amazed at the little value of it among men who profess to believe such or like representations of it and will oblige himself to a far higher Estimation of it and care for it there being no other reason to be rendred why so great and worthy a Part or to speak more properly a Mans True self should be neglected but what is to be imputed to extreme madness such as a mans Throwing himself into Seas or Flames or Starving himself contrary to all Laws of Self-preservation would be except that this Soul flies so much from it self as it judges by sense and is so hidden in the body by acting so much not only by it but for it that it appears wholly Body And men being unwilling to put themselves upon severe Reason to be assured of it and very incredulous of Divine Revelation that else gives a more easie and sudden Certainty concerning it they will not believe it is any thing but Body and so with Soul deny Soul preferring Body only because the Soul is most sensible and visible as it acts and inspires that and loves and is pleased with it self most as so active and therefore wilfully consents to its own Eclipse by Body To remove therefore this prejudice I begin with the first part of the Description That the Soul is Invisible and so to discourse it that it may appear that Invisible put into the Souls Character is so far from a derogation to the Soul that it is a great Advancement to its Nature For the most Excellent order and state of Beings is of Beings Invisible Beings not seen with the Eye nor felt with the Hand nor approached to by Sense Beings whose operations give assurance to Reason and Faith they are and of what degree of Efficacy they are an Efficacy far surpassing all visible Agents even to Infinite of which even Sense may and must be witness in multitude of Effects though the Causes themselves and the manner of their working be indiscernible by Sight or Sense And now I am speaking of Things Invisible in contra-distinction to things of Sight and Sense I would use this occasion to make the way fairer to all that may be after said by taking an account of the way by which Sense comes to its cognizance of Things and where it stops and can go no further and how Reason and Faith proceed still and go infinitely beyond By Sense I understand that Power of Soul that moves towards and takes in the perception of Things by the due motion of Bodily Organs fitted thereto the objects of which are Bodily and Material also and though it be the Soul that acts by these Organs and so is the true original and last resort of Sense which appears in that though Body or any part of it be notoriously impressed by Matter yet if the Soul be busie and much taken up elsewhere no Sense follows at least till the Soul is more at leisure and can give attendance to Body or that part of it so imprinted Notwithstanding this yet because the Action spoken of is immediately performed by matter upon matter and Bodily Nature meets in both the knock of the one against the other is so forcible and with such remark to the Soul that dwells within and cannot but take notice as gives us greatest confidence and assurance in the result and nothing seems more Certain and Undenyable than things so attested to us who are so far sunk down into Bodily Nature the Soul as I have already intimated being most satisfied in its own Acts by and upon Body Now Sight is comprehensive of all Sense because Sense turns it self as much as it can to every object by Sight being the most Excellent of Senses and the other Senses quicken and engage Sight as much as may be so that Invisible Beings and Beings unaccountable to Sense are much of the same avail in signification as to what concerns this Case In summ then Things of a Bodily Grossness are those only that fall within the line of Senses Communication and are termed Visible But Reason is a Power and operation beyond Sense it self being the stream of a Pure and Immaterial Fountain it winds it self in where matter that Sense acts by cannot enter and through the outward Rind or Matter it passes into what lies within where Matter hath neither made nor received any Impression yet there it divines by its own proper Sentiments making use and advantage and receiving Service from Sense so far as it is able to go it leaves it where it can go no farther and when it hath searched beyond it it can again compare the fruits of that search with sensible and experimental Evidences and so work by Sense and with it and also above it and beyond it yea and even without it Faith yet far exeeds Reason alone by receiving Oracles from the Highest Reason and Understanding God himself whose infinity of Knowledge leaving our Span of Knowledge at unmeasurable distances behind it gives truest and fullest accounts of all Things and by believing what he reveals we receive the Benefit of his All Comprehending Knowledge This general Premisal being given I come to argue the thing it self That Invisible Beings are not the less because they are Invisible but they are upon true Inquiry found to be the Greatest of Beings and therefore the Greater because they are Invisible Argum. 1 There are many and Great Effects that the Senses every day converse with and because they so easily perceive them and are so well acquainted with them we call them Senses or powers of Perception and yet by the utmost Search and Inquiry Reason can put them upon it cannot find out by them Causes potent enough for these Effects When we survey the whole World and all the Creatures in it and their so Lively and Vigorous and yet so excellently govern'd Motions we are Judges of the Things themselves by Sense and they cannot be denied but Sense can offer no Cause high enough for these effects we must needs therefore conclude by the Suffrage of Reason There is some Cause unseen that is the spring of All. For the Determinations of Reason are that till we come to the first Cause every Thing must have a Cause and that the Cause must be superior to the Effect in that thing wherein it is the Cause of it when therefore there is an Effect to which no seen Cause is able and sufficient there must be some unseen Cause that does produce it If a man should hear from a Tree or Beast the voice of Words and Humane Discourse how readily would he Conceive some higher original of that Speech and those Words than that Beast or Tree If then we observe such a World and Government of it as must needs proceed from a Counsel and Reason a Prudence and Understanding arm'd with a power and unbounded puissance and we see none high enough thereunto we cannot but conclude There must be still some Cause as high as
to highest and truest Beings is inconsiderable though it seem great to us especially those gross and dull ones we converse in or are to converse with and it is in greatest indulgence to us that they stoop down into them as wise men sometimes comply a little while with the fansies and humours of children 4. Their superiority to visible Beings in that they form their appearances with some extraordinaries or do things so great in them as convince them to be of a higher order Now for the assurance of these appearances I especially rest upon the Histories hereof in the Scripture those sensible evidences of the Divine Presence the appearances of the good Angels recorded in it which are so many and so plain as to make up a full proof of invisible Beings and not so much as with any likelihood of truth to be eluded by those who profess to believe those sacred Records The sallies of evil Angels upon the world and the possessions they took of the bodies of men doing things in them beyond the general Laws of Body related also to us in Scripture may be reduced hereunto As additional proof hereof we may entertain those memories of such appearances in common story that are writ with greatest judgment sobriety and arguments of veracity Now all this is applicable to the Souls of men thus far first as it gives a common proof there are Invisible Beings of which order we affirm the Soul to be and secondly seeing the Soul was made in the Image of God and in an allyance with Angels it hath a substantial greatness like them lastly it must as they be independent it self upon matter and have a force much above it though it be for a time subjugated to the laws of a Body and so cannot shew it self in its own nature till it be in a separated state or joined to a Body more suited to its operations If any should say why are not these appearances more frequent and usual The answer is That were altogether unsuitable to the state and majesty of these invisible Beings which like that of the Eastern Princes stands much in retirement and as they were rarely seen and not but upon great occasions when they had weighty designs to manage or when it had been called into question whether they were alive or not because not seen for some space of time Thus invisible Beings good and holy have in visible shapes though rarely visited the sublunary world and for great ends of service to God and also that they might thereby refute atheistick and unbelieving conceipts and give assurance of themselves Unholy spirits chained up by Divine Power appear but at command so often and no oftner than God pleases for it may be supposed the Devil would not thus appear but upon necessity and constraint laid upon him by Divine Providence because his Kingdom suffers so much by the knowledge of Beings removed from sense yet when he must appear it is most agreeable to so insolent a Spirit to do it to excess and with greatest troublesomness if not restrained by God But God for the general in this riper Age of the world and under the settled light of the Gospel teaches mankind by rational and intellectual evidences that are so easily to be drawn into observation by us and by those clear and spiritual documents given us in his Word especially since such a testimony as hath been granted to men of heavenly and invisible powers in a humane body acting with a virtue so divine and miraculous and so apparent to sense For what could be greater than the whole History of the Life and Death the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ our Lord to all that are indeed Christians an invisible power transacting so lively before sense all those so high demonstrations of it self and then framing and propagating a Doctrine every way agreeable to it self and spreading it through the whole world If notwithstanding all this the man of Sense will not apprehend nor accept any proof of such Beings except our Senses were daily Spectators of them he very ridiculously exacts the tryal of those things by Sense which are plainly affirmed to be out of the compass of Sense and all its reach he demands to see and touch that which cannot be seen or felt Now it is certain that which is out of the sphere of any faculty whatsoever cannot be tryed and judged by that faculty any more than the eye can judge of sounds or the ear of colours or light be heard or an excellent noise of musick be seen Sense ought not to be called to sit in judgment upon things that are above it as finite knowledge cannot measure the possibilities of omnipotency Ants may as well be consulted with whether a Palace may be built over their heap or Beasts decide whether there be any reflexes of Reason as Sense be put to judge those things that are only to be discerned by Reason or to measure by an unequal Reason what Faith which is Reason advanced by Revelation can alone give us an account of How liberal an allowance is it to Sense that there is in so many particulars as we have already taken notice of a foundation laid in it for Reason and Faith to ground their further search and assurances upon And as for the great perverseness of such men that would make Sense usurp higher and their presumptions against invisible Beings in the confidence of that the sager consents of wise learned and pious men and the general inclination the universality of mankind have discovered to a belief of such Beings make those presumptions appear no other than a diffidence or distrust in every thing but Sense and is no more considerable than a Scepticks suspicion of other things most assured to other men by sense it self or an ignorant mans difficulty to believe the Sun and Stars any bigger than they seem to be From this Discourse of Invisible Beings Inference very justly arises an expostulation with our selves for our irreligious brutishness and sensuality that we do not more mind these invisible natures and consider God our Souls the eternal state our neglect chiefly arising because they are not seen although we have other great assurances of them As Beasts we are only affected with what strikes our Sense But let us observe every thing the more invisible it is that indeed of the greater force and efficacy it is The Spirits of things lye hid and concealed from the eye till they issue out into operation There are some very few things quick upon the Sense that are also full of power as light fire a flash of lightning and we use by these to express spiritual Beings because they are of greatest separation from dull Body and ordinary gross matter and too mighty for Sense to be too free with But let us consider how worthy these Invisible things are of our thoughts by this plain instance If any of those Beings should make an appearance
to us as to some of old that we read of in the Scripture and in a retirement what affrightment would it be to us how unable were any sort of men to bear such an approach and yet the force of their Beings is not in their appearance but in the Essence it self for the appearance they take upon them and throw off again at pleasure and they only condescend to Sense by these appearances that are therefore no part of their strength that lies treasured up wholly in their Essences so that their being seen adds nothing to them but as we dwell in Body they are represented more plainly to us and so seem more potent and dreadful also to us Now when we are to dye we are to enter into the whole world of these invisible Beings and how shall we be able to bear so great a presence if we do not prepare our selves for the encounter It is true we shall be fitted the more to endure such a state thus far that we shall be uncloathed of flesh and blood in which we are so amazed with any thing of the other world but then it is further to be considered if we are not reconciled to that Supreme Being whom though as the Apostle hath assured us No man hath seen or can see yet because of that his displeasure is so much the swifter and the more penetrating and we but the more fitted to suffer under it by our being dis-incumbred from present gross matter and the horrible dread of that whole world will rise up against us with more immediate impression But to him that is reconciled to God by Jesus Christ all things in Heaven are reconciled also and he passes through those Hosts as a man that passes through the most terrible Armies under the protection of the General or as a stranger through foreign Countries with the especial gracious Convoy of the Prince nay higher than thus as a particular Favourite and Friend of the Prince Now there is an Order of these Invisible Beings most blessed God the happy and only Potentate Jesus Christ God over all blessed for ever the Angels of Glory the blessed Saints There is highest and truest blessedness most certainly to be found among them nor are they the less but the more happy for being invisible nor is their happiness therefore fantastick aiery or not solid because not seen For so fine and pure as not to be seen and yet to be gives the greatest presumption of the vividness and power of any thing that can be given of it the quickest motions are too quick for sight and the life of discourse is not that which the ear hears differing nothing from common sound but that which the mind perceives Beings invisible do not know one another less than men in Bodies but the most quick communications pass between them Invisibility is but a just distance from Sense as greatness retires and reserves it self from vulgar eyes and every days sight that it may be more adored at solemn times of appearance Christ ascending up into his glory a Cloud received him out of their sight but as the Apostle speaks of him so we may say of the whole state of Invisible Things That 1 Tim. 6. 16. in his time he will shew him and them who is the only blessed Potentate he will shew them in such representations as are proper to them some fully possessing the mind some filling the very Sense as it shall be heightened and exalted by the Resurrection of which the glorious Body of Christ shall be the supreme Object How earnest then should we be in seeking a communion in this blessedness in laying hold upon this eternal life in seeking honour glory immortality while we are in the world not in the least disswaded that they are not seen but looking the more earnestly upon them by faith because they are not like the things that prophane Sense every day blows upon and are therefore continually perishing for being so dull and gross as to be seen they are also of a composition dissolvable and apt to flye in pieces whereas eternal things whose nature is purer are not exposed to common eyes This is indeed Christianity while we look not upon the 2 Cor. 4. 18. things that are seen but upon the things that are not seen for the things which are seen are but for a moment but the things which are not seen are eternal But as there is a blessed and happy order of invisible Beings so there is an Order of Beings invisible most wretched and miserable the Devil and his Angels and wicked men damned to their fellowship How black is this state How dreadful is the wrath and misery of their punishment It is like the stroke of lightning sooner felt than seen and the destruction that is the effect of it greater deeper more sudden and universal and leaving more dread behind it than those things that work by the light and leisure of senses cognisance and observation If any should think there wants evidence of these things let him think also it may not be the want of evidence but the want of our suitedness to them It is because the Soul is swallowed up of Sense that any man wants evidence and we are angry that we cannot by Sense comprehend things that are not related to it but are nearly allyed to understanding to Faith Many things give full satisfaction of themselves to learned men yet can offer none to men unlearned so do these objects display themselves with great clearness to men of purified minds that cannot make themselves known to Souls plunged down into Sense and the thick matter The best expedient for the cure of such men is first to believe the assertions of men of refined minds inviting others to what themselves have found and then to receive the assurance that will arise from their own compliance with and experience of divine things But further we want most the prevalency of what we believe rather than meerly belief we may be more strongly perswaded of this invisible world than we know our selves to be yet by reason of the great unaptness of the fleshly state in regard of mind adhering so to it the consideration hath not the force answerable to the belief because it is suppressed and the want of force in the belief lessens our feeling of the belief which we indeed have and must have the principle of it being united with our very Souls Having now asserted that there is an order of invisible Beings and that the Soul is such a one I come in the next place to call them Spirits and so to treat of the Soul as a Spirit There need be no contention about the word Spirit it being but a word or name chosen to express the notion men have in all times had of these insensible and immaterial Beings which they have made easie to themselves and others by whatever among sensible natures is most subtile and fine and had least
of the coursness and thickness of matter as Breath Wind Air. This way of expressing these Beings hath been common to Language in general and particularly to Scripture which attributes to God that he is a Spirit and to Angels and the Souls of men under him And yet it may without injury to the cause be granted that this name may not have been original to these natures but derived from those things that have been more removed from Sense than others and from thence transferred to the most excellent part of the Temperament or whatever is most vigorous in any Being and yet least under the cognisance of Sense and so at last ascribed to Beings supposed to be wholly removed from Sense and all this doth but still enlighten the main notion of a Spirit for hereby it was intended to represent them in their native purity and separation from Body by those things that had least of the dregginess of matter and yet were well known so comprehending at once both their spirituality and reality their spirituality expressing them by things most refined their reality in that those things how fine soever were yet sufficiently known to be and to be of greatest reality and effect Hereunto may be reduced the mention Scripture makes of the Spirit of a Eccl. 3. 21. Beast Touching which leaving to Philosophical Disputes the abstrusity of its nature whether it be the highest of material or lowest of spiritual natures I only observe It deserves not the name of a Spirit in compare with the Soul of man in that it is most evident the Scripture speaks nothing of its likeness to God power of Reason moral action or immortality but degrades it from these when it says while the Spirit of a man goes upward the Spirit of a Beast goes downward that is as it is prepared for lowest uses so its state motion and last rest are altogether here below and therefore it cannot correspond in what is now to be spoken of a Spirit yet because it extends it self to actions beyond the measure of other material Beings unaccountably to Sense it is called a Spirit and yields light also to the general notion of a Spirit and shews the infinite Wisdom and Architecture of the Author of all created Beings who formed these Spirits so as to excel the possibilities of matter supposing they do excel them so little as to be disputed with some appearance of Reason whether they are any more than matter mechanized with highest and most curious skill that is to say the handy-work of God in matter But to return Whatever can be spoken in relation only to the word Spirit is of smaller moment the greatest concern is what is intended by it Whether it be no more than a meer mode notion or manner of speaking used to express the lively Temperament vigour or force of a Body only Or whether it mean a substance of an excellent nature distinct and separate from a Body In answer to which That the generality of those that have or do use this word Spirit concerning the Soul of man have and do understand it in this latter Sense is of very little dispute and that the Scriptures do as much as words or expressions can do to assure us they mean so also I shall endeavour to make good by observing what the Scriptures say concerning 1. The original of mans Soul and its first entrance into the Body 2. What expressions it makes use of to shew the distinction of the Soul from the Body while in it 3. How it expresses its distinction from Body and separation from it in death For the first The original of mans Soul we must have recourse to the History of mans Creation and we shall Gen. 1. 24 26. Gen. 2. 7. find that the wisdom of Scripture puts a great difference between the Creation of man and the other Creatures of life in that God consults and resolves to make him in his own Image and likeness and by an immediate hand first builds a Body as a receptacle for the life he intended him and when his Body was framed raised and contrived with all its organs offices and ministeries so that there wanted nothing that should complete and sum up the perfection of a Body he breathed into his nostrils the Breath of Life and from that breathing of God he became a living Soul A Soul living that life that proceeded from himself a life that proceeded from God and entered into that prepared Body and quickened it whereas God only commanded the Earth and it brought forth every other living Thing That and its life together The Command of God impregnated the Earth and then as at once it brought forth the living Creature and its life so that in the creation of this lower life and the subjects of it there appears nothing of that method and solemn order observed in mans creation nor did the Breath of God pass into them as it did into man when it filled all the several organs and instruments of the Humane Body with the motions proper to a Body and such a Body and which is far beyond all this The same Breath of God gives man Reason and understanding as we have already expounded this Breath out of Elihu's words and as he speaks in another place The Spirit of God made him and the Breath of the Almighty gave him life This inspiration of the Almighty comprehends this lower life in man that sensitive Beings live and that yet higher life of Religion and obedience to the Creator with which Body hath least to do For in the very Creation God put Wisdom into the inward parts and gave understanding to the heart and by the word of Creation he said to man The fear of the Lord that is wisdom and to depart from evil that is understanding That is As God created all things by saying Let it Be and pronouncing it good in confirmation of his Creation so he said to man by implanting it in his heart and approving it for very good The fear of the Job 28. 28 Lord that is wisdom and to depart from evil that is understanding As in the universal Creation he saw and declared he prepared and searched out wisdom that is he found out v. 27. within his own understanding fit natures for all things This was his preparing and searching out wisdom and then he gave the proper natures he had designed that was his declaring wisdom thus at the same time he both made up the beauty of the Universe and proclaimed his own infinite understanding And so particularly in the frame of man he was infinitely wise forming man into the propriety of such a nature as man should be that is a Soul whose perfection it should be to fear God and to depart from evil that was made with a power to do so upon Reason and Counsel in which at once the wisdom of God the original wisdom and the wisdom of man the derivative wisdom