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
the spirit of God worketh or should work in us As if we were as familiarly acquainted with that spirit as our own which few of us little regard much less understand that eternal that omnipotent that incomprehensible that dreadful spirit I may say for certainly no man can seriously exercise his thoughts thereabout without fear and trembling by whose breath we are as easily consumed as made therefore let us fear to be too bold with it Well! can it be any offence against that good spirit for a man to behold his own unworthiness to doubt or fear its absence or to question whether we mistake not some pleasing motion of our own spirit for it 'T is not the present comfort we receive from our cogitations nor yet our actions that is any infallible sign that we have thought or acted from that good spirit merely 'T is an infallible sign rather that we have not wilfully acted against the present superintendent of our own spirit our reason and that is the utmost we can be assured from thence I may mean well and please my self with the sincerity of my present cogitations in relation to this very subject of the spirit think I have spoken the words of truth and soberness yet it would be a strange presumption in me though I acknowledge the favourable assistance of a divine power in every good thought to affirm that good spirit more especially working in me unless I could be able to convince the world and rest assured too my self of the indubitable truth of that which I have said But that I do not I rather fear I have in many particulars thought amiss and surely he who has not that fear always moving in him is very arrogant and who has it must necessarily discard such high thoughts in himself at least he must keep them from reigning in him Have not many men thought they have done God good service in some action and yet repented them of the action Have not every of us now and then pleased our selves with beholding as we thought the light of some divine truth which upon second cogitations and second weighing we have rejected as our own false conceipt and seemed to be angry and vexed with our selves which is the chief ingredient of repentance for receiving or allowing such an opinion Now as it is impossible to err from the immediate light of that good spirit so I am confident God was never so unkind to any as to suffer any inward vexation of mind in relation to the embracing of that he immediately inclined the mind to by his Holy spirit And therefore let not some honest well-meaning men as doubtless there are many from the present comfort they receive of the integrity or innocency of their own heart be induced through that song of requiem as I have mentioned chanted to them from others to think that all that which they for the present verily believe is the demonstration of that spirit of truth dwelling in them There is a vast and wide difference between God's working in and through our spirit by his providence as I have mentioned and by his Holy spirit We may err by the first and those errors foreseen by him are ordered to his glory but never by the second nay give me leave to say as well as think we may wilfully sin by God's providence Not that he is the author of sin but by leaving us sometimes unto our selves he so after a manner as it were leads us into temptation which we are taught to pray against by one that well knew our infirmities in the flesh though he sinned not And therefore 't were well we mistake not the one for the other There is no man that I know so uncharitable to think any good meaning Christian man wholly devoid of that good spirit But wishes that from thence he may in due time have a clear sight of the truth A thing at present very remote from the prospect of the best or wisest of us Let him be but so charitable to himself as to wish the same We have our desire He lays aside his present confidence and boasting There are many well-meaning men and of a seeming humble spirit to themselves who are ready perhaps therefore to impute all their good thoughts to the work of that good spirit in them but I wish their own spirit deceive them not For I take this delusion to arise not always or so commonly from humility and the love of truth as it does from secret pride and the love of liberty Saint Paul has told us Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty and if we are led thereby we are not under the law This pleases us so in a literal sense that we are ready to let go our reason to believe we have the spirit to guide us in all things But we might rationally suspect that those who harp to us so much upon that string would rather enslave us to themselves As for liberty we have enough already in any sence and 't is well if we use it not either for an occasion to the flesh or for a cloke of maliciousness And for the Law we need not fear or desire to be exempt from it 't is fulfilled in one word the same Apostle tells us and that one word is Charity a thing chiefly to be recommended to all which I have insisted upon elsewhere and which I pray God send us through that spirit and then we shall not bite and devour one another under colour of I know not what spirit perhaps through the very spirit of delusion In all sins or offences we say the understanding the will and the affections are all more or less faulty but where the will is most too blame there is the offence ever the greater Now if it be an offence to vouch the Holy spirit upon every small occasion and to play with it as we may say in too familiar a discourse of it Men had need take great care and heed that their will be not most to blame in that case I think you will not and I dare not go about to define what that sin is which totally excludes us from mercy But if any man upon examination of that deceitful thing his heart shall chance to find he has at any time upon any wordly design whatsoever pretended some light from that Holy spirit Or so much as indeavoured to obscure the light of reason in others which is able to shew unto subjects their duty of obedience that there is no power but of God and the powers that be are ordained of God by amuzing them therewith and this for the advancement of himself in place power or dignity whether that we call temporal or that we call spiritual I will be bold to tell him he has been very presumptuous and has committed a great offence Well these two sorts of persons I first mentioned the mere Spiritualist and the mere Naturalist are
make such a choice of a new one as that he may prove an old one and this requires circumspection and prudence in the doing The mutual view of Truth in two men as it is a most delectable prospect to each other and may be termed an happy interview between two Souls so it is in my opinion the most likely thing to engender between them a real and lasting Friendship I do not mean here by the sight of Truth Truth in the theory that thing of which we have sometimes a glimmering light only and no more and for which we proverbially reject Plato and Socrates's Friendship to admit her in our company and yet know not when we have her but naked Truth practick Truth Fidelity if you please so to call it or plain and upright dealing when a man upon no occasion will lie to deceive his Nieghbour nor be drawn or inticed to commit a falshood for the gain of the whole World and besides upon just occasion will open his mind plainly I know it is not prudent or requisite we should always speak what we think but if we do speak to speak as we think is ever best and most acceptable to a good man I do think that person whoever he was who first delivered it to us and set it down as an observable Maxim Obsequium amicos veritas odium parit to have been not only a Sycophant but ignorant of the ground of true Friendship and I would not advise any man to chuse his Friend from any Obsequiousness Fawning or Flattery If you can behold Truth naked in any man and can adjudge him to be of a setled mind and resolution not double-minded and so unstable in all his ways as St. Iames describes him we will render you the man if you please in Horace his words justum tenacem propositi virum and withall moderately wise such a man you ought to love and imbrace and with such an one you may safely contract Amity or Friendship But when you have so done you must trust in God to continue him such for I think you 'l love him no longer than he is such neither do I think it fit you should For I do think men are mutable and I do not look upon any League of Friendship how fast soever made like the Laws of the Medes and Persians but that the same is alterable and may be dissolved and abrogated without any just blame For though it be an human tye in the reciprocal aspect and mutual promise of each other yet having ever a respect to God as I said if we shall find our dearest Friend to sully the brightness of that Image which first invited us to love him and notwithstanding our admonition to cast off that and to assume and bear about him the image of Belial we may reject him Thus much I remember yet in Tully who would necessarily have all Leagues of Friendship inviolable and perpetual that he utterly condemns that Saying of Bias Ita amare oportere ut aliquando esset osurus and truly as a Christian I cannot commend it for that I believe we should hate no man upon any accompt much less that future hatred should possess our thoughts at the time we make a League of Friendship or begin to love in that sence But this I think may be a good rule herein and I will adventure to give it you in Latin Ita amare oportere ut cessante vel deficiente causâ originali amoris possis tuta fide non amare For Friendship should not be entred into by a vow and in such words as Marriage for better for worse Yet since it is an human and sacred League we should be careful not to be mutable herein though we are in other things the most mutable of any Creature but then only cease to love our Friend as our own Soul when 't is apparent to all the World as well as our selves that he bears no Love to his Soul himself nor will be prevailed with by any perswasion to regard it more It is a rare thing to find the heart of man to answer to man as in water face answereth face according to Solomon so much as for any short space much less to be of any continuance A man shall sometimes meet with St. Pauls case The more he loves the less he is loved But if men do now and then happen To take sweet counsel together and walk into the house of God as Friends according to David's expression Either of them may find the consequence thereof as he did there and elsewhere that the children of men are deceitful upon the weights And therefore there is little trust to be placed in this human tye or obligation but that is to be lodged chiefly or only in him who raises us up Friends beyond expectation and when even Our Father and Mother forsake us taketh us up This notwithstanding it may not be amiss for us though we never expect to tye that sure knot of Friendship so much talked of with any to see of what thred the Materials are or ought to be spun of which it is made to search out and view what kind of Love there is in man peculiar to man see the ground or inition of Friendship in what we call or most properly call Friendly Love and learn to reject no man who offers us this bond of Amity for want of that Authentickness we only imagine it requires viz. the Seal of Election and Grace which no man ever yet saw or could see I doubt in others unless in Imagination I have formerly thought and set down my thoughts in my Treatise de Anima which I exposed to your view Love to be the substantial part of an human Soul flowing from that immense Ocean of Love the great and wise Creator of the Universe and I do yet think it so and confined to or inclosed in an impure Earthly Body for some space of time where it does for the present necessarily work burns inward and sometimes flames outward and according to its motion or inflammation here either by Sense Reason or Grace we give it its denomination and attribute to it several names and sometimes call it Love sometimes Lust sometimes Charity and sometimes Friendship The Latines have the same names besides others viz. amor libido Charitas amicitia though they distinguish them not always according to that notion or in that sence I intend or mean to do in this place I say Love is the principal or sole proper active Ingredient if I may use that word of a Soul For as for Fear Envy Anger Hatred Malice or the like they are but induments or Apparel or Armour which Love puts on or bears about it as I said in its march or travel here It is that thing in man which has often possessed and taken up or imployed my thoughts how strangely diversly and variously it works in several men and no less diversly in
happen to be without Reason for it is Reason's assent that creates a belief or gives it that denomination If Reason be absent 't is no more than a bare short cogitation of a thing such as is or may be in Beast which is driven away by the next thought But belief solely attending Reason or being the off-spring of Reason has somewhat of permanency in it though it be subject to change habits Faith says the author to the Hebrews is the evidence of things not seen the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems more full and of a larger extent or signification than we can well render by that word Evidence or any one single word in our language it is a demonstration by argument or ratiocination which may be I think without the present help of Sense He gives us this instance Through it we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear The latter part of conclusion is no more than what every ordinary Heathen might espy from his Reason that visibility could not be the product of visibility that the framer and the framed must necessarily differ in a vast degree and therefore conclude by way of argument from Reason and as it were rest satisfied that it was no visible substance but some eternal omnipotent invisible wise power or mind that created the World in this admirable visible beauty and lustre as it is And this as we call it Faith so it is no more than ordinary But for the Soul to lay hold on such a thing as Word and pierce into the depth of that monosyllable which Saint Iohn with his Eagle eyes had so deep an inspect into It must I think necessarily be reached down from Heaven and be an heavenly light which first shewed it unto man The Power and strength of Reason in man able of it self upon consideration to raise an evidence of things not seen is the chief and main ground which induces me to think that no sober wise man that is no man whose Reason is in any measure clear is an Atheist but that it must be the fool only who says in his heart there is no God And yet that there are and may be as well rational Infidels as Christians since that Word incarnate is above the reach of the clearest human Reason In my Treatise de Anima after my plain way and manner I set down the grounds of my belief of the immortality of an human Soul only and that was chiefly from its Reason such a Reason as is able to weigh things without the help of Sense I know that human Reason by the delusion of Satan and for want of good exercise is often captivated and brought to accept any thing almost for true and current that is so represented and laid before it whuch thing I call Credulity yet that very Credulity is to me a clear evidence of the Soul's immortality and therefore I mean here to speak a little of Faith or Belief as it is described by the Author to the Hebrews The evidence of things not seen for surely by that we may be distinguished from all other Creatures Faith or belief we men alone have in us whether by way of ratiocination or immediately given us shall not be our present inquiry a capacity to imbrace or catch or lay hold on things at a distance which capacity we think is only the product of human Reason A capacity in the Soul of man which though it may seem at first view to come far short of knowledge yet in dignity or worth far surmounts any thing which we call or can properly so call Knowledge such as it is in us or any Creature is the off-spring of Sense and Faith the off-spring only of Reason For of things unseen or of the true Nature or original cause of any thing we have no knowledge at all But that things are so or so and that they differ in specie one from another we and Beasts have both equal certain knowledge from Sense unless they whose Sense is clearest may be said to exceed a little therein Sense certainly penetrates quicker into the substance of things than Reason can do into the Nature and causes of them and therefore the termination of one may well be accounted knowledge when the other acquires only the title of Belief And yet that belief arises from a much deeper sight than the other Which kind of light in the Soul and such thing as may create a belief we can in no wise discern in Brutes although we do discern and allow knowledge in them Because belief in its lowest degree and at the least proceeds from Reason and such a Reason as is or may be separate and distinct from Sense I cannot but allow a kind of Reason in Beasts concomitant and attendant upon Sense sufficient to determine their election and choice or if you please their will But it is such as vanishes with the act and nothing from thence can amount unto or be said to be a belief in any case It is stirred only by and vanishes with Sense and the ground of its work being gon and past there might be a knowledge pro tempore but no such thing as a belief because there remains no fixed footsteps or hold of its operation But belief ever depending upon somewhat and being a thing of permanency and continuance it must necessarily depend upon such a Reason as subsists of it self and is able to work of it self For that is it which makes a belief Otherwise there is no more than a cogitation or memory the renewer of a cogitation and such as the coming of one usually drives away the other as I said both in man and Beast And though I cannot be said properly between cogitation and cogitation to remember a thing all the while yet I may be said to believe the same all the while without so much as a thought of the object matter of my belief As to knowledge such as it is in man or Beast it is but a present plain demonstration of Sense and a thing of no permanency without the continued help of Sense For though I knew a man yesterday I cannot properly say I know him till I see him again and then I may but I believe all the while I shall know him if I see him again and if a man shall ask me the question whether I know such a man it is most proper for me to say I believe I do or shall when I see him I will give you this plain instance if you please a little to distinguish knowledge and belief The wind blows Now seeing the effects of its motion in the Clouds on the Trees c hearing the noise it causes upon resistance feeling the coolness of the air ventilated I know it blows or there is such kind of motion and so do's a Beast but this neither of us know longer than
we see hear or feel the Effects As concerning any such like future motion the cause of the Wind whence it comes or whither it goes which the Text tells us we know not that is Reason's inquiry and it must be Reason's eye that beholds ought thereabout And what is from thence brought into the Soul is of some continuance a thing no ways incident to Beasts and that which we call belief which whatever it be continues the same till Reason be consulted again and inform otherwise If I believe the Wind to be fluent air If I believe it to be caused by some fermentation like that in our Bodies upon meeting of divers humors upon the concourse of several Atoms If I believe it is sent out of the caverns of the Earth c my belief in each case continues all the while the same till Reason frame another in my Soul Nay Sense shall not alter a belief without some consult of Reason and therefore a belief once raised or framed do's upon every touch of Sense make a kind of resort to Reason for its allowance or disallowance for its continuance as it is or its change For instance if I once believe that you love me or have a kindness for me If after I hear otherwise from others or see a strangeness in your countenance or feel some hard usage from you before the alteration of this first setled opinion or belief there will necessarily be some consult of Reason whether this or that may not be and yet your Affection continue firm Now if Reason do not weigh things by it self but listens only to the introduction of Sense so far forth as to change my belief without due examination this is the thing which I call Credulity and for which Reason is negligent and to blame Though I allow a Will in Brutes Imagination or Cogitation Memory and such a kind of Reason as by and through Sense co-operating with those faculties guides them in a regular motion and may be said to create a knowledge in them yet without Sense it is idle and nothing And can neither put a stop to the Affections in opposition to Sense nor create any such thing as a belief which is a matter effected above and beyond Sense though not clean contrary to Sense as some would have us to believe and through human Reason and is the consequent in such a Soul only as shall be able to work when the windows of Sense shall be shut up or Sense shall be no more Many Beasts are quick of Sense and so of knowledge I grant and may be said to be sensibly rational but not rationally sensible or so much as to consider their Sense or raise any belief about it And this is the utmost I am able to judge of their capacity for I must confess and acknowledge that could I discern more or could any man discover to me some certain indubitable sign of any such rational motion in them at any time as to give a check to their Affections which is the thing I call Conscience or create a light in them out of the reach of Sense and raise an evidence of things not seen which is the thing I adjudge to be Faith or Belief and which the weakest human Soul is in some measure capable of and I doubt not but Divine Grace does sometimes shine upon such beyond our inspection It would overthrow my opinion of their annihilation or else much shake and batter my belief of our own Immortality The Fowls of the Heaven are of so quick Sense as that thereby perceiving the alteration of the Air by a kind of adjunct Reason accompanying that Sense they know their appointed time as 't is said of the Stork and move accordingly yet being uncapable to foresee or judge of any cause thereof they cannot be said to believe ought thereabout before or after Undoubtedly the Ox may know his Feeder from another man as sure as the Feeder knows the Ox from another Beast but the Ox cannot believe any thing of the Feeder that he may or will hurt him upon a displeasure as the Feeder may of the Ox for that must proceed from Reason's inquiry or information above or beyond Sense Many Creatures when they feel pain or are sick and sensible thereof have such a kind of Reason ready attendant as often effectually works their cure without inquiry into natural causes and so may be said to know the cure but yet without an inspect into natural causes 't is impossible to believe it and therefore 't is that rational sight only that creates a belief and is in no wise the sight of Sense Now when from Reason there is raised in the Soul of man especially with concurrence of some Sense collateral as I may say to the thing believed a firm and indubitable belief of any thing we make use of the word knowledge and say we know and yet in truth there is no more than a belief in the case For instance I know I shall dye Now if I had never seen man dy or heard of death I should by my Reason observing my decay and waxing old as a garment verily believe some such thing but withal seeing and hearing continually of the death of others I rest assured I shall dy and so say I know But my own death being absolutely out of the reach of Sense I cannot properly be said to know so much neither does what I say therein amount to any more than a belief And so it is in many like cases where we say We know as where Iob says as we translate it I know that my redeemer liveth there is no more to be understood than a firm strong Faith the like of St. Iohn Baptist giving knowledge of salvation And so I think is St. Paul to be understood in that Chapter where he mentions knowledge so often Now a Beast neither knows or believes any thing of his own death for that as the causes and symptoms of death are out of the reach of his Reason which only accompanies Sense and is nought without it So his very death is out of the reach of Sense it self and he cannot know it For this reason perhaps some may think them the more happy Creature but if we consider it and make good use of our Reason we shall find that over and above that superlative prerogative of beholding in a manner and so believing future happiness we have here a great benefit and advantage by it above other Creatures and are enabled from hence to quit the Affections which otherwise would be disturbed by the often false alarms of Sense to which they are subject and so keep our Soul from being wounded by any thing from without Knowledge I say is a thing of the meaner extract the product of Sense and in no wise of Reason neither is Reason the parent thereof in any case unless in some case of Conscience a thing so much talked of and which I
turned into joy we may rejoyce in that very thing we sorrowed for and our waters of Marah may become sweet and pleasant by our drinking Afflictions are sent to exercise Our Faith by believing most assuredly God's promises of his deliverance from them Our Hope by assuring our selves of the reward promised to them that suffer patiently and Our Charity in suffering willingly for his sake who loved us and suffered for us And shall this be performed by our endeavours to find out means to forget our sufferings But besides Theological virtues there are Moral too to be exercised thereby and even one of them is sufficient to awaken us and rouze us up from this dull passion of sorrow Let us consider a little the worldly esteem of a noble undaunted Spirit beyond a degenerous and poor one Fortitude is that Heroick Moral virtue which can never shew it self so illustrious as in Adversity There are none of us but would willingly be thought to have it inherent in us and then is the proper time to shew it for it must be a tempestuous not a calm Sea which shews the excellency of a Pilot. Fortitude has already been owned to shew more of its reality in a passive than an active dress and oftner appears with the Shield the Buckler and the Helmet than the Spear and the Sword Let us think with Theophrastus that the World is a great Theatre and that each of us is often called forth upon the Stage to fight with poverty sorrow sickness death and a number of other miseries rather then with one another and besides our Brethren Spectators God himself from above beholds every one how he performs his part and that besides an hiss or a plaudite here we must expect a Crown or Prison hereafter And then let us fight valiantly and think through him that will assist us to master and subdue all adverse Fortune that is in two words to contemn the World and that is truly the definition of Fortitude or a great mind We have great known Enemies to contend with here the World the Flesh and the Devil and we have once vowed to fight against them all and to continue Christs faithful Servants and Souldiers to our lives end Indeed when we wrestle not only against Flesh and Bloud but Principalities and Powers we had need take unto us the whole Armour of God that we may be able to stand viz. the Breast-plate of Love and for an Helmet the hope of Salvation c. But shall one of these Enemies the World when there were more danger from her smiles overcome us with her frowns If ever we think to obtain a Crown of Righteousness after the finishing of our course we must like St. Paul who often uses Military terms to encourage us Fight a good fight and let us by our very Fortitude master a puny sorrow But if neither Honour nor Glory nor the sight of God or man will herein move us but that we are ready to yield and let our affections carry us away like Captives and Slaves there is yet this reserve left us to become at last resolute from fear and tell our selves what Ioab told David that if we do not Arise from our sorrow and speak comfortably again it will be worse unto us then all the evil that befell us even from our youth until now And that worst evil is death if Satan be not deceived in our sense of humane evils who says All that a man hath will he give for his life Immoderate sorrow will macerate these beloved Carcasses of ours and although before pain makes us sensible of our follies and it be generally too late we are apt to take some kind of pleasure in nourishing and feeding our diseases yet methinks in this where we have none of our senses to please which is chiefly looked on in the World we might take the words of wise and experienced persons David telleth us his eyes were consumed with grief yea his soul and his belly and he tells us of those who are brought low through oppression affliction and sorrow St. Paul tells us Worldly sorrow worketh death Solomon hath told us that by sorrow of the heart the Spirit is broken and that a broken Spirit drieth the bones and the wise Son of Syrach in plain terms that sorrow hath killed many and that of heaviness cometh death For let every man assure himself that if he cannot in some sort overcome and master this Tyrant by his own struggling and God's gracious assistance he is become such a Slave to his passion that he is not to expect an enfranchisement from Time but Death I do agree with him who said Nisi sanatus sit animus quod sine Philosophia non potest finem miseriarum nullum fore quamobrem tradamus nos ei curandos if Deo were placed in the room of Philosophia For now at length I must conclude that although Moral Philosophy may be sometimes admitted as an Handmaid and Attendant on Divinity and 't was not for nought that St. Paul termed Religion Our reasonable service yet we must take care we look upon the one in no other respect than under the precepts and dictates of the other I for my part am apt to think and do indeed rest convinced that no man ever yet cured these wounds of the Soul by the bare strength of natural Reason and Argument though even that be the immediate gift of a Divine power without some more special Light or influence from above For although many of the ancient Philosophers and Sages who perhaps knew not God aright have seemed from their profound knowledge and reason to reduce their minds unto a most constant calm serene temper I rather think that tranquility of mind in them was the gift of that God they rightly knew not as a reward of their Moral virtues industriously acquired than the native off-spring of their knowledge I my self am a man like other men and I have been ever sensible by intervals in my serious thoughts of the vanity of this World and I may truly say there is nothing in these Papers but what at some time or other occurred to my thoughts before and in those thoughts I have Goliah-like contemned a pigmy sorrow but find as contemptible a thing as it may seem to the best humane reason being sent from the Lord of Hosts who alone is he that wounds and heals there can be no Armour of defence proof against his Darts but what is taken out of his own Arsenal For if contrary to mans experience which hath found that we are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves our wills were present with us and those wills could command our cogitations and our reason to attend them too we might however think what we would or could and dig about and water all our days this crabbed root of Nature and never cause
delirium dotage or frenzy whereas in all other creatures their life terminates quickly after the beginning of any visible delirium in them or decay of their native or natural homebred intellect as I may call it SECT IV. The Immortality of the Soul of man illustrated from the manner of its acting in the inferiour faculties similar with Brutes THe Soul of man does in many things shew its different Original and Extract from that of other creatures not only by its extent and contraction but by its manner of working in those very faculties wherein they are similar and which are proper and necessary both for Man and Beast For though Beasts see as we do hear as we do tast as we do c. and have the like passions of desire and joy fear and sorrow with their concomitants yet their senses may be satisfied and their passions circumscribed within the same Elements from whence they have their Original Ours alone seem to be Prisoners here and of us only it is that Solomon has truly said The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear with hearing and then I cannot reasonably imagine the Creator of the Universe so unkind in his special work of Man as to make him with a desire inherent in him so capacious as never to be filled or satisfied and thereby allow a vacuum in the Soul of man which we admit not to be in Nature but must acknowledge and conclude that there is a possibility these very inferiour faculties of our Souls may be allayed and comforted with hopes at present and satiate hereafter with some fruition or else in their working we were of all creatures most miserable For I find no sufficient ground to think or believe that Man is endowed with two Souls the one consisting of motion sense passions or affections and natural the other rational supernatural and Divine For though while annexed to a Body here it shews its divers faculties whereof in another World it may not make the same use and some of the senses will need no imployment about such objects as they receive into them here yet so far forth as they can add any thing to our happiness hereafter we may imploy them and they are an essential part of this Divine and never-dying Soul and that in some sence and manner we may tast and see how good and gracious our Lord and Maker is We often term the inferiour faculties of the Soul brutish sensual and filthy not that they merely arise from the flesh but for the like reason as St. Paul calls Envy and Pride c. works of the flesh which yet are inherent in wicked Spirits as well as men as they are amongst men excited by carnal and sensible objects and are also perverted and turned aside by them from others of a more noble kind which they are capable of being affected with But they are still faculties of the Soul and as such are neither extinguished in the regeneration of it here nor as far as is consistent with the perfection of it and its state of separation in glory hereafter I think the Soul of man to be an Host or Army always in its march for the recovery of its proper Country in which march though some of the Rascal multitude will be laggering behind and be busie to make provision for the flesh yet they are accounted as part of the Army and triumph with the rest after Victory and acquiring their native Soil or else suffer with the rest upon an expulsion Undoubtedly we may love and joy and I know not why one kind of fear may not consist with great joy if we attain our end and the mark that is set before us and we shall have fear and sorrow shame and confusion of face weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth which are effects of passions if we miss that end Now because the very restlessness and inconstancy of the senses and affections here shews them part of a Soul that will have being and continuance after death I will therefore a little behold man in comparison with other creatures and try first how far our very senses and affections differ from those of Beasts and after see what more noble kind of faculties there are in us which they want SECT V. The Immortality of the Soul of man illustrated from its different operation in different persons WE differ in respect of our senses and passions not only from all other creatures but even from one another so much as might make a quaere whether they were not hunting after somewhat that no man could ever yet find out in this World There never was yet any one object grateful to any one sense of all men nor equally and alike to any two There are to be found those men who would not move out of their Cottage or be any whit pleased with the sight of the most glorious Pageantry the World affords One colour seems more beautiful and pleasing to one mans eye and another to anothers no one prospect is pleasing to all men some men will swoun at the sight of particular things That which we call Musick is harsh and grating to the ears of some men several men are taken most with peculiar Musicks some had rather hear the noise of the Cannons than the voice of the Nightingale and so è contra So that if that which is fabled of Orpheus his Art had been real and amongst the Beasts and Trees he had had several Men auditors the first might all have followed him but some of the latter would have staid behind Some men abominate Sweets as we call them and are ready to faint at the very smell of them and delight in what is generally termed stinking and noisome The tast in men is so different that it has raised a proverb and that varies in the same man several times in an Age. Our affections are various and wandring that which delights us to day may happen to vex us to morrow what we desire sometimes earnestly we presently spurn at like little Children What pleases at one time pleases not at another so as there is become a proverb of pleasing too Nay this pleasing and delight were it settled and fixed in men where it once takes hold and were there a calculation in this present Age besides that Ages differ of every Worldly thing some particular men did chiefly affect or principally delight in the things would not be concluded in a short Ode as I have touched but a Poet might run himself out of breath and be weary before he came to Me doctarum hederae c. Me gelidum nemus c. We have our Pannick fears and terrors or as the Text says are afraid where no fear is and we have flashing joys upon as small visible grounds and in short we are the only ridiculous creature here on Earth On the other side take the Beasts of the Earth the Fowls of the
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
of Affections and call them by name Desire Joy Fear Grief Sorrow Love Anger Hatred Malice Enmity Strife Debate Frowardness Peevishness Curiosity Indignation Revenge Cruelty Lust Luxury Jealousie Pride Boasting Vainglory Ambition Envy Emulation Detraction Contempt Impudence Admiration Covetousness Miserableness Parsimony Care Doubt Desperation Lamentation Amazement Pensiveness Sadness Distrust Anxiety Shame and many others Now herein we often give several names to one and the same Affection according to its degree in working or the subject matter upon which or from which it worketh We have Pusillanimity Timorousness Dastardliness Cowardliness Fear Amazement Dread and Terrour as well as the Latines have metus formido timor pavor tremor terror horror exanimatio and we have Love Fondness and Lust as well as they have amor dilectio libido and we have Anger Wrath Fury as well as they have ira excandescentia furor and we have Sorrow Grief Pensiveness Mourning as well as they have dolor moeror aerumna luctus the first of which last to wit dolor when they come to define they call it aegritudo crucians the second aegritudo flebilis the third aegritudo laboriosa and the fourth aegritudo ex ejus qui carus fuerit interitu acerbo and all is but Sorrow Now besides that some of the aforementioned words denominating our passions may be taken in a good sence as Love Fear Sorrow Joy Indignation Care c. so may we reckon up and adorn the Affections on the contrary part with as many commendable and well-sounding words which are as proper and peculiar for them as the other as Charity Peace Gentleness Calmness Meekness Purity Benevolence Alacrity Chearfulness Constancy Courage Valour Pity Compassion Tenderness Humility Caution Frugality Liberality Mercy Modesty Sobriety Content Comfort c. And I think our so accounted Divine and Moral Virtues are no more than well tuned Affections or germins springing from them by native Reason and the superaddition of Grace And where either the one or the other is wanting the result from them is very harsh and grating and of an evil sound I will for instance pick one out of the former sort of a sound most abominated and detested the term we fix upon the Devil as a thing inherent most proper and peculiar in him and that is Envy The word it self is of no original evil signification the Latine expresses it best from whence we derive ours invidia is from in videre to pry or look into the estate being or condition of another creature Now if from this looking into we conclude him happy and are pleased with it that is Joy and I think a good Joy of the mind if from our insight we conclude him unhappy and miserable and we are any whit displeased or troubled at it that is Pity or Compassion and I think that good too and a true fruit of Love and Charity which Tree of Love flourishes the better by that dropping or excrescence from it But if we either sorrow at the apprehension of another's happiness which effect hath with us appropriated the word Envy to it self or rejoyce at the apprehension of his unhappiness which we may call malum mentis gaudium then is our affection wrong-tuned and evil yet all terminates in joy or sorrow and sorrow is indeed but a privation of joy and those other many words are Coins made by us to express our selves in For Hatred Malice or the like I cannot apprehend there is any such thing as either in Nature that is subsisting by it self separate and diverse from other passions that which we call Malice or Hatred is but an evil desire or wish tending to the weakning or depressing or removing that object which we imagine obstructs the joy or comfort we would have or should arise from the excessive evil Love of our selves or others And for Anger which always has for his object to work upon something or other offensive 't is defined but ulciscendi libido a desire of revenge and according to the height of that act unless where it lights on inanimate things and so accounted Folly it may be termed Hard-heartedness Oppression Cruelty or the like SECT III. Of the rise of the Affections COncerning the rise of our passions or affections my thoughts and conjectures at present are these That there naturally is in every thing and every creature but especially out of its place some secret hidden appetite desire endeavour propension proclivity inclination tendence or motion called which you will to some place of rest quiet or good but often receives lets or impediments in that its tendence And the Soul of man being an emanation from a Divine Essence and God as I may say being the Center to which naturally it tends until it come to that beatifick vision it cannot be at rest Now a rational Soul naturally working by Love and Joy in its fruition for want of that fruition necessarily and by consequence Desires and Sorrows so as I do think Love and Joy Desire and Sorrow to be of the Essence of a Soul wholly disjoyned from a Body and rational acts of it not properly passions but when the Soul works in that manner through a Body then are they called passions Now the Soul conjoyned to a Body may have yet notwithstanding some love purely intellectual and rational by some reflexion and drawing in some amiableness as through the imagination though it cannot fully by the imagination reach the proper object of love to it self and this may be upon some consideration a proper and peculiar act of an Humane Soul as I have said of some infinite power goodness and wisdom in the creation and preservation of the Universe of which it is a minute particle And certainly the Soul of man may be discerned now and then to act in the Body as if it were out of the Body summoning its powers and drawing its forces together from some tending affection as if it were about to take its flight ravish it self from the Body lay aside its senses for a time and have no manner of commerce with them but did see with other eyes and seem to it self for a while as disjoyned from a Body Which kind of motion has undoubtedly been selt as I may say and observed by some in a pleasant healthful state and more especially after waking from quiet rest These gracious kind of prospects of the Soul are cause sufficient to make any man cry out with St. Paul cupio dissolvi c. but these kind of extasies are short and rare and the Soul is straightways forced to a return and act again as usually in and through a Body Now were it granted that no affection can move but from the imagination and that sense is the general Port and entrance into the imagination which thing at present I cannot grant but believe the imagination may receive some stroke from that thing which I call a pure intellectual rational love of which I shall have fitter
first and great Commandment Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy mind The whole Soul beside seems naturally subservient if not subsequent to the affections motion and the motion of the Soul would be strange without them and not imaginable they being as necessary as they are useful And therefore I think we may as well cease to be by our own power as cease to affect and they who have gone furthest or most covertly herein have in going about to hide some particular affections shewed others more visibly and for the covering of their joy or sorrow fear or anger or the like have set up for predominant in their Soul a seeming contempt of all things which is an affection it self and for ought I know as subject to be faulty as any For surely the Soul may seem no less glorious in its march with all its parts and retinue than some of them provided it marches the right way and each faculty help and assist and not go about to destroy each other SECT VI. How the Affections move from the Imagination or otherwise IT does seem to me as I have said that the affections or some or one of them we properly so call are or is the chief inhabitant in this our Body from which or from whence there is or proceeds motion and operation voluntary Now if the Imagination be granted to be that glass in the Soul from whose reflexion they only move which for the present let us grant then do I conceive that glass may receive its light which it casts on them three manner of ways 1. By Sense 2. By Reason 3. By Divine Revelation immediately by God or mediately by his Word From the two first the imagination shews unto the affections this present visible World only but yet after divers manners From the third it shews them another World which sight from this last as it is more glorious so it is here more rare and men that once obtain it have their affections so fixed by it that they seldom quite turn away or utterly lose it 'T is that which I humbly conceive the Author to the Hebrews speaks of with a kind of impossibility of retrieving or renewing it if once men wilfully turn away from it Being says he once enlightned and having tasted of the heavenly gift and made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the World to come if these fall away c. Then immediately after he uses this expression But beloved we are perswaded better things of you and things that accompany salvation though we thus speak for God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love which you have shewed towards his name in that you have ministred to the Saints and do minister As if whatsoever light we had or whencesoever it came Love were the worker and labourer in our Harvest but of this I intended not to speak 't is a subject very unfit for me to handle God is gracious and merciful and as I am not able to depaint that light so it behoves me not to limit his power no not in my thoughts But how our affections move from that first or second light is my intended enquiry at present From this second kind of light viz. that of Reason by reflex from the imagination the present World is shewed to the affections with all its vanities whatsoever the certain period of man and all things else in it the falsity and mutability of it the futility of the love of it or care for it And from the reflex of this light though the affections are sometimes cooled towards the World and bent and inclined somewhat towards some greater and more perfect good yet finding it not they often suddenly fall away again and know not where to fix By reflex from the first light that of sense only the World is seen as Beasts see it for fleshly delights and for support and maintenance of the Body but with this difference between us and them that their Souls being of a bodily extract and terrestrial their affections move no further than in reference to some present utility of the things of the World for the Body Ours are coelestial and of continuance for ever yet necessitated in respect of the Body and for its sustentation to make use of this light from sense The concupiscible part of the Soul being first and most often moved from this light before Reason appears and shews her self aud yet never fully satisfied with any present thing it enjoys although it often receives its checks from reflex of that second light if it be not graciously restrained by the third and led to take some hold on that good wherewith it may be somewhat satiate in hope it grasps at innumerable things neither useful to Soul or Body shews only it is not terrestrial and yet withall that it is capable to lose in future its title and signature of coelestial SECT VII What light the Imagination receives from Reason and the weakness of Reason THe second way by which light is communicated to the Imagination and from thence reflected on the Affections is as I have said Reason which is the proper light and guide of an Humane Soul and by which it doth discover the vanity of this World But it is not the least wonder in Nature that after this light begins with any brightness to shine forth in Man never so little withdrawn from the noise and business of the World and in conjunction with sense for its assistance doth give him such a clear prospect of its vanity that a contempt of all its superfluous unnecessaries is raised in the heart and his affections are so far diverted for the present from it that a full and somewhat settled resolution is begot there not to let them possess that place any more That that man shall yet forthwith from a little pageantry here presented by the Eye or Ear have his imagination wheel about again and by consequence his affections as fast rivetted to the World as ever Surely there needs must be some Spirit or powerful Prince of the Air that does bewitch every rational man how else were it possible almost that such an one discerning his folly and madness by a far clearer and more excellent light than that which caused them shall again often return in despite of it to act over his folly and madness which he himself had condemned and his affections rejected If there were not the very light of Reason would prove sufficient so far to extinguish and dazle any weaker light that the affections might be held and kept within some ordinary bounds and limits But then withall we have ground to believe and as sure it is that when we find our sight from Reason thus strangely baffled and made as it were subject to a weaker light there yet remains and must be some
and condemn all men who receive it not as 't were from us and from our hands Indeed he who feels any blessed effect of his own Faith will not only wish all men believed as he did but endeavour without breach or rent of Charity they should But surely methinks he should not with ease or without feeling some smart undergo a rupture in his own Charity for the transplanting the same Faith into others since he will certainly find neither himself nor any man barely was the planter of it in himself nor think there should be any diminution of the one for the propagating as we call it of the other in other men Without some rent of this thing called Charity I doubt whether there can be an approbation of or assent to Cleonard's proposition to the Princes of Christendom that is without other just cause an endeavour to shew the Turk our Faith with Temporal Armour over it if we were able so to do and put part of his Nation to the Sword to draw or hale the remnant of them to the Faith and to heal some Souls through the wounds of others Bodies They are men as well as we of the same mould and their Souls of the same extraction and we might consider first how we could approve of the like conviction amongst our selves The Sword doubtless has often made a way for Faith and I believe it to be or happens sometimes through God's Eternal wise decree but I do much question the truth of those mens Faith who are upon such a reason at any time the immediate visible instruments of this preparative When a man shall once own the New Testament as the Word of Truth and stand convinced that all the Precepts laid down therein are righteous and grounded on Moral equity if he make his recourse to the New for his belief only and to the Old only for some of his actions I would ask a Stranger in that case whether he thinks that man's Reason or his Affections bear the greatest sway or be most predominant in his Soul It may seem strange how some men can step from Mount Gerizim to Mount Ebal as it were at will and pleasure settle a Tower of peace or defence for themselves on the one and raise a Tower of offence against others on the other let the one be the seat for their Reason and the other for their Affections and place Faith as they call it the attendant on both and that Reason all this while should not espy that the Affections lead it thither There is one esteemed a great planter or reformer of our Faith in these parts who to maintain the lawfulness of Malediction in some case I am sure against Christ's precept and his example who prayed for his persecutors and against St. Stephen's too who did the like would make a distinction between a persecution of man though for the Gospel and a persecution of the Gospel If it be against the persecutors of the Gospel according to his definition he then calls it Faiths malediction or cursing which says he rather than God's Word should be suppressed or Heresie maintained wisheth that all creatures went to rack If this be the work or effect of some mens Faith I hope I may say without offence I pray God deliver me from such a Faith Surely it may be questioned how and in what manner the Gospel of it self may suffer persecution and no less whether the believers therein would suffer so much from their common Enemies or one another were it not for their too positive condemnation sometimes of all who do not believe just as they do or profess themselves to do Theano a Heathen Nun had in my opinion more Divine thoughts in her than some of our late Reformers and 't was a better and far more charitable saying of hers when by publick Decree she was commanded amongst others to ban and curse Alcibiades for prophaning their reputed Holy mysteries That her profession was to pray and to bless not to curse I am so far from adhering to any party more than other and so far prone to blame all parties in this case that I am not like to receive the favour or good opinion of any But whatsoever I receive from man I trust and believe I shall never incur God's displeasure for declaring my sence of things only according to the best light of Reason he has endowed me with Some such thing I do believe there is on Earth as St. Augustine has intitled his Book A City of God that is a peculiar select number of people who so pass their lives here as that they shall be Eternally happy hereafter But for several men to frame and imagine such a peculiar City in any Nation or corner of the World different in some fashion form or mode from all others and then think that to be the Model or Platform upon which future happiness must necessarily be built or depend seems very strange to me and may do so perhaps to some others I cannot think those Citizens whoever they are require such a different habit or dress from all others but rather all of them generally use one special attire or ornament for the Soul whereof somewhat is to be found in all Nations and places and which men free of that City may be best known and distinguished by And that is that becoming ornament St. Paul seems to mention upon another account Good works that ornament which naturally arises from a meek and quiet Spirit which St. Peter seems to intimate the hidden man of the heart not outwardly worn in pomp but that whosoever privately wears or carries about him will not too narrowly dissect rend and tear much less suddenly condemn the Spirit of another man True Charity saith the Apostle beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things and if we put on that which is the bond of perfectness it will reconcile us to all mankind and be as useful to others as it is ornamental to us It will be like the Dove in the Ark as swift of wing and as fit to be sent abroad upon any employment as the Raven or Vulture and with that will bring a branch of Olive solid contentment and satisfaction to our selves we shall then have all the old leaven purged out and become a new lump and shall render unto God by such a restauration of his Image that which is Gods SECT III. How Love may be regent I May seem before to have undertaken a rational discourse of the Soul and to shew by what steps and degrees even that way it may be fitted to resist assaults from without and therefore in reason it may be expected that I should set down some rule some probable demonstrable way or means how this thing I call Charity which is ever the main principle of Action may be set up regent in the Soul which I have said and do think there is some
forth to light seeing I could not disown it If men struck at it and accused or challenged me for the monstrosity or ugliness thereof I should have indeavoured to defend it and maintained it to be somewhat perfect in its lineaments and features when otherwise I might in some short space have been as desirous to have it smothered as any man and would have been content to be the Executioner of it my self if people would forbear to look too much on me Perhaps we think we are bound in duty to vindicate Gods honour 'T is true we are But our true and proper vindication of God consists rather of a few good works than a multitude of words And t is to be feared that for want of the manifestation of the first Our father which is in heaven is so little and seldom glorified and so much and so often vilified as he is Certainly this were the ready way to convince others of a God to shew we heartily believe there is one our selves which is not demonstrable any way so well as by good works And if the number of those who alledge there is none do daily increase it may be assigned for none of the meanest least or slightest causes that our works do not so clearly manifest to the world that we verily and assuredly believe there is a God as some of theirs do that they believe as well as say there is none There is no man who believes there is a God but believes withal God is able and will in due time vindicate his own honour and let the world know there is an Almighty one in Israel And I for my part could never yet find or perceive that mens minds became changed in their course for having their opinions severely oppugned or canvased in writing but that usually they become more stiff and refractory in their course thereby and that such an out-cry and clamour is the readier way to whet the spleen and with it the fancy than mollify the heart and with it clarify the reason If any commission be granted us or allowed us to fight for God after this manner it had need be executed with abundance of caution and in most perfect charity remembring there is no one we term Atheist but is the very image of God as well as any other And 't will be difficult for us who believe that to think any of his image wholly devoid of all manner of sense of him whatever he say As to the generality of men talking after this manner not of design they usually seem quick and discerning enough and are doubtless men of brave spirits Men which bear a kind of indignation in their breasts against being gull'd or sliely drawn into an opinion by any seducing false spirit And 't is some wonder they do not espy which I pray God one day they may that those things I mentioned before self-interest and self-conceit are no less busy inmates in unmaking God than as they themselves sometimes talk they are in making one and that he who starts up with old arguments new vamp'd in these our days after the dispute seemed for many ages to be laid asleep is shrewdly to be suspected that he labours of the one or the other The moderate inquiry into the original of all things might not ill become the first ages of the world and I cannot much blame men in former days for this kind of search But when God has once delivered himself so far as man is able to comprehend him graciously or miraculously to a nation or people and seemed to be engrafted into the thoughts of all mankind I think some peculiar men may be as much to blame in thinking to maintain and defend his existence by the proper strength and force of their reason as some others have been to question it of late If men once allow themselves the liberty or think it is allowed them to let the fancy have its full scope and range in any matter without correction they may easily shake the strongest foundation that hath been laid in the world by unanswerable Nicodemus's questions And therefore surely a Nicodemus his reply may at sometimes be as proper for them as a grave or sage one such an one as to him who inquiring if God were eternal or from eternity and the whole visible universe created out of nothing at a certain space of time or that time had its being or beginning from thence What God did or how he was imployed before the creation received this answer that God was preparing hell or a place of torment for all such futile idle inquisitors as himself I do think I were able my self by objections questions and cavils to nonplus or puzzle the wisest and learnedst of the world and seem to render them incapable to satisfy other mens minds demonstratively and plainly of the truth of those things whereof my own mind rested moderately and sufficiently already satisfied but if I committed such a folly and any man went about to answer me I should not esteem him wise how learned soever he might be but think according to our Proverb he might shake hands with me I wish men who go about to defend a God by their reason be not guilty sometime of the same fault with those who deny one and do it as much or more to be esteemed deep-sighted and wise and to shew their learning or reading as for the pure love of God or the truth It is a subject if I may be allowed so to call it which would make a good man nay a sober wise man even tremble while he goes about to handle or think seriously on And he who is truly wise will not adventure or think he is able to know or define his Maker before he know himself which never man yet did from all the reason he was indowed withal I know it were no difficult matter for a man of an ordinary capacity once master of the languages to muster up and run over the opinions of almost all the ancient and modern Philosophers about this point of Theism finely to marshal them set them in opposition one against the other and at length with some little new invention of his own appoint or determine which should overcome in the case But perhaps at this day he might be generally thought in such case as this the wiser of the three Grecian Sages that knew when and how far to hold his peace A man may be mistaken in his aims whether it be of leading and conducting others into the paths of wisdom and truth or being reputed wise himself by saying too much as well as too little and I pray God none of us become so far deceived as to lay the way more open for profaneness and daring of the Almighty while we go about as we say or pretend to close and hedge it up I am much afraid our abilities will never extend to salve the Phaenomena we so much talk of or make any thing apparent in
very young upon their approach to their presence many years after unknown have had a secret joy within themselves without the least seeming precedent imagination of their being such I cannot say how much of truth there may be in the affirmation but if there be then that blind faculty of the Soul as we sometimes term Affection may move without the precedent assistance of its fellow faculties And it would seem no wonder to me if the imagination set on work thereupon after some search should at length pitch upon some such cause but certainly the imagination more or less must necessarily be set on work therein The two who journied to Emaus mention the burning of their hearts within them upon our Saviours talking to them without the least precedent imagination that I can collect that it was he who talked with them Nay the Text says their eyes were holden and sense is the ordinary inlet upon which the Imagination presents to the Affections That they should not know him And he calls them Fools and slow of heart to believe thereupon As if belief might arise from the motion of the heart without the precedent work of the Imagination from sense And truly Sir since I am verily I hope perswaded That every faculty in mans Soul is Divine and different from that of Beast which work only from sense I do not or can rationally think that the Affections motion depends solely upon the Imagination's presentation but that the Imagination is often irritated upon the Affections first Motion or strugling or otherwise through the good will and pleasure of some insensible power immediately working in us the one or the other is strangely set on work I must confess of Beasts I do think that Sense being the only port and inlet of the Soul and a thing through which every object makes its stroke the first Spiritual Motion is necessarily upon the Imagination Nay that Imagination is no other in them than some more refined curious part or quintessence of the Blood lodged immediately over those doors and cells of the Body which raises and creates some such kind of thing as will and affections in them rather than inclines any will or affection in them before created or inspired Because we never find such kind of Motion in them as either to affect or will above the reach of sense or contrary to sense But that through sense only from the Imagination there is raised in them an appetite to or aversion from such and such object And thereupon it is that they are neither misled or misguided by their Imagination neither is there any great or lasting Disease of the mind but what raised through sense only may be soon allayed and quieted therefrom First their Imagination misleads or misguides them not for having its dependance only thereon and working thereafter and not capable to work upon the impulse of any thing but what as of it self penetrates through Sense It receives every object in its more proper exact Nature Figure and Form than ours And it being most certain that their sense is generally more open and clear to receive than ours they mistake not or misapprehend not as we do Hence it is that they are seldom mistaken in the face of the Heavens in which we are so often of our selves deceived and that our Prognostick from their sense and their motion and contrivance thereupon is generally truer than what we can make from our own The hastning home of that little Creature the Bee by multitudes into their Hives is a more infallible sign of an ensuing storm than we are able to espy by the best help of our intellectual faculties sometimes otherwise imployed than from sense through a weak and disturbed sense and which the strange work thereof does not seldom disturb Indeed hence it is that a Beast if not stopped by force or by some more pleasing Imagination raised from present sense is able of it self which man cannot do to return to its ancient place of abode at a great distance how strangely soever or through what mazes soever conveyed from thence And we may observe in its ordinary motion it will return more directly I may say more knowingly by the paths it went and came than the wisest of men nay a Fool will do this much better than a Wise man because though his Imagination be subject to be recalled from attendance on Objects offering themselves through present sense and imployed on others by some sordid affection yet it is generally obedient to present sense and is not so much in subjection to reason as to assist that faculty or taken up by that in help of revolving or weighing of things past or future and the causes thereof I could never yet collect from the narrowest observation I could make any power or ability in Beast to revolve a thing in the mind without the help or introduction of present sense no nor any affection raised in them to work or recall the Imagination from its present work without its help I must confess lust or itching of the flesh or rather appetite a thing below an affection and inherent in Plants may and does seem to recall their Imagination in them sometimes and with a neglect of present sense set it on work so as to contrive for their prey or food or the like But for any Affection of it self an affection to do it I cannot observe Sense shews the female only the product of her body and thereupon the Imagination is stirred to raise and create a kind of affection to it which we call love so as in defence thereof anger may be kindled and in deprivation thereof sorrow may arise but the Imagination works for neither of these of themselves nor do they continue to be as I conceive longer than some Object makes the impulse through sense And therefore we shall observe there is no bleating or lowing but from bleating and lowing or the approach and beholding again the place where they usually fed or nourished their young or the like stop or divert that and their love or sorrow is at an end Darius his Horse as I have mentioned could neigh when he beheld the place where his lust was first raised but I question much when the impress the Imagination has made in such Creature is once wiped away for the present through some new introduction of sense whether it can be raised again without the fresh stroke of some Object relating thereto through sense Or whether the Horse were capable to revolve that act in his mind at any time without such means to introduce or raise a thought Now if the Imagination in Beast work only immediately upon Senses introduction as we have reason to conceive it does and that thereupon their affections are raised only their Affection necessarily attending their Imagination changes according to the change of Objects through Sense For what is created or raised by and through that merely may be fully satisfied through that
is Oratory defined to be nothing else but a dextrous application to the affections and passions of men which received Tenet is sufficient to demonstrate what faculty we generally give the precedency to and esteem for most powerful in the Soul I am not about to correct the definition though methinks since there are faculties in the Soul capable of instruction which the Affections properly are not as well as agitation or rowsing up every application should principally tend and aim thither and he be esteemed the best Orator who rather indeavours to inform truly than delight and please yet since most certain it is and indubitable that there is no approach or entrance of one human Soul or Spirit unto another but through the Organs of sense by the Imagination into the Affections So as to hit and wound or heal them men necessarily glance upon the Imagination by the way and t is that which certainly gives them an edge or dulls them Men should be careful that faculty be not first deluded to the deception of the other nor that we suffer men to delude our affections through our Imagination barely Reason not at all or not well consulted That the Imagination is a deceitful faculty we need not Scripture to declare to us as it does of the heart daily experience sufficiently informs us as much But above all its leiger demain in supplying the place of Reason to the Affections is the greatest and most considerable fallacy thereof and most carefully to be avoided We commonly affirm it supplies the place of reason in Beasts but if we look narrowly into our selves and them As we find them void of Reason and incapable to argue within themselves so we should find that faculty in them most exactly and curiously exquisitely and admirably framing and contriving in obedience to the strokes it receives through sense and in us only to supply the place of Reason And how happens it or comes it to pass that it supplies the place of Reason that more than ordinary divine gift in us Why thus Reason which is the ground Work of Faith although it accept of things invisible as true to create a belief and indeed a belief properly is not without it yet never directly opposes sense whereby there is a more apparent contradiction in the Soul for then it were not Reason a thing of it self not deceivable nor the Spiritual gift of that God who gives us leave to make use of our Senses thereby the Devil or man cannot hurt us through that faculty alone or chiefly But the Imagination in man though of divine extraction and given as subservient to Reason is capable of a kind of exaltation in direct opposition to sense and that through the inflammation of human affection equally divine and not satisfiable through sense So as if once the Affections become grievously wounded through sense or otherwise they do as it were enforce the Imagination to satisfy them for the present with a bare imaginary belief and therefore are the affections always chiefly aimed at and this is that which the World applauds as a dextrous application when they are thus hit to the exaltation of the Imagination and depression or clouding of Reason or if you please in short when an imaginary or fictitious belief is created in the Soul This has been found out as the surest and most ready way by all pretenders to Religion in all ages to set up fancy for predominant by blowing through it upon some affection which of it self is apt to recoil and inflame the Imagination to the dazling of Reason in conjunction with it Passions of all kinds shall be assaulted Pride and vain-glory as well as love and if a belief can be effected no otherwise fear must be raised and that that fear may stand its ground and inflame the Imagination to some height God whom we ought to serve in fear must be brought in as a party either constantly ruling in his so called infallible Church or else new inspiring some amongst us by his gracious Spirit which we ought to hearken to and obey The fallibility of either which position or assertion is plain enough and common Reason would soon espy the delusion if she were free and at liberty not confounded through fear of I know not what that 't is absolutely necessary for men to believe as the Church do's or as new gifted or inspired men shall teach them and thereby the Imagination is hurried to supply the place thereof I dare appeal to the soberest and greatest rational Doctors of the Romish Church Passion already raised against us somewhat cooled the Imagination a little quieted and Reason a little free whether the general universal belief yet I do not think they all believe what they affirm maintain or Preach of their Transubstantiation Miracles Fables and Legends were not first raised and be not yet supported by the strength of Imagination only or chiefly And whether they do not think their Religion or rather their Romish Church would soon fall to the ground if mens Affections were left quiet to themselves that working faculty the Imagination a little rectified and freedom allowed men to exercise their Reason without imaginary danger I would neither offend God or them or any one else willingly and advisedly by questions and doubts But in that grand point of Transubstantiation or the real Presence wherein or whereabout we so much differ I beseech them to declare not only how it comes to pass but how any real belief thereof can at any time be effected in the Soul since Reason it self more prone to accept and allow of things as they are represented through our own sense that otherwise at first rejects it and cannot be easily convinced of the contrary till it be convinced of the very fallacy of that glass of sense in us As to the thing it self I know they will readily alledge that there is a miraculous and wonderful suddain change through Gods omnipotent power of the Bread into Flesh upon the words of the Priest And this I readily grant if there be any such change at all and so far I agree with in belief But belief it self or to believe it so or so done seems to me to be an human act a voluntary consent of the mind And surely they will never affirm their own belief thereof miraculously effected nor that ours must so be by the free grace or necessary impulse of the same eternal Power If they do I will answer them it is then vain and idle for them once to think to convince any man of the truth and reality thereof by human argument and that it is cruelty as well as folly to indeavour or imagin to do it by fire and Fagot their Prayers then to that Power were the better surer and safer way If they say it may be effected through the assent of Reason ever submitting and bound to submit to Gods express word whatever sense introduce in the Soul to the
distinct from the Spirit never was the occasion of falshood never wrought injustice and damage to any man Nor of it self unless from our neglect of its monitions became of evil consequence to any Argument or ratiocination as some men call it has but I do not take every seeming manifestation every Logical dispute or Rhetorical flourish to be at any time so much the proper effect of Reason as of invention or Imagination Perhaps that one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying both Speech and Reason has not only made young Sophisters mistake themselves for the rational men but deceived the World into a plausible opinion of them and begat a Faith of many things contrary to Sense and Experience the best and trustiest Hand-maids Reason has in the Soul We have coined a multitude of English words from thence ending in logy to signify our rationality as Astrology to be a knowledg of the effect of the Stars Theology a dispute or dissertation of God or things Divine Analogy a comparing of things together Apology rendring of a cause or reason and the like When God knows how little of true Reason is made use of in relation thereto but words only And they might for ought I can perceive owe their derivation thither or from thence as well as the word Tautology And therefore though that Phrase of Speech be sometimes used in Scripture and which we translate reasoning I do not judge it to be spoken of or mean that pure natural human insight into the reality and truth of things upon consideration ever void of evil or just offence but a disputation private of words arising or offering themselves in the Soul from the Affections and Imagination or from the Imagination chiefly Saint Luke in the Parable of the Vineyard and those Husbandmen who would have killed the Heir that the Inheritance might be theirs uses the words ratiocinabantur inter se which Saint Matthew and Saint Mark both express by the word dixerunt And in the demur of the Scribes and Elders to our Saviours question about the Baptism of Iohn although all the Evangelists use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reasoned I have seen it in some Translations rendred thought I must confess Speech as I have touched before to be a certain demonstration of inherent Reason and therefore of an immortal Soul or Spirit but not therefore that all speech or argument proceeds chiefly from Reason that admirable faculty which of it self deceives not injures not or works at any time against right Can you or I or any sober unbiassed rational man upon due consideration believe or affirm unless where fancy supplies the place of Reason that any indeavour with the best and most polite arguments made thereupon for the disinherison of a lawful Heir by any of us who can challenge no right to the present disposition of the Inheritance proceeds from Reason Can Reason do or contrive any evil or injustice that good may come thereon perhaps in fancy only Do's it not teach us rather to suffer patiently whether by stripes imprisonment or death Do's it at any time teach us or instruct us to do or say what we would not have done or said in relation to our selves and this upon due examination and weighing in the ballance of Justice were our case theirs against whom we do or of whom we say He who has truly impartially acted or spoken thus has followed the dictates of right Reason not he who has used elaborate arguments to condemn or disable another in the case he would think it unjust to be disabled himself be the convenience or inconvenience to the generality of mankind never so great or pressing but has rather followed his own Imagination and the dictates of his own lust or affection which indeed is apt to delude and deceive not only other mens but even our own Reason in the end I may pray to confound mens counsel as David in the case of Achitophel I may pray to confound their devices as well as to abate their Pride and asswage their Malice as in our Liturgy I may pray to be delivered from absurd or unreasonable men But I shall never pray I think to confound any mans Reason that will never hurt me I am sure or deceive me But for want of it or exercise of it in my self I may be deceived The Poet says Reason neither deceives nor is deceived at any time in the first part of his assertion I fully agree with him It is that special emanation from Truth which of it self or by it self puts no fallacy on things nor works any evil as I said But unless by Reason he means that very light of truth or truth it self which is the thing we admire and adore by the name of God it is deceiveable Human Reason how strong soever is deceiveable and that through its tame compliance only to the work of the Imagination guided or directed as we may say by some base or corrupt or otherwise pitiful mean Affection and supplying its place Nay men do not only falsly impute all our wicked contrivances of deep reach and subtilty framed unto reason But even all our futile idle contrivances well and formally or curiously done to Reason too Every finely framed Romance every Eutopia or Atlantis every witty Poem the mere work of the Imagination we ascribe to that we are all become so rational Nay if we see but an exact Picture or Building we do as much when we might better do it in the model of every little Birds Nest. But as Reason in the former case disallows every thing that is apparently false or evil so in this it rejects of it self every work in the Soul and every contrivance of the Imagination not directly tending to the glory of our Maker the discovery of truth the reformation of mens manners or the like And doubtless at the instant work of the Imagination in relation to these contrivances though not directly hurtful of themselves many men have had some secret whisper within them first of the vanity thereof then upon a review perhaps have had some kind of Regret and in the end have censured and condemned themselves as guilty of a crime for such work that their Imagination or invention might have been better imployed as they say it fared with Sir Ph. Sidney Which could never be if reason had actually afforded its help towards the contrivance But in these very cases I think as in the former there is the immediate help and assistance of some Affection and that the Imagination is constantly attended therewith and elevated or inflamed thereby or else it would be otherwise imployed through sense and these pretty kind of Buildings would fall to the ground or vanish in oblivion before they were perfectly and compleatly finished And what kind of Affection is this why a desire of being admired for our fancy a light airy Affection and spawn of Pride nourished and fostered in the Imagination
by way of case put how doleful such an act would prove to him imagine and think of it waking and yet loath and abhor the Act nay tremble at the very thought of it And therefore it appears to me a strange folly as well as cruelty in Dionysius if the story be true That put one of his best friends to Death for dreaming he had cut his Throat and alledged no juster cause than this that what he thought on in the Day that he dreamed on in the Night Had the party that told his dream withal affirmed that his Affections seemed delighted and pleased with the Act I should have thought there had been some ground for the execution but without such declaration no colour of Justice for it If we voluntarily drown as we say our Reason with Wine we cannot excuse the irregular motion of the Imagination nor the assent or compliance of the Affections therewith much less the assent of our will and the putting our thoughts and designs in execution Yet I cannot allow that there is thereby an exaltation of the crime as some Lawyers would because there is an exaltation of the Imagination There are two sins indeed but the latter is not made greater by the former but rather the contrary In no other cases of Reasons disability whether temporary or perpetual whether that we call Delirium Lunacy or Phrenzy and all that we comprize under the general notion of non compos mentis I do verily think that if it happened or came by the default of our own Soul we are answerable to Divine Justice for the deliquity of our very Imagination and the consequent Acts thereof nay I cannot see why we should altogether exempt men from human censure and corporal punishment if the evil of their Imagination appear at any time by overt act provided that punishment extend not to the present separation of the Soul and Body so as to leave the Soul remediless by Death which for ought we know might recover its pristine state here and so purify it self for another state hereafter Most certain it is men can in these cases of Lunacy c. happening one way or other imagine and design evil and not seldom accomplish and compass their evil designs And therefore our great Lawyer in commenting upon the Statute of the 25th Ed. 3. of Treason wherein the very Imagination is struck at shews very little of a Philosopher whatsoever he shews of a Lawyer in my judgment by telling us That a man Non compos mentis a man who is not Master of his Reason or Reason is of no power or Authority in him as I expound it is totally deprived of compassing and Imagination I think he might more truly affirm that he who imagines the death of our Sovereign with any the least appearing assent of his Affections is Non compos mentis than that a man Non compos mentis cannot imagine or have his Will and Affections assent to that Imagination which we find but too often in these kind of men And truly since all our safety depends much on that of our Soverigns and that Lunacy may be so acted as the wisest of men cannot discern the reality thereof I think that Comment might well have been spared and the question left undecided till there had been a necessity for it which God prevent and so of his goodness direct all our thoughts as that they do not outrun our Reason too far and kindle in us such a blind zeal as requires at length a greater power than Reason to controul and suppress I must confess I have ever looked upon this one faculty in us Imagination sufficient to shew us that the extract of the Soul is Divine that as it may be and often is rather than any other faculty immediately influenced from that good Spirit and by it we are enabled sometimes to think that which is good without any precedent motion of any other faculty so it is most subject to delusion from infernal Powers That duly beheld it almost necessarily drives us towards an invocation of one Eternal wise Mind the Creator Preserver Guider and Director of all its works Which is the chief and last thing I designed to set down in this Treatise IV. We cannot deny unto Beast these four faculties of a Soul very fimilar with ours Imagination Memory Affection and Will But we may and do rationally suppose for we cannot observe more in them or the contrary that they imagine through Sense they remember again from Sense they affect by Sense and Will in pursuance hereof only and not otherwise as we have touched already neither can they or are they enabled to weigh and consider so as to raise within themselves an evidence of things unseen which is the proper act of Reason a thing merely incorporeal and necessarily moving upon the cooperation and making a judgment with the assistance or help of other faculties of themselves somewhat more than corporeal likewise So as all our faculties are of Divine extraction and capable to be wrought upon otherwise than through Sense though indeed they are most commonly roused and set on work through bodily Organs as those of Beasts Most certain it is that we do as well as in that excellent faculty Reason whereby we are enabled to ponder and weigh and try and judge of the reality and truth of things herein excell them and go beyond them That we do now and then wish our selves out of this Body which we could never do from Sense and desire a clearer evidence or manifestation and appearance of the truth and reality of our own being and all beings whatsoever the original from whence c. than Sense is able to assist us in or indeed can rightly afford us Then next are not all our Affections readily imployed upon things meerly incorporeal and insensible whenever they offer themselves or are offered thereto Do we not love and admire Truth Justice Mercy c. Do we not hate the contraries thereof falshood wrong and cruelty Every one will confess this But now how are things brought in this shape to the Affections Why chiefly by an Imagination capable of divine impression an Imagination that may be wrought upon otherwise than through Sense and able to introduce apparitions to the other faculties of the Soul without the least help or assistance by Sense so as human Imagination is most certainly divine 'T is no battery upon the Soul through Sense barely no inculcating or telling us by word or Writing that Vertue is amiable which properly make it so to us But first an Inquest our Imagination that presents and next a Judge our Reason that allows and approves of it within us as such Indeed Imagination in Beast lodged immediately over the doors of Sense do's from thence work so strangely to our admiration so circumspectly as I may say direct their Affections and Will as that it has obtained the allowance of some to supply the place of Reason in
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
one and the same man at several times And therefore I am willing to behold it again and say somewhat more of it according to my capacity under the afore-mentioned heads of Love Lust Charity and of Friendship only orderly and in course When there is no motion in the Soul further than for the pleasing it self or the Body it inhabits or it has no other chief respect than to their worldly ease and pleasure only and looks no farther therein than the obtaining Riches Honour Children or the like I call it Lust or self-love When it beholds God alone as the only perfect good and the Author and giver of all goodness and places a trust and repose in him without taking any anxious thoughts or care for worldly things and delights the Soul in the Contemplation of his absolute and complete goodness I call it pure Love or Love in the abstract When from it or with it the Soul beholds all men as Gods special work and pays a just and due respect to every member as his Image howsoever deformed or which way soever defaced without any great respect to persons I call it Charity When it primarily respects and imbraces particular persons for some visible inherent goodness in them and God only secondarily as the Author of all good in man I call it Friendly Love or the inition of that mutual aspect or League we term or name Friendship The first of these is directed and guided by Sense only or Reason captivated the second by Grace the third and fourth by Reason at liberty with some assistance or help of Grace The first of these we may not improperly term Natural the second Supernatural and the third and fourth may be said to participate of or proceed from both viz. Nature and Grace The first works or burns inwardly only the second flames outwardly and directly ascendant the third and fourth flame laterally outward after several ways for the one is more intense upon particulars than the other but both point upward Love in man of it self good I have called and do call here when it greedily catches at or lays hold on any thing before it Lust or Concupiscence Cupiditas effraenata that is Love unbridled for so I take the meaning of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be and withal a greediness in it unbridled to be presently satisfied as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aviditas cibi signifies Reason I have said before is the proper rein of human Affection though there be a hand above which sometimes guides or directs it and when that rein is laid aside as truly it is when we look no further than our present ease and pleasure and Love moves by Sense only or chiefly We may well call it Lust or an unbridled Desire and not Love The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by some often referred to a peculiar fleshly desire but I take it more generally to signify a greedy desire of any Worldly thing whatsoever and so does Saint Iohn seem to make use of it according to my apprehension of his meaning where he opposes the Love of the World and the Love of God to each other Love not the World neither the things that are in the World if any man love the World the love of the Father is not in him says he and then immediately after makes use of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For all that is in this World the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the World and the World passeth away and the lust thereof but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever And St. Iames immediately after his speaking of a Crown of Life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him useth the word Lust as a degenerate Love by which we are drawn aside Which raised in the Soul and coupled to the flesh conceiveth and brings forth sin Now I have called this Lust natural because since our fall Reason being much clouded by the Flesh it is for want of Grace most prone to be led by Sense in every human Soul as well as bestial And because it chiefly respects our selves I have defined it to be an inward burning And truly human love thus pent in and a thing very vigorous of it self although it cannot be satisfied within shall never want any fuel to feed it which Sense is able to bring in with the Devil's assistance But this inward burning generally creates a smoak and a smother in the Soul sometimes visibly to a spectator and often feelingly to the owner and how ere it may sometimes warm or comfort for the present is never delightful or pleasant in the end When this Love in man is pure or purified as we cannot describe the manner so we cannot describe how joyful and delightful a thing it is Neither is any man able so much as to imagine it unless he have in some measure felt it and then perhaps he may cry out with David One day in thy courts is better than a thousand c. I know there is no man but would take it in great scorn to be told he loves not God every one pretends to that however he deal with his Neighbour but sure this kind of Love the most excellent will never be made visible in any to the wiser sort of the World but by some outward clear and manifest demonstration of the two following kinds of Love to our Neighbour and to our Friend And 't were heartily to be wished above all things that self-love did not often colourably set it up and march under its seeming Banner It may and has done so certainly which is so base and treacherous a self-love that the name of Lust or Concupiscence is too good for it neither can any man invent a name for it which may properly refer to man 'T is inhuman and worse than sensual it is Devilish neither can I call it other than Devilish when men once indeavour to open a way to their self ends with a scriptum est Towards our present ease and quiet in the World I have already declared my opinon that the observance or performance of that second great Commandment that is an Universal good aspect or the bearing about one a love and kindness for every individual Image of our Creatour let that Image never so much vary in opinion or fancy from our own we will again set it down in one word as before Charity is that unum necessarium And this is a thing which in my opinion every man might God assisting blow up and enliven in himself by his Reason so as his Love might flame out on every side as I have described But that is not the thing I am now upon neither was the consideration of it or of pure love or of self-love either my chief aim or design herein but Friendship or Friendly Love A thing which though it seem not so
fear whom we need envy that Happiness Certainly there are many deeply read as we say and we may give them the appellation of great Scholars too who have lost her in a crowd that sought too much abroad when perhaps with less labour and God's blessing they might have found her at home naked as she is and so naked have better presented her to the ignorant and mean and such as are not capable to receive her with any large Retinue or Attendants However I am somewhat confident she is not to be delivered shackled and in Fetters nor to be established or set up by an Ergo and that Logick is so far from being any good Centinel or Guard for Science that it is as some before me have held fitter to establish an Error than to discover or open a way to Truth That I seem to declaim against Learning as a lett rather than a furtherance to Happiness I know I shall obtain your pardon because I believe you Wise and Charitable as well as Learned and for any other who may chance to see this I may hope the like from him For if he be so happy by that kind of Knowledge barely he will pity my Ignorance and want of Learning I do think the advancement of Reason may be without the advancement of Learning and that if any man could frame together materials for such a Work it would prove the more Happy though it were not the more Learned Book Now if we admit or allow of any thing good here and withal desirable in any measure beyond what is absolutely necessary to support us in our Travail towards some future constant permanent setled Bliss and Happiness for certainly we can never lay hold on and enjoy such here it must be some inherent gift which may adorn and beautify the Soul it self and such as well used may give us not only a little light towards our Journeys end but afford us some warmth and comfort also by fits A gift whereby the Soul may solace her self and though a Prisoner yet become a Prisoner at large as we say and obtain a little fairer prospect than barely out of the gates of her Prison the organs of Sense And that is in some measure a clear and right understanding of things here while she is here or in a word Wisdom Wisdom is a general word and so we would have it here accepted For properly and strictly taken I think it to be however we hold the Book that so defines it for Apocrypha The breath of the power of God and a pure influence flowing from the Glory of the Almighty A brightness of the everlasting light and the unspotted mirrour of the power of God and the Image of his Goodness That more immediate and no way habitual or inherent light of the Holy Spirit which leadeth by the paths of Virtue unto everlasting Bliss and Happiness whereof the fear of the Lord is the beginning or forerunner and is in truth no other than what St. Iames calls pure religion and undefiled Which being a thing not to be discovered by man in man but to be judged of at such time as Solon would have Happiness and that certainly must be after death is a fitter subject for Divines under the title of Grace in the most acceptable Sense than for me This indeed is a thing to be desired above all things and without limitation since her ways wherein she leads us are ways of pleasure and all her paths peace But since he who has told us so much has this saying withal I wisdom dwell with prudence I have thought good here to speak a little of good moral Wisdom whereof Solomon has left us some Precepts under the name or title of Prudence how good and safe a guide it may be for us and how far it may receive admittance to cohabit with that special divine gift Wisdom And also to say somewhat of a different kind of worldly Wisdom and which seldom cohabits with her under the name of Subtilty Because it is a word attributed to that old Serpent upon his first deceit to man and words the index of things if not someways regulated are apt to confound our Intellect The thing I am now about to speak of is indeed no other than what I have already handled Reason we may call it here Reason clarified that inherent gift in man which when it is somewhat clear and guides and leads us without transgression of any rule either of Justice or Charity but follows Truth so far as it is able to discern her and is not dazled by any Mists or Fogs arising from some erring and extravagant Affection I call Prudence or right Reason But when it beholds things as quick and nimbly and at as great a distance as may be If it in any wise transgress the rules before mentioned or become swaied bended or inclined as aforesaid I can give it no other name than Subtilty still allowing it the attribute of Reason though not right Reason or else we must rank a great part of Mankind under the meer classis of brute Beasts and take from them the title and dignity of rational That this desirable good Prudence or a clear or right Reason may be inherent and injoyed in great measure by man and yet avail him nothing towards everlasting Happiness nor he prove wise unto Salvation is a thing I will not or cannot deny All that I am about to alledge is the one is no lett or impediment but rather a furtherance for the coming of the other The cohabitation of Wisdom with prudence in the same person or whenever they are the indowment of one and the same Soul is a most blessed and admirable gift and why there should be sometimes seemingly maintained a kind of necessity of their separation and that the lesser must wholly give place and cease to be for the introduction of the greater though it is very likely this thing I call Prudence has often by a kind of degeneracy into what I call Subtilty forced Wisdom's absence I trust and believe there is no firm ground We should not be so out of love with the word Magus as to condemn all under that notion and hold all Philosophy to be vain and so conclude not any wise are called because St. Paul has said Not many c. or because Solomon has truly told us there is no Wisdom neither understanding nor counsel against the Lord to argue there is none for him is more than I think we have commission to do It is an undeniable truth that the wisdom of this World is foolishness with God and that Wisdom in the abstract is God's peculiar and to be allowed him with an exclusive particle as St. Paul has done it To the only wise God or To God only wise c. And he who is not at all times ready to deny himself and wave any self-sufficiency in that point never merited the title of
many men who never attained what they eagerly desired or earnestly pursued for this very Reason that by utterly disowning their main intent have greatly puzled and at length caused their Friends and followers to desert them rather than always walk along with them in the dark or in a mist. A man may be allowed sometimes dark Sayings but not false lights and we may admit counsel in the heart of a man to be like deep Waters but not muddy or discoloured Waters Such do most commonly deceive the Authors It is not seldom that these kind of men meeting together become like two men in the dark and stumble together but neither as Solomon says well knows at what he stumbles When a Cretian meets with as perfect a Cretian as himself he is forthwith then if not at some other times in a perfect maze and must needs confess himself a Fool because he is justled in his old paths and knows not readily which way to walk nor so much as to turn himself We needed not indeed have ranked these kind of men under the notion or title of Wisdom unless to distinguish them from those we term Innocents from whom they differ in a large degree wholly deserting the attendant of that attribute Innocence if we believe David who says it will bring a man peace at the last Whatever such man esteem himself or however he may be esteemed of by some and it is an evil fate that sometimes the Fool should be applauded for Wise and a wise man derided for being circumvented or overreached as men term it there is no Wise man but will conclude with Solomon that He that hideth hatred with lying lips and he that uttereth a slander is a fool Nay I will be bold to go further and say that he who uses to gratify a far more noble Affection than hatred can be esteemed with a lye and with any seeming approbation or allowance of his Reason is no better than a Fool and such is every one who professes and allows of dissimulation as an Art Surely whenever any man draws a false vail over himself to hide himself from others the Devil throws another over him to hide him from himself Or else his Reason would shew him his folly together with his falshood That Reason is very weak in man which shews not to the whole Soul at some time or other falshood to be a crime If it do not that man is a very Fool in the estimation of all men and I may tell him according to my definition he has no conscience that is no consultations whispers or debates amongst the faculties of his Soul which thing he will take as a greater ignominy than the other title If it do and it is heard which is the thing I call conscience and yet a man acts against it in a constant course of motion his Reason is weak and he can never be allowed for wise For when his Reason becomes subservient to Affections only latent and not up in Arms on the suddain It is rather deceived into a compliance than mastered or overcome by force I say not but that the most Prudent nay the most Wise here on Earth may act sometimes both foolishly and falsly too but then it must be from an Acute disease which quickly terminates not a Chronick and lasting one in the Soul not such as steals upon a man and yet he thinks he is in health not a contented vassalage of Reason but rather a constrained bondage of her for a time I have alledged and owned the potency and predominancy of the Affections in the Soul But I think in the case of a professed Hypocrite Reason may as properly be said to misguide the Passions as the Passions to mislead Reason and then that man can never be indowed with Prudence or right Reason if at some time or other it will not take place and be master We have little Reason to look for Happiness or expect to find it in that place where Wisdom and Prudence are discharged from the Watch Or so much as to think there is any inward order or regularity in that Soul where the door or entrance into it the Tongue is hung false of intent and purpose If any do expect to build a Temple for Peace with the materials before mentioned he must inquire out an able Surveyor and a more exact Contriver than I am like to prove I know it will prove a vain thing to demand of any such kind of person what quiet ease or peace of mind he usually finds within himself since that dissimulation being his chief profession he will dissemble his injoyments as well as his aims and palliate his Wounds and Scars as well as his Weapons But if we could appeal to his Conscience of which there is some question whether he have any it would tell him as well as Isaiah has told us all there is no peace obtained upon any indirect course However every man by appealing to his own Reason may receive information that he who always paints and colours his own Actions with a false Gloss or Varnish must necessarily have some fear and a jealousy or suspicion within himself that in all addresses honest intents and innocent well meaning actions from others there lies secretly hid some poyson covered over with that precious balm he himself makes such daily use of And what pleasant quiet peaceable Inmates jealousy and suspicion are I leave to the judgment of all who have at any time entertained them We will allow a number of men to have a nimble slavish Reason whom yet we will not allow to be endowed with right Reason or Prudence Whenever Reason yields to make a breach upon the rules of Justice or Charity she is not right and streight but bent and inclined by some evil or ill-set Affection If she do not strike at the Affections for mastery she is a slave If she do there is no peace for the present nor till their subjection And hereabout will I conjecture much of our Peace and Happiness and disorder and unhappiness in this World depends I have sometimes thought that if Reason in man meriting the title of Prudent might towards any present safety and quiet kind of the Souls injoyment of her self in this life transgress any rule of Charity naturally engraven in the Soul or delivered to her by Divine Law It were in this only case of not believing all things for since we hourly behold the treachery and falshood of the World in general and find withall how all ages have derided this credulity and long since given to a good man in this charitable sense the name of a fresh water Souldier or Novice Since we almost daily see and read examples of particular men who by their too great credulity in this kind have drawn misery and sorrow and imminent danger and destruction upon themselves Why should not Reason that is right Reason now and then nay
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
have already mentioned There indeed in case of the will's deviation from Justice which may be said to be a peculiar Sense annexed to Reason or which human Reason is indowed with and called Reason's Eye without which it cannot properly move I may truly tell any man having Reason if he transgress the rule of Justice you know in your Conscience yor wrong me or do that which is evil In other cases I cannot apprehend how we can be said to know unless by common Sense And that surely viz outward Sense do's often afford us such an infallible demonstration as that Reason cannot oppose it or raise a belief against it though without Sense or above and beyond Sense she may raise a belief And therefore in such plain cases of ocular demonstration human Reason is ever silent and in a manner useless For why should she labour and travail in vain Wherefore should I argue within my self whether white and black be the same or whether they differ in colour when my Sense is clear to perceive they do How should I believe alteration of substance when I see plainly there is none Though human Reason be a gift that excels Sense and raises sometimes such an high and lasting fabrick as Sense is not able to raise yet it never throws down Sense's building to do it or opposes it self clean contrary to Sense We may keep our Sense and our Reason too and make use of both but when we happen utterly to exclude the former I much doubt whether we retain the latter in its very native force And therefore I appeal to any man of Reason whether direct Idolatry be not folly or rather a phrensy and madness I am as prone and ready I hope to believe as any other man I look upon it as the most excellent capacity of human Nature and therefore if a man shall go about to perswade me such a piece of bread is flesh whereof at first sight I might believe otherwise I may with some Reason retract my opinion and believe it and that it might be some dried flesh by art brought unto the likeness of ordinary bread But if he shall tell me this thing I now see is Bread made of Corn and I believe him and then he shall forthwith go about to perswade me 't is flesh so long as it never was out of my sight and my Sense tells me it is the very same as it was without alteration I will reply I know it is the same and need no assistance of Reason to believe it the one or the other and without Reason Belief is nothing nor more than a simple cogitation as I said Now because we will not or cannot deny these kind of men who thus believe or would have us believe to be otherwise rational and judicious in other matters And we are unwilling and it becomes us not to call them Fools or mad men We will rather chuse to term them Good natured men and think such their belief proceeds from that very innocent native goodness or Charity which is apt to make a man believe all things and is some excrescence or else superfetation of Reason By which I yet mean no other thing than what I have on insisted all along to be of dangerous and evil consequence in the Soul viz. Credulity As Reason is the most excellent indowment in the Soul so it is oftnest abused and we may daily observe more leger de main and more tricks to deceive us put upon our Reason than our Sense We shall always have our best Affection courted if not bribed to gain the consent of that and if it cannot be perswaded or prevailed over by fair means there shall be a thunder through Sense to raise some other passion in the Soul to force its consent or at least to keep it quiet from resistance and we must be made afraid if feazible that we may believe and told that there is no hope of Salvation if we believe not as our Monitors would have us This indeed may be called a cunning way of application to the Affections to delude Reason rather than to enlighten it And thus by the false insinuation of others and the negligence of our selves Reason instead of being a sure conduct becomes as it were a false guide and instead of doing us good often worketh us the greatest prejudice of any thing in Nature Credulity which is Reason blindfolded by another has doubtless led many men into sundry pernitious Errors and so into utter destruction at the last and hurried them into further mischief than either their native passions of themselves would have forced them or their own Imagination could have invented for them and therefore it cannot seem uncharitable though it may prove unacceptable to advise all men to beware of Credulity and to become cautious how and what they believe To avoid which danger I know no readier way than for every man to make use of and exercise that blessed gift God has bestowed on him and so I may call it his own Reason And therefore I might here I think safely if it happen to be seen advice every one else as well as you to keep his Reason as well as elsewhere I did every man from Solomon to keep his heart with all diligence I do not mean to keep his Reason a Prisoner in subjection to his Affections as most men do If he do they will be deceived together but as their guide free and without dependance on any but only that good God who gave it And if every man would singly follow this advice having engrafted in his heart that saying Quod tibi fieri non vis c. I doubt not but we should see and taste better fruits of mens Faith than now we do I know not how to separate the word Faith from Reason or Reason from Faith If Reason be the ground of every ordinary belief and I cannot possibly find its rise elsewhere nor that any Creature can have in his Soul an evidence of things not seen that is an ordinary belief without the special gift of Reason Why should it be laid aside as some would for the introducing of that blessed effect in the Soul which differs only in point of the object matter and perhaps somewhat in degree In either case there is no more than a perswasion of the mind which can never be without rationality For without that the Will and the Affections blind as they are necessarily follow Sense and cannot be perswaded or prevailed with to imbrace any thing without Sense Without Reason a Cogitation is the bare work of the Imagination or it self by it self working It must have Reason's stamp at least how weak or blind soever she be to give it the title of a Belief And a bare Cogitation as I conceive being a thing that falls short of a Belief in human Theory must needs do so much more in Divinity and will scarce amount to the Faith of a Collier And if it
contrary Then let them shew that express word of conversion of the Bread into Flesh But if they would perswade our Reason in opposition to sense to accept it as true and real Let us see how they can make out this fallacy of sense without setting up our Imagination as regent in the Soul to the suppression of Reason I confess a mans Reason may naturally submit to accept of those truths sense cannot penetrate or it self comprehend but it can never submit from any human impulse to accept or allow of any thing clear contrary to the demonstration of sense and what from thence might be comprehended of the Soul without a great depravation of the Imagination to blind it and lead it captive And therefore while we retain our Reason free and at liberty we may wonder with a kind of laughter why these men should indeavour to prove to us a real Presence by clean contrary ways to our Saviour himself And bid us distrust our sense and elevate our Imagination and believe contrary to that inlet by which He who best knew the safest way would that belief should be raised or let in to the Soul and was the greatest confirmation of the absent Apostles Faith Every outward apparition to the Soul if there be no disease or defect in the Organ by which it is let in though it pleases or displeases not alike by Reason of our lapse and affections disorder is ever one and the same to all men or else we must accuse our great God and Creator of fallacy which God forbid And thereupon I think it impossible in Nature for Reason which is his immediate gift and his Vicegerent in our Soul and able to judge a defect or no defect in the Organ to move of it self in a direct opposition to that apparency But that it must be some other faculty in our new diseased and distempered Soul from our first lapse that as it were forces its consent Or rather falsly represents through some disturbance and inflamation of affection and so raising and allowing of it self an Idea which is not so that we might well discard the opinion of deceptio visus in most cases and impute our fallacy to our own opinions that is our imagination Now how comes this faculty which is imployed and works for the enlightning of the whole Soul to delude and deceive us so often Why truly not of it self barely and simply as I said it is if well imployed even about sensible things an admirable and wonderful searcher and Diver after truth from the very work whereof how weakly soever we are able to judge of it we are apt to become proud as well as self-conceited but from the restless importunity and craving of the Affections and the fumes proceeding from thence towards the present allaying whereof it is now and then as it were almost forced on the suddain to supply the place of Reason since the Affections have no immediate recourse to Reason and sense too and palliate Reason to contradict present sense and raise a seeming sense of what is not to delude Reason become Judge as well as Juror pass final sentence as well as indict which is indeed the sole office of a more noble though a more quiet that we say not a more lazy faculty in us I am somewhat assured the most Ingenious of that party will not be able to deny but that strength of Imagination rather than strength of Reason inflated through passion has brought them in many if not the greatest number of proselytes in that belief Perhaps they will say Credulity that is a belief without due examination is an Epidemical disease in every Soul and that the strength of Imagination backed with passion has in some of us created a belief of things altogether as rationally incredible I must confess I think it has and owning as much wish we were all so far undeceived and those mists ingendred between our Affections and Imagination so far dispelled as that we might in these our days behold the things which belong to our present as well as future peace and that we might so far behold each other in charity as not so fight and quarrel about our different beliefs and colourably set up Reason in the case when in truth they are Affections one or two and perhaps none of the best Pride and Covetousness in us which with the assistance of the Imagination contend on each side which of us shall reign or domineer over the other I intended not when I first reflected on the Imagination and the delusion thereof from corrupted passion to bring in Religion as the subject matter or Theme I meant only to speak of it in reference to moral delusion apparent enough in most cases of our life and action and how far reason in us if well exercised might prevent it and to that I return Truly this restless busy and prouling faculty in us the Imagination which flees from us like our shadow while we pursue it and to espy its frauds endeavour to arrest and lay hold on it was certainly given us for good and not only in observance of Sense but in obedience and subjection to Reason and it seems to continue so in most of us until we begin seriously to make use of our Reason to weigh and consider some of the Imagination's past devices and then we observe its fallacy That it is often like to some kind of Subjects which outwardly pretend the advancement of their Sovereign's power and will not seem directly to resist his commands as some of his Subjects that is the Affections do yet complying with those Subjects under hand and enticing them to Rebellion makes use of him as a glorious Cypher that under colour of him they may more easily move and more safely and quietly domineer This is the way of the Imagination and when it has thus done that is that it hath colourably set up Reason and as it were deceived the affections baffled them and seemingly master'd them and brought them to its beck as it thinks that it hath taken freedom from the Will and subdued all in thought It becomes at variance with it self in distrust of it self and so brought to amazement and confusion is at length made a captive and slave to the meanest basest and most sordid rebellious affection perhaps envy or hatred perhaps brutish lust perhaps despair and this to the overthrow and utter destruction of reason in the end And if this be the usual result of its treachery and fraud and it may be prevented why should it not be prevented We have reason in us to do it you 'l say I say so too but how it will be thereby effected is questionable Truly Reason in the beginning and when she first comes to maturity if she means to reign well and safely must make use of Machiavel's Maxim of division amongst her Subjects especially the Imagination and some particular affections corrupted perhaps before she had any strength For