extract and being For the very innate desire of some distinguishing knowledge of good from evil could not have its motion from sense nor ever was introduced by sense There is a kind of knowledge springs it self from sense as the Ox knows his owner c. but knowledge by causes such as it is is peculiar to Humane nature and has no relation to sense Know indeed so as to comprehend we cannot knowledge in the abstract being the peculiar of the Divine nature If we had been capable to have known good and evil absolutely the Devil had used no Hyperbole in telling us Ye shall be as Gods But the very desire of knowledge even such a knowledge as the Soul is in some measure capable of that is by causes shews a Divine spark in us tending towards the cause of all causes which exercised about God's revealed will here might be more clear but mounting in desire is apt to lose its light and vanish Nay not only our desire but our fear or doubt of somewhat we know not nor can perfectly attain to by our search nor is reasonable fully to demonstrate must necessarily have its origine from somewhat more than sense If we at least fear a future being and continuance for ever and future punishment that very fear is either native and natural in our Souls or else arises in us from the Tradition of some others if from Tradition then sense being the Port and Inlet I allow to be Parent too but yet while we allow it to spring from Tradition in our selves we do by consequence allow it to be native in some one particular person and he who allows it native in any one must allow the Soul to be a substance of it self and not a resultance from the Body for thoughts of infinity could never first spring from a bare temporary finite existence I said I would lay aside the inferiour faculties of the Soul from my thoughts Desire and fear are affections I agree common to Brutes I know they desire and fear but I dare say never any one of them yet desired knowledge or feared any thing to happen after this life and therefore these as they are in us being in respect of the object no such affections as are led by sense or work by sense barely and so not having their essence from the Body are not to be accounted amongst the other inferiour faculties common with Brutes But to proceed and go a little higher Whence arise those accusing or excusing thoughts mentioned by St. Paul in the Soul of man though wholly ignorant of Scripture and having no accession of new Light so much as by Tradition Certainly it must be some glimmering of that coelestial native spark of Justice implanted in every Humane Soul I dare leave it without further pressure to any quiet sedate reasonable Soul to determine whether if there had never been any Divine or Humane Law written or divulged by Tradition against Murther but that that same fact by the Laws of his native Country were allowed and approved if done against meer Strangers whether I say in case of that man's private imbruing his hands in his Brother's bloud with no other colourable pretence or provocation than some slight worldly gain he should not upon the consideration that we men made not our selves but that every one was a fellow-member with other of the visible Universe and of equal native extract expect to find some inward regret disgust trouble or vexation of mind If he determine that he thinks he should the question will be about that consideration how it could arise For we find that or the like consideration has risen without the help of any outward Engine or sense nay when all the Spels imaginable have been used and applied to allay it Now no disgust or trouble or sorrow was yet perceived in any other Creature beside Man upon the destruction of his fellow creature or Man the Sovereign of creatures And whence is this but because their Soul is not extensive beyond its original nor has any motion but from sense that is it is not capable of any consideration For consideration weighing or pondering of a thing whether it be good or evil is a proper act of a reasonable Soul distinct from a Body and is somewhat more than desire of knowledge by causes 'T is the very exercise of Reason 't is the Soul's waving of its senses for a time and summoning its noble powers to tryal which have some little native ability This trying considering or weighing good from evil by Reason the ballance of the Soul is I say the Soul 's peculiar act from which act there may be very properly the Author to the Hebrews uses the like words a weariness of the mind and so it 's distinguished and is different from such acts of the Soul which Solomon saith are a weariness of the flesh For that kind of study which he respects viz. composing reading or hearing are no peculiar acts of the Soul as withdrawn from the flesh but are a bare introduction of somewhat to the Soul through the Organs of the flesh and so are a weariness to it Whereas the Soul after reception and some light of a thing by sense in considering the good or evil of it quite lays aside the senses for a time and so the mind is peculiarly affected SECT VIII The Immortality of man's Soul considered from things peculiar to Man as weeping laughter speech with some conclusion against Atheism THe Soul of man does not only shew it self and its original by the aforesaid manner of withdrawing it self or as it were by separation from the Body to be above the capacity of a Soul extracted or springing from the flesh but even by peculiar actions and motions through bodily Organs which a bare earthly or fleshly Soul does not There are three things generally held and esteemed proper and peculiar to Humane Nature and no ways incident to any other living creature whatsoever and those are Tears or weeping Laughter and Speech in each of which or from each of which may seem to appear somewhat more in Man than a product Soul part of the Body or extracted or raised from the Body though never so curiously or admirably framed I do not alledge each of them apart as any infallible demonstration of a Spirit distinct and separable from the Body yet coupled and joyned together they become of some seeming weight and strength to me to confirm my opinion It does not seem much wonderful at any time to behold a distillation from the Eyes that thing is to be found in Beast as well as Man not only from a disease or some distemper in the Bloud but upon every offensive touch of the Eye yet when neither of these are present or can be alledged for a cause to have the Body as it were melted on the sudden and send forth its streams through that unusual channel makes it seem to me no
it than otherwise and are not to be trusted too far in that pretence And according as the Affections and Reason have gone along with the Imagination to make that impress so it is still more durable and less subject to be worn out He who has ever been terribly affrighted will scarce ever forget the object and circumstances of his fear neither shall we easily find out a man that ever forgot the hiding of his Treasure being a work that his affection led him to So that as the quick and lively inlet of the senses strengthens the Imagination so the strength of the Imagination is generally that which makes and fortifies a Memory And when it treasures up things springing from the proper strength of our own imagination or invention well ruminated by Reason and having the concurrence of well-governed affections it helps again to incite and strengthen them seeming to be a faculty as well active as passive and so is a more proper and fit Nursery for our own off-spring than a strangers For when it only or chiefly is a treasury by sense viz. reading or hearing let it be never so vast and spacious 't is not of so great use or profit it being hard to find a wise or good man so made from other mens documents though from the largeness or capaciousness of his memory he were able by once reading to repeat over the whole Works of the most voluminous Author And therefore as he that is affected with what he knows is ordinarily sure of a good Memory so that Memory is always best most useful and likely to hold which is the fruit of our own conception imagination and observation SECT VI. Of Reason REason is the Humane Touchstone of good and evil right and wrong truth and falshood c. the Superintendent Vicegerent under God Moderator or Monitor of all the other faculties of the Soul though not always of power yet at all times ready to curb the Imagination and Affections in all their extravagancies and reduce them under its dominion and government Right Reason that Divine gift and Humane enjoyment is a thing which does or may bear or produce many Leaves and some most excellent both Flowers and Fruit as Temperance Justice Prudence and the like and besides such its natural Fruits as I may call them I hope I may without offence think too it is on its proper Boughs and Branches only though it is impossible they should naturally spring from thence that saving Graces are ingrafted For he who has his Faith only placed in a light and airy speculation or imagination and not inclosed and held fast bound within the verge of his Reason or otherwise some way imbraced or allowed by his Reason will find it upon every occasion apt to fade of it self as well as to be loose and blown away with every wind of doctrine but this requires another place Here if we seriously behold it in our selves as natural men and view not what it is capable to imbrace and nourish but what by good husbandry 't is able to produce of it self we may and do find and now and then undoubtedly tast most excellent pleasant Fruits from it but then we must esteem them as gifts or else they quickly lose their savour Reason in us may be likned to some Plants of the Earth which in the shade grow rank enough and increase to a sufficient magnitude or dimension yet have no pleasant tast or relish nor ever bear good Fruit though large they may and therefore it is good to have it ever in the light of the Sun tending and looking that way and then never fear increase will hurt us SECT VII Of the Will THe Will I take to be An assent of the whole Soul to any present moving or ruling faculty thereof in intention or act and therefore can assign it no peculiar place of the Body more than other for its regal seat as we do the Heart for the affections and the Brain for all faculties of the intellect but that there is a concurrence of all parts of the Soul which indeed possesses the whole Body to this Fiat or at least the major or stronger part whereto the others though not silent give place I look on my own Will as I sometimes do on my self in general whilst I am at home within doors and look no further then do I take my self to be some petty Prince without controul but whensoever I look abroad into the World then do I find my self restrained as a common Subject to act no further than the Laws of my King permit cease that Law and my power ceases My Will may be free respecting my self but 't is sure dependent respecting God or else I must by exempting my Will think his power finite which God forbid Such a thing there may be in us from his Eternal wise disposition as is sufficient to render our actions good or evil and yet that sufficiency is involved in the whole Creation subject to Divine power What power we have let us endeavour to use well without questioning the extent or utmost bounds of our Commission 'T is said to be the perfection of Humane Nature to know good and to will it For the first we all agree that we are for the present imperfect in if we can do the other let us always do it and which is good let us ever pray His will be done without enquiring farther or beyond what is plainly revealed to us of his Will or of our own Will in us does seem much to exceed that of Brutes and to be of another extract than theirs as all other faculties of our Soul do for though I cannot behold them as meer Machines or Engines yet I cannot rationally perceive or conjecture that there is any Will in them other than such as receives an immediate impression from sense or that has its rise barely in and through sense such a Will as necessarily springs from or follows their thoughts not such an one as is able at any time to correct or put a stop to their thoughts neither do I believe there is so much as a Wish in them at any time that their thoughts were other than they are But such a kind of corrective Will most of us now and then perceive and find in our selves and yet we cannot but conclude that such as it is it wants a special Divine assistance to co-operate with it even to make it ours Howsoever when we find or perceive a desire or a will be it what it will in us that our thoughts were other than for the present they are it may assure us our Soul is not part of our Body or naturally extracted out of our Body for then it would not be prone and apt to resist and controul such thoughts as while they were travelled to please the Body SECT VIII Of Conscience COnscience is a Latine word from con scire to know together and I think the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
fruition will often admit the entrance or intrusion of somewhat else not to fill it but to rake and tear it for a time and therefore it must be some gracious stop of the Souls craving rather than properly its satisfaction or content some blindfolding or hooding from the ordinary presentments of the World Some little diversion and way of exercise of all or at least its best faculties as it were out of our selves and that by the gracious warmth of that Sun of Happiness in duely beholding his Image first the earnest of Happiness since we cannot behold him as he is which is Happiness it self And how this may most commonly happen or readily come to pass I have indeavoured according to my ability to declare under that often happy prospect of true Charity Now give me leave here to speak a little of some things wherein we are often deceived To mention ought of Happiness like to arise from any bodily pleasures common to Beasts as eating drinking or the like wherein Man becomes as certainly deceived as any thing were below a manly Soul But I shall speak only of the Souls peculiar seeming satisfaction in hope according to that saying Soul take thine ease thou hast goods laid up Surely many men who have spent their years in turmoil as well as their days in Vanity about it may be said to have gathered much and tasted little some have had so many pleasant seats as that they could not take their pleasure in any and perhaps have entred Friendship with so many that they could never enjoy the Happiness of true Friendship with one On the other side any sedentary contemplative course of life will as soon deceive a man's expectation that seeming withdrawing a man's self out of the World while he is in it and a poetick fancy of some Earthly Elysium to be found here will never create that satura quies so much talked of it may prove a vale of rest unto the Body but not unto the Soul nor a Happiness to either The Imagination cannot be at rest one moment and whatsoever it brings in to the Affections if it appear not useful and necessary it will prove but unsavory to them and be so rendred now and then by it self and raises them trouble about trivial matters as quick and soon as about weighty The proper chief and peculiar pleasure or delight of the Soul from any cause that ever I could find or guess is the reverberation of some good works or a light or joy arising or springing from thence which in a retiredness from the World will miss of many objects to act upon from which this Happiness might redound I know there was a great Emperor and a wise who after he had tasted what Fruits busy greatness but perhaps not good works could afford voluntarily surrendred up his Scepter and could not be prevailed with upon the greatest invitation and most urgent Reason to accept it again but feelingly said 't is likely He took more true delight in the growth of the Lettice in his Gardens than the increase of his Dominions And doubtless there are many more would give up their Verdict for that state of life as most of all tending towards Happiness which God appointed Adam in the state of his Innocency But I who have had some taste of the pleasure of it and perhaps better understand it than some who admire it will not recommend it as a station wholly exempt from disquiet Even since our first Trespass we are subject to be afraid if we hear but a voice in the Garden and the very withering of any gourd we have there is enough to raise our anger especially if before like Ionah we rejoyced or were exceeding glad at the growing of it though we made it not to grow I do not think but there are and have been many of late days as well as in Davids time both publick and private men who while they lived counted themselves happy men nay some who have lived all their days in the Sun-shine of the World and set at last too in brightness and though their pomp has not followed them yet have escaped that Prophet's prediction of never seeing light and are now at rest and happy but these are but rare Largesses of Gods bounty and goodness Such a condition there might be and they might be contented in it but yet they could not be so happy as to cross Solon's observation of Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera c. since they could never be secured from danger of misery or the thoughts of it And therefore in our search after some proper way and means to reduce the Soul to a quiet state which effected is some degree of Happiness we must reject what are called the goods of the Body and Fortune and have recourse to what will enlighten or improve that which is eternal in us and is truly our selves Amongst which what we call Learning may deservedly be ranked But yet I think the multiplicity even of that which is rather the treasure than the goods of the mind doth more distract than instruct us more burden than ease and satisfy the mind Of this I take St. Paul to speak when he saith knowledge pusseth up and that Solomon meant no other when he tells us He that increaseth knowledge increases sorrow as appears by his foregoing confession that he had given his heart to seek and search out by Wisdom concerning all things that are done under Heaven which he found a sore travel Surely it is acquired and adventitious knowledge not the power to know and discern so far as may concern our future safety that molests us for of that Solomon saith It is pleasant to the Soul The bringing in of Foreign Plants and setting them in a man 's own Soil provided he have a judgment to distinguish good from evil may be good and in some measure pleasant but to have his own Soil improved to such a degree as to raise or produce as wholesom and as savory and such as may nourish and heal as well as delight him or others which every man may do in some measure by digging at home is better and will prove more cordial to him He who takes in too much of this Foreign kind of Lading will find it though light yet cumbersom and troublesome and neither please his Pilot nor his Passengers his Intellect or his Affections I cannot but think that many originally excellent brave Souls like clear Springs might of themselves and from themselves have afforded pure and curious Waters which by receiving in so many inlets and imagining thereby with a rapid stream to carry all before them have become not only useless but troubled and muddy and withal not seldom lost as well their original name as their Virtue Repute and Estimation Truth is a blessed thing and happy is he I will affirm that finds her but there are few of our high-flown learned men I
A VIEW OF THE SOUL IN SEVERAL TRACTS The First being a DISCOURSE of the Nature and Faculties the Effects and Operations the Immortality and Happiness of the SOUL of MAN The Second a CORDIAL against Sorrow or a TREATISE against Immoderate Care for a Man 's own POSTERITY and Grief for the Loss of CHILDREN The Third consists of several EPISTLES to the Reverend Iohn Tillotson D. D. and Dean of Canterbury tending to the further Illustration of the former Arguments concerning the SOUL of MAN and the proof of a particular PROVIDENCE over it By a Person of Quality I am fearfully and wonderfully made Psalm 139.14 In the multitude of the sorrows that I had in my heart thy comforts have refreshed my soul Psalm 94.19 LONDON Printed for George Downes at the Three Flower de Luces in Fleet-street over against S t. Dunstan's Church MDCLXXXII THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER ALthough the worthy Authour of this Book hath in the Prefaces belonging to each Part given some account of the occasion manner and method of Writing it sufficient to justify the order in which it is laid yet since we live in a captious age wherein persons are apt to value themselves from the skill they pretend to in discovering the faults of others and to judge before they have taken time to consider or even to read what they so boldly disparage and traduce it may be necessary to prevent that inconvenience at the beginning by shewing the Reason of the following order viz. of placing the Discourse upon Sorrow before that which treats of the Nature the faculties and the operations of the Soul A method it 's confessed that is not usual or natural to set the particular before the general but yet will appear to be very proper and convenient here with respect to the occasion upon which they were penn'd which was the disconsolate condition that this Gentleman was reduced unto by the loss of several Children in a short time a condition that tried all the powers and force of his Soul and which as it gave him the opportunity so it made it necessary for him to find out and to consider the arguments and ways that might tend to the quiet and satisfaction of his own mind and to arm him against the violent assaults of that melancholy passion These make up the First Part relating to the particular case which consists of Considerations against immoderate care c. By this means his Soul by degrees began to feel it self his thoughts were more his own and he had some leisure to reflect upon the strength violence and influence of that passion and from thence was led to the contemplation of the wonderful Effects Powers and capacities of an human and reasonable Soul a subject that he thought would abundantly requite his pains if he took it into serious consideration This at his leisure he did so successfully improve that he from thence compos'd his Second Book or the general discourse de Animâ Having thus arrived at some degree of quiet he then thought himself not the only afflicted person in the World but that there were others that might need and yet not have leisure or opportunity to think or if they had might not hit upon the same arguments and that what was a diversion and satisfaction to himself in the considering and composing might be so to others in the reading this inclined him to make them publick This was a new consideration and however qualified by his Genius Temper and Education yet being distrustful of himself he resolv'd to submit it to the judgement of another and of one that was a Stranger to him from whom he might therefore expect the freer censure This brought him to the Reverend the Dean of Canterbury a person well known to the world no less for his integrity than accurate judgement who with his wonted freedom did communicate his thoughts to him about it and encouraged him to proceed in his design This candour with which that Iudicious Person treated him did at once both encrease his esteem for him and induced him to think over his Arguments again and try what he could further add for their confirmation and improvement This by times and in several ways he did prosecute and sent his thoughts in so many Familiar Epistles to the Dean whom he had now made his Friend which being furnished with many peculiar observations serving his former design and tending more especially to the further illustration of his Treatise de Animâ it was not fit to separate them from the other These make up the Third Part of the Book But now having ventured thus far he began to retract what he had done and to think that he had done too much and after the Papers were sent to the Press would have recalled and stifled them had he not been restrained at last by better Reasons And now they are published thinks it best to conceal his name that he may more unconcernedly abide the censure or more easily obtain the pardon of his Readers and that more especially for the 5th Epistle which respects the Imagination a subject truly nice and intricate and which as it cost him more pains to trace and examine so upon examination he was most distrustful of it and most unwilling to publish what he had composed upon it designing it rather to be perused than Printed as it is And therefore he cannot so well own that to be his as if it had been reviewed and corrected to his own mind If there should be any Errata's that have escaped the Corrector's hand the Author's distance from the Press will I hope excuse them THE PREFACE IT is I think the Saying of Terence Facile omnes cum valemus recta consilia aegrotis damus But in no distemper shall a man find more Visitants with their prescriptions than those of the mind Let him be but oppressed with grief or sorrow he shall have many like Iobs friends come every one from his place and perhaps with less modesty not attending silently seven days shall forthwith apply their remedies before the humor be gathered to an head But if to any of these when seized upon by the same distemper the Proverb should be retorted Physician heal thy self 'T is to be doubted most of them would prove like to a late famous Physician and sink under that distemper for the knowledge and Cure whereof he had at the same instant a Treatise in the Press The Mind of man is a Labyrinth but it has four chief passions from whence indeed all others do flow as from their native Heads or Fountains and those are Desire and Ioy Fear and Sorrow The first being or proceeding from an opinion of a future Good the second of a present the third from an opinion of a future Evil and the fourth of a present Now since it is Opinion as Sir Walter Raleigh has prettily said and not Truth that travels the World without a Passport and these passions
of my belief opposed by the more moderate Atheist I think it has and might be made good not only by Scripture but Reason Yet seeing it is not the thing I am about to take in hand nor whereof I doubt let other men seek their satisfaction from more Learned hands I for my part think that if God take care of the Sparrow he will take care of me and if the hairs of my head are numbred God will not take less care about my Body than the Excrescencies thereof All that I shall say hereabout further is I cannot conjecture by what new methods the Devil has brought in Proselytes for open Atheism since his ancient method was to nooze men by Polytheism but I am verily perswaded that since his Trade failed him therein and the Temples of Idols began to be thrown down so as he could not reap so large a Crop that way it has been none of his slightest policies nor the least covert Trap or Ginn to take men in to infuse slily into the brains of a number of men who account themselves Sages That God has allotted the Government of Sublunary affairs to inferiour Powers and from hence have increased and multiplied the strange opinions and notions of Fate Destiny Necessity Fortune Chance and the like Now if he can perswade us to ascribe to these any sole or chief operation in our actions he obtains by consequence e're we are aware what by express terms he could not so easily do For if we attribute any ruling Power to ought else then one Eternal God we do in effect deny such an Existence because Unity is the inseparable and essential attribute of Deity and by acknowledging more than one we do in effect deny that there is any I will not dispute what Influences or benign or malevolent Aspects coelestial Bodies have over us But this I am assured of and am no whit afraid by God's assistance to maintain That there is a Superior Power ruling in them one who telleth the Stars and calleth them all by their names that doth order and determine them according to his good will and pleasure from whom we are to look for all our good or evil in this World And thither it is that the Apostle St. Iames directs us plainly when he tells us Every good giving and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning On which place says one would not any man have thought it a more proper attribute of God for the Apostle to have said there From God the author of all good things or the like then Father of Lights No says he there is something more in it He would have us look higher than those Lights from whose influence so many place their good or evil and think they have not their wisdom from Mercury c. And upon that very Text doth the Author very prettily observe that in the foregoing vers 16 which is Err not my dear Brethren that the phrase Err not is in the original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which very word says he come the Planets Indeed were any man assured that all our inclinations and actions all our good or ill success were under the sole uncontroulable disposition of a few wandring Planets or the government of a blind Goddess Fortune or Chance he need not be very earnest or solicitous for that were vain since they are inexorable for the life of himself Children or Friends but rather rejoyce at the exemption from such a dominion by death and conclude then with Iob that there only shall we be at rest But having granted this to my self That there is nothing happens here on Earth but what is ordered and disposed by the first Creator who by rooting up one and planting another does as the Psalmist says in that ravishing subject of his providence Renew the face of the Earth my thoughts in the next place tended unto this whether the loss of my Children were an angry correction of God against which David and Ieremy so pray If it were I thought even then I had little reason like a sullen Ass to lye down under the burthen but rather to get up and bear it with patience lest the same Master should lay a greater weight upon me and not only so but even draw forth his Sword and slay me too nay Reason prompted me rather to examine my self wherein I had more chiefly provoked him to wound and pierce me through with these Darts and to stay his hand if it were possible not barely by a sincere repentance for the same but a full purpose and resolution to depart from every evil way and certainly in all God's ways and methods this is the chief end and design to make us wise unto Salvation But since as the Prophet says His righteousness is like to an high Mountain visible to every Eye but his Iudgments are as a great deep past finding out or fathoming I thought it not good to make too curious an enquiry thereinto nor dive into his secrets nor despair of his mercy and loving kindness but to purpose and resolve of amendment and to trust though he will not leave us altogether unpunished yet that his correction may be in measure and since he has been pleased to promise that every thing shall work for the good of them that love him it may not be presumption in us to think that whatsoever happens is not only what he sees best for us but that we may turn the Perspective and look on his Judgments sent in mercy not in wrath And seeing he has given us the grace to behold it is his doing we may therefore conclude with Manoah's Wife If he were pleased to kill us he would not have shewed us these things Now first let us look on afflictions losses crosses and calamities in general so termed and see whether there be such evil in them as men generally opine Indeed so wonderful are the goods of affliction as one of the learnedst of our Nation has highly admired Seneca for that saying of his Bona rerum secundarum optabilia adversarum mirabilia That the good things that belong to prosperity are to be wished but the good things which belong to adversity are to be admired And indeed although the Apostle tells us that no affliction for the present is joyous but grievous yet if we look as wise men should upon the end we shall find cause to glory in tribulation knowing as it s said that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed Now if from tribulation as the first seed sown there is once grown up in us a well-grounded hope and our subjection to vanity becomes a subjection in hope we shall reckon the sufferings of this present life not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall
this Love it obtains its denomination from the World If it be chiefly center'd in any man from the good opinion he has of himself we call it Pride if it chiefly run after the applause of men we call it Vain-glory if the common vain pleasures of the World Voluptuousness or Epicurism if Women Amorousness if we lodge it in our Children Fondness or Dotage if in Riches Covetousness and so for the like Now if this Love be exercised in the obtaining then it is termed Desire if in the fruition Joy if in the losing Fear if in the loss Sorrow For why does a man desire any thing but because he loves it or why does he rejoyce in the fruition but because he loves it why does he fear the losing it but because he loves it or why does he sorrow for the loss but because he loves it This one thing Love is the primum mobile as I may call it of all the other passions are but its necessary Attendants and whatever definitions are made of our Animal faculties 't is this like the principal Spring in a Watch that sets them all on going and whatever evil happens to us is from the ill motion or ill setting of the Spring for want of reason for as our Love is good or bad so are its Attendants If we chiefly place it on God and goodness it has its desires its joys its fears and its sorrows from which Philosophy need not exclude a wise man Surely a man may with St. Paul desire to be dissolved he may desire to persevere to the end and receive the crown of his warfare he may rejoyce in hope he may fear to offend he may sorrow for sin and all this without committing evil or folly for affects arising simply from the love of good cannot have any thing of evil in them These good affects or passions we see in the man according to God's own heart His soul brake out for very fervent desire he rejoyced as one that found great spoils his flesh trembled for fear and he was afraid of God's judgments he was horribly affrighted for the ungodly that forsook God's Law his soul melted away for very heaviness he was troubled above measure his eyes gushed out with water because men kept not God's Law trouble and heaviness had taken hold on him it grieved him when he saw the transgressors And all this proceeding from Love as it appears by the often expression of it in word in that excellent 119 th Psalm the title of one part whereof is Quomodo dilexi wherein he professes what he loved above gold and precious stones and what was dearer unto him then thousands of gold and silver But if our Love be chiefly placed on other things and too much wander and stray from the chief good though it take along with it the same concomitants of Desire c. yet they are in an amazed distracted and uneasie dress and can own nothing but a misguided Love to be their principal Captain and Leader For although as I said before Love may take its denomination from the thing it pursues yet still its proper attribute and name is Love And not only the Poet in case of Covetousness cries out Amor nummi but St. Paul himself gives it its true and proper definition for the root of all evil he plainly terms the love of money and when he reckons up a number of the greatest Vices Pride Blasphemy c. he begins them thus men shall be lovers of their own selves and concludes with these words lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God as if some sort of love were the mother of all Vices Indeed when any one Worldly thing has taken possession and as it were monopolized a man's heart it brings with it a number of disquiet Inmates as solicitous cares and fears c. and amongst the rest sorrow shall never be wanting For in that case of love of money as it causes men to err from the Faith by St. Paul's rule so it causes them to pierce themselves through with many sorrows and he might well say many for even in its first desire of obtaining besides what attend it in the fruition and loss sorrow often goes along with it as may be instanced in Ahab whose heart was sad and he could eat no bread in the very primary effect of this covetous Love viz. desire of Naboth's Vineyard And I think we may affirm vexing sorrow never yet entred into any mans heart without some precedent love to usher it in For take sorrow in both St. Paul's sences Worldly and Godly sorrow apart or both together the rise thereof is from Love for if we are first sorrowful for our sins it is because we shall one day feel the smart of them that proceeds from the love of our selves and then if we be further sorrowful that we have offended a gracious God though there were no punishment attending sin that proceeds from the love of God so as Love is the motive of all and we cannot but conclude that sorrow has its being and existence from Love But herein as to a vain sorrow from a misguided Love whether the inferiour and more brutish part of man the sensual appetite or the will which is in some sort in Brutes for they have choices as well as we though those choices are necessarily determined by their appetite for want of reason or the understanding be most to be blamed is to be enquired into Whereabout we must first acknowledge that the three prime faculties of the Soul to wit the Understanding the Will and the Affections do all concurr in every fault we commit yet so as though they be all faulty the chief obliquity springeth most immediately from the more special default of one of the three As in the present case of sorrow however the other faculties may be concerned yet the understanding is most to blame and this our error is through ignorance Indeed our ignorance is so far wilful that there being imprinted in us the common principles of the Law of Nature as well as the written Law if we had but carefully improved them we might in right reason have discerned that our Love ought more chiefly to tend to our Creator and Governour than our own natural product but yet I think no man will arraign the Will as principal unless in that case of noluit consolari where notwithstanding a mans reason inform him he ought not yet he is resolved like Iacob he will go mourning to his grave Neither are the affections chiefly to be blamed because Love of it self is good and only misled through ignorance and sorrow as I have said is but the consequent of a misguided Love Now then towards the cure our ignorance is to be discussed and our understanding cleared that so our wills and affections may become obedient and follow its dictates This right understanding is indeed an immediate influence of the Almighty by whose powerful rays
spring up in the room thereof grief and sorrow and the greater and deeper root the one had taken the more stubborn and fixed will be the other And therefore I think the Poets advice by way of caution and prevention if we could but warily observe it more of weight than these thoughts have at present by way of cure viz. That we take great and diligent care that these worldly objects of joy and delight do not creep in and too strongly possess our hearts lest if they should be cast out against our wills there enter in and spring up that bitter root of sorrow which will make our last thoughts more heavy than our first were lightsom Sorrow is a wound that is made by the separation of the thing beloved from the lover and though it be but temporary and that we believe with some that we shall again at the last be united together with the knowledge of each other where we shall sing Hallelujahs together and all tears shall be wiped from our eyes yet in the mean while our hearts may be troubled and sorrowful even unto death And since we have lost our present comfort the wound will not be healed but by sending another and better comforter We may still mourn for want of the enjoyment our affections never be absolutely reclaimed by believing the former subject of their Love is happy nor like mourning Widows forget the old but by finding a new subject of delight and complacency Therefore let us as well as hope in future presently recall them and endeavour as I said to fix them on some more stable object than they placed themselves on before Tell them there is nothing truly amiable but God and him we may enjoy here in measure And for the last of them the thoughts thereof as I have said are more proper to prevent murmurs than asswage sorrows For though fellowship in adversity be proverbially turned into and administred for comfort yet really to a good mind it has no such operation If another man loses his only Child as well as I I have thereby wherewith to stop my mouth from complaining of injustice but in no case to rejoyce my heart because I ought rather to rejoyce at anothers good than his evil And sure the true method of the cure of the mind does in many things resemble the cure of the body How far will it asswage my pain to see another more grievously tormented with the Gout very little I think unless as 't will enforce me to acknowledge God's mercy and goodness to me that I suffer in a less degree Nay if the beholding of another mans miseries should be of effect to mitigate mine by the same consequence the beholding anothers felicity which is as obvious to every man must increase mine which naturally few men have found true Many other prescriptions there are against sorrow but since I look on the continual presentment to our thoughts of the thing we take delight in and the rouling and chewing thereof in our mind to be the chief Pillar or Basis which supports and upholds our sorrows or the chief Spring which keeps them fresh and verdant I could not but think it worthy consideration how far it may be good for any man to endeavour to recall his thoughts from his present subject of grief by fixing them on and pleasing them with any other terrestrial object wherein my shallow Judgment has inclined me to think this That no such diverted thoughts whatever being properly efficient of a cure but Anodynes and Stupefiers for a time for then only can a man be said to be cured of his grief when he can think on the cause with comfort or at least without reluctancy of Spirit it is not good for any man in this case to hunt after a divertisement but rather suffer that to call on him and find him out I would advise any man in this case to embrace an old lawful vocation or imployment but not seek out a new one for that end and purpose nor by any means endeavour to charm his grief with the most innocent much less sinful recreation For whatever it may be for cares in general 't is a foolish thing to think forthwith to drown sorrow in the River Lethe for though it be an heavy passion yet none of the mind will get above it We shall often find it rise to verifie the Wise mans saying that even in laughter the heart is sorrowful and it will cause us to conclude with him that Songs sung to an heavy heart are like Vinegar poured upon Nitre do rather sharpen and exasperate than cure the disease This way of laying sorrow to rest is but to give it strength to combate with us with greater force when it awaketh as doubtless it may But besides the incertainty and danger this way we do not thereby at all answer God's designment in sending it Did he ever yet punish any man for no other end than that he should forget his strokes and rejoyce and not rather that he should think on it so far as to amend his faults or errors Can any man think there is an hand-writing on his walls to the end that after his beholding it he should forthwith avert his Eyes therefrom and leave his House and betake himself to the Fields or the Tavern If it be God that wounds us as we generally believe permissively at least as in Iob's case by his fiery Serpents it must be he that must heal us which will not be by flying from the sight of the Serpent but beholding it If it be he that casts us down it must be he that shall build us up And whatever Iob's Friends might otherwise fail in they gave him excellent sound counsel in this That if he returned to the Almighty he should be built up but forgetfulness of his calls is not the means to return and the Prophet David has told us that disregard is the ready way for us to lie buried in our ruines and has shewed it as the very cause Because they regard not the works of the Lord nor the operation of his hands he shall destroy them and not build them up If we think wilful forgetfulness be the way of cure it is but just God should forget us and leave us unbuilt or at least tortering and ready to fall again upon the least blast For I dare say by that way and without him there is danger that our hearts from melting may become frozen but never reduced to any calm or serene temper For besides and above what the World affords sometimes to wit a transmutation of passions that is her objects may cause the mind to lay aside its sorrow for a time and be wholly possess'd with another passion which may be almost as troublesom or is at best a light flashing joy we are capable of obtaining a conversion of passions of having our sorrow as 't is expressed in St. Iohn
and inarticulate voices And so we find Trade and Commerce maintained betwixt us and the Indians and that Mutes do act and understand by signs to admiration But whatever faculty is in the Beasts or whatever necessity may have taught and brought Men to that could not converse by words yet all the dumb signs in the World though managed to the best advantage can never equal the benefit we enjoy by Speech when we can thereby communicate our thoughts and maintain converse with freedom ease and pleasure This indeed is the Soul and life of Society and by the means of which we do as much exceed the other creatures in the happiness of it as in the principle that guides it which is our Reason We often abuse this Heavenly gift as other noble faculties of our Soul and not only say in our hearts that is silently by our actions but some of us in our tongues and by our Pens That there is no such thing as an Immortal Soul in man but 't is a Chimaera first forged in some melancholick brain and by consequence that there is no God For I must agree that if it can be made out that the World is a fortuitous juggling of Atoms and our Souls are only a natural fine product from thence and to vanish again with our Bodies Nature as we call it and term it is no such revengeful Deity that we need fear the disobeying of her private dictates but may safely challenge our tongues for our own and say Who is Lord over them But surely we must want sense to let in so many various works of Nature into our Souls view or any thing of reason to consider or judge of them after they are let in or else we should be convinced from the wise disposition thereof that there is somewhat more than chance and that Nature it self which is but a Law made by God to work by has dependance upon some infinite eternal wise Being call it some men what they please which we call God And for our Souls immortality the seeds thereof sown in our hearts and arising now and then in every one into doubts and fears if not more must be strangely trampled on by some evil one who is willing to let self-valuation in man grow as rank as may be in any case but this of the Souls immortality when all besides it is vanity Otherwise man of himself would never so undervalue his own Original and instead of revering himself an excellent old precept of the Philosopher as if there were some petty Deity within him unman himself become in a wrong sense poor in Spirit for so we may well think that Spirit is which has its rise and essence from the flesh only sully the Word of God with his own and falsly conclude in generalities from particulars that what befalleth man befalleth beasts as the one dieth so dieth the other that they have all one breath and that man hath no preheminence above a beast All go to one place all are of the dust and all turn to dust again And some have been so afraid of living hereafter and so desirous surely of companions to die with them like Beasts that in their Writings and Arguments for their vanishing or vanity I have seen the words of the following verse misplaccd for their purpose and instead of Who knoweth the Spirit of man that goeth upward and the Spirit of beast that goeth downward to the Earth by changing that which was an affirmation of the place whither the Spirit goeth though an interrogation of the knowledge of the Spirit what it is which I say indeed is difficult into an interrogation they have set it down thus Who knoweth that the Spirit of man goeth upward c. as if allowing these words for Apocrypha God created man to be immortal and made him to be an image of his own Eternity the wise man in the following chapter where he expresly says Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it had quite forgot what he said before whose meaning there in comparing Man and Beast together and concluding a like end to both no sober man ever thought to extend further than their Bodies For he begins There is a time to be born and a time to die our Bodies are born as theirs are nourished as theirs feel pain like theirs and die and rot as theirs and so shall continue no doubt till it shall please God at the last day to raise them again in incorruption And therefore all provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof whether in reference to a mans self or to his posterity that wise man found and held to be vanity and acknowledgeth it in his great works and buildings in his Vineyards Gardens and Orchards in his variety of Trees and Plants in his Pools of Water in his Villains and Cattel in his Riches and Power c. And upon his review as well as at first sight confirming our Saviours question What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole World c. he agrees there was no profit under the Sun of his labour which term or words under the Sun he often uses after and gives his reason besides the vexation of Spirit to our selves while we live here we know not whether we shall leave our labour to a wise man or a fool But if he had had any thoughts of our utter extinction after death he would not immediately in the following verse after he had proposed the question Who knoweth the Spirit of a man that goeth upward c. have said Who shall bring man to see what shall be after him which supposes an existence somewhere nor have concluded his Book with the fear of God and keeping his Commandments as the whole duty and proper labour of man telling us God shall bring every work into judgment whether good or evil if all were to be finished under the Sun But these men only at present are about to ratifie and make good the only thing that Solomon found which indeed he affirms with an Ecce as nothing else so sure That God had made man upright but they had sought out many inventions Were there not a possibility of that which seems a contradiction viz. that a man may sometimes as we say cum ratione insanire none would believe that a man should strive to argue and reason himself into nothing and yet this we find to proceed from otherwise very rational men and who would be angry at peculiar seasons if we should compare them to the Beast that perish and therefore let us beg of them and humbly intreat them to become fools with us and to consider and think whether so much as Desire of the remembrance and good opinion of others can be fixed and inherent in a material earthly substance necessarily and certainly to vanish again
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to the same effect from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 simul videre As if there were now and then some stop or consultation held amongst the faculties of the Soul This consultation demurr or dispute in the Soul is from the glowing of some spark of a primitive purity which though raked up and covered ever since our Fall with all manner of infirmities and blurs that our imagination is able to invent or bring in so as it gives not that clear light it should to lead us and conduct us aright yet it often produces a light to warn us or inform us when it is that we go right and when wrong and blessed be God 't is not quite extinguished in any man I have sometimes in my thoughts resembled the faculties in mans Soul to a Law or Judicature and Reason to the Chancellor which though not alike in all men but in some stronger and in some weaker and in some one man sometimes stronger sometimes weaker yet still remains of some Authority at some times to put some stop to those inferiour Courts of the Affections c. whereto the Will is as it were the Sheriff or Executioner And therefore I do take Conscience to be and cannot in short define it better than A reverberation of that light of Reason God has given us into the innermost recesses of the Soul whereby or from whence there becomes a perswasion for some demurr stay or hesitation for a while of the other faculties though they often forthwith again disobey and proceed And I cannot but think the Poet has well enough defined it and no ways worded it amiss in this verse Stat contra ratio secretam gannit in aurem as if Reason perswasively and convincingly did secretly whisper in its injunctions I know this our Chancellor here as I call him is subject to error and I doubt too generally in which case he is not able to determine either way very weak yet obedience and disobedience to his whispers are the two things wherewith we usually entertain our selves by way of reflexion and the one is pleasant and as the Wise man calls it a continual feast the other is bitter and a continual remorse For though the error of this Vicegerent of God do not at all alter the nature of good and evil but that they remain as they are in themselves and if we do evil from his error we are punishable yet that gives our offence no worse a title than erroneous and is properly the Understandings fault whereas the other is stigmatized presumptuous and is the Wills or the Affections indeed the whole Souls fault Now by the way if I have guessed or defined it aright that Conscience is a result from Reasons whispers or the inward reverberation of that best natural light we have to guide us why since we all daily offend and do wrong do some of our high-pretending Rationalists seldomest feel its strokes and why are the same most felt or most pretended unto by men of weak Intellects or Reason Why truly in one case I think man may become a deaf Adder charm the charmer never so wisely and on the other side I think that a weak Reason may be so dazled by the flame and zeal of the affections that it knows not how to discriminate between them and it self and that the flashing and light of the affections is often mistaken for the light of Reason or at least Reason seems to enjoyn and command as a Captive whenever the affections would have him or else they only colourably set him up as their Authority against a Foreign Authority For against Authority it is that Conscience is ever most pretended What is the meaning of the word Tender Conscience properly and strictly taken I do not well understand yet if there be such a thing I am not about to rake or harrass it in another man having enough to do to look after my own Weak indeed it may be Reason is very weak in the best of us and wants assistance but sure methinks men should not pretend tenderness in it too and such a tenderness as no man must come near it so much as to inform it or guide it but let it go which way the affections please I hope men only mean hereby tender affection or tender heart which I pray God grant to every one and that it never become hardned stubborn or obdurate in any man and then we shall not fear but Reason will suffer information without offence Well be we as tender as imaginable in all parts be Conscience a post-cordial or a post-wound as truly 't is the latter whenever we act against the tryed light of our Reason we shall do well to endeavour by all means to avoid this wound not only in humility exercising this our best faculty but hearkning to others reasons and praying God to assist us For there is no man but may live to see the error of his own present Judgment which if it err for want of diligence and care or receiving information may that way prove a wound in the end too However let us all be assured pretence of Conscience will never want its darts in the latter end There is no man knows his own heart 't is deceitful above all things much less can any of us look so far into other mens Souls as to see whether the light within them a thing much talked of now-a-days be the light of their Reason or the flashing of their Affections and therefore we ought to be as tender in censuring any man as he would be to be censured I beseech God to enlighten me in all my ways from the first Reason and beg of others not to be too tender in trying themselves search narrowly whence that light they have proceeds remembring that speech of our Saviour by way of question If the light that is in thee be darkness which I much doubt it is if it spring from the affections barely how great is that darkness SECT IX Of the faculties of the Soul working upon each other HAving slightly run over the several apparent and most discernible faculties of the Soul distinct and apart I will endeavour to behold them working together fighting and combating raising or inflaming helping or assisting drawing or inticing quelling or allaying ruling or governing one another in some plain and familiar instance which may be this A man who has lived until his Reason has been able to inform him he lives and shew him some ground how and whence he lives for that it is not from himself that he lives A man I say endowed once with this faculty visible which never much appears till some perfect stature of Body and having all other faculties of his Soul quick and ready to work but by reason of the Souls conjunction with a Body necessitated and constrained to work by and through the Organs of that Body through them I say by one means or other the
from a general Reason as we are born alike are of the same mould have our Being from and equally bear the Image of the same Father should not our Love be universal And may we stile our selves of Paul or of Apollos and then in assuming the Title cast away our Charity and our Reason too Must we in bandying for our Teraphim so far arm our passions and blind our Charity as to reject and contemn others persons for the sake of their Opinions which they differ from us in Whatsoever our Opinions are Truth is God's peculiar we may seek for it and pray for it but I question much whether we ought to run over and trample down one another in the finding of it We are all very apt to err in the pursuit and as I have once said our Liturgy is well begun in the acknowledgment of our errors so I now think it ends as well in our request That it would please God to grant us in this World some knowledge of his Truth and in the World to come life everlasting His it is and so locked up that I doubt no man yet ever had the certain infallible Keys to open it to others Though Pilate believed not our Saviour to be God yet if he had not known that he was taken and believed on for such I do not think he would ever have put that ironical question to him What is Truth He well knew man was not able to define it nor attain to any certain knowledge of it much less appropriate it to himself St. Paul never told us he himself was the Light or the Truth he rather assures us otherwise and that he was not crucified us and we are not very apt to believe St. Peter was But a sober Heathen that should see our heats would be prone to judge we almost thought some other men were who they are I will not go about to determine and that though Truth may be the colour and pretended yet 't is Mammon or Dominion are the Gods they fight for when for the sake of Truth they lose all Charity and in contending for and exalting of Faith the solid fruits of both Good Works are despised I would not be thought in the least to undervalue or reject that gift or tenure in Frankalmoign or Free-Alms a Lawyers term not improper for this place Faith since without it from all the labour and search I am able to make I cannot find sufficiency in man to attain to any possession of a present or reversion of a future happiness I do own it to be the most excellent gift which comes down from Heaven but I fear we are subject sometimes to relie too much on it or if it be not improper so to say put too much confidence in it place it always uppermost in the Soul to the starving of that otherwise vigorous and active quality of the Soul Charity I stand convinced that if the most righteous man on Earth did take a full and intire view of all his best actions whether proceeding from himself or of Grace such as we call gratis data we will not here dispute together with his wilful errors and deformities and make his Reason judge of the weight and merit of each he would distrust and deny himself and all he were able to do and expect his Justification if he expected any of God's mere favour and grace and therefore I am content it should stand for a received truth that the best works of an Infidel are not only unacceptable with God but sinful Yet as I believe the Scriptures excluding many men from the Kingdom of Heaven or future happiness under the divers titles of sinners and all under the notion of Infidels so since there is a salvo for penitents I know not who those sinners are much less do I know the faithful from any outward badge or cognizance they wear and therefore am unfit to judge any but my self For I could never yet nor shall I believe unless I become able first to reject and abandon that Reason I have or that Reason leaves and forsakes me find just cause to condemn in my thoughts any one Nation or People any one Sect or Party or any one single person in the World besides for the bare want of a publick profession I exclude here wilful denial or owning of Faith just according to that model as any one Nation or Council or selected number of men have framed it so long as I behold in him or them those works which are the usual concomitants and attendants of what I think and is generally held to be the true Faith I do not think it safe to wish my Soul with the Philosophers but had all my actions after some knowledge of good and evil been always conformable and agreeable to their Writings and such as the actions of some of them seem to have been I think I should never despair of future happiness or rest were my Faith weaker than some men perhaps will imagine it from my thus writing What was the cause of their good works was it Faith If it were not I am sure it was the Grace of God and to them who owned it so or the work of a Divine power that Grace was not likely to be in vain If any of them was withheld at any time from sinning against God 't was the same God withheld them as withheld Abimelech an Heathen as they and Abimelech and some of them might for ought I know at the last obtain from a bountiful and gracious God mercy and forgiveness as well as a restraint The sound of a Saviour of the World from the beginning and long before his bodily presence on Earth had gone into all the Earth for St. Paul borrows those words Their sound went c. out of the Psalm intitled Coeli enarrant the Heavens declare c. These men might look for some strange deliverer and God might please to shew them more than we can judge of We read of a good and charitable man a Gentile who so loved the Nation of the Iews that he built them a Synagogue concerning whose Faith at that time there is nothing more to be collected from the story of him than that having heard of the fame of Iesus he did believe he was able to heal his Servant and yet the Author and finisher of our Faith gives this testimony of him That he had not found so great Faith no not in Israel though there are others mentioned before who forsook all and followed him and owned him for that Christ the Son of the living God too Truly a Centurion's Faith may best become us an humble not an arrogant Faith and it may in some sort be safest for us to think that if he vouchsafe to come under our roof we are unworthy he should and unfit any manner of ways to entertain him We are apt not only to extol our Faith but to impose and force it upon others
Heaven if I understand the word nor that reason can demonstrate what God is though it may tell us what God is not And therefore I think reason may be as well too blame for marching too far or soaring too high for its learning or knowledg as sitting quite still or groveling on the earth and permitting the imagination to introduce what forms of a Deity will or best may gratify any the most predominant present affection an habit which has been too much in fashion of late and now a little withdrawing makes way for the other excess I may have said too much my self in this little it has exceeded my original intent and purpose yet this further I must say and begg your pardon and others who shall chance to see it if I say amiss that my wishes are we may all in this great concern carefully avoid extreams and that as we do not set up such a God by faith as reason is able daily to confront so we set not up such a God by reason as there needs no faith to lay hold on For my weak opinion is nay my present resolution is As never wholly to desert my reason for the adoration of any God So never to adore any thing for God my reason is able fully to comprehend EPIST. II. Wherein he treats of the cause of Action or Motion under the notion of Spirit and endeavours to shew our often mistakes in applying our thoughts and actions to the operation of that Spirit of truth in us which though good in themselves may proceed from other cause and advises to solitude at particular seasons as the most ready and likely way to behold in some degree the light of truth BEcause Soul or Spirit hath been heretofore at special seasons the subject of my thoughts and because there are many amongst us who would seem to have great knowledge of a Deity and may be thought too familiar with God under a colour or pretence of being daily enlightened with his Holy Spirit affirming its constant working in them And others quite Aliens and strangers to God not barely by their life and conversation but by their outward profession too and who deny in words as much or more than in the deeds that there is any such thing as a Spirit which in St. Iohn our Saviour tells us God is and that what we term Spirit is a mere Chimaera fansied in our brains Both which kind of persons being equally to modest Society and civil conversation and I may say enemies to true Religion I have adventured with all submission to your more weighty thoughts and solid judgement to present you with my sometimes opinion in reference to what we most properly and peculiarly term Spirit and wherein I say ought in relation to that Spirit of truth I humbly implore its aid that nothing escape my Pen which may in any wise if seen lead others into error or in the least diminish the goodness power glory might Majesty c. dominion of the Almighty First I have thought and do think That we can not rationally attribute or impute the cause of any action or motion whatsoever to ought else than somewhat which we in no wise able to comprehend by our sense term or call a Spirit and that without some such thing the world were an insignificant Lump That from such thing all things live and move and have their being is not to be doubted whether we call it Nature or ought else This Spirit gone forth or sent into the visible world which now has visible effects as I take it to be some emission of that Eternal spirit at the Creation from the Word so I think it generally worketh unknown to its self the will of that Eternal Spirit neither can it cease of it self to work but if re-assumed or gathered again as is expressed in Iob all flesh would perish together c. And that all flesh and all other things Sun Moon c. do not perish is the work of Gods ordinary I trust I may so call it Providence the confirmation Seal of his Creation Such vivifying Spirit as this which men may call nature if they please is gone out into the world and shall continue working every where no doubt until the appointed end of the world yet not apprehensive of its being nor capable of understanding in the least to what end it works may probably cease to work after the manner it now worketh And this kind of Spirit receives no new influence nor seems capable of any new influence from above yet is ordered by what we call Providence But where there is any Spirit conscious of its own working and in some measure capable to conceive from whence it is or at least desirous to enquire after or know the original of its being that Spirit seems to me to be some special emission more than ordinary at the beginning or Creation of the visible world to be of duration and continuance A thing now as it were subsisting of it self and which vanishes not nor can vanish or will be re-assumed again But being as I may say the very Spirit or breath of the Almighty and able to look back towards its original and fountain is capable of some new influence and as I may say regeneration and such is the Spirit of man And therefore we in no wise deny but that the Spirit of man may receive some new light for its motion otherwise than barely and simply by sense the Organ of the body And that no other though intellectual Spirit inferiour thereto can so do or is capable so to do Now of created Spirits superiour to our selves or of greater capacity in point of intellect than our selves as I read or hear of none save Angels created all good as well as we so I cannot conceive that any created or circumscribed Spirit from any power of it self to intermix it self with our Spirit or so move in us as that it may be properly said we are possessed with any other Spirit than our own and therefore 't is most properly said When we are tempted we are drawn away of our own lusts Though I confess I think objects may be brought by the assistance of some such spirit and laid down before our senses or presented to our fancy whereby our lust may seem to begin to move though indeed our lusts be the original of our error But forasmuch as our own spirit is some image of and has its being from the Almighty that is one eternal all powerful spirit it being capable by its reason for no otherwise 't is so to distinguish between good and evil in some measure and to know the will of that almighty One It doubtless may be and is capable also not only to have its reason enlightned from thence but to receive some such new accession of light as that it may not only have a clearer sight of that bountiful Creator than reason is able to afford it but be
led into the paths of truth and righteousness and become acquainted with his will And this we look upon as effected by his Holy Spirit through his Word one God blessed for ever Such new accession of light and such a blessed gift as this were the Writers of Holy Scripture no doubt endowed withal whose words and actions were in demonstration of the spirit and with power the effects whereof we have heard and beheld and felt in a great part of this visible world Now for that we have a promise this admirable strange effect in man shall not wholly cease but that God will be with us to the end of the world and we talk much now a days of the light of the Holy Spirit It may not be amiss since we have a caveat Not to believe every spirit and withall authority given us to try the spirits whether they are of God for every man to try his own spirit at least and see whether that of it self already sent be not the spirit only which he often mistakes and vouches for the immediate dictates of the Almighty and calls it a new light the spirit of God within him and so becomes a little too bold with the Almighty I am afraid it has in some men and that many a man has so little understood himself and less his Maker that he has mistaken the suddain and strange flashes of some kind of lightning from his own inherent affections for another spirit which feeding with conceit he has brought to such a flame in himself that at last his reason has given place and approved it to be something more than what is under its regiment or correction even the light of that spirit of truth whereas did a man by his reason keep a narrow watch over his affections it might observe every the most ordinary affection able to raise its peculiar spirit that is such a flame in the soul as with the assistance of the imagination shall hurry it with the body in obedience to it and force reason into a belief for the present that its motion is from the light of truth of which in time it may stand convinced to have been mislead and misguided We do not improperly call the product of that predominant affection in man Pride the spirit of pride and the consequent thereof the spirit of contradiction and these may be the spirits which for the present enthral our reason and make us believe better of our selves than others do of us and think God worketh in us immediately and of his gracious dispensation that which is effected by our own spirit through his most just and wise providence To exclude God that is One eternal omnipotent wise working spirit out of any action especially that which is good might prove of evil and dangerous consequence Yet since his way is in the sea his paths in the great waters and his footsteps are not known as is expressed We may be too presumptuous in being too confident of the knowledge of his present manner of working in our selves I do own it is he that hath endowed us all with an intellectual mind or Soul and given some of us that strength of reason which is in some measure capable to search after him and behold some of his ways and doubtless many of the heathen were not excluded from such a sight and he has enlightened others by his holy spirit to declare unto us his good will and pleasure which we call his Word And to others of us has he by that Holy spirit with which those holy Writers were inspired given grace to lay hold on that word and all the promises therein Notwithstanding which and a saving faith at the last we may not for the present safely challenge that good spirit of God to be the sole or chief guide of all our thoughts and actions for if it were so then were it impossible for us to err as I conceive which daily we do and grieve that Holy spirit as is expressed by which we are sealed to the day of redemption There are as I of my weakness am best able to conceive for I never saw or searched Writers on such subject either towards the enlightning or confirming me therein four more especial ways by which God worketh over us and in us 1. By his common and ordinary Providence 2. By his merciful Providence 3. By his liberal and bountiful Providence 4. By his Spirit His ordinary providence I call that which extends over all the works of his creation as well irrational as rational which though irrational bodies are no ways sensible of or its working yet has he therein an eye over them in their bodily preservation and feedeth the young ravens that call upon him And within this care or eye of his are we comprized too and no way excluded By his merciful providence I mean his withholding us from committing those enormous crimes to which we are prone by nature through the lusts of the flesh even against the very light of reason which thing perhaps you will term his common restraining grace and this he extends to Heathens as well as others as may be observed in the story of Abimelech and his withholding him from touching of Sarah By his liberal and bountiful providence I mean this That God having endowed our souls with that more than ordinary gift of reason by which we seem originally capable in some degree or measure to discern good from evil He more especially overlooks that gift of his and more especially worketh therein towards the enlightning thereof So that of his bounty and goodness alone it is that our humane reason is at any time brought to a clearer sight than ordinary of justice mercy temperance patience or the like and beholds the beauty thereof above their contraries whereby we imbrace them with our affections and this I hope I may without offence allow the name of his Common renewing grace to In which sence or notion if any shall alledge his capacity of coming to the knowledg of the present work of the spirit of God in him I mean not to contradict him because I behold every mans reason his rational soul to be in some sence the spirit of God which being enlightned from him a-new for the inclining the affections to imbrace that which is morally good we may more properly say then 'T is the spirit of God that worketh in us But many Heathens as well as Christians have doubtless in great measure participated of this grace for so I call it now it being from the mere good will and pleasure of God without any motive or inducement from man and owned the same to be his good work in them and yet never otherwise enlightned missed of the truth and could not be said to have any light from his Holy spirit but to err even to perdition notwithstanding the aforementioned grace I and justly to perish too For such is the wise just disposition
can we acknowledge a belief of a better fountain if so good in some of our present spiritualists without a breach upon our reason whateever our charity may incline us to I am so far from denying the often immediate blessed effects of that spirit of truth in the soul of a true believer that I would not be thought to make use of my reason in the least so as to interpose it as a cloud or mist between that and any mans Soul to obscure it if I could from the light thereof I would sooner wish or be content not barely to lose my reason but he changed into a brute as to visible shape than do it Yet since I challenge and own my very reason from one and the same Godhead however miraculously and diversly working as several persons I hope I may even from that without offence or grieving that Holy Spirit tell men they may possibly err in the opinion of its effects and through some inherent lurking pride have their conceit raised to that height as to believe and therefore would have us believe they bare the fruit of that spirit when Sedition a work of the flesh is more manifest to our reason Indeed Saint Paul has told us the works of the one are manifest but not the fruit of the other though it has its fruits and therefore why men should cry up their fruit to be the undoubted product of that ever blessed spirit until they can manifest the same so to be and be able to convince our reason by some infallible demonstration that it could not proceed from ought else I find no just or sufficient ground That true faith an invisible thing and best seen by works though by any outward work it cannot infallibly be known is the very effect of that blessed spirit we may safely affirm but further than so I cannot see how we can without danger affirm its immediate operation in us or retain a positive belief that any particular effect wrought by us or in us did proceed merely from the motion of that blessed spirit dwelling in us If any it may to my weak judgement be in some such particular case as this when the soul sometimes on the suddain beholds as it were at one intuition all earthly things as vanity and rejects them with a kind of longing desire to behold somewhat that is not such and to have some present fruition thereof And this at such time as the soul may seem at ease and quiet and is surrounded and as it were courted with all wordly affluence and prosperity and seems to have wordly honours laid down before it in its path not when it rejects and seems to contemn those things out of a sullen temper because it either cannot attain them or is crossed in the fruition of them When this happens I cannot think it to be the mere work of the Soul it self nor of the deity either in any ordinary providence and care over it but some special grace moving it and darted as it were into it from that blessed spirit towards beholding an everlasting true joy by faith Besides this there may be other cases happen which may induce us to think that there is something more than ordinary moves in us from above as this When a man shall by his reason with the invocation perhaps of divine assistance have weighed the good and evil of some particular action and all circumstances in relation thereto as near as he can and concluding of the lawfulness thereof perhaps through the fallacy of some covert and latent affection in him shall pursue the same If afterwards he chance to be stopped in his full cariere not by any audible voice or visible light as Saint Paul that is not to be expected now a days and whenever 't is averred I will determine it the effect of Melancholy or which is worse averred upon contrivance with an intent to deceive but by some secret whisper as it were or suddain conviction of his error and the light of the truth breaking out as at once upon his soul on the suddain which doubtless has happened to some men I should be ready to acknowledge it as the work of some extraordinary spirit from without and not his own For this cannot be said to be the effect or stroke of his own conscience that is the dictates of his reason contrary to what he acted before For in this case he no ways erred against that but as we put the case consulted it made the best use of it he could with an invocation of the divine power to enlighten the same Yet in neither of these cases do I think it safe or convenient the party in whom such effect is wrought should presently determine it in his own thoughts to be the undoubted immediate work of that good spirit within him lest if he should err those thoughts embolden him to continue therein against the plainest demonstration of truth in future much less to discourse and proclaim it to be the very light of that spirit of truth in him lest he induce others to be led away by every fantastick light their brain is able to forge within themselves They on whom God himself breathed they on whom tongues as of fire visibly sate they who saw Christ after his resurrection and had power to work wonders in his name might safely make use of their own tongues to declare their immediate knowledge of the will of that Almighty spirit and not be thought too familiar with the Deity in declaring its manner of working But for us to take the same liberty and casting aside all thoughts of moral goodness fall to talking and describing of that strange admirable effect that being born again of the spirit sometimes wrought in the soul of man which we cannot possibly comprehend how or when or where it is wrought may be of dangerous consequence I think and further to glory as if we were the only men in these latter days on whom this spirit is poured is such an arrogance in my apprehension that a sober Heathen might well think us distracted If we would needs glory let us make use of Saint Pauls own subject ready at hand our infirmities We shall find little else if we examine our selves that we have any tenure of or may call our own or that we can have such knowledge of True faith as I said which I take to be the peculiar work of that spirit in man is a trembling though a fast hold on the Deity and proclaims not the body to be the temple of the Holy Ghost otherwise than by the good works done therein the beholding of which and we can behold them as good though we cannot be infallibly assured they always proceed from that spirit is the readiest way to draw others to glorify that God whom we adore not to dissect it as I may say in ordinary discourse no not in the Pulpit and tell men exactly after what manner
those whom we shall scarce meet with in company but we shall receive a challenge from As to the first I have said somewhat but properly to hold a dispute against him we cannot either we must deny his premisses which we are unwilling wholly to do or else we must necessarily grant him his conclusion For the other so much a Sadducee as not to believe Angel or Spirit other than his own if that and resolving to believe nothing without a plain demonstration We must not provoking that spirit of his of which he thinks himself the only master and we think he is therein deceived answer him at his own weapon reason and indeed we have none other as of our selves and argue with him in calm manner if at all not philosophically not Aristotelically but as rationally and as plainly and as perswasively as we can or are able leaving the success to the guidance of that good spirit in which we our selves already believe 'T is a strange thing a man should admit of any ordinary inference or any indifferent argument à probabili as we say to satisfy his reason and raise a belief in any case but that which is of greatest concern to him the belief whereof would only do him good and which could not if upon a false ground possibly prejudice him or do him hurt If I should begin to talk of the nature of the elements how each several one as we divide them hath in it some latent quality or virtue of the other And that some particular species of one participates so much with or is of such cognation as we may say with the other that from some little reflexion or light from that other it shall in a manner change its quality and seem to be quite another thing than what it was And then tell one of these kind of men some such strange story of Naptha as Plutarch do's A kind of a sulphureous fattish soil to be found which taken out of the body of the earth and brought to light shall forthwith at a great distance from any fire take flame from thence and become of the nature of fire it self consuming every thing about it there is little doubt but I might without demonstration to sense obtain credit therein Now since we cannot make out that our soul conscious of its being and capable to enquire after the nature or original of its own and other beings is the bare product of flesh and blood or that it can be actuated from thence towards these kind of enquiries Why should not these men as readily believe that there is some spirit or intellectual mind far above our own from whence our own receives some influence or agitation and by which it is disposed ordered or governed I dare appeal to the secrets of any one of these mens hearts their conscience if they please to allow of that term Whether or no if I should have done him some great or grievous injury such as after all ineffectual indeavour of revenge should lye heavy upon his spirit or leave a sting there he should not by a kind of secret wish seem to invocate for we will not imagine he has so much of the Christian Tenet in him yet as wholly to forgive all offences and return good for evil some Nemesis or resort to some secret revenger of evil to punish my injustice towards him On the other side should I bestow so many gifts heap so much kindness and do so many good turns to that man as after all indeavours of requital in point of gratitude he should find he were in no wise able to make me sufficient recompence or amends he should not by a like secret wish invocate some good power above his own for a reward upon me If in either of these cases he thinks he should so do or upon examination of himself finds he has at any time so done in like cases then surely he naturally as I may say believes that which in word he denies viz. That there is some spirit above our own for if he verily believed from his heart there were no such thing as some all-knowing all-powerful and all-sufficient spirit a just rewarder of good and evil superintendent over us it were the most ridiculous thing imaginable for him barely to wish nay he could not wish me good or evil But if he has unawares by his own spirit recourse to some invisible power why should he not confess which he often swears by unawares too that there is a God Now though it may seem here from the present purpose give me leave to say in this place that it is some confirmation of my opinion in relation to the soul of brutes proceeding barely from their blood and vanishing therewith which thing I mean to insist upon more at large in some other discourse that it makes no foreign appeal in any case nor uses any weapon but bodily I do here think that God may punish us for the abuse of brute creatures and that their blood may seem to cry for vengeance but it cries only silently not intentionally from them For although we do really perceive a kind of gratitude as well as revenge in many creatures besides man yet we cannot observe no nor suspect upon just ground any recourse they have in prosecution of their love or anger to any superior power above themselves I do not think my Spaniel ever wished me good or evil if I could conjecture there were imprecatory thoughts in any creature save man and the weakest of men has them I should forthwith renounce and recant my present opinion of the annihilation of their spirit after death For if that spirit of theirs can wander out of the body any other ways than directly by sense it certainly neither vanishes with the body nor can be said to be mortal There are many such like cases as aforementioned of some strange foreign work in the soul of man which have occurred to my mind sufficient as I thought to convince any Atheist of the falsity of his assertions in point of the original of all things and the government or guidance of all visible creatures more especially our selves But lest I seem guilty of what I condemned in my former Epistle I shall forbear to insist thereupon and leave all to that attribute that superabundant stream flowing from the Deity and which is over all its works its mercy and loving kindness towards man And however any of us think or believe either of our selves or ought else in relation to our selves for the present it can be no uncharitable wish or desire no nor foolish one I hope that before we cease to be as we are that is have finished the race of all flesh we may so think and act as that at the end of that race we miss not of eternal rest body and spirit But if these two kinds of men amongst us I have often thought could be brought to some moderation shall I say to a
only neither can there be ease or disease pleasure or displeasure in the Soul longer than Sense affords being to such Affection and this I think to be the case of Beasts because we never see them disquieted long or above measure nor refusing any grateful Object if some disease of the body resist it not we observe not their Imagination heightened by their lust nor their lust inflamed or raised from their Imagination but at such time only as Objects offer themselves through Sense and the one abstracted the other seem to vanish And surely were our degenerate lust and affections of the same extract it were impossible for us to be hurried away to that excess of any vile or base passion as to imploy our thoughts nights and days about a meaner or more sordid Object than Sense it self usually affords every moment But Affection in us is of another extract able to desire and imbrace what Sense cannot afford our Imagination of another capacity and reach penetrable and malleable as I may say otherwise than by sensible Objects Our Will and all other our animal Faculties subject to supernatural influences and that is the reason there is such daily combat between them and sometimes such lasting agony For the Imagination rowsed and called upon as it were from divers and sundry quarters and not able through Sense to work so as to satisfie one single affection It sometimes opposes Sense and raises a thousand Chimaera's to the astonishment and amazement of it self to the conclusion and distraction of the Affections and to the disquiet of the whole Soul so as whatsoever original cause we impute elsewhere the present apparent cause of our disease we may rightly impute to the Imagination and the rectifying thereof must needs be the readiest way towards a cure which I shall endeavour to speak of in the end of my following Discourse Do we not find our Imagination allured or inticed to work from the restless strugling of some affection Do we not again find it recalled by Reason arrested by our Will wrested at length by some foreign power from subjection to either and forced to work as we observe by consequence in obedience to some eternal decree leading all the others as captives And all this while Sense one and the same in all men might seem to offer it other subject matter for its present work Do we not or may we not observe in our selves at special seasons some mounting in desire to imbrace or lay hold on somewhat above the reach of Sense And would we not our Imagination could invent or find out some such thing Is it not thereupon set on work And though it cannot fully comprehend mere insensible things by any investigation yet is able to imagin or conceive there is something more glorious more pure more perfect c. that it can conceive whereby the Affections are a little quieted for the present and rest in a kind of hope and to this Reason freely consenting there is begat a kind of faith I would fain know how it were possible our own thoughts should be set on work in relation to what others thought of us or in what state we were in the eye of any righteous all-knowing Judg or argue and weigh or will in relation thereto or be concerned or troubled thereabout with fear or dread or ioy if sense were the only inlet to the Soul I am sure it cannot hurt us at present but from our desire to know and our imagination's presentation thereupon so as what our Imagination frames must be chiefly the cause of our disquiet or disease of mind if any happen Indeed as it is sometimes the window by which Heavenly light is admitted so it often proves the Postern-door by which some evil spirit sliely enters and the Key thereof is certainly some corrupt affection It is most subject to be turned about by every wind from within and from without most subject to be deluded and delude and since our Happiness here seems to depend very much upon its work we will endeavour to treat of it here a little more particularly than we have done either of it self or in conjunction with some other faculty of the Soul Indeed the several faculties of the Soul seem not many in number yet the Soul like some instrument of very few strings is capable to render such innumerable various sounds as are able to confound us in going about to distinguish them This we own upon trial to be the admirable work of our Provident Creator and Governour and judg it impossible to set any certain rules or bounds in its manner of work or so much as to fathom or know our own Yet this I think the sweet harmony or jarring discordance in this wonderful Instrument in relation to our selves and whether it renders a sound sweet and pleasant or harsh and grating consists very much as I conceive from the high or low or even straining that one string thereof in it the Imagination The Imagination is a most strange faculty and able to confound us and put us to a stand or a maze while we reflect on it 'T is that various and sometimes false light which puts the colours of good upon evil and evil upon good 'T is that strange resounding echo to the affections that renders their cry double and louder 'T is that which called upon by one affection to its help and assistance often raises and leads with it a thousand furies to disquiet us And if we may affirm as I think we truly may that the heat of the affections sometimes causes its work so also It is that bellows which increases their natural heat double and treble and driving them from their proper Object inflames them beyond all degree and measure to their utter destruction and confusion in the end I deny not but that Imagination in man continually and necessarily working is capable to work from divers causes it is diverted or called upon and imployed by various Objects minutely through Sense as we observe How else could we remember which is but an impress left in the Imagination for any time what we daily hear and see And when those windows of the Body seem shut up 't is often imployed upon such Objects as it formerly received thereby But I cannot but think that its work generally tends to the satisfying or feeding some affection not affection of its own creating from Sense as in Beast but some affection of equal extraction with it self originally pure and undefiled but now corrupt and depraved by its work through the slie insinuation or delusion of some evil Spirit and that from Sense alone the one nor the other nor both together could create in our soul those diseases we find and I may say often see and feel above the Beasts which perish This affection in us how pure soever or howsoever debauched is the thing ever chiefly aimed at in all addresses to the Soul as I have touched already and therefore
evil habit of mind for so I take the meaning of it to be a thing no ways natural in man we bring it not into the World with us and therefore it is perhaps that St. Paul bids us Be children in malice We can discover or discern no such thing in Beasts there is in them anger and a kind of revenge too raised by the Imagination from sensible danger loss hurt or the like but nothing continuing in them like a passion from conceived damage or prejudice only without the assistance of present Sense nor when Sense seems to afford grounds for the product of love or kindness things of contrary quality as it happens sometimes in man Now in man it arising through a kind of mature deliberation and not being on the sudden or of short continuance like other Passions although St. Paul and St. Peter both do link it with passion I will not so call it and the rather because a Learned Orator has affirmed That passionate men are not malicious But I will impute it to be a strange effect of humane Imagination only or chiefly and begat thereby as it is restless and active and Proverbially inventive And withal I will readily grant that he in whomsoever it is or harbours is a man of weak reason because he thus permits this Prodigy or Monster in Nature to inhabit his Soul but yet I continue to think being begat by humane Imagination which can supply the place of reason as I have said it may work with some coherence and connexion and with the help of Satan and his Emissaries palliate truth This superfluity of naughtiness so termed I conceive by Saint Iames once bred or raised in the soul will never let the Imagination be idle or attend on any thing else and then 't would be strange if humane Imagination or invention thus imployed though in opposition to reason should not invent formally and with some coherence But besides this there are common evil inherent affections in the nature of man able to set the Imagination so on work as may deceive us and make us think 't is Reason that answers their call at our devotion when indeed 't is no other than a restless quick and lively working Imagination rowsed from them We do esteem him a man of quick and brave parts who seems to have a power over his Imagination can at any time recall it to work as it were at his pleasure and this we say is strength of Reason But I do not always look upon a man as the more rational therefore or that it is his Reason only or chiefly by which he seems enabled so to do Caesar we say was a man of quick Parts and how was he so why his ambition was naturally great and again greatly inflamed by a clear and roving Imagination and those two in conjunction together ready to serve each other upon every turn might make us admire him But I cannot well judg his Reason to be greater than others or actually to work in conjunction with those other faculties unless in such particular cases in which he duely observed Justice or out of true compassion shewed and performed Mercy He could not but be sometimes convinced in reason for we 'll not suppose the Spirit or Grace to work in him that the Wars he made the trouble and disturbance he raised in the World were injurious and unrighteous and therefore his invention in pursuance thereof wrought in opposition to his Reason I do not think he was deprived of Reason or his Reason clouded so far but that if he could have attained his aims and designs his ambitious ends and purposes without injury or wrong to any he would rather have done it that way but contriving to satisfy his ambition per fas nefas as we say I say his Imagination inflamed and hurried by his ambition only supplied the place of Reason in all its contrivances I my self have sometimes designed and contrived as many others have done by all lawful ways and means the advancement of my estate and the settlement thereof in my name and family I have invented and found out perhaps as probable a worldly method for the doing thereof as another My Imagination has brought and laid down before me all the letts and impediments that might seem to hinder and obstruct It has invented means to avoid them c. Yet since my Reason has at particular times informed me of the vanity thereof the certainty of Death the mutability of all human things c. I will not impute my contrivance to Reason and lay the fault on that which disallowed the work but to Imagination rather from some restless affection which it indeavoured to gratify so far as 't was able and only supplied the place of Reason to make me strongly think rather than firmly believe the matter feazible by man alone Surely there is something more in Reason or Reason is somewhat more than we are yet generally aware of 'T is as I have touched the thing by which we are in some measure enabled to weigh and distinguish good from evil and evil from good right from wrong and truth from falshood c. The chief and principal ingredient of that thing we call Conscience however frequently those who most pretend Conscience make least use of it and least exercise it an inherent native light in mans Soul not excluded from Heathens and not the Spirit we Christians so much talk of from Scripture promises A gift which whosoever observes makes use of and obeys procures to himself peace and quiet of mind For unless some disturbance in him do arise as by the representation of bodily danger hurt or loss c. through present sense which is ever of short continuance and no longer than sense is open to it Observance thereof and obedience to it is ever necessarily and consequently attended with joy and comfort 'T is not as I conceive the man of quick nimble exquisite or excellent parts as we term him but the good man we so call who we may most properly say is the great rational man or the man of Reason We shall find a sound Reason and quick invention sometimes working together in one Soul But the quick or methodical work of the second do's not always denote the actual assistance of the first quick invention denotes often sprightly lively vigorous and active passions and such passion not forward and testy humours is usually attended with a quick and well contriving invention and they work together upon each others motion call or notice to astonishment or admiration even to the blinding sometimes of a strong Reason but not always that which is good Nay often especially through that flexible member of ours the Tongue that which is evil And that Trumpet of a rational Soul only given us to make a true sound from the invention only is made to render a false one Reason that Divine gift properly so called and yet
only and pleased with its invention for surely fancy barely though some fanciful men so talk cannot be pleased or gratified with it self nor do those that entertain themselves after this manner at idle hours do it to please their fancy only but some impotent weak spawn of Love bred through Sloth and Idleness blindly and childishly craving somewhat For whensoever Affection in man has any strength or vigour through sense or otherwise and craves real food this Affectation so I may call it rather than an Affection soon vanishes And surely here of all other cases fancy supplies the place of Reason This being granted that in our greatest and deepest Politick contrivances and in our most curious and exquisite inventions the Imagination may and is able to supply the place of Reason that the Imagination and some Affection in conjunction together only can frame with coherence and connexion and that in their operation they want reason only to distinguish of truth or falshood and the consequent of their work good or evil that its checks in relation thereto are but rare its offers weak and it is become amongst us almost a Cypher in the Soul Let us enquire here if you please how far it is or may be in our will and power to cherish it or strengthen it or how far we may become enabled from thence to regulate or reclaim controll or recall change or alter guide or direct our Imagination and Affections so as from our obedience thereto we may obtain in the conclusion not only some peace of mind here but eternal rest hereafter For reason or ought else inherent in man absolutely to govern the Imagination and wholly reclaim its wandring nay to fix it one moment without some kind of deviation upon any particular Object since so many various Objects offer themselves through Sense and since without present sense the Imagination is agitated from such opposite and various quarters I hold it altogether improbable or rather impossible Some indeed who had read that excellent Tract of the Government of the Tongue a bodily member did promise to themselves and us the like of the Imagination a spiritual faculty But 't is in fancy only that fancy is in our power or can at any time be made a faithful obedient Subject We cannot command it by our Reason at least we cannot do it at our will and pleasure and therefore chiefly and principally we must trust the Government with and expect the guidance and direction thereof from some Superior power Yet this I dare aver That as Reason naturally and as it were involuntary to us does now and then put a kind of check to the Imagination and thereby cools the Affections as to worldly Objects so it may by observation and some kind of endeavour or exercise so far increase in strength as to make us will or desire that which is perfectly good so as our Affection shall as it were distrust our Imagination as unable to shew us that of it self and not eagerly imbrace that which the Imagination often lays before them And then the Affections a little cooled the Imagination will cease to contrive in that manner it often does or at least its contrivances will not much prejudice or hurt us I might here a little distinguish between Imagination and Imagination that is a sudden senseless as we sometimes call it and yet perhaps arising by a stroke through sense vain insipid cogitation or thought without the apparent concurrence of any Affection a frailty in us not wholly to be prevented and for which we are in no wise answerable to Divine Justice as I shall speak hereafter and a cogitation allowed entertained and embraced by some Affection An imagination of the heart as the Scripture calls it that is perfectly voluntary as I conceive these kind of thoughts may be surely in some measure prevented that is that they be not evil and that continually for our affection though not our Imagination was certainly ordained subject to our Reason and our Imagination at least by consequence There are some men I find who are already perswaded or if you will allow it have raised a setled opinion in themselves that because it is impossible not to think it is therefore impossible to prevent a thought say they How can we be said to hinder a thing before it be or that which never would be And when it is a cogitation how can it cease to be And so voluntarily as it were yield up the rein to have their thoughts arise or work by a kind of fatal necessity What I shall futurely think I must confess I cannot possibly prevent and yet it may be so in my power by way of precaution and curbing my Affections with my Reason as to prevent the rise of an evil thought which otherwise might have been and further the rise of a good thought which perhaps otherwise would not have been If beauty or riches or honour or place shall seem to offer themselves to ten several men in their thoughts at one instant that is they all then think there is an opportunity offered of obtaining or enjoying doubtless there will follow as many various thoughts about the manner as there are men and neither could prevent at that time such their thoughts Yet if any one of these men had at any time before curbed his appetite in like cases that is made use of Reason so far as to shew unto his Affections the vanity or inconsistence of these things with true happiness the vileness of obtaining them by any indirect means c. which we cannot but imagine 't is in some measure in the power of man to do do we not think nay can we not judge but that such mans subsequent thoughts would much vary from what otherwise they might have been or tended and if so a thought may be changed altered or prevented If our thoughts were so far out of human power or ability as that they are neither creatable mutable or reclaimable thereby To what purpose is all this argument about them We will imagine now the Inventors Assertors or Promoters of this Opinion are like other men and we will appeal to them who urge it whether they would not the good Opinion and good thoughts of us and all men in relation to their sincerity in this averment that is that 't is the plain demonstration of Reason in them and no sinister Affectation whatsoever that induces the maintenance of this Opinion which perhaps at present we think it to be now I am sure they will offer it to our Reason to make trial thereof Now if I have no power to exercise my Reason then is that offer to it vain if I have and thereby change my Opinion then is it in my power to change my Opinion and create those thoughts in me which otherwise would never have been Nay this very exercise that is the weighing and examining the grounds of the first rise of this Opinion creates in me thoughts
a present fancy shall render with the assistance of some formerly debauched or deceived Affection Now howsoever I adjudge affirm or maintain Affection to be the original cause of motion or work in the Soul I do not adjudge it originally to blame or to be the chief and principal cause of every uneasy or evil motion in the Soul but that the Imagination is first and chiefly to be blamed and that Affection would never imbrace any thing as good or reject any thing as evil which are not so in their Nature if the Imagination did not first present them as such Human Affection originally good naturally tends in desire to that which is good But because the Imagination the perspective by which it looks abroad is not able of its own strength to afford it a full and true prospect of any such thing it many times presents unto it in haste things as good and beautiful which in truth are not which once accepted by the Affections as good from that false glass they adhere thereto and are not easily removed but disturb us whensoever we are informed the contrary by others beating upon our Reason through sense or indeed that our Reason of it self shall too late inform us otherwise 'T is from the checks of Reason at peculiar seasons that that saying of video meliora c. has arose not from the Imagination which is most apt to delude us that we follow and are most prone to follow and if we are once given up shall surely follow as Scripture it self seems to intimate placing the foolishness of our hearts subsequent and attending on the vanity of our Imagination And therefore we should strive as far as we are able to rectify that one faculty in the beginning Does not experience daily shew us this one faculty in the Soul has deluded every thing that may be called an Affection in us by representing things on the right hand in a far more pleasant and delightful and on the left in a far more horrid and uncouth dress than in truth they are or prove to be when we become really acquainted with them and by our Affections seem to taste them Every man who has promised himself Place or Power with the delight thereof to gratify Ambition or Revenge Honour to gratify Pride Riches to gratify a Covetous desire Fleshly pleasure to satisfy a more than Beastly lust and enjoyed either I am sure will own it to himself and that a Mahometan Paradise best agrees with fancy alone and by it self as it were for whatsoever may be called an Affection no sooner tasts it but it loaths it and wants the Imagination to put fresh colours on it again to raise a fresh or as it were a new desire The things which the Imagination at first presents as ingrateful to the Affections we are rarely so long and so well acquainted with because we shun them and turn from them in thoughts as often as we can as with the help of experience to make a true judgment of our Imaginations false gloss thereon and we are never willing to stand out the trial This I am verily perswaded that that most dreadful Gulph of Death is chiefly so framed from the Imagination and is not such without its deception And that those who have shot it if they could return to us again and declare what might be most for our ease and quiet in relation thereto would bid us not to read the Treatises thereof which some have made and framed by their Imagination but advise us to exercise our thoughts towards the performance of moral duties rather than busy them about that which serves but to aggravate and enhaunce terror And I do further believe how e're we accuse our Affections therefore that it never was suddain joy or suddain fear or grief as is storied that has killed men those Passions are not so much to be blamed how suddainly soever they are awaked they only imbrace or avoid as they seem directed but that it is a strange suddain exaltation of the Imagination a thing seated in the brain which from its violent heat and motion there is able to dissolve and dissipate our vital Spirits and stop this breath of life in our mortal Bodies I do not impute our common distractions and disturbance of mind grounded as may seem to most in fears and jealousies so much to the fault of mens Affections as their Imaginations though Affection be to blame too Affection in man is generally good and inclinable to peace and quiet and if it work the contrary 't is from some false light of things darted from the Imagination however raised or kindled therein There are many thousands no doubt who from the bottom of their hearts wish and desire the quiet and peace of their Country and Nation and yet at this instant very much help to foment its differences and are ready to bring upon it the contraries thereof Trouble and War and this from a false and vain Imagination only or chiefly that we might be happier than we are because we seem not at present so happy as we would be Which deceit of the Imagination men usually observe when 't is too late and wish themselves again but as happy as they have been But it is a strange thing that they who have once observed it and found themselves deceived thereby should a second time suffer their Affections to labour under the same fallacy and not observe from Reason back'd as it were from Experience that we may be deceived thereby and therefore carry such a suspicion of the Imagination in our Soul as not to let our Affections too deeply ingage with theirs who may possibly indeavour their own advancement rather than our reformation and amendment and aim at the delusion of our Imagination by mormo's and spectrum's raised and shot into it through sense absurdly enough rather than the enlightning our Reason by offering us any thing of weight or truth Nay when the Imagination without the least ground or concurrence of Reason has once framed a belief in some men and thereby captivated their Affections how ready are these faculties together to spread the infection through Sense in others by the most ridiculous ways and means that may be Every Apparition every Blazing-Star must portend if not infallibly denote to others as well as themselves Sedition Troubles Wars Subversion of Monarchy or what else men readily would And truly so every such thing does if we exercise not our Reason and it happens once to become a general belief amongst us from the fallacy of our Imagination by the Devils Emissaries that there is such a portent but if men would be prevailed with to make use of their Reason I affirm and they would see these Apparitions portend no such thing But that it is in our power at all times to change the seeming evil consequent of these Signs or Face of the Heavens and I will plainly tell you how Let every one of us
indeavour to amend one our Prognosticators especially himself rather than another Let each single person begin to lead a righteous sober quiet humble life let him submit himself to all Power Laws and Ordinances already established for God's sake These I am sure are the dictates of right Reason and these are things as much in every mans power as any thing imaginable Be but this and Reasons dictates when it dictates are the same in all men though that be sometimes weaker sometimes stronger and sometimes blind in man once observed we become again as it were of one mind and if we become of one mind Sedition is necessarily wanting and if Sedition be wanting I am sure 't is impossible Troubles or War should happen amongst us So as 't is we alone are able to make a Star portend good or evil which of it self signifies nothing of concern to us When plain down right Reason is neglected the subtle Imagination inflamed and our Affections once wedded as we say to Opinion what monstrous consequent beliefs are begot in the Soul Is it possible think you from Reason to have a belief raised in any mans Soul of his own merit or worth in relation to any future state Is not every man conscious thereby of his own defects and unworthiness here of his treachery and falshood of his Irreligion and Profaneness of his want of Charity to his fellow Creatures and want of due veneration to his Creator Can any man behold himself and in some degree and measure know himself which is a thing utterly impossible of another and not condemn himself by his own Reason if he have any as acting sometimes against the plain light of that and look upon himself as St. Paul the greatest of sinners because 't is impossible he should behold and perfectly know any greater and throw himself at last at the footstool of some infinite Mercy I am sure no man can do less that makes present use of that faculty at other times neglected Whence is it then that some men elect and Saint themselves without any present respect to such infinite Mercy and behold others as Reprobates and Castaways discarding all Mercy out of themselves Is it not from opinion only and the bare work of the Imagination in them And is it not wrought and effected principally from others disagreement with them in point of Opinion relating to the ways and means and methods of obtaining future Bliss and Happiness Affection sure is not herein originally to blame neither can any peculiar affection unless Pride the spawn of the Devil be found that should inflame or exalt the Imagination above Reason in this manner Before men thus differ in Opinion they love and affect one another well enough but after Imagination has raised several beliefs in several men perhaps about a trifle and that which is not worthy to be a subject of belief they generally mortally hate and persecute each other Herein I say the Imagination is chiefly culpable and raises such a belief meerly for want of a little exercise of Reason For that duly consulted I dare say would raise another manner of belief in us that is that without just provocation and the immediate necessary defence and preservation of our own Bodies we ought in no case to wound and destroy anothers And then would this Diabolical imaginary belief vanish and we should be at Amity again which God of his infinite mercy by the strengthening or enlightening our Reason or otherwise of his immediate Free Grace so far as it may agree with his holy purposes towards the setting forth his own Glory in the end grant unto us all and that we become not more savage than Beasts whose Imagination working upon the inlet of Sense barely frames and contrives no further than self-preservation nor is vainly exalted in any of them into a belief of self-worth or Spiritual Prerogative or Soveraignty above their fellow Creatures so as to destroy one another as a Victim to Pride but only to present Rage or Lust or Appetite I am so far from accusing Passion as the Original Cause of our Errors and by consequence our Trouble and Disquiet which I rather impute to the bare work of the Imagination and that chiefly through the delusion of Satan that I do think there is not a greater or stronger Bulwark against the idle and wicked excursion of the Imagination whereby our Troubles do arise nor a more effectual means for the opening and strengthening our Reason by which they are soonest allayed than some peculiar Passion inherent and raised I will not say by the Imagination for the Imagination alone I am sure cannot do it in the Soul and that is Sorrow a thing we are ready and willing to shun and condemn in our Imagination before we become well acquainted with it by our Reason Of the usual blessed effects whereof I mean to say somewhat in this place in order to a Conclusion By Sorrow I do not mean every Grief Anxiety Trouble or Perturbation of Mind but that Dolor flebilis mentioned a mollifying and melting of the Heart through some seeming irreparable loss but so mollified or melted by a stronger power than the Imagination which thing though it continue not in its first state or height but resolves into a kind of joy at the last and indeed while it is is no other than a privation of some preceding joy or delight yet retains so much of its first nature and quality that upon remembrance thereof and if it were real it cannot be utterly forgotten it will remain as a guard to suppress the treacherous attempts of the Imagination or rather the Devil through the Imagination and consequently the Insurrection of all base and sordid affection or if you please against the excursion of other Passions and consequently against the deceit and falshood of the Imagination The Imagination is usually of a towring quality beholding all worldly goods under it and not seldom is as liberal of its Promises to the Affections as Satan to our Saviour And this puts them all in Arms and whatsoever Mastery Victory or Enjoyment is obtained there will be Mutiny and Trouble and Disorder amongst those common Souldiers of the Soul which this one single Passion raised is only able of it self to prevent or allay For it cools the Imagination only while all others inflame it and rejects those Companions of Envy Hatred Malice or the like which other Passions usually call in to their assistance by the help of the Imagination There is no doubt neither shall I gain-say but that every man notwithstanding the present Dominion of Sorrow or any other moderate lawful Passion retains in himself the Seeds or Roots of every irregular unlawful Passion which may in time spring up and bear a bitter Fruit to the Soul yet this Covering like Snow which has in it the qualities of Cold and Heat both will obstruct their springing forth for the present the usual consequent whereof is a good and
thousands of men endued with more sprightly or lively Affection of clearer and quicker Invention of better and firmer Memory of stronger and sounder Judgement of every way greater abilities attended with fitter opportunities and greater leisure less pestered and troubled or sorrounded with wordly affairs or indeed the pleasures of the World And this at such times as I have strived to cast away the thoughts thereof and could willingly have pleased my self with sensible Objects even offering themselves as it were to my Affections and I shall adhere to him and become his Convert In the mean time I cannot believe the more than ordinary imployment of my thoughts on such subject proceeded from any peculiar humor in the Body nor that any stroke upon the Imagination through Sense at any peculiar instant before caused it Nor yet do I believe or so much as once think it to have been the immediate gracious influence or inspiration of that Holy Spirit I have always had so much strength of Reason left me as to keep me from that inflammation of Opinion and I pray God we may all so have howsoever he is pleased to work in us But this I think and find and know that mans thoughts are not always of himself and therefore I very well agree with the melancholy temper as it may be thought of those men who have prescribed us the following form of invocation of the Almighty Spirit of the World and that immediately before the hearing his Commands that it would please him Unto whom all hearts be open all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid to cleanse the thoughts of our hearts where I yet hold most of them are hatched or fostered at least our considerate thoughts by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit c. But I do not agree with that man that shall now a days affirm that his or any mans particular Thoughts are throughly cleansed at any time we cannot so judge by our Reason while we consider the vanity and folly of our Thoughts at most seasons and I am sure we have nothing else properly to judge by Some will tell me my Reason is carnal and cannot judge of Spiritual things I say Reason of it self is not carnal it is of Divine extraction I think I have made it so appear it is an heavenly gift already bestowed on us and by which chiefly we must try the Spirits wherher they are of God or no I and that too through Sense most commonly for he who tryes and judges otherwise does it from Imagination barely Some will tell us of their faith their zeal or love of God If it be pure and real I will readily admit it to proceed from that gracious Spirit But how can I or they themselves well judge it to be otherwise than by Reason from sensible and visible effects That may deceive us indeed but that is the best and safest Judge we have in us at any time I know not how to appeal to mens Spirits in that notion some accept the word viz. an immediate light or voice from Heaven that dictates but I appeal to the chiefest safest and best distinguishing faculty of their Spirit their Reason Whether in the case aforesaid relating to Gods express commands as well as those private ones written in our hearts If the thought of our Hearts were cleansed by the immediate inspiration of his Holy Spirit we should then look upon obedience towards our Superiors and Governours Chastity and Temperance towards our selves Truth and Justice nay Love and Charity towards all men as absolutely necessary and consequent as Zeal heat against Idolatry and Profaneness or our observation of days We cannot rationally think though that Spirit be not limited or confined that the good effect it has upon man will not be as visible in one equally known duty as another Or that we can be truly zealous though Imagination may sometimes render us so to our selves but we must be truly charitable I cannot yet think we ought to be so born again as afterwards to cast away our Reason or so much to neglect it as not duly to consult it a thing through which chiefly we are born again if we are born again but follow our Imagination only I do not think Reason was a thing given us directly to resist or oppose and wholly reject every stroke that first wounds or possesses the Imagination or Affections if it came not directly or apparently through Sense and presently conclude it the sole Embryo of the Imagination No Reason the best and strongest does many times give place for a trembling yet fast hold on Mercy from Eternal decrees But yet I think that in the most evident cases of an immediate work of some other Spirit than our own in and over our own we may nay we ought to retain and make use of our Reason by considering weighing and trying all sensible consequents that may happen whether good or evil and curb the Imagination and Affections for entertaining them in other colours than what upon due advice that only or chiefly puts upon them The worst enemy of mankind needs no greater advantage over mens Souls than to have them follow or be given up to follow their own Inventions or Imaginations without any dispute or struggling of present Reason within them to behold the deception and fallacy that may be therein He shall never want besides ordinary Sinners Enthusiasts Dreamers Visionists Prophets c. and with the help of some base Affection Statists and modellers of Governments enough to set the whole World in a flame and uproar And that they do not as the World now seems to go is God's wonderful providence over it If a man once come to lose the use of that rein or let it go or rather cast it away by the strength of some Affection that is devise and pursue that which he would not others should devise and pursue were his case theirs and that in justice too I doubt even his Prayers to God to direct the course of his thoughts or his present thinking only that that which he thinks is right will little avail him in the end For such particular persons as pretend and positively affirm to see visions and hear voices and declare them as senâ— of God I wonder there is any man of the least Reason that gives any credit to them or hearkens to or regards them further than with pity and commiseration when he observes the Imagination to be so far exalted as to be Master over and command Sense as well as Reason and to raise a fictitious Sense or conceive it self raised through Sense when indeed there is no such thing And yet we see such accepted for men in their wits as we say and allowed of by some Statists who would be angry perhaps we should tell them they wanted Reason although we may truly tell them without just cause of offence they do not lay aside all passion to exercise it If there were two
never so credible witnesses who should testify upon Oath a call or voice of this Nature to a third person and own as much as is recorded of those who journeyed with St. Paul to Damascus I profess I should very hardly give credit to any such thing now adays For being already sufficiently satisfied and convinced even in Reason that the Reason and necessity of supernatural Oracles Revelations and Miracles since God spake to us by his Son in those last days and the Christian Religion was fully established is at an end and ceased I shall rather believe there were some imposture in the case or the Imagination of those two laboured under the same fallacy with the third by infection from it and by a kind of Sympathy to which way of fallacy some of the learned have subjected this faculty of the Soul and that neither of them in reality heard ought 'T is Imagination only or chiefly which renders men thus bold and familiar with God which makes them so positive and dictating to man Reason is not so towring it is ever attended with humility and fear It is weak in us God knows and it is his Wisdom and Will it should be so yet a faith from thence though weaker and trembling is usually more lasting than from that predominant faculty in man Imagination 'T is Imagination that makes us believe well and highly of our selves and meanly of those whom it might seem in Reason God has placed over us dictating and prescribing forms of Government with a nolumus hunc or hunc regnare But in this very case Affection may rather seem to corrupt Imagination than Imagination to debauch Affection I did once mean to discourse to you of the general deception of mankind herein but I know you see and espy it and God alone is able to prevent it which I trust he will do in some measure and therefore lest I seem to some to be of any party I forbear and to all such as at present hearken to our argumentative as if they had Reason on their side Imaginatists I have only this to say If they have left them but half an Eye a Phrase sometimes used for an ordinary Reason and will but make use of it if they then do not find out and espy some self-Affection aiding and assisting most of our Contrivers Imagination in their Plat-forms and Expedients rather than Reason Let them then swallow down with them this as a good rational maxime That evil may be done that good may come thereon I have ever in my judgment looked on evil Affection and strong blind Imagination always so actually in conjunction together above other faculties to our confusion and so pernicious to our present and future happiness as nothing more I know not which to give the precedency to nor indeed well how to distinguish them in some cases Pride in general the Mother of all evil passion is defined and rightly defined to be nothing else but a good opinion or high conceit of a Man's self Spiritual Pride is somewhat more it is a bold presumptuous arrest of the Deity making him our Inmate to cover and colour our Pride and where that once is and takes possession 't is in vain to knock at the door of Reason If I should admit Reason it self to be wholly out of our power and that we were specially directed in our very judgment I can yet say truly with David Them that be meek shall he guide in judgment and if you who are God's Ministers over us could through his blessing once change or metamorphose that passion in us Pride into its contrary lowliness of mind then should we all see the vanity madness and folly of most of our past inventions then should we be all of one mind then should nothing be done by us through strife or vain-glory then would men obey and withal work out their own salvation with fear and trembling rather than through an exalted Imagination believe God worketh that in them which may be from the insinuation of Satan wherein that you may prevail in some measure God to whom be all Glory crown your labours Amen EPIST. VI. Wherein the Author treats of the various impress of the Divine Power upon each particular created substance more especially upon the Souls of Men And further shews how proue we are to mistake about the case and temper of others and our own and that they generally are not what they seem And thence proceeds to discourse of Friendship and of Love MY good and kind Friend for so I am bold to salute you in this Epistle wherein I mean to say somewhat of that human yet sacred tye Friendship Let a man behold any thing he will or can and search for the original cause of its so being and 't is somewhat a wonder to me he should prove so stupid and senseless not to behold it or at least not to afford it some proper attribute and allow it so much as the title of incomprehensibly Wise or the like since that that his name is near his wondrous works declare Some such different or distinguishable form there is in every visible Body whatsoever upon the face of the whole earth narrowly inspected or observed as that howsoever we generally stile all things the work of Nature our Intellect by and through our Sense is able to espy some Image of an infinite wise Essence ruling in and through that thing we call Nature for she of her self as a blind Goddess like Fortune could never imprint so various a stamp upon every individual unless directed by such a first power as is eternally one and the same and yet able to give various forms unto every created or extracted substance but would produce though not the same yet often some indistinguishable or unperceivable like I do not think it will be denied me by any rational man that amongst all the faces of men not the worst index of a Soul which have been or now remain upon the face of the Earth there never were two Visages as we say so like but that they might be easily known or distinguished from each other or the one from the other And if I should of my self further alledge that there never was one single grain of Corn nay so much as one single medal of the same metal with others and receiving its impress from one and the same stamp or mold but there might be found upon the same by diligent and curious inspection or observation some different form or mark sufficient to distinguish it from any other which could be produced of the same kind or species I should say no more than is true being confident that no man is able to produce two such Bodies together of any magnitude wherein I or some other may not be able to shew him an apparent diversity I would fain know how it otherwise comes to pass that the Bee knows any one of a separate Hive or
discern our selves throughly much less others subjects us to false opinions of our selves and false conjectures at least of others For as to the discerning part of anothers Soul the Intellect doubtless we commit sometimes great mistakes There are and have been certainly many Souls who though for want of some outward ornament or some casual advancement or improvement by which we are only capable to apprehend them or conceive ought in relation to their Intellect they have not been able to express themselves plainly and evidently to the capacity of others yet have had a very clear inspect into the truth and reality of things And we are not rationally to think because we find them not in story that therefore there were no wise men before Apollo as well as valiant men before Agamemnon and so are and will be for the future unknown and unheard of to us Nor should we look upon our selves who dare to set forth our folly and weakness rather than ought else legibly to the World to be the only men of parts God knows how far the best and wisest go astray from the truth and it might be easily evident to humanity if men would take the pains to weigh things how much light coyn has passed for currant Men there are who have words at will or command and know how to place them in excellent order but if they were to pass Solomon's test and should be duly weighed in the ballance we should find them to be but words and carry nothing of weight or solid matter in them As to the censure of the affectionary or imbracing part of mans Soul doubtless we commit as many and as great Errors and mistakes That unsearchable thing as Solomon terms it in a King and doubtless is so in others the Heart is not certainly known by any outward motion neither the gesture nor the lips will at any time fully discover it to a spectator or auditor and there is little trust to be given to what a man receives in at second hand It is so ordinarily mistaken in man that truly he who would judge aright had need I think vary from the general censure of the World If a man be but a little facile he is presently esteemed for good and yet perhaps the Italian Proverb may be verified of him That he is so good as that he is good for nothing There is a great mistake of that which we call good Nature I for my part think that if a man be so soft and pliable as to take an equal impression from all men that is indeed none he has little of real goodness in him He who will never be angry will in a strict Sense never be pleased and he who never thinks evil of any man will never think well of any man nor becomes ones special Friend upon the ground of a vertuous and good life and though Charity prompt us to think the best of such a man yet Reason informs us and without breach of charity we may think nothing really good that is insipid and that if a man have lost his savour and taste all things alike there is little of vertue in him whatsoever there may be of goodness Goodness if there be any such thing in man must since our Fall how ere we were created be looked on as a Grace not a natural habit and he is only good who intentionally in respect to God is so not he who is as it were so habitually or casually and unawares to himself as we say I am sure it is no uncharitable part in man but rather the contrary to think that some persons whom we seem to behold surly cross and peevish in their words and actions too sometimes have good intentions and meaning in the general And though in propriety of Speech a man cannot be said to act against his Will but the Will ever accompanies both words and actions yet there may be something besides of a latent Will in the Soul or wish of good to the party injured even at the very time of the injury Indeed it is said he who is of a currish churlish Nature should sacrifice to the Graces but we might pass him by and pardon him without Sacrifice and ascribe that to the Bodies temperature in that particular case which we are but prone and apt enough to do in many other cases There is a kind of condiment or sharp acrimonious humour in the blood not that the Soul is made or compounded of any such which the Spirit meeting with in its operation or motion raises outwardly a kind of mire or dirt and yet may be clean it self I have seldom met with injustice oppression cruelty or rapine in a snarling habit though I have often seen them all in a fawning one and that Scripture verified there are things smoother than oyl yet are they drawn Swords There are rugged obscure and dark passages in Palaces which lead to the fairest rooms and there are soul Sepulchers outwardly painted and constant bright and pleasant shining Tapers set burning before them And we often therefore judge amiss when we judge of the mind by such indications It is a blessed happiness when a quick working Soul can at all times flie abroad into the World and search every thing to the quick as we say without offence and without venom but it is very rare that that salt or gall which has been allowed ever by the learned to quicken the Invention should not sometimes exceed due measure and be mistaken for ill nature in the Affections Affection of it self is not evil by nature it is blinded since the Fall and strangely led and truly whether it be good or evil upright or crooked in the main intention and consequent is impossible for us certainly to know It is esteemed now adays and perhaps ever was the principal part of a Wise man to become acquainted and versed with the several humours and tempers of several men and throughly to study and know a man But as it is an insidious study I think unless in case of your profession only with a purpose barely to reclaim the Soul and make it better So it is a very fallacious one and in that respect may doubtless be very well linked with that of judicial Astrology and many men have but deceived themselves while they thought to know others Surely he who practises upon any Individual beside himself and pryes narrowly into others is not like to find any path that will lead him towards Happiness This he will be sure to find in every Soul a self-love inclosed about with Briars and Thorns and it being in no man's power to eradicate or grub up those Briars and Thorns growing in every man by Nature as we say unless in himself if so be that he may chance to be scratched and torn thereby while he thinks to bring that love to his own Lure He who is so curious to inquire into mens Natures and Dispositions and thinks he
only known unto it self I will adhere to him and relinquish that opinion I at present hold of Providence EPIST. X. Of Credulity and Incredulity the rise of both and that Credulity of the two is of more pernitious consequence And of the Evil of imposing on others or creating or raising a belief on false or uncertain Principles SInce I have elsewhere as well disowned my abilities as disclaimed any call or Authority to treat of that incomparable divine gift Faith in a strict and saving Sense And withall made some kind of confession of my own I hope if in declaring here my opinion of the dangers attending Credulity and evil consequence of imposing on mens belief I do by way of introduction and making some inquiry into the ordinary acceptation as well as proper signification of the word Faith a little touch upon it in that gracious Sense it may be without scandal and offence The word Faith is often taken for that which should be ever the ground of it Truth As when we commonly say there is no Faith in man we mean thereby there is no truth in man or just ground for a belief and so that saying Nulla fides pietasve viris c. is to be understood So the word faithful is often meant or intended for true as that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render in one place This is a faithful saying and in another place render the same words This is a true saying and such indeed as may obtain an assent and raise a Faith in us Thus we also conjoyn the words in the oath of fealty or de fidelitate and render it in the administration to be true and faithful And most certainly whenever Faith or faithfulness is spoken of God it must necessarily be intended of his truth as where 't is said Shall their unbelief make the Faith of God without effect God forbid yea let God be true c. So God is faithful by whom c. Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it There are they say who have reckoned up above twenty several significations of the word Faith in Scripture but I 'le not meddle therewith or yet trouble you if I can avoid it by confounding it with the bare cogitative faculty but distinguish the one from the other as near as I can Faith or Belief in the strict genuine Sense and proper meaning thereof I take to be a conviction or perswasion of the Intellective Faculty to accept a thing for true which it cannot digest into any kind of knowledge or receive under the colourable notion of knowledge Or more generally thus An assent or perswasion of the whole mind Because the Will and the Affections if any powerful effect be wrought upon the Understanding concur for a time therein This the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies which is derived from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 persuadeo and therefore the Apostle rehearsing the saying of St. Iohn Baptist as we translate it He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life by way of opposition one to another makes use of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together And the like may be found in other places Now as to Faith in the most gracious Sense as well as conscience of which I have already treated I do in all humility think it to have its rise and first work I will not say from but with Reason Nay I think that both Faith and Conscience are Effects in and through Reason in the one case as Reason is passive in the other case as it is active Conscience being a result from Reason's whispers in an advised active deliberation and Faith being a result through God's grace from Reason's silence in an advised yielding upon a kind of passive deliberation For truly as Conscience in my opinion is no other than an effect in the Soul wrought from the bare seeming stroak of Reason so I do believe that in the birth of Faith such I mean as we talk of in a justifying notion there is some stroak upon Reason too but withal I acknowledge there is somewhat more viz. an insensible though Hearing may be the instrumental means of its coming stroak from the Divine Power and Goodness A lightning from above purifying the heart melting the Affections and new molding them according to the working of his mighty power And this is that precious Heavenly Balm by which we lenify and heal those wounds made by the stroak of Reason in some case of Conscience and such wounds there will be now and then occasioned by the Will 's disobedience to Reason's dictates and serving the Affections Now of this strange work in the Soul Faith no man can certainly point to any peculiar instant in which it is wrought as he may to the stroaks of Reason in point of Conscience neither can we discern any thing of the reality or truth thereof further than by a general propension to good and a general aversion from evil And which we cannot by any other way shew to others if we would shew it than by our works Indeed the very same may be said of Conscience We cannot so much as shew that to others either whether there be such a thing in us or no or whether it be good or whether it be evil if there be such a thing moving in us unless by the Affections embracing that which is good and rejecting that which is evil For from thence it may be collected other men having the like Reason with us whether the Affections are obedient to Reason or run by Sense They are both blows or influences likewise upon the Affections and there is a kind of concurrence or meeting together of all the faculties of the Soul as I humbly conceive in both cases We are told with what other part than the Brain man believeth unto Salvation and therefore I do here in the case of a good and perfect Faith think the word Confidence to be most proper For though it be a word which some by misuse have rendred of no good sound yet St. Paul makes use of it in this very case Therefore are we always confident c. for we walk by Faith not by Sight we are confident I say and willing c. repeating it again For when a compleat victory is obtained as well over the Affections and by consequence the Will as over Reason there is a confidence in the Soul a reliance on foreign aid a trust But yet certainly since there is no disputing argumentative faculty in the Soul but Reason neither can there be properly a perswasion of ought else the thing is chiefly effected in and through Reason though not by Reason and if Reason at any time be quite left out in either case I much doubt whether there will be a good Confidence or a good
Conscience If men would we should behold their Faith let us see their Reason too attending on it or coming after it and permit us likewise to make use of ours which if they do they may be assured we shall have an eye to their works and not much regard ought else There is ever most talk of those things we least understand or are able to perceive or judge of Whatsoever defects there are in the Soul or whatsoever Errors in any of the faculties happen to be committed As when men sin against the very plain light of Reason if they are blamed if there be an indeavour to reclaim them they are apt to talk of their faith and their conscience and take them up as weapons not only to put by the stroaks of others who wish or would have them morally honest but even sometimes make use of the same to offend also But when the one or the other is thus brought forth I will not say to view I may say to ostentation doubtless St. Paul's words in relation to one is no unfit reply for either Hast thou Faith hast thou Conscience have it to thy self before God It 's He alone can judge of the sincerity of both but if such would approve them to men and shew their Faith to be true and their Conscience to be good they must make it evident by such fruits as are proper to them and arise from them whereever they are for Faith worketh by Love and a good Conscience being a ready obedience of the Affections to the dictates of Reason will always act in conformity to its laws These are by the Apostle joyned together Having faith and a good conscience and so we are willing to leave them and by no means separate them and pray they be not only joyfully embraced by all but better apprehended by some Faith as it is a bare human perswasion in the Soul for from thence the word is properly derived as I have said of the truth or falshood of a thing or the good or evil lawfulness or unlawfulness thereof is no more than a bare assent or consent of Reason to the one or the other but upon Reason's deceit for no opinion can alter the nature of a thing as it is in it self but the same remains as it was good or evil the Affections are set upon a very dangerous precipice because subordinate to Reason by a Law of Nature if they obey they must leap with Reason into a gulf on the one side and if they disobey they fall into a miry quagg on the other side and make good the Apostle's saying in that very sence of human perswasion whatever is not of Faith is sin Reason is requisite and necessary in either case to the creation of that thing we call Faith be it natural or be it supernatural for that no irrational Creature be it of never so quick a capacity can be said in anycase properly to believe I shall make evident in the conclusion Now though Reason in its nature or original be as well an heroick and valiant faculty as the most noble and generous in the Soul and such a faculty as will not presently yield upon every summons and yields only when it finds an impossibility of victory and there is left no cause as well as strength to defend it self against all opposition yet sometimes by a kind of supine negligence and want of exercise of this most noble faculty it becomes so degenerate that it not only permits the passions to rule in the Soul as they list but becomes as it were subordinate to that of other mens and seems to move only according to their directions This is that thing which I call or term Credulity sometimes a weakness but most commonly a laziness in the Intellective faculty and a conformity of Reason or an approbation or allowance thereof to whatsoever is brought before it without due examination and trial This is it which has caused so many vulgar as well as dangerous and pernitious Errors and I dare say were it not for it that is a laziness of the understanding Idolatry had never been or at least never took footing as we say in the World For never any man was yet so stupid and blockish as upon consideration and due examination or the least resistive operation of his Intellective faculty to believe the work of his own hands to excel himself and be brought to fall down before it and worship it and think that it were a greater crime to dismember it than his brother Now though the contrary Incredulity may be thought sometimes to have its rise from worse Principles in Nature and to be as it often is the effect of a stubborn refractory Will or rather the Master's whom that Will serves viz. corrupt Affections so that we find the Saying after a sort verified in particular persons Non persuadebis etiam si persuaseris Yet is there in truth a perswasion and the fault remains in the inferiour faculties of the Soul which though they may be more violent in their course do not usually hold out so long Nay sometimes the Affections being as I have said in the hands of God and turned as he pleases do on the suddain unexpectedly comply with his Vicegerent in the Soul Reason if that be in the right way though they disobey its first Summons But if at any time the fault be in the Intellect by negligence and a tame compliance they then err by a kind of Authority and being led by a blind Guide such as makes not use of its own eyes at least they necessarily both fall into a Ditch A man may do himself much hurt by always keeping that inward door of the Soul Reason close shut and barred and believing nothing beyond Sense that outward Port of it and such an one may be termed perverse as well as incredulous as our Saviour once called his Disciples but to leave it alway ready open and become like a child tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive others is of more dangerous consequence Those incredulous Disciples of our Saviour believed to good effect at last and some have observed of Thomas how his Incredulity at first wrought a good effect at last and proved a stronger confirmation of our Saviour's Bodily Resurrection than the ready belief of the other Besides a perverse Incredulity caused by the Affections too much addiction to Sense and to be led only thereby there may be I confess and sometimes is a kind of Sceptical Infidelity or Academical reservation in man A doubting ferment in the Soul neither expellible by Reason or Sense for the present But this is rare attending now and then the most quick and searching brain and doth often proceed from some kind of humility in the Soul and then likely in the end terminates in a clear and setled perswasion For he who is