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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A44287 The primitive origination of mankind, considered and examined according to the light of nature written by the Honourable Sir Matthew Hale, Knight ... Hale, Matthew, Sir, 1609-1676. 1677 (1677) Wing H258; ESTC R17451 427,614 449

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of Mankind was by the same wise and provident Power and that as the Humane Nature is accommodated to it self so this World is accommodated to the exigence and convenience of the Humane Nature When I have considered the admirable Congruity of all the Parts of Christian Religion and how it corresponds and is adapted to the convenience and condition of the Humane Nature and how those antecedent Prophesies Promises and Directions of Religion in the Old Testament bear an admirable congruity to the Model of Religion in the New Testament notwithstanding the vast distances between the manifestations of them and how all the Scheme of Divine Dispensations from the beginning of the World bear an admirable accommodation each to other and to the Evangelical Doctrin it gives us a strong Moral Evidence that the same one God was the Author of this Religion that although there seem a diversity and variety in the Administrations yet when I look upon them together compare the congruity of what goes before to what follows it seems one most beautiful Piece fitted and accommodated in every part to the other and hereby I satisfie my self that it is the true Religion that it is all of one piece and one common Author of it namely the God of Truth And so when I consider the Humane Nature and the admirable accommodation that one part thereof hath to the other and also look upon the Mundus aspectabilis especially this lower World wherewith we are by reason of its vicinity best acquainted and observe how admirably the same is accommodated to the Animal Life of Man And although the Parts thereof are distinct various distant yet there are drawn from it Lines of Accommodations and Communication to the Use of the Humane Nature so exactly and appositly that I cannot choose but acknowledge one common Author both of the greater and lesser World and such an Author as made and disposed all things by the highest Wisdom and the wisest Choice If there had been divers Authors of the greater and lesser World there could never have been an accommodation of things so disparate one to another unless both had acted in subordination to one common third Being or by one common Counsel Again it was not possible that Casualty or Chance could have accommodated things of various kinds one to another If Chance could make a Beam of a House and could have made Tenents at either end yet it is not possible to conceive that Chance could cast it to be just of a fit length to answer the congruity of its contignation to another piece of Timber or fit the Mortises of other pieces of Timber to those Tenents or fit the particles and scantlets to answer just one another this must of necessity require a Workman that works by Understanding Choice and Appropriation because it requires accommodation of several things of several kinds to one End by several Means Thus therefore when I see the admirable accommodation of Humane Nature to its own existence and conveniences the admirable accommodation therein of things of different natures one to another as Organs to Faculties Sinews to Bones Nerves to Muscles Spirits to Nerves when I see the excellent accommodation of this lower World especially to the Humane Nature although they are in themselves several and heterogeneal I cannot without violence to my own Observation Experience and Reason I say I cannot but attribute the first Formation of Humane Nature yea and of all the Universe to one most Wise Intelligent Powerful Being who did all things according to the counsel of his Will after the most wise and excellent Idea of his unsearchable Understanding CAP. V. Concerning the Nature of that Intelligent Agent that first formed the Humane Nature and some Objections against the Inferences above made and their Answer HAving in the foregoing Chapter reduced the Origination of Mankind to an Intelligent Efficient effecting it per modum efficientis voluntarii per intentionem I shall in this place inquire what kind of Intelligent Efficient this was for among Intelligent Beings there is one Primum the Glorious God whose Understanding Power and Goodness is infinite there are also acknowledged by the Heathen Intelligentiae à primo those which Aristotle calls by the Name of Separate Intelligences Plato calls Dii ex Diis and we commonly call Angels very glorious and powerful Creatures which Plato takes into the Business of the Creation of Man as to the Corporeal Frame And it seems to be that the Effection of the Humane Nature in any part thereof is not attributable to the Angels neither as instrumental much less as principal Causes 1. As to the Soul of Man it seems beyond dispute for that was a created Substance and Creation of any new Substance being an infinite Motion is not within the power of any Finite Nature the Pretence therefore rests only as to the Corporeal or at least Animal Nature 2. Therefore I say that the Formation of the Bodily much less the Animal Nature of Man in order to the reception of the Soul was neither coordinately nor instrumentally the Work of Angels And the Reasons that seem sufficient to make out this Truth are these 1. It seems utterly above an Angelical Power to organize the Body of the Humane Nature for though it is true that in the established way of Generation the Parents who are inferior in nature to Angels do organize the Body at least mediante semine yet that is done in the virtue and strength of the Ordination and Institution of Almighty God So that as well Man as the Semen genitale are the Instruments deputed by Almighty God in virtue of his Supreme Power to propagate the Humane Nature And therefore since the first Formation of the Humane Nature was a new Formation not according to the Laws established after in Nature the first Production of Mankind was immediately by the Almighty Power and not by the Power of any subordinate Intelligence 2. Again it could not possibly be but that the Humane Nature must be completed in an instant For how is it conceptible that first there should be Corpus formatum with all the Organs Vessels Blood and Spirits disposed and ordered in their several Cells and Motions unless Man had been then at the same time animated as well as organized For the outward shape or stature of a Man is no more a fit Receptacle of an Animal much less of a Rational Life than a Statue of Wax or Stone The same Hand therefore that animated formed and fashioned also the same Humane Body in the same moment by virtue of the Volition Determination or Faciamus of the Divine Will 3. As we have no manner of evidence of the Angelical concurrence or instrumentality in the Formation of Man or of any of the lower Animals so there is no necessity at all of such a Supposition And we are not to multiply Causes without necessity for as the bare determination of the most powerful and efficacious