string would rather enslave us to themselves As for liberty we have enough already in any sence and 't is well if we use it not either for an occasion to the flesh or for a cloke of maliciousness And for the Law we need not fear or desire to be exempt from it 't is fulfilled in one word the same Apostle tells us and that one word is Charity a thing chiefly to be recommended to all which I have insisted upon elsewhere and which I pray God send us through that spirit and then we shall not bite and devour one another under colour of I know not what spirit perhaps through the very spirit of delusion In all sins or offences we say the understanding the will and the affections are all more or less faulty but where the will is most too blame there is the offence ever the greater Now if it be an offence to vouch the Holy spirit upon every small occasion and to play with it as we may say in too familiar a discourse of it Men had need take great care and heed that their will be not most to blame in that case I think you will not and I dare not go about to define what that sin is which totally excludes us from mercy But if any man upon examination of that deceitful thing his heart shall chance to find he has at any time upon any wordly design whatsoever pretended some light from that Holy spirit Or so much as indeavoured to obscure the light of reason in others which is able to shew unto subjects their duty of obedience that there is no power but of God and the powers that be are ordained of God by amuzing them therewith and this for the advancement of himself in place power or dignity whether that we call temporal or that we call spiritual I will be bold to tell him he has been very presumptuous and has committed a great offence Well these two sorts of persons I first mentioned the mere Spiritualist and the mere Naturalist are
those whom we shall scarce meet with in company but we shall receive a challenge from As to the first I have said somewhat but properly to hold a dispute against him we cannot either we must deny his premisses which we are unwilling wholly to do or else we must necessarily grant him his conclusion For the other so much a Sadducee as not to believe Angel or Spirit other than his own if that and resolving to believe nothing without a plain demonstration We must not provoking that spirit of his of which he thinks himself the only master and we think he is therein deceived answer him at his own weapon reason and indeed we have none other as of our selves and argue with him in calm manner if at all not philosophically not Aristotelically but as rationally and as plainly and as perswasively as we can or are able leaving the success to the guidance of that good spirit in which we our selves already believe 'T is a strange thing a man should admit of any ordinary inference or any indifferent argument à probabili as we say to satisfy his reason and raise a belief in any case but that which is of greatest concern to him the belief whereof would only do him good and which could not if upon a false ground possibly prejudice him or do him hurt If I should begin to talk of the nature of the elements how each several one as we divide them hath in it some latent quality or virtue of the other And that some particular species of one participates so much with or is of such cognation as we may say with the other that from some little reflexion or light from that other it shall in a manner change its quality and seem to be quite another thing than what it was And then tell one of these kind of men some such strange story of Naptha as Plutarch do's A kind of a sulphureous fattish soil to be found which taken out of the body of the earth and brought to light shall forthwith at a great distance from any fire take flame from thence and become of the nature of fire it self consuming every thing about it there is little doubt but I might without demonstration to sense obtain credit therein Now since we cannot make out that our soul conscious of its being and capable to enquire after the nature or original of its own and other beings is the bare product of flesh and blood or that it can be actuated from thence towards these kind of enquiries Why should not these men as readily believe that there is some spirit or intellectual mind far above our own from whence our own receives some influence or agitation and by which it is disposed ordered or governed I dare appeal to the secrets of any one of these mens hearts their conscience if they please to allow of that term Whether or no if I should have done him some great or grievous injury such as after all ineffectual indeavour of revenge should lye heavy upon his spirit or leave a sting there he should not by a kind of secret wish seem to invocate for we will not imagine he has so much of the Christian Tenet in him yet as wholly to forgive all offences and return good for evil some Nemesis or resort to some secret revenger of evil to punish my injustice towards him On the other side should I bestow so many gifts heap so much kindness and do so many good turns to that man as after all indeavours of requital in point of gratitude he should find he were in no wise able to make me sufficient recompence or amends he should not by a like secret wish invocate some good power above his own for a reward upon me If in either of these cases he thinks he should so do or upon examination of himself finds he has at any time so done in like cases then surely he naturally as I may say believes that which in word he denies viz. That there is some spirit above our own for if he verily believed from his heart there were no such thing as some all-knowing all-powerful and all-sufficient spirit a just rewarder of good and evil superintendent over us it were the most ridiculous thing imaginable for him barely to wish nay he could not wish me good or evil But if he has unawares by his own spirit recourse to some invisible power why should he not confess which he often swears by unawares too that there is a God Now though it may seem here from the present purpose give me leave to say in this place that it is some confirmation of my opinion in relation to the soul of brutes proceeding barely from their blood and vanishing therewith which thing I mean to insist upon more at large in some other discourse that it makes no foreign appeal in any case nor uses any weapon but bodily I do here think that God may punish us for the abuse of brute creatures and that their blood may seem to cry for vengeance but it cries only silently not intentionally from them For although we do really perceive a kind of gratitude as well as revenge in many creatures besides man yet we cannot observe no nor suspect upon just ground any recourse they have in prosecution of their love or anger to any superior power above themselves I do not think my Spaniel ever wished me good or evil if I could conjecture there were imprecatory thoughts in any creature save man and the weakest of men has them I should forthwith renounce and recant my present opinion of the annihilation of their spirit after death For if that spirit of theirs can wander out of the body any other ways than directly by sense it certainly neither vanishes with the body nor can be said to be mortal There are many such like cases as aforementioned of some strange foreign work in the soul of man which have occurred to my mind sufficient as I thought to convince any Atheist of the falsity of his assertions in point of the original of all things and the government or guidance of all visible creatures more especially our selves But lest I seem guilty of what I condemned in my former Epistle I shall forbear to insist thereupon and leave all to that attribute that superabundant stream flowing from the Deity and which is over all its works its mercy and loving kindness towards man And however any of us think or believe either of our selves or ought else in relation to our selves for the present it can be no uncharitable wish or desire no nor foolish one I hope that before we cease to be as we are that is have finished the race of all flesh we may so think and act as that at the end of that race we miss not of eternal rest body and spirit But if these two kinds of men amongst us I have often thought could be brought to some moderation shall I say to a
out yea further though a wise man think to know it yet shall he not be able to find it But to believe there is wisdom and truth and justice and mercy in some one eternal mind and that the judge of all the earth must needs do right is almost a necessary consequence raised in the soul of man upon any humble search into himself and that the whole duty of man is no difficult thing to know That even Solomon whom we agree to be endowed with the spirit of truth as well as naturally wise appears to me in that excellent book intituled the Preacher to have had his soul at a stand and in a maze not knowing where to fix in the demonstration of any certain wordly course that ours might follow But that he seems to allow its guidance by the providence of God rather than his spirit For if it were guided by the latter it could not so often err neither then would he call all its works vanity That the spirits of men are then most keen and most sharp set towards the world and most likely to resemble the hawk or the birds of prey when there is most talk of the dove and that we are willing to hide our selves under that shadow though we have little of the light of truth That some mens outward profaneness and publick contempt of God seems ground sufficient in justice for our punishment by the hands of those who driving at wordly designs only pretend to honour him And that if those in authority took vigilant care to see the very form of godliness better observed those pretenders to it in humane probability could not have obtained those advantages of alluring and drawing the vulgar to their side as now they have That in the misery of civil dissension we shall be all more or less involved the Atheist the spiritualist c. and every of us more or less shall feel the smart of it in the end whatever any of us aim at present that though there seem a necessity of offences yet there is a consequent woe particularly attending every offender and therefore we should all indeavour to be void of offences towards God and towards man and prevent if we can that storm which seems to hang over us But if it be otherwise decreed then we who seem spectators only but spectators only we are not since we are sinners and neither deny God in word to provoke him to shew himself in our punishment nor boldly vouch him in his spirit to cover the lust of our flesh have this ready and open passage to fly unto God until our calamities are over-past His just and wise and merciful providence And this certainly must necessarily be the door or gate of the Lord as is expressed for every man if ever he enters to enter in and truly behold that stone which the builders of this world refuse For in the instant of personal affliction chastisement or correction I dare confidently aver the Atheist will neither boldly deny God nor the spiritualist boldly ingross him but both own him as he is just and wise and wonderful in all his doings and to be feared To whom be Glory c. EPIST. III. Wherein the Author sets down some further grounds and reasons of his opinion of the mortality or utter annihilation of the Souls of brutes upon their death And therein indeavours to clear himself of all seeds and principles of Atheism wherewith that opinion seems taxed in a certain Book presented him by the said Dean THat Soul which pries into things even below and inferior to its self do they seem at first never so ordinary mean and obvious and be it clear-sighted as may be and perhaps from the clearest sight the soonest will at length if it dwell long on any subject begin to stagger and suspect it self of dimness and weakness and that there is something more in every Creature than it is able to discern or comprehend and if it resolve not into a blind kind of chance or fall asleep in occult qualities it will own one Almighty wise and only all-knowing Being or existence and therein resting it self will dare to assume no knowledge but conjectural and seeming probable that is no more than belief This is my present thought and confession But because in my Treatise De Anima I might seem to you a little too positively to assert the soul of Beast to be no other than part of a body rarified to a proportion and with the body perishing and upon the dissolution thereof becoming annihilate and totally extinct I am now desirous to declare unto you a little more fully the grounds of my opinion thereabout And the rather because in that little discourse we had together I received this only Querie from you How an intellectual spirit could naturally arise out of a material or bodily substance And if the same were an infused spirit and not part of the body how the same with the body should cease to be or move A Querie perhaps only made to hear what answer a plain rational man without learning would make to it and though a curious one and such as I acknowledg my self altogether unfit to resolve or so much as to handle yet I have made this further adventure in reference thereto Truly Sir I am not or ever was so positive in any assertion of my own or so enamour'd therewith as not to suspect my self of fallibility and whenever I consider the soul of beast with those excellent faculties it is endowed I cannot but wonder at and admire and extol the God of Nature who was pleased to ordain That from such individual corporate substances there should spring so much of intellect especially to be seen in many of them as might seem to be rather a special gift and emanation from that Spirit alwayes and every where moving and which was once said more locally to move upon the face of the waters than any peculiar essence of so rare framed bodies But yet I am not satisfied nor methinks could easily be convinced in reason That therefore there is any duration of such Spirit after the body is again converted to earth That Spiritus Mundi if I may so term our God and Creator blessed for ever is every where and moves every where by his Original fiat His works are manifold in wisdom hath he made them all But yet without offence I hope or any breach in that reason he hath given us above other creatures we may conjecture his emanations are not all alike If in relation to brutes for of such David there speaks When he letteth his breath go forth they are created and so the face of the earth is renewed Yet there may be a reassumption and taking away again of that breath and then things die and are turned again to their dust and no local continuance of that breath remaining so as to be a spirit circumscribed There is no manifestation
distinct from the Spirit never was the occasion of falshood never wrought injustice and damage to any man Nor of it self unless from our neglect of its monitions became of evil consequence to any Argument or ratiocination as some men call it has but I do not take every seeming manifestation every Logical dispute or Rhetorical flourish to be at any time so much the proper effect of Reason as of invention or Imagination Perhaps that one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying both Speech and Reason has not only made young Sophisters mistake themselves for the rational men but deceived the World into a plausible opinion of them and begat a Faith of many things contrary to Sense and Experience the best and trustiest Hand-maids Reason has in the Soul We have coined a multitude of English words from thence ending in logy to signify our rationality as Astrology to be a knowledg of the effect of the Stars Theology a dispute or dissertation of God or things Divine Analogy a comparing of things together Apology rendring of a cause or reason and the like When God knows how little of true Reason is made use of in relation thereto but words only And they might for ought I can perceive owe their derivation thither or from thence as well as the word Tautology And therefore though that Phrase of Speech be sometimes used in Scripture and which we translate reasoning I do not judge it to be spoken of or mean that pure natural human insight into the reality and truth of things upon consideration ever void of evil or just offence but a disputation private of words arising or offering themselves in the Soul from the Affections and Imagination or from the Imagination chiefly Saint Luke in the Parable of the Vineyard and those Husbandmen who would have killed the Heir that the Inheritance might be theirs uses the words ratiocinabantur inter se which Saint Matthew and Saint Mark both express by the word dixerunt And in the demur of the Scribes and Elders to our Saviours question about the Baptism of Iohn although all the Evangelists use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reasoned I have seen it in some Translations rendred thought I must confess Speech as I have touched before to be a certain demonstration of inherent Reason and therefore of an immortal Soul or Spirit but not therefore that all speech or argument proceeds chiefly from Reason that admirable faculty which of it self deceives not injures not or works at any time against right Can you or I or any sober unbiassed rational man upon due consideration believe or affirm unless where fancy supplies the place of Reason that any indeavour with the best and most polite arguments made thereupon for the disinherison of a lawful Heir by any of us who can challenge no right to the present disposition of the Inheritance proceeds from Reason Can Reason do or contrive any evil or injustice that good may come thereon perhaps in fancy only Do's it not teach us rather to suffer patiently whether by stripes imprisonment or death Do's it at any time teach us or instruct us to do or say what we would not have done or said in relation to our selves and this upon due examination and weighing in the ballance of Justice were our case theirs against whom we do or of whom we say He who has truly impartially acted or spoken thus has followed the dictates of right Reason not he who has used elaborate arguments to condemn or disable another in the case he would think it unjust to be disabled himself be the convenience or inconvenience to the generality of mankind never so great or pressing but has rather followed his own Imagination and the dictates of his own lust or affection which indeed is apt to delude and deceive not only other mens but even our own Reason in the end I may pray to confound mens counsel as David in the case of Achitophel I may pray to confound their devices as well as to abate their Pride and asswage their Malice as in our Liturgy I may pray to be delivered from absurd or unreasonable men But I shall never pray I think to confound any mans Reason that will never hurt me I am sure or deceive me But for want of it or exercise of it in my self I may be deceived The Poet says Reason neither deceives nor is deceived at any time in the first part of his assertion I fully agree with him It is that special emanation from Truth which of it self or by it self puts no fallacy on things nor works any evil as I said But unless by Reason he means that very light of truth or truth it self which is the thing we admire and adore by the name of God it is deceiveable Human Reason how strong soever is deceiveable and that through its tame compliance only to the work of the Imagination guided or directed as we may say by some base or corrupt or otherwise pitiful mean Affection and supplying its place Nay men do not only falsly impute all our wicked contrivances of deep reach and subtilty framed unto reason But even all our futile idle contrivances well and formally or curiously done to Reason too Every finely framed Romance every Eutopia or Atlantis every witty Poem the mere work of the Imagination we ascribe to that we are all become so rational Nay if we see but an exact Picture or Building we do as much when we might better do it in the model of every little Birds Nest. But as Reason in the former case disallows every thing that is apparently false or evil so in this it rejects of it self every work in the Soul and every contrivance of the Imagination not directly tending to the glory of our Maker the discovery of truth the reformation of mens manners or the like And doubtless at the instant work of the Imagination in relation to these contrivances though not directly hurtful of themselves many men have had some secret whisper within them first of the vanity thereof then upon a review perhaps have had some kind of Regret and in the end have censured and condemned themselves as guilty of a crime for such work that their Imagination or invention might have been better imployed as they say it fared with Sir Ph. Sidney Which could never be if reason had actually afforded its help towards the contrivance But in these very cases I think as in the former there is the immediate help and assistance of some Affection and that the Imagination is constantly attended therewith and elevated or inflamed thereby or else it would be otherwise imployed through sense and these pretty kind of Buildings would fall to the ground or vanish in oblivion before they were perfectly and compleatly finished And what kind of Affection is this why a desire of being admired for our fancy a light airy Affection and spawn of Pride nourished and fostered in the Imagination
thousands of men endued with more sprightly or lively Affection of clearer and quicker Invention of better and firmer Memory of stronger and sounder Judgement of every way greater abilities attended with fitter opportunities and greater leisure less pestered and troubled or sorrounded with wordly affairs or indeed the pleasures of the World And this at such times as I have strived to cast away the thoughts thereof and could willingly have pleased my self with sensible Objects even offering themselves as it were to my Affections and I shall adhere to him and become his Convert In the mean time I cannot believe the more than ordinary imployment of my thoughts on such subject proceeded from any peculiar humor in the Body nor that any stroke upon the Imagination through Sense at any peculiar instant before caused it Nor yet do I believe or so much as once think it to have been the immediate gracious influence or inspiration of that Holy Spirit I have always had so much strength of Reason left me as to keep me from that inflammation of Opinion and I pray God we may all so have howsoever he is pleased to work in us But this I think and find and know that mans thoughts are not always of himself and therefore I very well agree with the melancholy temper as it may be thought of those men who have prescribed us the following form of invocation of the Almighty Spirit of the World and that immediately before the hearing his Commands that it would please him Unto whom all hearts be open all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid to cleanse the thoughts of our hearts where I yet hold most of them are hatched or fostered at least our considerate thoughts by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit c. But I do not agree with that man that shall now a days affirm that his or any mans particular Thoughts are throughly cleansed at any time we cannot so judge by our Reason while we consider the vanity and folly of our Thoughts at most seasons and I am sure we have nothing else properly to judge by Some will tell me my Reason is carnal and cannot judge of Spiritual things I say Reason of it self is not carnal it is of Divine extraction I think I have made it so appear it is an heavenly gift already bestowed on us and by which chiefly we must try the Spirits wherher they are of God or no I and that too through Sense most commonly for he who tryes and judges otherwise does it from Imagination barely Some will tell us of their faith their zeal or love of God If it be pure and real I will readily admit it to proceed from that gracious Spirit But how can I or they themselves well judge it to be otherwise than by Reason from sensible and visible effects That may deceive us indeed but that is the best and safest Judge we have in us at any time I know not how to appeal to mens Spirits in that notion some accept the word viz. an immediate light or voice from Heaven that dictates but I appeal to the chiefest safest and best distinguishing faculty of their Spirit their Reason Whether in the case aforesaid relating to Gods express commands as well as those private ones written in our hearts If the thought of our Hearts were cleansed by the immediate inspiration of his Holy Spirit we should then look upon obedience towards our Superiors and Governours Chastity and Temperance towards our selves Truth and Justice nay Love and Charity towards all men as absolutely necessary and consequent as Zeal heat against Idolatry and Profaneness or our observation of days We cannot rationally think though that Spirit be not limited or confined that the good effect it has upon man will not be as visible in one equally known duty as another Or that we can be truly zealous though Imagination may sometimes render us so to our selves but we must be truly charitable I cannot yet think we ought to be so born again as afterwards to cast away our Reason or so much to neglect it as not duly to consult it a thing through which chiefly we are born again if we are born again but follow our Imagination only I do not think Reason was a thing given us directly to resist or oppose and wholly reject every stroke that first wounds or possesses the Imagination or Affections if it came not directly or apparently through Sense and presently conclude it the sole Embryo of the Imagination No Reason the best and strongest does many times give place for a trembling yet fast hold on Mercy from Eternal decrees But yet I think that in the most evident cases of an immediate work of some other Spirit than our own in and over our own we may nay we ought to retain and make use of our Reason by considering weighing and trying all sensible consequents that may happen whether good or evil and curb the Imagination and Affections for entertaining them in other colours than what upon due advice that only or chiefly puts upon them The worst enemy of mankind needs no greater advantage over mens Souls than to have them follow or be given up to follow their own Inventions or Imaginations without any dispute or struggling of present Reason within them to behold the deception and fallacy that may be therein He shall never want besides ordinary Sinners Enthusiasts Dreamers Visionists Prophets c. and with the help of some base Affection Statists and modellers of Governments enough to set the whole World in a flame and uproar And that they do not as the World now seems to go is God's wonderful providence over it If a man once come to lose the use of that rein or let it go or rather cast it away by the strength of some Affection that is devise and pursue that which he would not others should devise and pursue were his case theirs and that in justice too I doubt even his Prayers to God to direct the course of his thoughts or his present thinking only that that which he thinks is right will little avail him in the end For such particular persons as pretend and positively affirm to see visions and hear voices and declare them as senâ— of God I wonder there is any man of the least Reason that gives any credit to them or hearkens to or regards them further than with pity and commiseration when he observes the Imagination to be so far exalted as to be Master over and command Sense as well as Reason and to raise a fictitious Sense or conceive it self raised through Sense when indeed there is no such thing And yet we see such accepted for men in their wits as we say and allowed of by some Statists who would be angry perhaps we should tell them they wanted Reason although we may truly tell them without just cause of offence they do not lay aside all passion to exercise it If there were two
his name might be declared throughout all the Earth as St. Paul tells the Romans from that place Affection in man as in my thoughts of the Soul I have already touched seems often the most disorderly and irregular thing in the course of Nature And therefore could I once prevail with any man so far as seriously to consider the strange motion of it in himself or others I do think it might prove the readiest way to quiet it for a time and dispel those misty clouds which are raised in the Soul by the very restless struggling of the Affections and enlighten it to behold a constant working providence over all its faculties and especially to win and regain that very part of it for what is our understanding to our Creatour but to admire him but our Affections are given to embrace him and to have our Affections become inflamed thitherward Sometimes our Intellect cannot but observe how strangely and suddainly the Affections are cooled moved or restrained beyond its foresight or prospect We see or hear or read a thing an hundred times and it may be then think our Intellect clear and discerning too and yet not become affected with it And it may be these our waters at some other times are rapidly moved not from the Imagination I shall rather chuse to say from some Angel coming down at certain seasons that Assistant I mean or Framer of the Intellect that spirat quo vult Otherwise the same words could never strike so much deeper into one onely it may be of a great Auditory and he none of the quickest apprehension or naturally or usually most discerning Spirit and that to the subduing of an unruly Affection equally predominant in many others of the same Auditory I know there is no man but has loved and feared and joyed sometimes without any apparent or discernible cause to himself or any other and if he would or could but observe so much he might possibly discern somewhat more than chance in the disposition if not Creation of his Soul Some and not the meanest Wits have stood at a maze at the Affections motion especially And though they looked no higher than themselves yet terminated in some occult cause such as the blindness and sometimes edge and sometimes dulness of their Affections It may perhaps seem to many but a mean distich of the Poet Non amo te Sabadi nec possum dicere quare Hoc tantum possum dicere non amote but I must crave leave to judge otherwise of it and that he saw by that as far as ordinary human Reason is able to shew us and I take his meaning to be that such is the condition of man as that notwithstanding there be often presented to the Affections an invitation without exception and sufficient ground and reason offered to them to imbrace and accept yet they are stubborn and decline it and want something more than natural human light to bring them to compliance There are thousands doubtless have received all the endearments imaginable from particular persons and thought well of them but never heartily affected them And on the other side notwithstanding all the scorn and contempt injuries and affronts they could receive from others have yet heartily and truly loved them So as 't is no wonder the Heathen amongst all their Gods thought only Love blind and so represented him to us Indeed upon the beholding and consideration of any the least Plant or Insect there is a glance offered of some power wonderful and to be admired But that power is chiefly to be seen in ordering ruling and determining the Passions and Affections of men sometimes preventing them from breaking forth in an Insurrection and then suddenly quenching the fire that the World be not thereby in a greater flame This doth the Psalmist ascribe to him Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain I do think some rational accompt in Nature might be given of the motion of celestial Orbs and no less of the Spirits of Beasts Why there is so much and such apparency of gentleness and meekness and patience in the Lamb and in the Dove and why at all times the contrary and so quick and ready a will of revenge in the Bee and the Wasp that Passion and Affection in several Creatures should so much differ and yet the one not exceed the other in Intellect But why several men sprung from one and the same stock in Nature should now and then resemble each Creature in point of Affection and exceed them either way I know not unless by such a wise working Power as ordering the result of all human Affections to its glory in the end should permit the sometimes mad pursuit of them Whereof Reason as his present gift is sufficient to demonstrate their Error â—â—d so justly condemn them and Grace only to reclaim them That men should adventure their Lives and Fortunes yea their Souls too and hack and hew one anothers Bodies in pieces to please the appetite of an ambitious and covetous Prince nay perhaps some less apparent Meteor some one or two Subjects designing either to build on the ruins of others abroad or divert mens eyes for a while from looking into their own corrupt and base designs and practices at home or the like What is it but some base rubbish of Affection in the generality of mankind sympathetically as I may say kindled by the heat of some ambitious desire in particular Persons or highly inflamed in them at least by the Devil or some evil Spirit I am sure there is nothing of Reason or Prudence nay or Nature could lead the generality of mankind in companies into such design since you may quickly and easily convince almost every particular Person of them that it is safer and better to be quiet at home But when this fire is once throughly kindled in a Nation and every ones hand is against his Brother he knows not why How strangely and how suddainly do we see this fire when there 's apparent matter enough left put out and extinguished and those scattered who delight in Wars On the other side notwithstanding the fierceness of man which every way turns to Gods Praise as the Psalmist says how readily and easily do we often daily see a multitude governed by such Cobweb human Laws as they are able at any time to break through and want not the greatest part will to their power and yet they are led often all their days like sheep by the hands of weaker and worse shepherds than Moses and Aaron who feed them not but rather poll and sheer or fleece them without resistance For either of which rather than the stay of the raging of the Sea if any man can pierce so deep into that thing he calls Nature as to shew me any single undeniable cause therein nay I might say any colourable cause other than the Will of one single Eternal Wise Power for secret purposes