the evidences touching it doubtful although perchance the speculation that it affords be very high and sublime yet such a Subject is not in this respect so eligible as what is more certain for it leaves an impartial and serious Mind full of doubt and dissatisfaction and where it meets with a Man of a busie phantasie self-conceited and partial to himself and his own thoughts and that would be thought to know beyond the common standard of other Mens Reason it puts him upon the confident framing of Hypotheses built meerly upon Imagination and from these weak foundations he deduceth Systems of Consequences and Conclusions which being built upon meer fanciful and inevident Suppositions fall to nothing but dust and smoke as soon as their evidence is impartially examined Some Subjects are so remote from us that we are strangers to them and our knowledge concerning them is meerly conjectural and those very conjectures for the most part wanting competent media to make them tolerably probable Concerning the Extent of the Universe the Plurality of Worlds the State of Heavenly Bodies whether they are inhabited and with what kind of Inhabitants whether they are animate Bodies whether they are moved by Intelligences or by their own Forms or by the motion of the Body of the Aether or those imaginary Vortices wherein they are placed These and many such Speculations touching things at this distance may gratifie the Imagination but never satisfie the Mind Again some things though they are or may be near unto us yet are of that subtilty that they escape our Senses and thereby we cannot make our approaches to their discovery As concerning the Nature of Spirits their ubi motus the manner of their Intellection and mutual communication of Notions by what means or in what manner actual Intellection is effected in the Soul how the Species Order and Circumstances of things are preserved in the Memorative Faculty or Organ or where else these and many other hidden parts of Nature even of a far lower form are unaccessible to us The Contemplation of the Universe and of the Natural Causes and Effects therein is indeed an excellent Contemplation For first it exerciseth the Intellectual Faculties keeps them in motion and employment and thereby perfecteth them Secondly It is full of delight and contentation to the Mind Thirdly Although the Understanding attains not a perfect discovery of what it searcheth after yet many times undesigned and unthought of discoveries of many excellent things recompenceth the loss of the principal intention as those that have bent their endeavour to attain the Philosophers Stone though they never attain their end yet in their process towards it do many times light upon excellent discoveries which they never thought of or designed which in a great measure recompenseth their disappointment in the Particular sought after Fourthly It gives a great discovery of the admirable Wisdom and Power of God in framing and ordering of the World and so becomes a manuduction to the knowledge acknowledgement and adoration of Him But yet when we consider how short and weak our best discoveries are in the most accessible obvious particulars and narrowest Integrals of the Universe When we consider how many things in Nature escape our Senses and the discoveries thereof and yet how much we stand in need of the discoveries of Sense and sensible and experimental observation to bottom any sound conjecture concerning the Nature Causes and Effects of the things in Nature and how uncertain fanciful and imaginary our Suppositions are without it whereby it comes to pass that we many times frame suppositions and conclusions concerning things supposed to be in Nature before we have any certain evidence whether in truth the very things about which we frame our suppositions or conclusions have at all any real existence or if they have yet for want of a clear and sensible and experimented observation of them our positions and conclusions touching their Causes Effects Order and Methods of their procedure are but fictions and imaginations accommodated to our Inventions rather than to the things themselves and such as we rather project we would have them be if we had the making of them than what in truth they are And lastly if we consider the vast extent and multiplicity of the whole Compass of the Universe and the things therein contained the many parts thereof that either in respect of their tenuity or distance escape the reach of our Senses the infinite complications and combinations of several concurrences causes and contributions to the constitution and operation of almost every Integral in Nature the shortness of our Lives and the many necessary diversions that we have and must necessarily have from those Contemplations I say when we consider these things it seems a thing utterly to be despaired of to attain a full certain evident knowledge of the whole Universe or of any considerable portion thereof And hence it is that if we consider the various Hypotheses of the ancient and modern Philosophers touching the general Systeme of the World and those more Universal and Cardinal Solutions of the common and great Appearances in Nature we shall find them or the greatest part of them to be little else than excogitated and invented Models not so much arising from the true Image of the things themselves or resulting from the real Existence of them as certain instituted and artificial Contrivances of mens Wits and Fancies And these Suppositions being thus invented they distort stretch and reduce the Orders of things in a conformation to those pre-conceived Suppositions and then by the Inventers of them and those that are their followers and would seem to be men of quicker sight than others and not to come too short of the perceptions of their Leaders they are in a little time magnified into the true Solutions of the Arcana Naturae and then all or most of their Argumentations Positions Superstructions and Conclusions are founded upon and conformed unto and deduced from these excogitated Hypotheses as if they were the true and only and real frame and constitution of things when they have as little reality and less evidence than the imaginary solid Spheres in the Heavens or their Musick the Horses of the Sun or any other Poetical Fictions And if at any time some one Phaenomenon of Nature appears that crosseth any of these Suppositions or Hypotheses or suits not with them or is not salved by them presently great pains is taken to supply that Defect with some subsidiary Supposition that may stop that Leak and piece up the Hypothesis which must be presently granted to be true not because there is any evidence of it from the things themselves but because it suits with that artificial and precarious Hypothesis which was before taken up and made much of This we may easily observe to be true if we should examine all the various Suppositions of leading men in their several Sects The Chymical Philosophers make their Tria prima
whom Bochart upon very probable reasons supposeth to be Gedeon called Jerubbaal and having set up an Ephod in his City might be supposed a Priest and from the intercourse between them the Idol Baal-berith was brought from Berith the City of Sancuniathon into Judea Touching the Egyptians they pretended to the greatest antiquity both of Government and Learning the latter they principally derived from Hermes stiled by some Mercurius Trismegistus and by the Egyptians Thoth the Phenicians made claim to this man as theirs attributed to him the Invention of Letters of Navigation of the Virtues of Herbs Euseb lib. 1. Praeparat sect 10. de Phoenicum Theologia he is supposed more ancient than Moses but we have nothing authentick existing which he wrote The ancientest Historian of the Affairs of Egypt was Manethes the Egyptian Priest who lived about or as some think before the time of Alexander he carries up the Res Aegyptiacas to an excessive Antiquity and yet with great particularity and pretended certainty some account him fabulous because he carries up the Egyptian Dynasties before the Flood yea and long before the Creation others assert the probability of the Egyptian Dynasties to over-reach the universal Flood but salve that prodigious excess of their numerous Years by reducing them to Months or Anni Lunares which were anciently so accounted among the Egyptians The Egyptians have had other Writers of their Histories but of a later date as Ptolemeus Mendesius mentioned sometimes by Eusebius and those Arabick Historians mentioned by Kircher in that Book that delivers the History of the succession of their Dynasties Lastly I come to the Jewish History begun by Moses and continued down in a clear succession and series of times till their return from the Babylonish Captivity and this History hath a just prelation above all the Writings of other Historians in these ensuing respects 1. It hath the greatest and most particular certainty and far beyond any of the Historians before mentioned it contains the certain Periods of Times Names Men Places Actions and all Circumstances requirable in a History to inform it is not involved in Mystical expressions or Mythologies but is plain familiar and intelligible 2. It hath the greatest evidence of Truth that can be expected by a reasonable man namely Evidence from it self the particularity and circumstances of the things it relates Evidence from the ancientest Heathen Authors especially Sancuniathon Berosus and Abydenus before mentioned Evidence from the several parts thereof the Book of one Age bearing witness to another as the Books of Joshua to those of Moses the Books of Kings to those of Moses and Joshua though written in several Ages Evidentia rei or facti there cannot be greater Evidence than the Regiment of a People for so many Ages according to the Laws given and recorded by their first Historian Moses and the enjoyment of their Possessions according to the distribution of their next Historian Joshua 3. It is no broken Piece or Historical Fragment but it is carried down from the beginning of Time to all the ensuing Ages of the Jewish State without any chasma or interval 4. It hath the evidence of the highest credibility that any thing of that nature is capable of That the Books of Moses especially which are the Caput Historiae Judaicae were written by that Man Moses and that he lived in that Age wherein he is supposed to write 1. The constant uninterrupted Tradition of that Kingdom and Nation from it first coalition even to this day 2. The attestation of all the succeding Writers of that Historical Series of the Jewish Affairs 3. The inviolable Observation of those Laws given by Moses and recorded in that History as of the Laws given by him 4. The Suffrage of all Heathen Authors both modern and ancient that have occasion to mention the concerns of that People 5. It is a History that contains matters of far greater moment and antiquity than any other Writers but such as in probability made their Collections out of it namely of the Transactions from the first Creation of the World until the Universal Flood and from thence to the time of him that first wrote it namely Moses 6. It is a History that was really written by Moses who was far more ancient than all the Heathen Writers above mentioned excepting only Trismegistus of whose Writings we have nothing extant and more ancient than most of those Things or Notes recorded by those most ancient Heathen Writers which for the most part filled their Books He wrote 540 years before Homer 200 years before Sancuniathon according to Bochart's account 300 years before the Expedition of the Argonauts 350 years before the Trojan War and a considerable time before the Apotheoses or Inaugurations of many of the Heathenish Deities So that as the Matter of his History so the Time of his writing is far more ancient than the writing of the most ancient Heathen Historians that are at all extent Much of this I shall have occasion to resume and enlarge in the ensuing Chapters yet this was necessary in this place The Inference that is made from hence is That probably if the World of Mankind had been Eternal or if it had any such vast distance from its Beginning as some suppose we should have had Historical Monuments and Writings long before the Age of Moses But for all this I must needs say this Consideration singly I say singly taken and weighed maketh not much against an eternal or at least a vaster Epocha of the first Origination of Man than is ordinarily supposed I shall therefore set down those allays that make against the strength of the consequence drawn from this Topick 1. It is evident that the use of Letters and Writing were far more ancient than the time of Moses the Egyptians and Phenicians carry up the original of the invention thereof to Mercurius Trismegistus which is supposed long before Moses And although Cadmus is supposed to have brought the use of Letters out of Phoenicia into Greece some time after the Age of Moses according to Polydore Virgil lib. 1. cap. 6. out of Pliny Herodotus and others yet it appears by what is before mentioned that there were in Phoenicia very ancient written Volumes called Volumina Ammonaeorum long before the time of Sancuniathon And if we believe the Tradition of Josephus the Pillars of Seth were extant in his time and according to Tertullian some Fragments of the Writings of Enoch were traditionally extant in his time But howsoever Moses if he be the Author of the History of Job whom some think to be contemporary at least with Jacob mentions Books and Writings to have been common things in the time of Job Job 19.23 Josephus lib. 1. cap. 3. Tertull. de Habitu Mulierum 2. Surely if Writing were so ancient it is probable that many Histories might be before the time of Moses which were lost in succession of time as it must be agreed that most of
to these Faculties suitable Objects answering those Vital Faculties to Sensitive Nature his Beneficence hath communicated those Faculties of Sense as well as Life and then communicates to them a farther efflux of his Beneficence by communicating to them the Objects grateful and useful both for Life and Sense thus his Beneficence is communicated to them per modum boni sensibilis but to Man his Beneficence is communicated not only per modum boni vitalis sensibilis which yet he enjoys as other Creatures but per modum boni intellectualis voliti First by giving him those nobler Faculties of Intellection and Will and then by communicating to those Faculties Objects suitable to those Powers or Faculties namely Intellectual Truths to his Understanding and Moral Rational and Divine Good to his Will and among all those vera bona that are communicated to these Faculties by the Divine Beneficence God himself his Goodness Truth Will Perfection are the chiefest verum and the chiefest bonum So that no Creature below Man is capable formally to know to love to enjoy God as the chiefest Truth and chiefest Good And this also seems to be another End of the Creation of Man that being made a Creature endued with Understanding and Will he might be receptive of the Effluxus of the Divine Beneficence in a nobler way than the other visible Creatures of this lower World 3. As under the first Consideration Man is more eminently an objective manifestation of the Divine Glory than other visible Creatures and as under the second Consideration Man is more receptive of the Divine Beneficence than other visible Creatures So upon farther examination we shall find that Man was made in a capacity to be a more active Instrument to serve and glorifie his Maker than other visible Creatures which was another End of his Creation specifically different from the End of other visible created Natures which will appear by the farther consideration of those two great distinguishing Faculties his Understanding and Will I shall not go about to make a large Description of those Faculties or the Operation but only observe so much touching them as may reasonably evidence the preference that Man hath therein above the inferior Animals and the Inferences that arise thereupon touching the End of Almighty God in the making Man And first for the Intellective Faculty As in Animals the Faculties of Sense internal and external especially the Visive Faculty placeth Animals in a rank of Being far above the insensible Creatures and accommodates them exquisitly to a Life of Sense so the Intellective Faculty placed in Man puts him into a rank of Beings far above the most perfect Animals and accommodates the Humane Nature to an Intellectual Life And the preheminence of this Faculty above the Faculty of Sense will appear if we consider the Operations thereof I shall instance but in two namely intellective Perception and intellective Ratiocination or Discourse 1. For the intellective Perception the Understanding perceives many things which are not perceptible by Sense or sensitive Phantasie or Imagination for Instance it hath the perception of Substance or Being abstracted from all sensible qualities it hath the perception of the truth or falsity of a Proposition it perceives the Conclusion and the Evidence thereof in the Premises and many more intellectual Objects which never did nor can fall under the perception of Sense or Imagination And although we cannot clearly understand all the Operations of the Brutal Phantasie because we are distinct from them and they have not the instrument of Speech intelligible by us to express their perceptions yet we may know that this is true by our selves for we may perceive that we do perceive these Objects not to be perceptible by our Faculties of Sense but by some other Faculties distinct from that of Sense or sensitive Imagination Again in those Objects that are objective to Sense the intellective perception discovers somewhat that is apparently unperceived by the Sense or sensitive Imagination for Instance the Heavenly Bodies the Sun Moon and Stars are equally objected to the view as well of Animals as Men but yet by the help of intellective perception Man perceives that in those Objects which neither the Brutes no nor Man himself by the bare perception of Sense or sensitive Phantasie doth not cannot perceive The perception of Sense gives us the Sun no bigger than a Bushel and the Stars than a Candle cannot discover an inequality of their distance from us judgeth the body of the Moon to have as many changes in figure and quality as it hath various Phases or Appearances the Sun really to set the Limb of the Heavenly Horizon to be contiguous to the Earth but the intellective perception finds the quantity of the Sun and Stars bigger than the Earth and by the Parallaxes and Eclipses finds the Stars more distant from us than the Sun and that than the Moon perceives distinctly their several Motions Orders Positions and makes distinctions and computations of Time and Duration by them and over-rules and confutes the perception of Sense and Imagination by another kind of perception above the perception of Sense 2. Touching Ratiocination or Discursive Operation the precedure thereof is above the reach of the sensitive Phantasie though this seems to carry some weak and imperfect Image thereof For Instance sometimes not only the media discursûs and the processus discursivus are out of the reach of Sense but the very subjectum discursûs is imperceptible to Sense such are that processus discursivus of the Understanding touching complexed Notions or Universals touching the abstracted Notions of Being Substance Entity and transcendents in Metaphysicks such are also the discursives of moral good and evil just unjust which are no more perceptible to Sense than Colour is to the Ear and yet touching these Subjects the Intellect forms Discourses deduceth Illations and Conclusions Again in matters Mathematical and Physicall though in the concrete and in their subjects they are objective to Sense yet the media and processus discursivus whereby the Understanding makes Conclusions and Inferences and Illations touching them are of a range and kind quite above the range of Sense or sensitive Imagination thus upon certain data or postulata in Geometry the Intellect forms Conclusions which though Mechanically and Experimentally true yet are elicited by a Processus discursivus quite above the activity of sensitive Phantasie And though matters Physical Bodies and Tangible qualities and their several powers manner of production and divers other things relating to them are sensible Objects yet the Intellect useth a Processus discursivus whereby it investigates Truths and draws Conclusions that are quite above the scantlet of Sense or Phantasie ascending up from the Effect to the next Cause and thence to the next and thence gradually to the First Cause of all things So that though oftentimes the foot or root of the Discursus intellectivus be bottomed in some sensible Object perchance
his Words especially in Expressions of collateral things not being the principal Subject of the Discourse which though they may lye in his way yet are not much under his strict advertence but he thinks it is enough if he dresseth his Discourse so that it tend to what it principally aims and drives at And hence it is that in Chronological Computations which I sometimes make use of I content my self with a more lax and common Computation without any great curiosity or exactness because it equally serves my purpose as if my Computations were more critical and exact even usque ad minutias Chronologicas and so in some other mentions of Names and Times of Authors and the like and likewise in the choice of Words or Expressions wherein possibly I may sometimes be too lax and free using such as come next into my Mind without a curious or critical choice which is more excusable in a Discourse of this nature than in some Polemical and Controversial Discourses of other natures where Men usually catch at Words and Expressions and it is the greatest part of their Business 4. I must also desire my Readers pardon in that in my Transcripts of some entire Texts out of Aristotle Plato Plutarch and others I use the Latin Translation and not the Original Greek wherein the Authors wrote I was a better Grecian in the 16 th than in the 66 th Year of my Life and my application to another Study and Profession rendred my skill in that Language of little use to me and so I wore it out by degrees And thus thou hast this Book presented to thy view I wish thee as much Contentment in Reading as I had in Writing it If there be any thing therein that may be useful to thee as I suppose there may be there is matter for my Contentment and thy Benefit if all be not answerable thereunto and to thy expectation the former Considerations give thee reasonable Motives of Charity to excuse it The Contents SECT I. CAP. I. THE Introduction declaring the Reason of the Choice of this Subject and the Method of the intended Discourse CAP. II. Touching the Excellency of the Humane Nature in General CAP. III. A brief Consideration of the Hypotheses that concern the Eternity of the World CAP. IV. Concerning the Origination of Mankind and whether the same were Eternal or had a Beginning CAP. V. Concerning the Supposition of the first Eternal Existence of the common Parents of Mankind and the production of the succeeding Individuals from them CAP. VI. Certain Objections against the Truths formerly delivered and against the Reasons given in proof thereof with their Solutions SECT II. CAP. I. The Proofs of Fact that seem with the greatest Moral Evidence to evince the Inception of Mankind and first touching the Antiquity or Novity of History CAP. II. Concerning the first Evidence the Antiquity of History and the Chronological Account of Times CAP. III. The Second Evidence of Fact namely the apparent Evidences of the first Foundation of the Greatest and Ancient Kingdoms and Empires CAP. IV. The Third Instance of Fact proving the Origination of Mankind namely the Invention of Arts. CAP. V. The Fourth Instance of Fact seeming to evince the Novity of Mankind namely the Inceptions of the Religions and Deities of the Heathens and the deficiency of this Instance CAP. VI. A Fifth Consideration concerning the Decays especially of the Humane Nature and whether there be any such Decays and what may be collected concerning the Origination of Man upon that Supposition CAP. VII The Sixth Evidence of Fact proving Novitatem generis humani namely the History of the Patres familiarum and the original Plantation of the Continents and Islands of the World CAP. VIII The Seventh Evidence of Fact proving the Origination of Man namely the Gradual Increase of Mankind CAP. IX Concerning those Correctives of the Evils of Mankind which may be thought to be sufficient to reduce it to a greater Equability CAP. X. The farther Examination of the precedent Objection CAP. XI The Consequence and Illation upon the premisses against the Eternity of Mankind CAP. XII The Eighth Evidence of Fact proving the Origination of Mankind namely the Consent of Mankind SECT III. CAP. I. The Opinions of the more Learned part of Mankind Philosphers and other Writers touching Man's Origination CAP. II. Touching the various Methods of the Origination of Mankind CAP. III. Touching the Second Opinion of those that assert the Natural Production of Mankind ex non genitis or the possibility thereof CAP. IV. Concerning Vegetables and especially Insecta Animalia whether any of them are sponte orta or arise not rather ex praeexistente semine CAP. V. If it be supposed that any of those Insects at this day have their Original ex non genitis or spontaneè whether yet the same may be said a Natural or Fortuitous Production CAP. VI. Supposing the Production of Insects were totally spontaneous equivocal and ex putrido whether any Consequence be thence deducible for the like Production of Perfect Animals but especially of Men. CAP. VII Touching the Matter of Fact it self whether de facto there hath been any such Origination of Mankind or of any Perfect Animal either Natural or Casual SECT IV. CAP. I. Concerning the last Opinion attributing the Origination of Mankind to the immediate Power and Will of Almighty God CAP. II. The Mosaical History touching the Production of the World and of Mankind and the Congruity and Reasonableness of the Mosaical Hypothesis CAP. III. Concerning the Production and Formation of Man CAP. IV. The Reasonableness of this Hypothesis of the Origination of the World and particularly of the Humane Nature and the great Advantages it hath above all other Hypotheses touching the same CAP. V. Concerning the Nature of that Intelligent Agent that first formed the Humane Nature and some Objections against the Inferences above made and their Answer CAP. VI. The Reasonableness of the Divine Hypothesis touching the Origination of the World and particularly of Man and the preference thereof before all the other precedent Suppositions CAP. VII A Collection of certain evident and profitable Consequences from this Consideration that the first Individuals of Humane Nature had their Original from a Great Powerful Wise Intelligent Being CAP. VIII A farther Enquiry touching the End of the Formation of Man so far as the same may be collected by Natural Light and Ratiocination DE HOMINE CAP. I. The Introduction declaring the reason of the choice of this Subject and the Method of the intended Discourse IT is an admirable evidence of the Divine Wisdom and Providence that there is that sutable accommodation and adaptation of all things in Nature both to their own convenience and exigence and to the convenience use and exigence of one another which evidenceth 1. That all things are made governed and disposed by a most intelligent and wise and powerful Being 2. That that governing Being is but one and that all this
For the true prospect of the Humane Fabrick in its essential and integral parts in the fabrick of his Body and the faculties and operation of his Soul must needs convince any man of ordinary reason that can observe but clear and evident consequences that the Efficient that first made this first root of Mankind was not only an intelligent Being but a Being of most admirable Power Wisdom and Goodness for such this effect doth necessarily declare its Efficient to be 3. As the contemplation of the Origination of the Species of Mankind gives us an assurance of the Existence of the first Cause and of his Attribute of Wisdom Power and Goodness so the contemplation of the secondary origination of Mankind or the production of the Individuals by generation gives us an evidence of the like power wisdom and goodness of God and a little Emblem of the Divine Power in the Creation of the World Any man that attentively considers the progress of the generative production of mankind will find that this goodly and noble Creature called Man hath its gradual formation and complement from a small almost imperceptible vital principle which by the Divine institution is endued with such a regular orderly and unerring power that from most inconsiderable and unlikely materials builds up gradually the goodly frame of the Body cloaths it self with it and exerciseth an admirable Oeconomy over it And this it doth not by such a kind of choice deliberation and forecast as the Watch-maker makes his Watch for as yet this vital rational principle doth not exercise an actual ratiocination or discursive deliberation neither hath those organs of Heart and Brain and Spirits and Vessels by the help of which we exercise our Acts of Reason till it hath made and framed them And yet this admirable Frame is immediately wrought by this little particle which we call the Soul and moulded formed and perfected with an incomparable and unerring dexterity skill elegance and curiosity more and greater than the most exquisite Artist can shew in the most polished piece of Artificial work Now if this little spark of Life that in this work of generation and formation is Vicarius Dei the Instrument of his power and wisdom if this little imperceptible Archeus is endowed by the Divine power wisdom and institution with this admirable regular and effective power out of so small inconsiderable and unlikely materials to mould up and fashion the goodly Fabrick of Humane Nature and to perfect it for a complete habitation for it self wherein to exercise its most excellent oeconomy and operations if this Pusillus divinae lucis radius ex tantilla tam improbabili materiae particula mirandam naturae humanae fabricam tam affabrè eleganter inerrabundè formaverit If we find in so small a particle of a created Being this admirable energy why should we make a question whether that God that at first gave this admirable energy to the Soul to frame so goodly a piece out of matter so near to nothing should not have power to create a World of matter out of nothing 2. Again since I do see as plainly as I see my Paper that I now write upon that this fabrication of the Humane Body is the immediate work of a Vital principle that prepareth disposeth digesteth distributeth and formeth the first rudiments of the Humane nature when it is no bigger than a little Bean that afterwards gradually augmenteth and perfecteth it to the goodly complement of a Man And the same thing I see in the first rudiments of all generations as well vegetable as animal It doth give to me notwithstanding all the bold confidence and conjectures of Epicurus and those that follow him as far as for shame they durst I say it doth give me not only an undeniable evidence but an exemplar in analogy and explication that the coalition of the goodly frame of the Universe was not the product of chance or fortuitous concourse of particles of matter nor the single effect of matter and motion but of the most wise and powerful ordination of the most wise and glorious God who thus ordered the World and instituted that Rule Order or Law which we call Nature to be the Law of its future being and operation if I see that the Coagmentation of a Man nay of a Chicken or a grain of Wheat is not by casualty but the wise and powerful God hath committed the Coagmentation Disposition and Formation thereof to their Seminal Principles tanquam Vicariis substitutis Divini Numinis Instrumentis as it were to Vicegerents and subservient Instruments of the Deity I have no reason to think that the goodly Frame of the Universe was the production of Chance or Accident or bare Matter or its casual motion or modification thereof but that the same was the Contrivance and Work of the Great Wise and Glorious God as a Work in a great measure answerable to the Excellency of such an Efficient 3. Again I find a sort of Men that pretend to much severity of Wit and would be thought too wise to be imposed upon by Credulity where they think they have not evidence enough of Sense or Reason to convince them that would be thought to be Men above the common rate these have gone about as far as they durst to exclude God out of the World and pity those Men as troubled with Credulity and of weak Parts that believe the Regiment of Divine Providence a business that they think or pretend to think may be made use of to impose upon the weaker part of Mankind think it a Fiction and such as is utterly inexplicable to the satisfaction of a reasonable and impartial judgment Now the due contemplation of the Humane Nature and that Oeconomy that the Active Principle in it ordinarily called the Soul doth exercise therein to my Understanding gives me both a reasonable evidence of the Divine Providence governing the World and a fair explication of it to me I mean not in this place to examine the truth or falsity of the Plurality of Subordinate Forms or whether there be two or three distinct Substantial Forms or Souls in Man whereby he is Vivens Sentiens Intelligens for they are proper for a farther Examination in their proper place But at present I do suppose that that one Soul whereby Man is constituted in Esse Hominis is the single Principle of all his operations of Life Sense and Intellection because as to this purpose which I am now upon it comes all to one whether there be a Unity or Plurality of Subordinate Forms or of Souls in the Humane Nature I say therefore in the Humane Fabrick we may observe two kinds of Forms if I may so call them the one the Forma Corporis as such whereby it hath those Properties or Operations which are common to Bodies of the like make or composition whereby it is weighty and descends as other Bodies it is figured it hath dimensions and
give rain Jer. 14.22 Thus the wise God who doth nothing vainly or unnecessarily nor infringeth the more constant Laws of Nature when those parts thereof that are more anomalous and more easily applicable to his imperate acts and ends of Providence may serve more ordinarily chuseth those parts of Nature to execute his special Providences that may do it without any great fracture of the more stable and fixed parts of Nature or the infringment of the Laws thereof Again as the Empire of the Divine Will doth exercise its imperate acts in the Methods of special Providence upon things simply in themselves natural so it doth upon Agents or Natures intellectual and free Sometimes immediately by Himself sometimes by the Instrumentality of Angels or proposed Objects This Exercise of the imperate Acts of the Divine Providence may be upon the Understanding or Will Upon the Understanding principally these ways 1. By immediate afflatus or impression as anciently was usual in prophetick Inspirations 2. By conviction of some Truths and this may be either by a strong and over-bearing presenting of them to the Understanding with that light and evidence that it is under a kind of necessity of believing them which was often seen in the primitive times of Christianity wherein God was pleased many times irresistibly and by immediate overpowering the Understanding by the powerful impression of the Object or Truth propounded to conquer as it were the Understanding into an assent Or 2. By advancing and enlightning the understanding Faculty with a superadded light and perception whereby it was enabled to discern the truth of things delivered For as the Understanding receives some Truths proposed by reason of the congruity between the Faculty and the Object as the Eye sees some visible Objects by reason of the congruity between it and them so the reason why it perceives not all Objects of Truth is because of some defect of the Faculty whereby it holds not a full and perfect congruity with them either by reason of the remoteness or sublimity of the Object or some deficiency of light in the Faculty which is aided by the Collyrium of the Divine Assistance Rev. 2. Or else 3. By some extraordinary concomitant moral evidence such was that of the Miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles the Seals and Credentials of the Truths they delivered And as thus the imperate acts of the Divine special Providence are exercised upon the Understanding so they are exercised upon the Will and that either immediately or mediately Immediately 1. By an immediate determining of the Will For although the Will be naturally free yet it is naturally and essentially subject to the imperium divinae voluntatis when He is pleased to exercise that empire upon it This although he rarely doth yet he may do it and sometimes doth it irresistibly determining the Will to chuse this or that good and yet this without any such force or violence as is simply contrary to the nature of it because as there is no Power in the World but owes most naturally an obediential subjection to the Lord of Nature so even the Will it self is naturally and essentially subject to the determination of the Lord and Author of it 2. By immediate inclining and inflecting it to determin of it self This is that secret striving of the Spirit of God with the Will inflecting and perswading it to this or that good It differs from the former way because that it is irresistible this though potent yet in its own nature resistible by the Will of Man though it many times prevails by its efficacy V. Gen. 6.3 Eph. 4.30 Again 2. Sometimes it is done Mediately more humano and yet not without the mediate special Empire and Regiment of the Divine Will and thus it is done two ways viz. 1. By an irresistible or at least powerful conviction of the Understanding that the thing in proposal is fit and necessary to be done or omitted for although some think that the Will hath a power of choosing or refusing or suspending notwithstanding the final decision of the practical Understanding yet certain we are that ordinarily and when the Will acts as a Rational faculty it is or ought to be determined by the last decision of the practical Understanding and 2. By proposing Moral objects that do more humano guide the Will to determine it self accordingly and these are various sometimes Intervention Perswasion or Examples of others and sometimes even the junctures of Natural occurrences For as I shall have occasion to shew and is partly touched before even the Natural occurrences of things are under the guidance and conduct of the Divine Providence even when to us they seem to be either Accidental or to be the meer product of Natural Causes And surely if we should deny the intervention of Imperate Acts of Divine Providence in relation to actions Natural or Moral that appear in the World we should exclude his Regiment of the World in a great measure and chain up all things to a fatal necessity of Second Causes and allow at most to the glorious God a bare prospect or prescience of things that are or shall be done without any other Regency of things but meerly according to the instituted nature and operations of things And thus far of the Imperate Acts of the Divine Providence Only this farther I must subjoyn as a certain truth That neither the Empire of the Divine Providence or his mediate or immediate determinations perswasions or inflexions of the Understanding or Will of Rational Creatures doth either naturally morally or intentionally deceive the Understanding or pervert the Will or necessitate or incline either to any falshood or moral evil 3. The third Analogy that is between the regiment of the Soul over the Body and the Divine regiment of the Universe is in relation to the acts of general Providence or that ordinary Law wherein Almighty God governs ordinarily the Universe and the things in it without the particular mixture of those that I have called the Imperate Acts of special Providence which seems to consist of two parts 1. The institution of certain common Laws or Rules for all created Beings which without a special intervention of his Will to alter or change they should regularly observe as that the Heavenly Bodies should have such Motions and Influences that the Inferiour or Elementary World should have its several Mixtures and Transmutations by the application of the active principles and particles in it to Passives and by the virtue of the Heavenly Motions and Influences That there should be vicissitudes of generations and corruptions that Vegetables should have the operation of vital vegetation increase duration and productions according to their several kinds that Sensible Natures should enjoy a life of Sense and those several powers or faculties of Sensation Phantasie Memory Appetition Digestion Local Motion Generation and those several instincts whereby they should be managed and governed according to the conveniencies of a
changes and a variety of states and real changes without which he would be in vain and indeed he could not be what he must be supposd to be namely essentially a Man It hath been heretofore shewn what great variety of Motions and Alterations do necessarily accompany his very Constitution and let any Man but think with himself what a kind of thing Man would be during all that immense abyss of his first being if he be supposed eternally and unchangeably resting unchangeably moving eternally and unchangeably a Child a Youth a full grown Man or any other determinate unchangeable state As we have before observed though we should admit a possibility of an eternal Creation of Man or of any created Being whatsoever we must suppose him created under some of the conditions which are incident to an individual nature he must be created in some determinate ubi and in some determinate situs and state he must be created in Rest or in Motion a Child or a Youth or a full grown Man This Man unless he put off his nature must in some finite or limited time at least after the eternal imaginary moment of his Being move locally or with the Motions of alteration augmentation growth or decay These and the like Motions are upon the account of his Constitution necessarily incident to him within certain ordinary Periods and are connatural to his very Constitution And therefore it is irrational and indeed impossible that this created Man should eternally be in a state of Rest without Motion without Alteration Augmentation Diminution and yet thus he must be conceived to be if he were eternally made If once we admit a variation from the state of his Creation that variation must be necessarily after an eternal and infinite duration and therefore within the compass of Time If this Man should be conceived to move or alter his condition within a year nay a million of years after his Creation his Creation could not be eternal because his Creation would be antecedent to that first alteration but a finite time and that first alteration could not be eternal but within the compass of a finite time and consequently his Creation anteceding that first alteration by a finite time could not be eternal or of an infinite distance from the time wherein I write And consequently this Creation of Man is not cannot be eternal because Man in his very Constitution hath the necessary concomitants of those alterations that are inconsistent with an eternal duration and such as he cannot be without according to the very intrinsick fabrick of his native Constitution one Week much less an eternal duration Again the truth is the very Supposition of eternal Creation of any Being essentially distinguished from Almighty God is a perfect contradiction in it self That which is eternal is that which is without beginning that which is created hath necessarily a beginning although by Creation But I shall not prosecute this any farther the Supposition of any individual of Mankind eternally created is so absurd that it deserves not half the words that have been used about it But I have not been so prolix in it for the sake of the Supposition it self but rather because it gives a fair opportunity of clearing of some things which could not be so aptly done otherwise And upon all this that hath been said although it should be admitted that there were an eternal being of a first Man and a first Woman yet it were impossible in Nature that the Generations of Men should be infinite and this appears upon the Reasons here given and likewise upon the former Consideration of the impossibility of the Eternity of Mixed Bodies For it is absolutely necessary that there be an interval between the first existence of the first created Parents of Mankind and the production of any descendent from them by ordinary course of procreation or generation For such a production cannot by any possibility be as ancient as the producents though Creation may be instantaneous yet Generation in its first inception complement and perfection cannot be instantaneous Ideóque necesse est ut primus homo per procreationem sive naturalem generationem productus per novem menses integros post primam conceptionem in utero lateat demum post ejusdem in lucem editionem per omnes gradus infantiae pueritiae juventutis ad complementum maturioris aetatis deveniat unde etiam necesse est ut primus homo per generationem posterior sit primis hominibus per creationem per spatium ad minus novem mensium Unde si daretur primos humani generis parentes extitisse per aeternam creationem impossibile est primos homines ex iisdem prognatos extitisse per aeternam generationem parentum enim existentia praecedere debet existentiam filii aliter filius per generationem pater in suis positivis existentiis erunt aequè antiqui utrique aeterni Et si detur existentia patris licet non sub ea relatione ante existentiam filii filii existentiâ principium habeat necesse est posterius existentiâ patris sic non aequè antiquum consequenter nec aeternum Upon the whole matter I do conclude That although the Creation of the common Parents of Mankind might be de facto a very long time since nay although there can be no imaginable time nor imaginable point wherein the Creation of the Individuals might not have been by the Divine Power nor no imaginable point but that the Creation of the World or Mankind might have been sooner if the Divine Will had been so pleased for that denotes only a possibility of pre-existence sooner than it was if the infinite Agent had so pleased and not an actual Eternity yet it is not possible in the nature of the thing that Mankind or any other created Being that hath succession either continued or discrete necessarily accompanying it should sustain an actual eternal and consequently infinite duration CAP. VI. Certain Objections against the Truths formerly delivered and against the Reasons given in proof thereof with their Solutions THere are certain considerable Objections against those things that are delivered in the precedent Chapters and against the concludency or evidence of those Reasons these I have delivered over to this Chapter The First Objection is thus That Eternity and Infinite and the notions thereof are too large for our Understanding and we are lost when we go about to frame Conceptions of them and all our Argumentations touching them are inevident and unconcludent because our Understanding being but a finite power is capable only of finite Objects and that the media whereby we go about to evince any thing must needs be finite or otherwise they are not comprehensible by us and therefore wholly disproportionate to frame Conclusions touching an Object that of all hands is agreed to be infinite our Faculties are proportionate to those Objects that are derived to us by the help and instrumentality
of Nothing under the notion of Something For it is most apparent to any man that will but lay aside the Phantasm That the duration of every thing is diversified in relation to it self according to the nature of the thing that endures and though it coexists with a thing that appropriates another kind of duration as suitable to its being yet it retains still its own duration as appropriate to it self Thus the duration of the glorious God is another kind of duration than that of Motion or Bodies and yet it coexists with that duration Nay possibly the duration of a permanent Being we will take it a piece of Gold hath another kind of duration than that of Motion that is successive So that all the notion that we have of Duration without relation to something that endures is a fiction that the Understanding takes up and the Image whereby it conceives it is partly by the successiveness of its own operations and partly by those external measures that it finds in Motion rendred a successive Nature and pars post partem And thus the imaginative Understanding dresseth up a Nothing namely Duration without a thing that endures and then attributes to it what she finds in her self and the things she converseth with namely Succession when really there is no such thing as duration or successive duration unless there is something that doth so endure And that this is nothing else but a creature of the Imagination appears by this No man alive can suppose that there is any existence of duration that is to be a thousand years hence it rests meerly in possibility yet the Imagination will dress up that future duration under certain proportions that it borrows from the things it sees and converseth with And what is said of Duration without a Body that dures is in truth to be said of Space without a Body to which it relates and therefore well called spatium imaginarium But without relation to some Body there can be no actual Space for Space is a term meerly of relation to something that is spatiatum But then comes in the Author and brings Lucretius with him and tells us that before the World was there was Space or otherwise how could there be room for the Universe unless there were space to receive it and supposeth that if an Archer were upon the convex Superficies of the Heaven there would be space for him and if he shot his Arrow upward there would be space for that Arrow to fly or else the Arrow would not move from the string And all this is very true and yet it proves nothing of real Space beyond the confines and relation of Bodies But as in relation to the infinite active Power of God nothing had as it were a passive potentiality to be something to be a Body to be a World so consequently nothing had a potentiality as I may call it to become Space when the World was made and together with the production of Body there was a production of Space As if at this day in the sunshine there should be produced an opacous Body together with it the shadow would be produced and as the shadow though really nothing when there was no opacous Body had a kind of potentiality to be upon the existence of that Body so this abyss of Nothing had a kind of potentiality to be Space when something was produced to which it might have relation as quid spatiatum And the same Answer is most clearly evident as to Lucretius his Archer There was nothing and therefore no space till the Archer came to the convex of the uppermost Heaven but only a potentiality if I may so call it to receive him when he was there and when he shot up his Arrow that space that really was not before but only potentially to serve a Body when it comes there now becomes space for the flight and return of his Arrow but when it was returned now the space no more existed for the Arrow nor for the Archer after his coming from the convex of the highest Heaven so that though nothing may be space when it hath a Body to which it may relate yet till that relation it is not space but nothing And certainly that which imposeth upon persons to assert an infinite Space is this Their Imagination and Phantasie doth first create a Phantasm that doth subire vices corporis and they fill an imaginary space or an imaginary extension with that Phantasm and then indeed they have got an imaginary space I say their Phantasie and Imagination follows the conception of the imaginary space with an imaginary extension either supposing the World infinitely extended or else fancying the Archer and the Arrow and when that is handsomly fancied the Phantasm it self doth effectually in the Imagination serve the turn to make up a relation between a Body and it though really there be neither infinite Body nor infinite Space till the Body comes to give it its relation And if men will needs be concluding that because I cannot deliver my self from the apprehension of space ultra pomoeria coeli therefore it must be supposed really to be we shall find another imagination hardly able to deliver it self from the apprehension of something beyond the last Heavens and again something beyond that because it cannot frame to it self an apprehension of nothing or of any space to be without a Body in it and so upon the same reason prove the World infinitely extended And yet I appeal to the Phantasie of these very men which either suppose an infinite empty Space or an infinite World whether they can bring their Imagination to such a discipline as to suppose this Infinitude all together but are fain to go on from one step to another and to think first of a space larger than the Heavens and then of a space larger than that and so gradually so that if Imagination should be a sufficient medium to prove a real existence it would only prove an indefinite space or extension not a space or extension actually infinite for Imagination will never be able per saltum to conceive actually Infinite nor without an Image of Existence to conceive that which actually is not Therefore it seems to me to be too precarious an Argumentation against the strong evidence of Reason to prove the existence of an infinite Space or infinite Body barely by bold affirming it or because a man's Phantasie or Imagination or Intellect being accustomed to the knowledge only of things extended and real space cannot deliver it self from the thought of an imaginary space or extent though there were nothing in the World to sustain it And upon this account a late Excellent Author hath used a very incongruous medium to prove a most certain and important Truth namely the existence of God because there was really a Space before the World was created Whereas first of all there could be no Space without a Body and secondly if there could
had its successive Alterations and Seasons according to certain Periodical Revolutions of the Planets to the first Ages of the World he assigns the Presidency of Saturn in matters of Religion and so downward according to several successive assigned Periods These are vain Conjectures but they serve to explain what I mean namely That there may be successive Alterations and Changes in the professed Religion of the World in successive Ages and successively in the same and other places of the World whereby it will be hard to determin the Epocha of the Commencement of Mankind by any one Form or Shape of Religion professed in the World for there may be some Religion antecedent to that which to us in this Age appears to have been the ancientest but still with this probable Conclusion That since Truth is more ancient than Errour it seems that if there were any Religion that was Primitive in the World it was the true Religion and true Worship of the true God and not Idolatry or worshipping of Men or Idols or the Works of Nature and consequently that although we had no Monuments extant of any Religion ancienter than Idolatry yet we had no reason to conclude that that Idolatrous Religion was the most ancient or coeval to the Origination of Mankind but rather that Mankind had an Existence in the World much antecedent to such Idolatrous Worship wherein the true God was for many Ages and Generations truly worshipped and that partly by the subtilty of the Enemy of Mankind partly by the apostacy and corruption of Humane Nature and partly by the gradual decay of that true and ancient Tradition of the true Worship of the true God Idolatry and Superstition prevailed and obtained in the World So that although it be a most certain Truth that Mankind had an Origination and was not without Beginning yet the Evidence of the Origination of their Idolatry and Idolatrous Deities is no sufficient Proof or Evidence of the Origination of Mankind CAP. VI. A Fifth Consideration concerning the Decays especially of the Humane Nature and whether there be any such Decays and what may be collected concerning the Origination of Man upon that Supposition THis Argument hath been excellently handled by Dr. Hakewell I shall therefore be the shorter in it yet somewhat I shall say concerning it Some of those that have been inquisitive into the Nature of Man have observed two things which if they were true would certainly give us an irrefragable Argument against the Eternal Succession of Mankind viz. 1. That the Ages of Men grow gradually shorter and shorter 2. That the Quantity of Humane Bodies was ordinarily heretofore much larger than they are now and by a kind of gradual decay of that Natural Vigour and Strength they decline to a smaller Stature Thus Plutarch inter placita Philosophorum tells us out of Empedocles Nostrae aetatis homines priscis comparatos infantium instar esse and yet Empedocles lived upon the point of 2000 Years since and Plutarch near 1500 Years since and Pliny in the 7 th Book of his Natural History cap. 16. tells us the same In plenum autem cuncto mortalium generi minorem indies fieri propemodum observatur rarósque patribus proceriores consumente ubertate seminum exustione in cujus vices nunc vergat aevum and some Instances are given there and by the Additional Notes thereupon of the great Sceletons of Mens Bodies found in several Ages and that Jam ante annos mille vates ille Homerus non cessavit minora corpora mortalium quam prisca conqueri And indeed if this natural Decrease of the Ages of Mens Lives and their Bodily Statures had held such a proportion it would not only avoid the possibility of an Eternal Succession of Mankind but would also give us a very late Epocha of their first Origination For a very ancient Original accompanied with such a natural Decrease of Age and Stature by reason of that insensible but unintermitted decay of the strength and stature of Nature would have long since reduced Mankind to be but Ephemeraes in duration and little other than Insects in extent or rather wholly determined and put a Period to the whole Species infinite Ages past But it seems that these are mistaken complaints both of Empedocles and Homer for surely in so great a Period as 2000 or 1500 Years elapsed since the death of those Men the experiment of that Decrease would have been much more obvious and observable than we find it at this day And although the nature of Mankind and of other Creatures subject to corruption if left to it self without the continued Subsidium and Influence of the Divine Providence would soon have faln into dissolution per saltum and without the incessant and corroding invasions of so long a time yet that same Power that first gave Being to things hath supported their successive Generations in the same state and natural vigour that it ever had abating those accidental occurrences that Sin Excess and other occurrences have brought into things First therefore as touching the Decays of the Age of Man's Life we do indeed learn from the Sacred Scripture for no Humane History reacheth so high That the Lives of the Ancients were very long especially before and for some time after the Flood and this the Divine Wisdom Providence and Goodness ordered for most excellent Ends namely the Peopling of the New World and that without any other means than his own Will or at least by means unknown to us in Arphaxad the Son of Shem the great Age of the Ancients was cut to halves namely to 440 Years and in his Grand-child Peleg it was again cut to halves for he lived but 242 Years and it is also true that afterwards gradually to the days of Moses the Lives of Men became shorter and shorter till they fixed in that common Period of the Life of Man of 70 or 80 Years and although it be true that the Histories of former times give us some account of longer Lives of Men as the Lives of Moses Aaron Phinehas and some others and those mentioned by Pliny lib. 7. cap. 48. and some in our own Experience yet Moses himself states the ordinary Standard of the Life of Man to be 70 or at most 80 Years Psal 90.10 2 Sam. 19.32 35. And this we shall find true upon the consideration of the Chronological Account of the Years of the ancient Patriarchs and Kings that succeeded Moses as likewise of the time that the Israelites lived in the Wilderness all which that were twenty Years old and upwards at the coming into the Wilderness when the Spies were sent into Canaan which was shortly after their coming thither all these I say except Joshua and Caleb dyed within the 40 Years Peregrination in the Wilderness and at this stay the ordinary Age of Men hath been for these 4000 Years abating those casualties either of Diseases or other Accidents that have shortned the ordinary complete
will gather life and the form of an Insect 4. As the Animal vivum thus communicates a Sensible Nature to Insects produced from it so doth the Cadaver or dead Body Hence come generally Worms which in the heat of the Sun sometimes turn into Flies and according to the Tradition of the Ancient and Moderns Bees grow out of the dead Bodies of Cows Wasps and Hornets of Horses which nevertheless some attribute to a refiduum of those Seminal Particles of the very Insects which these Beasts devour with the Flowers and Herbs where they are lodged And to maintain that general Supposition before insisted upon That Viva sentientia non generantur ex non vivis sentientibus they say That even in the Cadaver there remain certain Animal Spirits tanquam in vase which serve for the production of Animal Natures of this base and low allay And so in all those productions of Insects ex animale vivo vel cadavere the Semen of that Insect is a Vital and Animal Principle though it be not immediately at least of the same kind And because these Productions are not immediately of the Seminal Particles of the Insect but of a living nature of another kind therefore always the Productum or Insect is of a different baser and more imperfect nature than the Producent And this is the Sum of what is observed by Licetus de Sponte ortis and Kircherus ubi supra viz. Lib. 12. Mundi subterranei But yet though much of this be very true and that Insects are not therefore sponte nata as people think yea they are never sponte nata ex non viventibus yet I do doubt that it may be found by experience that some sorts of Insects do arise from Vegetables at least of a very exalted nature for the truth is that some sort of Vegetables seem to be in the next degree to the lowest sort of Insect Animals as may appear in the Plant called the Sensitive Plant and some others And therefore it is not impossible but some sort of Insects may arise immediately out of some sort of Vegetables as the Gurgulio that ariseth in the Wheat the Wivel that riseth in the Malt and the Hippuris or Horse-tail and the Liburnus or White Vine that Kircher himself mentions in the same 12 th Book Sect. 1. Cap. 9. to grow into an Insect in the Water and those Instances in the same Chapter of Franciscus Corvinius that in every Vegetable had observed a proper Insect bred in it and living upon it and the experience of the growing of Moths out of the Seeds of Lavender and Worms in Rose-Cakes these experimented Observations seem to correct the universality of the Assertion that Non nascuntur Insecta animalia ex non animalibus though I think it may be universally true that they are not produced ex non viventibus they are always the production of the Semen or Seminal Particles of an Insect or of the Parts of an Animal or Cadaver animalis or of that which is or was vegetable Yet some there are that think that these Insecta animalia that seem to be produced immediately ex herbis stirpibus arboribus vegetabilibus or Animals of another kind yet the first Seminium of these Insecta are either the Semina or the Seminial Particles of Insects of the same Species percolated through the various parts of Vegetables or Animals In so much that Gassendus that inquisitive Naturalist seems to think that the very Lice and Fleas and Worms in a Man are but the Productions of the several Seeds of Animals of the like kind Cum in eodem homine ex sordibus capitis Pediculi ex sordibus barba Alae inguinis Ricini ex intercutaneo humore Cyrones oriantur ita de caeteris quonam alio id referamus quam ad diversa semina quae à diversis sive plantis sive animalibus proliciantur sese ad diversas partes quatenus congruunt recipiant accommodántve inter nutriendum I do not here take upon me a distinct and exact Discourse touching production of Insects it is one of the most abstruse curious and various Inquiries in Nature There be many that have busied themselves on purpose in it to which any one may have recourse as Cardanus in his Book de Subtilitate and scaliger his Animadversions thereupon Gassendus in Physicis sect 3. l. 4. cap. 1. Kircher l. 12. sect 1 2. Aldrovandus per totum Fortunius Licetus his Book De Ortu Sponte nascentium Vossius De Origine Idololat lib. 4. cap. 65. seqq All that I shall say farther in it is but this First that it is most certain that many of those productions of Insects which Men ordinarily take to be spontaneous are yet in truth univocal from Insects of the same species their formal Seeds or Seminal Particles Secondly that it is not certain that any production of Insects is spontaneous or not from the Seed of other Animals that were of the same species for we are not certain but that the seminia or Seminal Particles of these Insects may be percolated or derived by divers Maeanders and long obscure passages into or through the Bodies of Vegetables or Animals of another species Thirdly that it is very probable that they are so traduced by these experimental Assays that have been either experimented by Observation or by Art whereby it is rendred evident to Sense that their production at this day may be and often is of the semina or Seminal Particles of Insects of the same kind The Consequence whereof is That the production of all these little Particles of Sensitive Life as well as of the greater Animals though at the first it were ex non genitis by the Power and Fiat of Almighty God yet since that time it may be probable they have their propagations univocal Ex semine vel seminio praeexistentis Insecti ejusdem speciei vel formato vel analogo This Consideration may assure us That the production at least of the generality of Insects which seem to be spontaneous is truly seminal and univocal though possibly upon a severe disquisition it may be found that some are meerly spontaneous and equivocal Productions ex putri whereof I shall give a farther account in something that follows especially in the next Section CAP. V. If it be supposed that any of those Insects at this day have their Original ex non genitis or spontaneè whether yet the same may be said a Natural or Fortuitous Production I Come now to the Second Particular which is this That admitting there were any such production of Insects at this day whether the same were purely Natural Wherein I shall briefly say 1. That it seems very probable that the species of Insects were at first in their first Creation determinate and certain and although since partly by degeneration partly by various mixtures their species are changed and multiplied even as the perfect Animals in Africa are by a mixture
others arising ad plurimum ex ovo 2. In the great variety of their bodily composure the texture of the Bodies of Brutes being far more curious and fuller of variety than others 3. Ad plurimum the animal Faculties of the brutal Soul are far more perfect than those of others their Phantasies and Memories refined they have greater and more lively Images of Reason and more capable of Discipline than either Fowls or Fishes Now touching the production of Animals whether Terrestrial Aquatil or Volatil we may observe that they are in the ordinary course of Nature of two kinds Some which arise among us no otherwise nor in any other manner than ex semine which we usually call perfect Animals and arising by univocal generation others there are that be imperfect arising spontaneously in the Earth Air and Water as Worms Flies and some sort of small Fishes and watry Insects This being premised I shall now set down some Suppositions which seem to me truly to explicate the production of these Animals which are these that follow 1. Although the predominat Matter in the constitution of Fowls and Fishes were Water and in the constitution of Terrestrial Animals were Earth yet that Water nor that Earth were not simply such but were mixed and impregnated with the other Elementary Principles 2. That all the Species of perfect Animals of all kinds were constituted in their several Sexes in the fifth and sixth day of the Creation but yet we must not think that all those kinds which we now see were at first created but only those primitive and radical Species How many sorts of Animals do we now see that yet possibly are not of the same Species but have accidental diversifications as we may observe in the several Shapes and Bodies of Dogs Sheep Pyes Parots which possibly at first were not so diversified some variation of the same Species happen by mixt Coition some by diversity of Climates and other accidents 3. That the first Individuals in their distinction of Sexes were not produced according to those Methods of Nature which they now hold nor ex aliquo praeexistente semine but by the immediate efficiency of Almighty God out of the Matter prepared or designed for their Constitution 4. That they were made in the first instant of their Constitution in the full perfection and complement and stature of their individual and specifical nature and did not gradually increase according to the procedure of animal augmentation at this day and the reason is because those gradual augmentations arise from the Seminal Principle which gradually expands it self to the full growth but here they arose not from any such Seminal Principle but the Hen was before the Egg. 5. There was no mean portion of Time between their Formation and Animation but both were together they were living Beings and living Souls and living Creatures as soon as they were formed 6. That consequently the Formation of the Body of these Animals was not as now it is by the Formative Power of the Soul which must needs be gradual and successive as we see it is and must be at this day in all natural Generations but the Formation and Information of them was by virtue of the immediate Fiat Determination or Ordination of the Divine Will 7. That in their Origination the Species of these Animals were determined neither from the Matter nor from the universal Cause the Celestial Heat but by the Divine Intention and Ordination 8. That by the same Divine Ordination and Intention the Faculties specifically belonging to every Individual were annexed and alligated to it especially the power conficiendi semen prolificum speciei propagandae ex mutua utriusque fexus conjunctione 9. That although by the Divine Power and Ordination all these perfect Animals did arise from the Earth yet that Prolifick Power of propagating of them was never delegated or committed to the Earth or any 〈◊〉 other Casual or Natural Cause but only to the Seminal Nature derived from their Individuals and disposed according to that Law of propagation of their kind alligated as before to their specifical and individual nature And therefore it its perfectly impossible that any of these perfect Animals can be casually or naturally or accidentally produced by any Preparation of Matter or by any Influence of the Heavens without the miraculous interposition of Almighty Power because the Earth or those Influences have not this power concredited to them but their production is irresistibly alligated to the Semen innatum and conjunction of Sexes the Earth can as naturally produce a Sun or a Star as it can a Man or a perfect Animal 10. Whether those imperfect or equivocal Animals were created or no it is not altogether clear possibly some might be then produced whose kinds were likewise producible spontaneously after but it seems beyond contradiction that all were not 11. As by virtue of that general Commission or intrinsick Prolifick Power given to the Earth to produce spontaneous Herbs as Grass c. it doth naturally produce such Herbs so by virtue of that common Commission given by Almighty God to the Earth and Water and to that Spirit of Nature diffused in it it doth naturally produce those equivocal insect Animals which arise out of them The same Law of the Creator that hath eternally excluded or rather not committed to the Earth or Water the power of producing perfect Animals hath given and committed to them by concurrence of that Vital Heat of the Sun and the common Spirit of Nature residing in them a Productive Power of some equivocal insect Animals in Matter fitly prepared Touching therefore the Origination of Insects I shall declare my thoughts as followeth 1. That by virtue of the Divine Fiat the Earth at first did produce some Individuals of several kinds which is imported under the words Every creeping thing after its kind 2. That as I have before shewn the greatest part of the Insects that are commonly produced and seem to be spontaneous productions are yet the univocal and seminal productions of Insects of the same kind 3. That yet it is a certain Truth that some Insects are and have an Origination since the first Creation without any formal univocal seminal production some out of Putrefaction some out of Vegetables some by very strength and fracedo of the Earth and Waters quickned by the vigorous Heat of the Sun which infuseth into some Particles of Matter well prepared and digested a kind of Vital and Seminal Principle Some have thought the very Sun and Earth are endued with a Vital yea and with a kind of Sensitive Nature and thereby enabled as it were to spin some prepared Matter into vital and sentient Semina for those insect Animals But we shall not need to trouble our selves with that incertain Speculation we are sure that the greatest part of the Superficies of the Earth being daily and hourly impregnated with the corrupted and dissolved Particles of Vegetables and Animals is
condition of his Obedience to the Command of God and upon the breach of that Condition were either utterly lost as the indissolubility of the Union of the Compositum by one Man's Disobedience Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin Others were abated as the Excellency of his Knowledge Righteousness the fruition of Happiness the Perfection of his Sovereignty over the Creatures the Gloriousness and Beauty and much of the Vigour of his Body the exquisite Order and Subordination of his Faculties but his Essentials the Immortality of his Soul the Faculties of Intellection and Will and the Natural Beauty and Usefulness of his Body remains notwithstanding that terrible Concussion whereof somewhat more hereafter 4. We have the Method of this Production of Man it was not by or from any meer Natural Cause but by the immediate Command of the Divine Will Wisdom and Power it was not from any Semen naturally accidentally or intentionally formed and so by a gradual maturation and growth ex uteris terrestribus or as the foetus humanus is perfected at this day For it was not possible that any such Seminal Principle should be formed casually or by any meer Natural Cause as hath been already shewn And although the Divine Power could have perfected all as well Man as the other Animals by first forming such a Semen and giving it either a gradual or speedy production as Insects are at this day produced yet 1. It was utterly superfluous to have used such a processus formativus ex semine because it required no less than an Almighty Power to have moulded and fashioned or actuated such a Semen as to have produced Man by an immediate Supernatural Formation and Production and therefore since the same Power was requisite in both it is not at all necessary nor reasonable to suppose so long a process as first to form a Semen and by a Seminal Process to have perfected the Humane Nature and the Holy History expresly imports the contrary 2. If we suppose a Semen prepared by the Divine Power that Production that must arise thereupon must either be immediate and sudden if not absolutely instantaneous or it must be gradual and pass through all these spaces of Time gradual Formation and accession of Growth and Increase as we see in embryone foetu nuper nato We cannot suppose the former but we must suppose it to be otherwise than natural and call in the Divine Power to effect it as much as in an instantaneous formation sine praecedente semine And we cannot suppose the latter because it is expresly contrary to the description of the Humane Production for it was done within the compass of the Sixth Day and the formation and perfecting of the Humane Nature was immediately finished after the Omnipotent Command and Determination of the Will of God it was no sooner said faciamus hominem c. but it was done It is true in that ordinary Law which Almighty God hath instituted in Nature already established by him there are regular and successive and gradual procedures and it is convenient it should be so and it is true also in this short period of the Six Days Work within which the Universe was finished Almighty God observed a certain convenient Order making that to precede which was fittest and most useful to precede in order to the production of things but as to the speed and dispatch of Productions the Almighty God used the Majesty that became the Excellency of his Greatness and obsequious Matter presently yielded to the Power of his Command Fiat factum est Psal 33.9 He said and it was done he commanded and it stood fast Therefore although now in settled Nature and according to the standing Laws of the Divine Wisdom Man is first conceived ex semine then lodgeth 10 Months in utero muliebri wherein during that time he is gradually formed and perfected and then after his Birth gradually increaseth passeth through the impotency of Infancy the weaknesses of Childhood and the follies of Youth before he comes to a ripe and full age yet it was not so here in the same moment the Body is formed in its full and perfect nature and the Animal Soul and Faculties together with it and the Rational Soul infused in the same moment without any priority of Time but only of Order and Nature So that Man was at the very same moment a perfect Organical Body with all his Nerves Veins Viscera Bones and Parts conformed a Vital and Sensitive Nature joyned with it and a Rational Soul infused without first living the Life of a Plant then of an Animal then of a Man the whole Scene was performed in one moment and so it became both the Greatness of the Divine Majesty and Power and so it was necessary to be in the first production of Man although in the succeeding procedure of natural Generations it must be and was otherwise because the supreme Wisdom and Will judged it so And although to any Man that will duly consider almost any thing there must of necessity be another Rule or Law for the first production of things than there is or may be in the ordinary regiment and governing of Generations when Nature is once established yet the want of this Consideration hath bred all those vain Errors of those Philosophers that asserted the Eternity of the World and of those others who being not satisfied with that Hypothesis but driven by a kind of necessity of Reason to acknowledge an Origination of Mankind yet could not deliver themselves from fancying that Humane Productions must needs be as like those they now know as they could well frame them And therefore according to these Men the Earth must be conceited to be Mater and the Sun vice Patris and the Earth must have her Uteri and Succus nutritius and the Increase of Mankind must be by some such gradual process as we see in natural productions or sponte nata and they cannot easily bring their Minds to believe the instantaneous production of Man by the immediate Power of God because it hath a gradual process in ordinary natural Generations and yet the same Men can give themselves leave to imagin Hominem oriri posse sicut blitum though never Experience of former Ages since the existence of Men upon the Earth give us any Example of it bating only the Fictions of some Poets Maimonides lib. 2. cap. 27. hath observed this Mistake and singularly confutes it by evincing That if Men go by this Rule of Judgment the nature of things in their Original as they find them in their Constitution being constituted they will disbelieve the most certain Truths Neque argumentari licet ullo modo à natura rei alicujus post illius generationem firmam subsistentiam in perfectione sua ad naturam ejus eo tempore quo movebatur ad generationem quod si verò his erras plurima tibi orientur dubia absurda ut pro
falsis habeas ea quae vera sunt vice versa pro veris ea quae falsa sunt and gives this Example Suppose a Child of a ready Wit whose Mother died shortly after his Birth should go alone with his Father into some uninhabited Island where he was bred up without the sight of any Beast or Woman and there should inquire of his Father Quomodo qua ratione facti sumus existentiámque nostram accipimus cui pater Unusquisque nostrum generatur in ventre cujusdam individui speciei nostrae nobis simillimi quod foemina vocatur in ventre autem existentes exiguum admodum primo corpusculum habemus movemus nutrimur paulatim crescimus vivimus donec ad certam quandam magnitudinem venimus tum aperitur inferius in ventre porta quaedam eximus nec tamen postea crescere desinimus usque dum ad hanc circiter quam vides quantitatem pervenimus Puer ille orbus statim iterum quaeret dum ibi parvi fuimus ibi viximus nos movimus crevimus an quoque comedimus bibimus ac per nares respiravimus an excrementa ejecimus respondetur ei quod non ipse sine dubio hoc incipiet negare demonstrationes extruere ex impossibilibus argmentando ab ente perfecto dicet quilibet nostrum si per unicam horam careat respiratione mori cogimur quomodo credi potest aliquem in utero clauso per tot menses vivere potest And so goes on with the young Man forming very strong Arguments against this most certain Truth meerly by the misapprehension of Inferences from the nature of things in their perfect Existence to the nature of things in their Original It is true Men must be wary and considerate before they conclude against the Frame and Order of things as they appear in Nature because otherwise Men may take liberty to conjecture any thing which is certainly unbecoming a Philosopher especially who pretends to govern himself by the Phaenomena of Nature and it is that which we have before condemned But on the other side to suppose that impossible in the Origination of things which we find not in things already setled is too hasty and rash a Conclusion especially when we are driven to confess another kind of Origination of Mankind than now is and do not find any so probable and so free from absurd Consequences so ancient so convincingly delivered as that by the Divine Historian Moses And this is so much the rather credible because it is impossible to conceive that Man could have his first Origination but from an intelligent most wise and powerful Efficient unless a Man shall offer violence to his own Reason and certainly to such an Efficient such a Production is not only possible but sutable to be supposed 5. We have here prescribed and determined the Law and Means of the natural production of the Individuals of Mankind in their future production according to that Method and Mode which hath in all Ages ever since by the course of Nature been observed namely by Propagation by mutual Conjunction of their Sexes though this could not be the Method of their first production And this Prolifick Power of production of Mankind by successive natural generation was by the Virtue and Efficacy of the Divine Institution and Benediction given to Mankind in his first Creation and by virtue thereof that Power and Faculty is continued in them and traduced to the succeeding Individuals to this day and accordingly Virtute divinae ordinationis institutionis uterque sexus appetitum illum procreandi innatum habent membra vasa huic facultati subservientia hucusque obtinent diversitate sexuum eidem officio necessariâ gaudent quod non vel cafus vel stupida coeca natura obtinere potuerunt sine ordinatione appropriatione institutione summi sapientissimi numinis ejúsque volitionis determinationnis And as this Law of future Generations was thus given to Mankind and quasi alligata to them so it is exclusive of any other either casual or natural way of Generation except it be by Miracle and therefore we must now suppose a possibility of an utter abrogation of this natural Law if we should suppose any other kind of natural production of Mankind should after this first production of the Humane Nature be possible We may with as fair a Supposition imagin that a Man should be produced by the natural conjunction of Sheep or of Lions or a Star be produced ex putri materia terrestri as to suppose a Man to be produced accidentally casually or naturally in any other Method than this Divine Law of Nature fixed in the Humane Nature by the Divine Institution hath determined unless as great a supernatural Miracle should happen by the Divine immediate Power as did in the Conception of the Messias 6. As subservient and necessary to this Law of future Generation we have here the distinction of Sexes Male and female created he them This distinction and conjunction of Sexes in order to the propagation of Mankind was part of that Law and Order that the Wise God instituted for this end And certainly there needs not any clearer Argument that the production of Mankind was not a Work of Chance or blind necessary Nature but a Work of a most Wise Intelligent Powerful Being that adapted the discrimination of Sexes to the propagation of Mankind either Sex without the other being in Nature utterly unprofitable and unuseful to that end without which the succession of Mankind must have been determined in the first Individual And it is no less evidence of the continual active Providence of that Great and Wise God that the succession of both Sexes is continued in that equal proportion as that there is no grand disparity in the propagation of Individuals of either Sex This diversity of Sexes was not in the same Individual as if Adam had been Androgyna or one double Person conjoyned or continued consisting of both Sexes till they were after divided and severed as Plato in Symposio and many of the ancient and modern Jews have thought but the first Creation of Adam in virili sexu being perfected the production of Eve ex latere Adami was the very same Day of his Creation miraculously performed by Almighty God for the Words Male and female created he them referr to the whole entire complement of the Creation of Man which was not till the Formation of Eve There may be something mysterious in this business of the Manner of Eves Formation which may be hard to unriddle It is enough that God Almighty before the end of the Sixth Day formed both Sexes of Mankind in order to the common help of each other and the propagation of the future Generations of Mankind the History therefore of the Formation of Eve though mentioned in the second Chapter and after the Benediction of the Seventh Day must necessarily be referred to the Sixth Day wherein
Volitive Faculty seem to be two the first more primitive and radical in the Soul the second not altogether so radical and primitive yet such as have also a natural connexion with and to the Soul First therefore as to the first of these The Soul of Man as it came out of the hands of the Glorious God so it had engraven in it these Impressions and Characters of some great and intellective Principles and rational Propensions that serve secretly to direct and incline him to these common Notions and Sentiments So that whether the Souls of the Descendents from Adam were traduced from him or whether they are immediately created and infused by God a Dispute not seasonable in this place yet those real Characters Impressions and rational Noemata and Instincts though weakned by the Fall and the contracted Corruption of Humane Nature are brought with us into the World and grow up with us whereby Mankind hath not only those great excellencies of his Faculties Understanding and Will but a certain congenit stock of Rational Tendencies and Sentiments engraven and lodged in his Soul which if duly attended and improved are admirable helps to the perfecting and advancing of a Rational Life And therefore as the Divine Goodness did not only give the Faculties of Sense and Perception to the Sensitive and Animal Nature but also lodged in their sensitive Souls certain connatural and congenit sensitive Instincts not acquired by Experience but congenit with them whereby they are directed and inclined to what is conducible to the sensitive good of their Sensitive Nature so the Rational Nature is furnished with certain congenit Notions Inclinations and Tendencies born with him but improved and perfected by the exercise of Reason and Observation whereby he is inclined and directed antecedently to the good of a Reasonable Life or Nature These differences seem to be in those congenit Inclinations and Instincts of Animals and Men 1. In the nature of them those anticipations that are in Animals are meerly sensible those in Men intellectual moral and suitable to the Operations of a reasonable Being 2. In their end those of Animals are only in order to a sensible good and the regiment of a sensual Life those in Men are directed to the use and benefit of a rational Life and not only so but in order to the acquest of a supernatural and eternal Life 3. In as much as the Sensible Nature is not endued with Intellection and Will and therefore not properly capable of a Law in the true and formal nature of a Law therefore those Instincts that are lodged in their nature are meerly Inclinations or natural Propensions or Biasses But the Humane Nature being endued with Intellection Reason and Liberty and therefore capable of a Law in its true propriety and formal nature those rational Propensions and Inclinations in the Humane Nature are lodged in him by the great Governour and Law-giver of Heaven and Earth per modum legis obligantis and the insition and engraving of those Notions Propensions and rational Tendencies are in nature of a promulgation of that Law the inscription thereof in their Hearts and means helps and assistances to their observance thereof And herein lies the true Root of the Obligation of the natural Law and natural Consciences so excellently decyphered by the Apostle in the two first Chapters of the Epistle to the Romans and this I call the primitive and radical Insition of the Law of Nature in the Soul 2. But besides this primitive Insition there is a secondary yet natural Insition of the Law of Nature in the humane Soul which expands and improves it self as the exercise of Reason increaseth which is a certain congruity between the Faculties of the Soul the Intellect and Will and those Truths of indisputable importance in the Understanding especially that of the Existence and Regiment of Almighty God and those moral Sentiments of Good and Evil that in their discovery concern immediately the Understanding or Synteresis but in their exercise concern more immediately the Will That as we see by a certain connatural congruity between the visive Faculty and the visible Object and as we tast by a connatural congruity between the Faculty and the Object of Tast so there is a connatural congruity between the intellective and volitive Faculties in the Soul and those communia noemata of these great important Truths both intellective and moral whereby the Soul perceives and relisheth and tasteth true and good and inclines to it 8. From the Consideration of this Effection of Man by the Power and Goodness and Wisdom of the glorious God we have the discovery of that infinite obligation of Duty Love and Gratitude of all Mankind unto Almighty God To give a benefit to a Being already existing carries in it an Obligation of the person benefited to his Benefactor juxta modum mensuram beneficii But God Almighty is the Benefactor of Mankind in the greatest imaginable amplitude and comprehension he gave him Being the vastest and most unlimited Gift and he gave him such a Being so advanced so excellent and perfect and accommodate with all the conveniences that his nature was possibly capable of and although Man wilfully threw away a great measure of his Happiness yet he hath still so much left as binds him to an eternal Gratitude and Duty to God both as his Maker and as his Benefactor and the Posterity of Adam hath still continued upon them the same reason of Duty and Gratitude I shall not here as I said enter into the Consideration of the propagation of the Humane Nature If the Soul of every person propagated be created and infused by God then every person seems related unto Almighty God in a way little different from that of the first formed Man But if the Soul be also propagated as Light or Fire from Fire or Light by a kind of Irradiation from the Soul of the first Man yet still we are all his Off-spring every Man owes more of his Being to Almighty God than to his natural Parents whose very Propagative Faculty was at first given to the Humane Nature by the only virtue efficacy and energy of the Divine Commission and Institution and the Parents of our Nature are but vicaria instrumenta Numinis in the propagation and formation of our Nature 9. From hence we learn the true Foundation and Root and Extent of that Subjection that the Created Nature owes to Almighty God namely on the part of Man there is dependence upon God as the root and support of his existence there is the obligation of love gratitude and duty as to his greatest and most sovereign Benefactor But this is not all the foundation of Subjection on the part of Man and Authority on the part of God but there are certain radical foundations of the Divine Authority and Sovereignty over Man namely 1. A right of Propriety nothing can be more a Man 's own than that which he gives a