defining it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which actuates the boby Which therefore must be idle when it has nothing to actuate as a Piper must be silent as to piping if he have no Pipe to play on Chap. 14. pag. 113. The ignobler and lower properties or the life of the body were languid and remiss vâ—… as to their proper exercises or acting for themselves or as to their being regarded much by the Soul that is taken up with greater matters or as to their being much relished but in subserviency to the enjoyment of those more Divine and sublime Objects as the Author intimates towards the end of his last Pillar Pag. 114. And the Plastick had nothing to do but to move this passive and easie body c. It may be added and keep it in its due form and shape And it is well added accordingly as the concerns of the higher faculties required For the Plastick by reason of its Vital Union with the vehicle is indeed the main instrument of the motion thereof But it is the Imperium of the Perceptive that both excites and guides its motion Which is no wonder it can do they being both but one soul. Pag. 114. To pronounce the place to be the Sun c. Which is as rationally guessed by them as if one should fancy all the Fellows and Students Chambers in a Colledge to be contained within the area of the Hearth in the Hall and the rest of the Colledge uninhabited For the Sun is but a common Focus of a Vortex and is less by far to the Vortex than the Hearth to the Ichnographie of the whole Colledge that I may not say little more than a Tennis-ball to the bigness of the earth Pag. 115. Yet were we not immutaâ—…ly so c. But this mutability we were placed in was not without a prospect of a more full confirmation and greater accumulation of Happiness at the long run as I intimated above Pag. 116. We were made on set purpose defatigable that so all degrees of life c. We being such Creatures as we are and finite and taking in the enjoyment of those infinitely perfect and glorious Objects onely pro modulo nostro according to the scantness of our capacity diversion to other Objects may be an ease and relief From whence the promise of a glorified body in the Christian Religion as it is most grateful so appears most rational But in the mean time it would appear most irrational to believe we shall have eyes and ears and other organs of external sense and have no suitable Objects to entertain them Pag. 117. Yea methinks 't is but a reasonable reward to the body c. This is spoken something popularly and to the sense of the vulgar that imagine the body to feel pleasure and pain whenas it is the soul onely that is perceptive and capable of feeling either But 't is fit the body should be kept in due plight for the lawful and allowable corporeal enjoyments the soul may reap therefrom for seasonable diversion Pag. 117 That that is executed which he hath so determined c. Some fancy this may be extended to the enjoying of the fruits of the Invigouration of all the three Vital Congruities of the Plastick and that for a soul orderly and in due time and course to pass through all these dispensations provided she keep her self sincere towards her Maker is not properly any lapse or sin but an harmless experiencing all the capacities of enjoying themselves that God has bestowed upon them Which will open a door to a further Answer touching the rest of the Planets being inhabited namely That they may be inhabited by such kind of souls as these who therefore want not the Knowledge and assistance of a Redeemer And so the earth may be the onely Nosocomium of sinfully lapsed souls This may be an answer to such far-fetched Objections till they can prove the contrarie Pag. 118. Adam cannot withstand the inordinate appetite c. Namely after his own remissness and heedlessness in ordering himself he had brought himself to such a wretched weakness Pag. 121. The Plastick faculties begin now fully to awaken c. There are three Vital Congruities belonging to the Plastick of the Soul and they are to awake orderly that is to operate one after another downward and upward that is to say In the lapse the Aereal follows the Aethereal the Terrestrial the Aereal But in their Recovery or Emergency out of the lapse The Aereal follows the Terrestrial and the Aethereal the Aereal But however a more gross turgency to Plastick operation may haply arise at the latter end of the Aereal Period which may be as it were the disease of the soul in that state and which may help to turn her out of it into the state of Silence and is it self for the present silenced therewith For where there is no union with bodie there is no operation of the Soul Pag. 121. For it hath an aptness and propensity to act in a Terrestrial body c. This aptness and fitness it has in the state of Silence according to that essential order of things interwoven into its own nature and into the nature of the Spirit of the World or great Archeus of the Universe according to the eternal counsel of the Divine Wisdom By which Law and appoyntment the soul will as certainly have a fitness and propensity at its leaving the Terrestrial body to actuate an Aereal oâ—…e Pag. 122. Either by mere natural Congruity the disposition of the soul of the world or some more spontaneous agent c. Natural Congruity and the disposal of the Plastick soul of the world which others call the Spirit of Nature may be joyned well together in this Feat the Spirit of Nature attracting such a soul as is most congruous to the predelineated Matter which it has prepared for her But as for the spontaneous Agent I suppose he may understand his ministry in some supernatural Birth Unless he thinks that some Angels or Genii may be imployed in putting souls into bodies as Gardiners are in setting Pease and Beans in the beds of Gardens But certainly they must be no good Genii then that have any hand in assisting or setting souls in such wombs as have had to do with Adulterie Incest and Buggery Pag. 123. But some apish shews and imitations of Reason Vertue and Religion c. The Reason of the unregenerate in Divine things is little better than thus and Vertue and Religion which is not from that Principle which revives in us in real Regeneration are though much better than scandalous vice and profaness mere pictures and shadows of what they pretend to Pag. 123. To its old celestial abode c. For we are Pilgrims and strangers here on the earth as the holy Patriarchs of old declared And they that speak such things saith the Apostle plainly shew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they seek their native country for so 〈◊〉
infinite and unbounded Wisdom of God that he should detrude those Souls which he so seriously designes to make happy into a state so hazardous wherein he seeth it to be ten thousand to one but that they will corrupt and defile themselves and so make them more miserable here and to eternity hereafter A strange method of recovering this to put them into such a fatal necessity of perishing 't is but an odd contrivance for their restauration to Happiness to use such means to compass it which 't is ten thousand to one but will make them infinitely more miserable This he objects in reference to what the Author of Lux Orientalis writes chap. 2. where he says It is a thousand to one but Souls detruded into these bodies will corrupt and desile themselves and so make themselves miserable here and to eternity hereafter And much he quotes to the same purpose out of the Account of Origen Where the Souls great disadvantages to Vertue and Holiness what from the strong inclinations of the Body and what from National Customs Education in this Terrestrial State are lively set out with a most moving and tragical Eloquence to shew how unlikely it is that God should put innocent and immaculate Souls of his own creation immediately into such Bodies and so hard and even almost fatal condition of miscarrying Upon which this subtile Anti-Pre-existentiary Thus you see saith he what strong Objections and Arguments the Pre-existentiaries urge with most noise and clamour are against themselves If therefore these Phaenomena be inexplicable without the Origenian Hypothesis they are so too with it and if so then the result of all is that they are not so much Arguments of Pre-existence as Aspersions of Providence This is smartly and surprizingly spoken But let us consider more punctually the state of the matter Here then we are first to observe how cunningly this shrewd Antagonist conceals a main stroke of the Supposition viz. That the Divine Pity and Compassion to lapsed Souls that had otherwise fallen into an eternal state of Silence and Death had set up Adam for their relief and endued him with such a Paradisiacal body of so excellent a constitution to be transmitted to all his Posterity and invesled him in vertue of this with so full power non peccandi that if he and his Posterity were not in an happy flourishing condition as to their eternal interest of Holiness and Vertue it would be long of himself And what could God do more correspondently to his Wisdom and Goodness dealing with free Agents such as humane Souls are than this And the thing being thus stated no Objections can be brought against the Hypothesis but such as will invade the inviolable Truths of Faith and Orthodox Divinity Secondly We are to observe how this cunning Objector has got these two Pre-existentiaries upon the hip for their youthful flowers of Rhetorick when one says it is hundreds to one the other ten thousand to one that Souls will miscarry put into these disadvantages of the Terrestrial state by which no candid Reader will understand any more than that it is exceeding difficult for them to escape the pollutions of this lower World once incorporated into Terrestrial Bodies But it being granted possible for them to emerge this is a great grace and favour of the Divine Goodness to such peccant wretches that they are brought out of the state of eternal Silence and Death to try their Fortunes once more though incumbred with so great difficulties which the Divine Nemesis suffers to return upon them That therefore they are at all in a condition of recovery is from the Goodness and Mercy of God that their condition is so hard from his Justice they having been so foully peccant And his wisdom being only to contrive what is most agreeable to his Mercy and Justice it is not at all derogatory to the infinite and unbounded Wisdom of God thus to deal with lapsed Souls For though he does seriously intend to make them happy yet it must be in a way correspondent to his Justice as well as Mercy Thirdly and Lastly Besides that the Spirit of the Lord pervades the whole Earth ready to assist the sincere there is moreover a mighty weight of mercy added in the Revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ to the world so that the retriving of the Souls of men out of their Death and Silence into this Terrestrial state in which there is these helps to the sincere it is manifestly worthy the Divine Wisdom and Goodness For those it takes no effect with they beginning the world again on this stage they shall be judged onely according to what they have done here there being an eternal obliteration as well as oblivion of the acts of their Pre-existent state but those that this merciful Dispensation of God has taken any effect upon here their sincere desires may grow inâ—…o higher accomplishments in the future state Which may something mitigate the honour of that seeming universal squalid estate of the Sons of men upon earth Which in that it is so ill is rightly imputed by both Jews and Christians and the divinest Philosophers to a Lapse and to the Mercy and Grace of God that it is no worse From whence it may appear that that argument for Pre-existence that God does not put newly created innocent Souls into such disadvantageous circumstances of a terrestrial Incorporation though partly out of Mercy partly out of Justice he has thought fit lapsed Souls should be so disposed of that this I say is no aspersion of Divine Providence Pag. 36. And now I cannot think of any place in the sacred Volume more that could make a tolerable plea against this Hypothesis c. It is much that the ingenious Author thought not of Rom. 9. 11. For the Children being not yet born neither having done either good or evil that the purpose of God according to Election might stand not of works but of him that calleth This is urged by Anti-pre-existentiaries as a notable place against Pre-existence For say they how could Esau and Jacob be said neither to have done good nor evil if they pre-existed before they came into this world For if they pre-existed they acted and if they acted they being rational Souls they must have done either good or evil This makes an handsome shew at first sight but if we consult Gen. 25. we shall plainly see that this is spoke of Jacob and Esau yet strugling in the Womb as it is said in this Text For the Children being not yet born but strugling in the Womb as you may see in the other Which plainly therefore respects their actions in this life upon which certainly the mind of St. Paul was fix'd As if he should have expresly said For the Children being not yet born but strugling in the Womb neither having done either good or evil in this life as being still in the Womb it was said of them to Rebeckah The elder shall
presently reminds him of the whole scene of things represented in his sleep But neither Sun nor Clouds nor Trees nor any such ordinary thing could in any likelihood have reminded him of his Dream And besides it was the lively resemblance betwixt the Swans he saw in his sleep and those he saw waking that did so effectually rub up his memory The want therefore of such occurrences in this life to remind us of the passages of the former is a very reasonable account why we remember nothing of the former state But here the Opposers of Pre-existence pretend that the joyous and glorious Objects in the other state do so pierce and transport the Soul and that she was inured to them so long that though there were nothing that resembled them here the impression they make must be indelible and that it is impossible she should forget them And moreover that there is a similitude betwixt the things of the upper World and the lower which therefore must be an help to memory But here as touching the first they do not consider what a Weapon they have given into my hand against themselves For the long inuredness to those Celestial Objects abates the piercingness of their transport and before they leave those Regions according to the Platonick or Origenian Hypothesis they grow cooler to such enjoyments so that all the advantages of that piercing transport for memory are lost And besides in vertue of that piercing Transport no Soul can call into memory what she enjoyed formerly but by recalling herself into such a Transport which her Terrestrial Vehicle makes her uncapable of For the memory of external Transactions is sealed upon us by some passionate corporeal impress in conjunction with them which makes them whip Boys sometimes at the boundaries of their Parish that they may better remember it when they are old men which Impress if it be lost the memory of the thing it self is lost And we may be sure it is lost in Souls incorporate in Terrestrial Vehicles they having lost their Aereal and Celestial and being fatally incapacitated so much as to conceit how they were affected by the External Objects of the other World and so to remember how they felt them And therefore all the descriptions that men of a more Aethereal and Entheous temper adventure on in this life are but the Roamings of their Minds in vertue of their Constitution towards the nature of the heavenly things in general not a recovery of the memory of past Experience this State not affording so lively a representment of the Pathos that accompanied the actual sense of those things as to make us think that we once really enjoyed them before That is onely to be collected by Reason the noble exercise of which faculty in the discovering of this Arcanum of our Pre-existence had been lost if it could have been detected by a compendious Memory But if ever we recover the memory of our former State it will be when we are re-entred into it we then being in a capacity of being really struck with the same Pathos we were before in vertue whereof the Soul may remember this was her pristine condition And therefore to answer to the second Though there may be some faintness of resemblance betwixt the things of the other State and this yet other peculiarities also being required and the former sensible Pathos to be recovered which is impossible in this State it is likewise impossible for us to remember the other in this The second Argument of the Author for the proving the unlikeliness of our remembring the other State is the long intermission and discontinuance from thinking of those things For 't is plain that such discontinuance or desuetude bereaves us of the memory of such things as we were acquainted with in this World Insomuch as if an ancient man should read the Verses or Themes he made when he was a School-boy without his name subscribed to them though he pumpt and sweat for them when he made them could not tell they were his own How then should the Soul remember what she did or observ'd many hundreds nay thousands of years ago But yet our Authors Antagonist has the face to make nothing of this Argument neither Because forsooth it is not so much the desuetude of thinking of one thing but the thinking of others that makes us forget that one thing What a shuffle is this For if the Soul thought on that one thing as well as on other things it would remember it as well as them Therefore it is not the thinking of other things but the not thinking of that that makes it forgotten Usus promptâ—…s facit as in general so in particular And therefore disuse in any particular slackens at first and after abolishes the readiness of the Mind to think thereof Whence sleepiness and sluggishness is the Mother of Forgetfulness because it disuses the Soul from thinking of things And as for those seven Chronical Sleepers that slept in a Cave from Decius his time to the reign of Theodosius junior I dare say it would have besotted them without a Miracle and they would have rose out of their sleep no more wise than a Wisp I am sure not altogether so wise as this awkward Arguer for memory of Souls in their Pre-existent state after so hugely long a discontinuance from it But for their immediately coming out of an Aethereal Vehicle into a Terrestrial and yet forgetting their former state what Example can be imagined of such a thing unless that of the Messias who yet seems to remember his former glorious condition and to pray that he may return to it again Though for my part I think it was rather Divine Inspiration than Memory that enabled him to know that matter supposing his Soul did pre-exist Our Authors third and last Argument to prove that lapsed Souls in their Terrestrial condition forget their former state is from observation how deteriorating changes in this earthly Body spoils or quite destroys the Memory the Soul still abiding therein such as Casualties Diseases and old Age which changes the tenour of the Spirits and makes them less useful for memory as also 't is likely the Brain it self Wherefore there being a more deteriorating change to the Soul in coming into an earthly Body instead of an aereal or aethereal the more certainly will her memory of things which she experienced in that state be washed out or obliterated in this Here our Authors Antagonist answers That though changes in body may often weaken and sometimes utterly spoil the memory of things past yet it is not necessary that the Souls changing of her body should therefore do so because it is not so injurious to her faculties Which if it were not onely our Memory but Reason also should have been casheered and loft by our migration out of those Vehicles we formerly actuated into these we now enliven but that still remaining sound and entire it is a signe that our
Memory would do so too if we had pre-existed in other bodies before and had any thing to remember And besides if the bare translocation of our Souls out of one body into another would destroy the memory of things the Soul has experienced it would follow that when People by death are summoned hence into the other state that they shall be quite bereaved of their Memory and so carry neither applause nor remorse of Conscience into the other World which is monstrously absurd and impious This is the main of his Answer and most what in his own words But of what small force it is we shall now discover and how little pertinent to the business For first we are to take notice that the deteriorating change in the Body or deteriorating state by change of Bodies is understood of a debilitative diminutive or privative not depravative deterioration the latter of which may be more injurious to the faculties of the Soul though in the same Body such a deteriorating change causing Phrensies and outragious Madness But as sor diminutive or privative deterioration by change the Soul by changing her Aereal Vehicle for a Terrestrial is comparing her latter state with her former much injured in her faculties or operations of them all of them are more slow and stupid and their aptitude to exert the same Phantasms of things that occurred to them in the other State quite taken away by reason of the heavy and dull though orderly constitution of the Terrestrial Tenement which weight and stupor utterly indisposes the Soul to recall into her mind the scene of her former state this load perpetually swaying down her thoughts to the Objects of this Nor does it at all follow because Reason is not lost therefore Memory if there were any such thing as Pre-existence would still abide For the universal principles of Reason and Morality are essential to the Soul and cannot be obliterated no not by any death but the knowledge of any particular external Objects is not at all essential to the Soul nor consequently the memory of them and thâ—…refore the Soul in the state of silence being stript of them cannot recover them in her incorporation into a Terrestrial Body But her Reason with the general principles thereof being essential to her she can as well as this State will permit exâ—…rcise them upon the Objects of this Scene of the Earth and visible World so far as it is discovered by her outward senses she looking out at those windows of this her earthly Prison to contemplate them And she has the faculty and exercise of Memory still in such a sense as she has of sensitive Perception whose Objects she does remember being yet to all former impresses in the other state a mere Abrasa Tabula And lastly it is a mere mistake of the Opposer or worse that he makes the Pre-existentiaries to impute the loss of memory in Souls of their former state merely to their coming into other Bodies when it is not bare change of Bodies but their descent into worser Bodies more dull and obstupifying to which they impute this loss of memory in lapsed Souls This is a real death to them according to that ancient Aenigm of that abstruse Sage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We live their â—…eath namely of separate Souls but are dead to their life But the changing of our Earthly Body for an Aereal or Aethereal this is not Death but Reviviscency in which all the energies of the Soul are not depressed but exalted and our Memory with the rest quickened as it was in Esdras after he had drunk down that Cup ofsered to him by the Angel full of Liquor like Fire which filled his Heart with Understanding and strengthned his Memory as the Text says Thus we see how all Objections against the three Reasons of lapsed Souls losing the memory of the things of the other state vanish into smoak Wheresore they every one of them single being so sound all three put together methinks should not fail of convincing the most refractory of this Truth That though the Soul did pre-exist and act in another state yet she may utterly forget all the Scenes thereof in this Pag. 46. Now if the reasons why we lose the remembrance of our former life be greater c. And that they are so does appear in our Answer to the Objections made against the said Reasons if the Reader will consider them Pag. 50. And thereby have removed all prejudices c. But there is yet one Reason against Pre-existence which the ingenious Author never thought of urged by the Anti-Pre-existentiaries namely That it implies the rest of the Planets peopled with Mankind it being unreasonable to think that all Souls descended in their lapse to this onely Earth of Ours And if there be lapsed Souls there how shall they be recovered shall Christ undergo another and another death for them But I believe the ingenious Author would have looked upon this but as a mean and trifling Argument there being no force in any part thereof For why may not this Earth be the onely Hospital Nosocomium or Coemeterium speaking Platonically of sinfully lapsed Souls And then suppose others lapsed in other Planets what need Christ die again for them when one drop of his Bloud is sufficient to save myriads of Worlds Whence it may seem a pity there is not more Worlds than this Earth to be redeemed by it Nor is it necessary they should historically know it And if it be the Eclipse of the Sun at his Passion by some inspired Prophets might give them notice of it and describe to them as orderly an account of the Redemption as Moses does of the Creation though he stood not by while the World was framed but it was revealed to him by God And lastly it is but a rash and precarious Position to say that the infinite Wisdom of God has no more ways than one to save lapsed Souls It is sufficient that we are assured that this is the onely way for the saving of the Sons of Adam and these are the fixt bounds of revealed Truth in the Holy Scripture which appertains to us Inhabitants on Earth But as for the Oeconomy of his infinite Wisdom in the other Planets if we did but reflect upon our absolute ignorance thereof we would have the discretion not to touch upon that Topick unless we intended to make our selves ridiculous while we endeavour to make others so Chap. 6. pag. 51. Now as the infinite goodness of the Deity obligeth him always to do good so by the same to do that which is best c. To elude the force of this chief Argument of the Pre-existentiaries an ingenious Opposer has devised a way which seems worth our considering which is this viz. By making the Idea of God to consist mainly in Dominion and Soveraignty the Scriptures representing him under no other notion than as the Supream Lord and Soveraign of the Universe Wherefore nothing is to
of his Classis not withstanding that he might have done otherwise and therefore they will be forward to extend that of the Author to the Hebrews chap. 1. v. 8. Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever the Scepter of Righteousness is the Scepter of thy Kingdom Thou hast loved Righteousness and hated Iniquity therefore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the Oyl of Gladness above thy Fellows to his behaviour in his pre-existent state as well as in this And whenever the Soul of Christ did exist if he was like us in all things sin onely excepted he must have a capacitie of sinning though he would not sin that capacitie not put into act being no sin but an Argument of his Vertue and such as if he was always devoid of he could not be like us in all things sin onely excepted For posse peccare non est peccatum And as â—…or humane Souls changing their Species in their unalterable heavenly happiness the Species is not then changed but perfected and compleated namely that facultie or measure of it in their Plastick essentially latitant there is by the Divine Grace so awakened after such a series of time and things which they have experienced that now they are sirmly united to an heavenly Body or ethereal Vehicle for ever And now we need say little to the other member of the Dilemma but to declare that free will or mutability in humane Souls is no separable Accident but of the essential contexture of them so as it might have its turn in the series of things And how consistent it was with the Goodness of God and his Wisdom not to suppress it in the beginning has been sufficiently intimated above Wherefore now forasmuch as there is no pretext that either the Wisdom or Justice of God should streighten the time of the creation of humane Souls so that their existence may not commence with that of Angels or of the Universe and that this figment of the Supremacy of Gods mere Will over his other Attributes is blown away it is manifest that the Argument for the Pre-existence of Souls drawn from the Divine Goodness holds firm and irrefragable against whatever Opposers We have been the more copious on this Argument because the Opposer and others look upon it as the strongest proof the Pre-existentiaries produce for their Opinion And the other Party have nothing to set against it but a fictitious Supremacy of the Will of God over his Goodness and other Attributes Which being their onely Bulwark and they taking Sanctuary nowhere but here in my apprehension they plainly herein give up the cause and establish the Opinion which they seem to have such an antipathy against But it is high time now to pass to the next Chapter Chap. 10. p. 75. To have contracted strong and inveterate habits to Vice and Lewdness and that in various manners and degrees c. To the unbyassed this must needs seem a considerable Argument especially when the Parties thus irreclaimably profligate from their Youth some as to one Vice others to another are found such in equal circumstances with others and advantages to be good born of the same Parents educated in the same Family and the like Wherefore having the same bodily Extraction and the same advantages of Education what must make this great difference as they grow up in the Body but that their Souls were different before they came into it And how should they have such a vast difference in the proclivity to Vice but that they lived before in the state of Pre-existence and that some were much deeper in rebellion against God and the Divine Reason than others were and so brought their different conditions with them into these Terrestrial Bodies Pag. 75. Then how a Swallow should return to her old trade of living after her Winter sleep c. Indeed the Swallow has the advantages of Memory which the incorporate Soul has not in her incorporation into a Terrestrial Body after her state of Silence But the vital inclinations which are mainly if not onely â—…ted in the Plastick being not onely revived but signally vitious of themselves revived with advantage by reason of the corruption of this coarse earthly Body into which the Soul is incorporate they cannot fail of discovering themselves in a most signal manner without any help of memory but from the mere pregnancie of a corrupt Body and formerly more than ordinarily debauched Plastick in the state of Pre-existence Pag. 76. Whenas others are as fatally set against the Opinions c. And this is done as the ingenious Author takes notice even where neither Education nor Custom have interposed to sophisticate their Judgments or Sentiments Nay it is most certain that they sometime have Sentiments and entertain Opinions quite contrary to their Education So that that is but a slight account to restore this Phaenomenon into Education and Custom whenas Opinions are entertained and stiffly maintained in despight of them This I must confess implies that the aerial Inhabitants philosophize but conjecturally onely as well as the Inhabitants of the Earth And it is no wonder that such Spirits as are lapsed in their Morals should be at a loss also in their Intellectuals and though they have a desire to know the truth in Speculations it suiting so well with their pride that yet they should be subject to various errours and hallucinations as well as we and that there should be different yea opposite Schools of Philosophie among them And if there be any credit to be given to Cardans story of his Father Facius Cardanus things are thus de facto in the aereal Regions And two of the Spirits which Facius Cardanus saw in that Vision left upon Record by him and of which he often told his Son Hieronymus while he was living were two Professors of Philosophie in different Academies and were of different Opinions one of them apertly professing himself to be an Aven-Roist The story is too long to insert here See Dr. H. Moore his Immortality of the Soul book 3. chap. 17. So that lapsed Souls philosophizing in their Aerial State and being divided into Sects and consequently maintaining their disserent or opposite Opinions with heat and affection which reaches the Plastick this may leave a great propension in them to the same Opinions here and make them almost as prone to such and such Errours as to such and such Vices This I suppose the ingenious Author propounds as an Argument credible and plausible though he does not esteem it of like force with those he produced before Nor does his Opposer urge any thing to any purpose against it The main thing is That these Propensities to some one Opinion are not universal and blended with the constitution of every person but are thin sown and grow up sparingly Where there are five says he naturally bent to any one Opinion there are many millions that are free to all If some says he descend into this life
are capable of living in other bodies besides terrestrial c. For the Pre-existentiaries allow her successively to have lived first in an Ethereal body then in an Aereal and lastly after the state of Silence to live in a Terrestrial And here I think though it be something early it will not be amiss to take notice what the Anti-pre-existentiaries alledge against this Hypothesis for we shall have the less trouble afterwards First therefore they say That it does not become the Goodness of God to make Mans Soul with a triple Vital Congruity that will fit as well an Aereal and Terrestrial condition as an Aethereal For from hence it appears that their Will was not so much in fault that they sinned as the constitution of their Essence And they have the face to quote the account of Origen pag. 49. for to strengthen this their first Argument The words are these They being originally made with a capacity to joyn with this terrestrial matter it seems necessary according to the course of nature that they should sink into it so appear terrestrialmen And therefore say they there being no descending into these earthly bodies without a lapse or previous sin their very constitution necessitated them to sin The second Argument is That this Hypothesis is inconsistent with the bodies Resurrection For the Aereal bodie immediately succeeding the Terrestrial and the Aethereal the Aereal the business is done there needs no resuscitation of the Terrestrial body to be glorified Nor is it the same numerical body or flesh still as it ought to be if the Resurrection-body be Aethereal The third is touching the Aereal Body That if the soul after death be tyed to an Aereal body and few or none attain to the Aethereal immediately after death the souls of very good men will be forced to have their abode amongst the very Devils For their Prince is the Prince of the Air as the Apostle calls him and where can his subjects be but where he is So that they will be enforced to endure the companie of these foul Fiends besides all the incommodious changes in the Air of Clouds of Vapours of Rain Hail Thunder tearing Tempests and Storms and what is an Image of Hell it self the darkness of Night will overwhelm them every four and twenty hours The fourth Argument is touching the Aethereal state of Pre-existence For if souls when they were in so Heavenly and happy an estate could lapse from it what assurance can we have when we are returned thither that we shall abide in it it being but the same Happiness we were in before and we having the same Plastick with its triple Vital Congruity as we had before Why therefore may we not lapse as before The fifth and last Argument is taken from the state of Silence Wherein the Soul is supposed devoid of perception And therefore their number being many and their attraction to the place of conception in the Womb being merely Magical and reaching many at a time there would be many attracted at once so that scarce a Foetus could be formed which would not be a multiform Monster or a cluster of Humane Foetus's not one single Foetus And these are thought such weighty Arguments that Pre-existence must sink and perish under their pressure But I believe when we have weighed them in the balance of unprejudiced Reason we shall find them light enough And truly for the first It is not only weak and slight but wretchedly disingenuous The strength of it is nothing but a maimed and fraudulent Quotation which makes ashew as if the Author of the Account of Origen bluntly affirmed without any thing more to do that souls being originally made with a capacity to joyn with this terrestrial matter it seems necessary according to the course of nature that they should sink into it and so appear terrestrial men Whenas if we take the whole Paragraph as it lies before thâ—…y cast themselves into this fatal necessity they are declared to have a freedom of will whereby they might have so managed their happy Estate they were created in that they need never have faln His words are these What then remains but that through the faulty and negligent use of themselves whilst they were in some better condition of life they rendred themselves less pure in the whole extent of their powers both Intellectual and Animal and so by degrees became disposed for the susception of such a degree of corporeal life as was less pure indeed than the former but exactly answerable to their present disposition of Spirit So that after certain Periods of time they might become far less fit to actuate any sort of body than the terrestrial and being originally made with a capacity to joyn with this too and in it to exercise the Powers and functions of life it seems necessary c. These are the very words of the Author of the Account of Origen wherein he plainly affirms that it was the fault of the Souls themselves that they did not order themselves then right when they might have done so that cast them into this terrestrial condition But what an Opposer of Pre-existence is this that will thus shamelesly falsifie and corrupt a Quotation of an ingenious Author rather than he will seem to want an Argument against his Opinion Wherefore briefly to answer to this Argument It does as much become the Goodness of God to create souls with a triple Vital Congruity as to have created Adam in Paradise with free Will and a capacity of sinning To the Second the Pre-existentiaries will answer That it is no more absurd to conceive nor so much that the soul after death hath an Airy body or it may be some an Ethereal one than to imagine them so highly happy after death without any body at all For if they can act so fully and beatifically without any body what need there be any Resurrection of the body at all And if it be most natural to the soul to act in some body in what a long unnatural estate has Adams soul been that so many thousand years has been without a body But for the soul to have a body of which she may be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 certainly is most natural or else she will be in an unnatural state after the Resurrection to all Eternitie Whence it is manifest that it is most natural for the soul if she act at all to have a body to act in And therefore unless we will be so dull as to fall into the drouzie dream of the Pyschopannychites we are to allow the soul to have some kind of body or other till the very Resurrection But those now that are not Psychopannychites but allow good Souls the joys and glories of Paradise before the Resurrection of the Body let them be demanded to what end the soul should have a Resurrection-body and what they would answer for themselves the Pre-existentiaries will answer for their position that holds
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies And truly if they had been mindful of that earthly country out of which they came they might saith he have had opportunity of returning But now they desire a better to wit an heavenly Hebr. 11. Pag. 124. But that they step forth again into Airy Vehicles This is their natural course as I noted above But the examples of Enoch and Elias and much more of our ever Blessed Saviour are extraordinary and supernatural Pag. 125. Those therefore that pass out of these bodies before their Terrestrial Congruity be spoyled weakened or orderly unwound according to the tenour of this Hypothesis c. By the favour of this ingenious Writer this Hypothesis does not need any such obnoxious Appendage as this viz. That souls that are outed these Terrestrial bodies before their Terrestrial Congruity be spoiled weakned or orderly unwound return into the state of Inactivity But this is far more consonant both to Reason and Experience or Storie that though the Terrestrial Congruity be still vigorous as not having run out it may be the half part no not the tenth part of its Period the soul immediately upon the quitting of this body is invested with a bodie of Air and is in the state of Activity not of Silence in no sense For some being murdered have in all likelyhood in their own persons complained of their murderers as it is in that story of Anne Walker and there are many others of the same nature And besides it is far more reasonable there being such numerous multitudes of silent souls that their least continuance in these Terrestrial bodies should at their departure be as it were a Magical Kue or Tessera forthwith to the Aereal Congruity of life to begin to act its part upon the ceasing of the other that more souls may be rid out of the state of Silence Which makes it more probable that every soul that is once besmeared with the unctuous moisture of the Womb should as it were by a Magick Oyntment be carried into the Air though it be of a still-born Infant than that any should return into the state of Silence or Inactivity upon the pretence of the remaining vigour of the Terrestrial Congruity of life For these Laws are not by any consequential necessity but by the free counsel of the Eternal Wisdom of God consulting for the best And therefore this being so apparently for the best this Law is interwoven into the Spirit of the World and every particular soul that upon the ceasing of her Terrestrial Union her Aereal Congruity of life should immediately operate and the Spirit of Nature assisting she should be drest in Aereal robes and be found among the Inhabitants of those Regions If souls should be remanded back into the state of Silence that depart before the Terrestrial Period of Vital Congruity be orderly unwound so very few reach the end of that Period that they must in a manner all be turned into the state of Inactivity Which would be to weave Penelope's Web to do and undo because the day is long enough as the Proverb is whenas it rather seems too short by reason of the numerosity of Silent souls that expect their turn of Recovery into Life Pag. 125. But onely follow the clew of this Hypothesis The Hypothesis requires no such thing but it rather clashes with the first and chietest Pillar thereof viz. That all the Divine designs and actions are laid and carried on by Infinite Goodness And I have already intimated how much better it is to be this way that I am pleading for than that of this otherwise-ingenious Writer Pag. 125. Since by long and hard exercise in this body the Plastick Life is well taâ—…ned and debilitated c. But this is not at all necessary no not in those souls whose Plastick may be deemed the most rampant Dis-union from this Terrestrial body immediately tames it I mean the Terrestrial Congruity of Life and its operation is stopt as surely as a string of a Lute never so smartly vibrated is streightways silenced by a gentle touch of the finger and another single string may be immediately made to sound alone while the other is mute and silent For I say these are the free Laws of the Eternal Wisdom but fatally and vitally not intellectually implanted in the Spirit of Nature and in all Humane Souls or Spirits The whole Universe is as it were the Automatal Harp of that great and true Apollo and as for the general striking of the strings and stopping their vibrations they are done with as exquisite art as if a free intellectual Agent plaid upon them But the Plastick powers in the world are not such but onely Vital and Fatal as I said before Pag. 126. That an Aereal body was not enough for it to display its force upon c. It is far more safe and rational to say that the soul deserts her Aereal Estate by reason that the Period of the Vital Congruity is expired which according to those fatal Laws I spoke of before is determined by the Divine Wisdom But whether a soul may do any thing to abbreviate this Period and excite such symptoms in the Plastick as may shorten her continuance in that state let it be left to the more inquisitive to define Pag. 128. Where is then the difference betwixt the just and the wicked in state place and body Their difference in place I have sufficiently shewn in my Answer to the third Argument against the triple Congruity of Life in the Plastick of Humane Souls how fitly they may be disposed of in the Air. But to the rude Buffoonry of that crude Opposer of the Opinion of Pre-existence I made no Answer It being methinks sufficiently answered in the Scholia upon Sect. 12. Cap. 3. Lib. 3. of Dr. H. Mores Immortalitas Animae if the Reader think it worth his while to consult the place Now for State and Body the difference is obvious The Vehicle is of more pure Air and the Conscience more pure of the one than of the other Pag. 130. For according to this Hypothesis the gravity of those bodies is less because the quantity of the earth that draws them is so c. This is an ingenious invention both to salve that Phaenomenon why Bodies in Mines and other deep subterraneous places should seem not so heavy nor hard to lift there as they are in the superiour Air above the earth and also to prove that the crust of the earth is not of so considerable a thickness as men usually conceive it is I say it is ingenious but not so firm and sure The Quick-silver in a Torricellian Tube will sink deeper in an higher or clearer Air though there be the same Magnetism of the earth under it that was before But this is not altogether so fit an illustration there being another cause than I drive at conjoyned thereto But that which I drive at is sufficient of it self to salve this Phaenomenon
variety may well seem an addition to the felicity of their state And the shadowyness of the Night may help them in the more composing Introversions of their contemplative mind and cast the soul into ineffably pleasing slumbers and Divine extasies so that the transactions of the Night may prove more solacing and beatifick sometimes than those of the day Such things we may guess at afar off but in the mean time be sure that these good and serious Souls know how to turn all that God sends to them to the improvement of their Happiness To the fourth Argument we answer That there are not a few reasons from the nature of the thing that may beget in us a strong presumption that souls recovered into their Celestial Happiness will never again relapse though they did once For first it may be a mistake that the Happiness is altogether the same that it was before For our first Paradisiacal Bodies from which we lapsed might be of a more crude and dilute Aether not so full and saturate with Heavenly glory and perfection as our Resurrection-body is Secondly The soul was then unexperienced and lightly coming by that Happiness she was in did the more heedlessly forgo it before she was well aware and her mind roved after new adventures though she knew not what Thirdly It is to be considered whether Regeneration be not a stronger tenour for enduring Happiness than the being created happie For this being wrought so by degrees upon the Plastick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with ineffable groans and piercing desires after that Divine Life that the Spirit of God co-operating exciteth in us when Regeneration is perfected and wrought to the full by these strong Agonies this may rationally be deemed a deeper tincture in the soul than that she had by mere Creation whereby the soul did indeed become Holy innocent and happie but not coming to it with any such strong previous conflicts and eager workings and thirstings after that state it might not be so firmly rooted by far as in Regeneration begun and accomplished by the operation of Gods Spirit gradually but more deeply renewing the Divine Image in us Fourthly It being a renovation of our Nature into a pristine state of ours the strength and depth of impression seems increased upon that account also Fifthly The remembrance of all the hardships we underwent in our lapsed condition whether of Mortification or cross Rancounters this must likewise help us to persevere when once returned to our former Happiness Sixthly The comparing of the evanid pleasures of our lapsed or terrestrial life with the fulness of those Joys that we find still in our heavenly will keep us from ever having any hankering after them any more Seventhly The certain knowledge of everlasting punishment which if not true they could not know must be also another sure bar to any such negligencies as would hazard their setled felicity Which may be one reason why the irreclaimable are eternally punished namely that it may the better secure eternal Happiness to others Eighthly Though we have our triple Vital Congruity still yet the Plastick life is so throughly satisfied with the Resurrection-body which is so considerably more full and saturate with all the heavenly richness and Glorie than the former that the Plastick of the soul is as entirely taken up with this one Bodie as if she enjoyed the pleasures of all three bodies at once Aethereal Aereal and Terrestrial And lastly Which will strike all sure He that is able to save to the utmost and has promised us eternal life is as true as able and therefore cannot fail to perform it And who can deny but that we in this State I have described are as capable of being fixed there and confirmed therein as the Angels were after Lucifer and others had faln And now to the fifth and last Argument against the state of Silence I say it is raised out of mere ignorance of the most rational as well as most Platonical way of the souls immediate descent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the first Mover or stirrer in this matter I mean in the formation of the Foetus is the Spirit of Nature the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Universe to whom Plotinus somewhere attributes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first Predelineations and prodrome Irradiations into the matter before the particular soul it is preparing for come into it Now the Spirit of Nature being such a spirit as contains Spermatically or Vitally all the Laws contrived by the Divine Intellect for the management of the Matter of the World and of all Essences else unperceptive or quatenus unperceptive for the good of the Universe we have all the reason in the world to suppose this Vital or Spermatical Law is amongst the rest viz. That it transmit but one soul to one prepared conception Which will therefore be as certainly done unless some rare and odd casualty intervene as if the Divine Intellect it self did do it Wherefore one and the same Spirit of Nature which prepares the matter by some general Predelineation does at the due time transmit some one soul in the state of Silence by some particularizing Laws that fetch in such a soul rather than such but most sure but one unless as I said some special casualty happen into the prepared Matter acting at two places at once according to its Synenergetical vertue or power Hence therefore it is plain that there will be no such clusters of Foetus's and monstrous deformities from this Hypothesis of the souls being in a state of Silence But for one to shuffle off so fair a satisfaction to this difficulty by a precarious supposing there is no such Being as the Spirit of Nature when it is demonstrable by so many irrefragable Arguments that there is is a Symptome of one that philosophizes at random not as Reason guides For that is no reason against the existence of the Spirit of Nature because some define it A Substance incorporeal but without sense and animadversion c. as if a spirit without sense and animadversion were a contradiction For that there is a Spirit of Nature is demonstrable though whether it have no sense at all is more dubitable But through it have no sense or perception it is no contradiction to its being a Spirit as may appear from Dr. H. Mores Brief Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit To which I direct the Reader for satisfaction I having already been more prolix in answering these Arguments than I intended But I hope I have made my presage true that they would be found to have no force in them to overthrow the Hypothesis of a threefold Vital Congruity in the Plastick of the soul. So that this fourth Pillar for any execution they can do will stand unshaken Pag. 103. For in all sensation there is corporeal motion c. And besides there seems an essential relation of the Soul to Body according to Aristotles definition thereof he
call the Intellectual World as the Author has observed above in this Section A Circle is a Circle and a Triangle a Triangle there nor can be otherwise without a Contradiction And so of a Globe Cylinder Horse Eagle Whale Fire Water Earth their Ideal fixt and determinate natures habitudes aptitudes and respects necessarily and immutably there exhibited are such as they are nor can be otherwise without a contradiction And because it is thus in the Divine Nature or Essence which is the root and fountain of the exteriour Creation the same is true in the created Beings themselves Things are there also what they are nor can they be a Globe suppose or a Cylinder and yet not be a Globe or a Cylinder at once or be both a Globe and Cylinder at once and so of the rest As this is a contradiction in the Intellectual World so is it in the Exteriour or Material World and so because it is so in the Intellectual For the steadiness and immutableness of the nature of all things and of their respects and habitudes arise from thâ—… necessity immutability and unchangeableness of the Divine Essence and Life which is that serene unclouded undisturbed and unalterable Eternity where all things with their respects and aptitudes their order and series are necessarily steadily and immutably exhibited at once P. 195. As they conform agree with the things themselves c. 〈◊〉 The more Platonical sense and more conformable to that we have given of other passages of this learned and ingenious Author is if we understand the things themselves at least primarily to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Plato which is the term which he bestows upon his Idea's which are the Patterns or Paradigms according to which every thing is made and is truly such so far sorth as it is found to agree with the Patterns or Originals in which all Archetypal Truth is immutably lodged All created things are but the Copies of these these the Original the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Writing it self from whence Plato calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if those Archetypal Forms were the forms or things themselves but the numerous created Beings here below only the Copies or Imitations of them Wherefore no Conception or Idea's that we frame or any Intellect else as Conceptive merely and Speculative can be true but so far as they agree with these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that sense we have declared or with creâ—…ted things so far as they are answerable to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Archetypal things themselves And from hence is sufficiently understood the nature of Truth in the Subject These few cursory Notes I thought worth the while to make upon these two learâ—…ed and ingenious Writers the Subjects they have written on being of no mean importance and use and the things written in such a time of their age as if men be born under an auspicious Planet best fits their minds for the relishing and ruminating upon such noble Theories For I dare say when they wrote these Discourses or Treatises they had neither of them reached so much as half the age of man as it is ordinarily computed Which has made them write upon these Subjects with that vigour and briskness of Spirit that they have For the constitution of Youth in those that have not an unhappy Nativity is far more heavenly and Angelical than that of more grown age in which the Spirit of the World is more usually awakened and then begins that Scene which the Poet describes in his De Arte Poetica Quoerit opes amicitias inservit honori their mind then begins to be wholly intent to get wealth and riches to enlaâ—…ge their Interest by the friendship of great Persons and to hunt after Dignities and Preferments Honours and Imployments in Church or State and â—…o those more heavenly and Divine Sentiments through disuse and the presence of more strong and filling Impressions are laid asleep and their Spirits thickened and clouded with the gross fumes and steams that arise from the desire of earthly things and it may so fall out if there be not special care taken that this mud they have drawn in by their coarse desires may come to that opaque hardness and incrustation that their Terrestrial body may prove a real dungeon cast them into an utter oblivion of their chiefest concerns in the other State Nec auras Respicient clausi tenebris carcere coeco Which I thought sit to take notice of as well for the instruction of others as for a due Appretiation of these two brief Treatises of these florid Writers they being as it were the Virgin-Honey of these two Attick Bees the Primitioe of their intemerated Youth where an happy natural complexion and the first Rudiments of Christian Regeneration may seem to have conspired to the writing of two such useful Treatises Useful I say and not a little grateful to men of refined Fancies and gay Intellectuals of benign and Philosophical tempers and Lovers of great Truths and Goodness Which natural constitution were a transcendent priviledge indeed were there not one great danger in it to those that know not how to use it skilfully For it does so nearly ape as I may so speak the Divine Benignity it self and that unself-interessed Love that does truly arise from no other seed than that of real Regeneration which Self-mortification and a serious endeavour of abolishing or utterly demolishing our own will and quitting any thing that would captivate us and hinder our union with God and his Christ does necessarily precede that too hastily setting up our rest in these mere complexional attainments which is not Spirit but Flesh though it appear marvellous sweet and goodly to the owner if there be not â—…ue care taken to advance higher in that Divine and Eternal Principle of real Regeneration by a constant mortification of our own will there may be a perpetual hazzard of this Flesh growing corrupt and fly-blown and sending up at lâ—…st no sweet savour into the nostrils of the Almighty That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit And all flesh is grass and the beauty thereof as the slower of the field but that which is born of the eternal Seed of the living Word abideth for ever and ever And therefore there is no safe Anchorage for the Soul but in a perpetual endeavour of annihilating of her own Will that we may be one with Christ as Christ is with God Otherwise if we follow the sweet enticing Counsels of mere Nature though it look never so smugly on it it will seduce us into a false liberty and at last so corrupt our Judgment and blind us that we shall scarce be able to discern him that is that great Light that was sent into the world but become every man an Ignis Fatuus to himself or be so silly as to be led about by other
Since these places have been more diffusely urged in a late discourse to this purpose I suppose he means in the Letter of Resolution concerning Origen Where the Author opens the sense of Philip. 2. 6. learnedly and judiciously especially when he acknowledges Christs being in the form of God to be understood of his Physical Union with the Divine Logos Which is the Ancient Orthodox Exposition of the Primitive Fathers they taking this for one notable Testimony of Scripture for the Divinity of Christ. Whenas they that understand it Politically of Christs Power and Authority onely take an excellent weapon out of the hands of the Church wherewith she used to oppose the Impugners of Christs Divinity But how can Christ being God verus Deus as Vatablus expounds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 empty himself or any way deteriorate himself as to his Divinity by being incarnate and taking upon him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the form of the terrestrial Adam For every earthly man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle seems to intimate Rom. 8. 21. as this ingenious Writer has noted and the Apostle likewise seems so to expound it in the Text by adding presently by way of Exegesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and was made in the likeness of men like that Gen. 5. 3. Adam begot a son in his own likeness a terrestrial man as himself was Wherefore the Incarnation of Christ being no exinanition to his Divinity there was an Humanity of Christ viz. his Soul in a glorious state of Pre-existence to which this voluntary exinanition belonged Pag. 87. Was it for this mans sin or his fathers that he was born blind For the avoiding the force of this Argument for proving that Pre-existence was the Opinion of the Jews and that Christ when it was so plainly implied in the Question by his silence or not reproving it seemed to admit it or at least to esteem it no hurtful Opinion They alledge these two things First That these Enquirers having some notions of the Divine Prescience might suppose that God foreknowing what kind of person this blind man would prove had antedated his punishment The other is That the Enquirers may be conceived to understand the blind mans original sin So that when they enquired whether the man was born blind for his own or his Parents sin they might onely ask whether that particular Judgment was the effect of his Parents or of his own original pravity This is Camerons But see what forced conceits Learned men will entertain rather than not to say something on a Text. What a distorted and preposterous account is that found that God should punish men before they sin because he foresees they will sin And he onely produces this example and a slight one too That Jeroboams hand was dried up as he stretched it forth to give a sign to apprehend the Prophet And the other is as fond an account That God should send such severe Judgments on men for their original Pravity which they cannot help And original Pravity being so common to all it could be no reason why this particular man should be born blind more than others Wherefore Grotius far more ingenuously writes thus upon the place Quaerunt ergo an ipse peccaverit quia multi Judaeorum credebant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 animarum And as our Saviour Christ passed it for an innocent Opinion so did the Primitive Church the Book of Wisdom being an allowable book with them and read in publick though it plainly declare for Pre-existence Chap. 8. 20. Chap. 12. p. 93. Therefore let the Reader if he please call it a Romantick Scheme or imaginary Hypothesis c. This is very discreetly and judiciously done of the Author to propose such things as are not necessary members or branches of Pre-existence and are but at the best conjecturaâ—… as no part of that otherwise-useful Theory For by tacking too fast these unnecessary tufts or tassels to the main Truth it will but give occasion to wanton or wrathful whelps to worry her and tug her into the dirt by them And we may easily observe how greedily they catch at such occasions though it be not much that they can make out of them as we may observe in the next Chapter Chap. 13. pag. 96. Pill 1. To conceive him as an immense and all-glorious Sun that is continually communicating c. And this as certainly as the Sun does his light and as restrainedly For the Suns light is not equally imparted to all subjects but according to the measure of their capacity And as Nature limits here in natural things so does the Wisdom and Justice of God in free Creatures He imparts to them as they capacitate themselves by improving or abusing their Freedom Pag. 100. Pill 3. Be resolved into a Principle that is not meerly corporeal He suspects that the descent of heavy bodies when all is said and done must be resolved into such a Principle But I think he that without prejudice peruses the Eleventh and Thirteenth Chapters with their Scholia of Dr. Mores Enchiridion Metaphysicum will find it beyond suspition that the Descent of heavy bodies is to be resolved into some corporeal Principle and that the Spirit of Nature though you should call it with the Cabalists by that astartling name of Sandalphon is no such prodigious Hobgoblin as rudeness and presumptuous ignorance has made that Buckeram Writer in contempt and derision to call it Pag. 101. As naturally as the fire mounts and a stone descends And as these do not so though naturally meerly from their own intrinsick nature but in vertue of the Spirit of the Universe so the same reason there is in the disposal of Spirits The Spirit of Nature will range their Plasticks as certainly and orderly in the Regions of the World as it does the matter it self in all places Whence that of Plotinus may fitly be understood That a Soul enveigled in vitiousness both here and after death according to her nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is thrust into the state and place she is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if she were drawn thither by certain invisible or Magical strings of Natures own pulling Thus is he pleased to express this power or vertue of the Spirit of Nature in the Universe But I think that transposition she makes of them is rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a transvection of them rather than pulsion or traction But these are over-nice Curiosities Pag. 101. As likely some things relating to the state of Spirits c. That is to say Spirits by the ministry of other Spirits may be carried into such regions as the Spirit of Nature would not have transmitted them to from the place where they were before whether for good or evil Of the latter kind whereof I shall have occasion to speak more particularly in my Notes on the next Chapter Pag. 102. Pill 4. The souls of men