so that again doth give perfection to them and without which they are in St. Paul's phrase but as sounding Brass or a tinckling Cymbal that whatever noise they may make are of no benefit to us Thus the Apostle speaking of the abiding here of Faith Hope and Charity tells us the greatest of these is Charity of which reversing his method and order in placing of them I shall say thus much in short 't is Charity must guide and direct us 't is Hope must relieve and support us and 't is Faith by which we must enter into rest that must be the Key that must open to us and let us in after all our travails and if Faith do ever become a Crown and Hope an Helmet we must have before Charity for our Breast-plate badge or cognizance which we must always wear and never put off lest we be left open to divers and various assaults here and notwithstanding any Armour we think we have got on notwithstanding any allegation of prophecying in Christ's name or casting out Devils or doing other wonderful works if we be found to be without this Livery we shall be disowned and receive that sentence I never knew you depart from me ye c. from which Good Lord deliver us The Conclusion IN my entrance upon this subject I said how I had a desire to take some view of my Soul and see its operations and now this here is become its weak product perhaps more unfit for the World than that of my Body yet this I can say 't is not spurious and if my Brain has been the Father of it and gave it Being my Heart has been the Mother and lodged it and brought it forth without any other aim or design desire or affection whatsoever than the easing quieting or calming of her self unless that she desires or hopes it may through God's Grace have some mollifying or sanative quality towards some others I have not upon my own view of it so far transgressed as to fall in love with it I am conscious of its mis-shapes and deformities and doubtful nay very fearful of its defects and errors in many particulars and so have little reason to desire it should live long to my shame and disgrace But if man will not wink at those errors nor pass them over with charity I trust and hope that he who made me subject to errors and knows them best and their causes will pardon them which hope is to any man a sufficient Cordial against the fear or trouble of others censure I pretend to no supernatural Revelation in any of my thoughts and he who is free from error in them must necessarily have somewhat more than a pretence to it Let the World judge of me what they please I have been before-hand with them and I am sure no man can have meaner or more contemptible thoughts of me than I have sometimes had of my self and if there be any thing of true and unfeigned humility in man he can be as well content others should think meanly of him as he of himself but they are not always so proper Judges and I think that question What man knoweth the things of a man but the Spirit of man which is in him may not be altogether improperly applicable to the present purpose and for prevention of rash judging of other mens Spirits since we have been told by one who well knew We know not our own or of what Spirit we are I have lived to see often the vanity of my first thoughts from my second and may live to see the errors of these if I do I will acknowledge and amend them I have groaped in the dark to find out the easiest plain way towards content and quietness and rest even while I am a Traveller but I desire not to become an Ignis fatuus to lead other men out of their way and if this Hand point not right I beseech God any man who sees it may hear that gracious word behind him This is the way walk ye in it Search the Scriptures they are they which testifie of the God of power the God of peace and the God of consolation That Sacred Word has already received so clear an Humane rational vindication of its truth and excellency so plain a demonstration of its virtue and efficacy towards the health of Souls and such excellent methods have been lately prescribed towards the application and use thereof as there wants no additional assistance of so weak a Soul as mine I must confess and acknowledge I do believe it may and does often cause strange inflamations in many Souls and renders them not only painful and dangerous but malignant and infectious for want of a good digestion and all that I am able to advise any one further in the reading thereof is that he first observe the temper of that man according to God's own heart in the Old Testament who found that very Word Moses Law a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path became wiser than his Enemies by it took comfort and delight in it and gives so large an Encomium of it in that most excellent Psalm as is not to be parallel'd wherein it has been observed there is mention made of it almost every line or verse that he do not exercise himself in things which are too high for him but refrain his Soul and keep it low like as a child that is weaned from his mother If he can but obtain that which certainly a man might do from the reflexion of the very light of Reason in beholding his own weakness I presume to say after he has read and seriously considered our Saviour's Precepts in the New Testament he will be at peace and in charity with all men and so by consequence within himself More I cannot say but that I beseech Almighty God the Lord and giver of Life in whom we live and move and have our Being the provident Ruler and Governour of all things one Eternal infinite wise power that Ens or Essence of it self that first cause that which we are in no wise able to comprehend that he would enlighten and purifie our understandings direct all our thoughts regulate the vain wandrings of our imaginations strengthen our memories so far as they may be retentive of all good make our Wills obedient and tractable allure and draw away all our affections from the vanities and false appearances of the World actuate and enliven them towards the pursuit of all good and the detestation of all evil that we may possess our Souls in patience and with one mind and one Soul glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and out of the abundance of his mercy forgive us all the errors of our ways that he would not be extreme to mark what we have done amiss that as our sins and follies have abounded and do abound his Grace may superabound more especially to me
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
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
the greatest vilest miserablest and most deformed of sinners and the most defaced Image of his goodness that he would again restore that Image here in some measure give me a Fountain of tears to wash away all its blots and wilful sullies direct me by his Grace here towards his Glory increase my weak Faith that it become an assurance convert my fearful hopes into a full perswasion and certain expectation of that glorious Vision be with me comfort me and strengthen me at the hour of death And when this wearied tossed and turmoil'd Soul that can find no settled rest here shall leave its polluted and sinful habitation purified by Repentance and Faith receive it into Glory And this for the merits and mediation of his Son Iesus Christ our ever blessed Saviour and Redeemer to whom be glory and honour and praise now and for ever Amen SEVERAL EPISTLES To the Reverend Dr. TILLOTSON DEAN of CANTERBURY WHEREIN The Nature the Immortality the Operations and the Happiness of the SOUL of MAN Are further Considered and Illustrated And the Divine Providence over it in a particular manner Asserted By the aforesaid Author LONDON Printed for George Downs The Author's Apology for his Writing To the Reverend John Tillotson D. D. DEAN of CANTERBURY EPIST. I. Wherein the Author after some Apology for the not making publick his said Treatises De Dolore De Anima makes some reflexion on Atheism and blames the unnecessary and extravagant disputes and writings against such as seem tainted or infected with that opinion SIR HAVING reduced my sometimes sad solitary or serious considerations at all times and upon all occasions very inept weak and imperfect ones God knows into some kind of Method and made them legible in paper I took upon me the boldness altogether unknown to you and without so much as discovering my name to approach you before all others and begg the favour of your perusal And this I did not only from a hearsay of your clear judgement and courteous disposition to all men as well strangers as familiars but from a singular opinion I had of you my self That you were a person of a frank and open discourse and one who would plainly and roundly tell me of my faults and my follies discover your real opinion of what lay before you and not permit and suffer me a meer stranger for want of admonition to cherish an imperfect or deformed Embryo and such as might casually hereafter be born into the world to my disgrace but rather while I lived and had the power over it to smother and consume it in the flames The most favourable censure I expected from you was a reprieve of it for some season not a present enfranchisement of it or making it free of the world in my life time and by consequence a kind of confinement of my future thoughts if they should vary from or disagree with these And yet the latter I met withall from you and find that you are pleased to move me not only to allow it present life and future birth but to afford it instant liberty and freedom to walk abroad I might seem ill natur'd not presently to grant his request who so readily condescended unto mine had I no just cause to alledge for a demurr at least if not for a denial and such as may work upon you to desist from any such motion as much as on me for a denial For I must tell you If I hereafter suffer therein I shall readily transfer the blame on you and some perhaps will give you the precedency therein when they come to know the person who perused these papers and blame your oversight beyond my weak and feeble inspect Your universal Charity may so far abound as to overlook many deformities if not errors occasioned perhaps from my immoderate affection Which kind of Charity is a thing not to be expected from other men at least from all Indeed if any man receive good from these Papers he will find greater cause to thank you next under God than me who never at first intended them as a Legacy to the world nor durst nor dare yet own them under any name I trust they would hurt or prejudice no man if publick further than the spending of his time in vain in reading them and surely that 's a sufficient damage or loss to any ingenuous spirit There is enough good seed already sown more than any man can reap in his life time 't were well if the tares of this nature were gathered together in bundles to be burnt from which fate I I know not how to exempt mine I have given you my opinion already in discourse from which I know not well how to recede That if some Judicious person were of power to do it and should banish out of the world and cause to be buried in utter oblivion many thousand volumes now extant he would merit more of the world and perform a far more acceptable service to the wise and learned thereof than he who added one though of never so great use or excellency There is enough said about the soul of man already more perhaps than is or ever will be understood and too much I fear of a higher-subject Every age in each single Nation has afforded or rather introduced some subject matter or other whereabout the Souls of men have more peculiarly busied themselves by way of disputation and made the canvasing of particular opinions a thing in mode and fashion for a certain time and season That which at this instant seems to imploy and busy the tongue the pen or the Press except seditious Pamphlets and the like from the spirit of contradiction or an overweening conceit of ones self never out of fashion most or above all other is the different opinion of men about the original of all things under the notion names or titles of Theism and Atheism wherefore we had some little discourse together occasioned by some short passages of mine in my aforesaid Treatise And for as much as all those Atheistical Tenets now more than ordinarily vented do seem to strike at the very root of religious worship and are wholly derogatory of the glorious Attributes of that God we serve and adore I perceive you are not only to your praise a strong oppugner thereof your self but take pleasure in them also who do the same Now truly I must here tell you That which has fell from me in relation to that subject was rather accidental upon my weak search into the nature operation and faculties of the Soul than of any designed purpose to convince any man of the falshood of those Atheistical opinions Because I am not yet fully convinced in my thoughts of the necessity of any such endeavour but do rather believe all those men we term or hold for professed Atheists would yet gladly receive and imbrace a full perswasion and conviction from others of what they themselves maintain in words and not seldom some of