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
choosing for us 2 The folly of our own Choice with respect especially to the Goods of fortune and particularly to Children we cannot foresee how they will prove or what may happen to them to make them and us by them miserable 3 Our sins are the cause of all Evil and exceed our sufferings and which are often to be discovered by them as is exemplified in the loss of Children 4 Our remaining enjoyments surmount our sufferings page 8 SECT III. Of the Nature and Origine of Sorrow that it ariseth chiefly from Love which is the root of all passions The cure of sorrow by the love of God page 20 SECT IV. The remedies ordinarily prescribed against Sorrow considered and shewed to be of little force towards the cure of it as that death is a common thing that we cannot recal our Friends that they are happy that our case is not singular That it s not to be cured by Reason and Philosophy alone and by nothing less than an influence from above What graces are exercised in Affliction page 29 Ejaculations used in the state of the disease page 36 BOOK II. A Treatise of the Soul containing several discourses of the Nature Powers and Operations of it The Preface shewing the occasions and Reasons of writing such a tract page 45 PART I. SECT I. How far the Soul of man is similar with that of Brutes The Soul considered in the three prime faculties of the Intellect viz. the Imagination Mmory and Reason That Beasts work more regularly in order to their end than men That man only beholds things at a distance p. 52. SECT II. Wherein the Soul of man exceeds that of Brutes It s immortality considered and proved from Scripture and particularly from the writings of Moses page 56 SECT III. It s Immortality maintained and illustrated from its obstructions in its operations as deliriums and dotage page 57 SECT IV. It s Immortality proved from the manner of its acting in the inferiour faculties similar with Brutes page 60 SECT V. It s Immortality further illustrated from its different operations in different persons whereas Beasts of the same species do all agree in their desires and delights page 61 SECT VI. The Immortality of the Soul of man illustrated from the difference between Parents and Children and its difference from it self page 63 SECT VII The immortality of it shew'd from its unweariedness in acting from its reflex acts which cannot proceed meerly from Sense page 65 SECT VIII It s immortality shew'd from things peculiar to man as Weeping Laughter Speech and the nature of these considered with respect to their different causes and which cannot be extracted out of matter Reflections on Atheism and the immortality of the Soul shewed from the desires that are to be found even in the defenders of it page 67 PART II. SECT I. Of the several faculties and operations of the Soul and therein of voluntary and involuntary motion page 75 SECT II. Of the Affections of the Soul the severals of them The nature of Envy c. considered page 76 SECT III. Of the rise of the Affections Love the primary mover of them What part in the Soul is the seat of the Passions Of the Heart the Stomach and Spleen page 78 SECT IV. Of the Imagination which receives several names according to its working as Invention Conception Reflexion Apprehension Cogitation Fancy A Syncope or swoun peculiar to man in which Imagination ceaseth to work In all the ramblings of Imagination there is a dependence It s a faculty Reason hath the least power over And the benefit of not having an absolute power over it page 83 SECT V. Of Memory He that hath a smart invention seldom wants a good Memory The impress in it on the Imagination is according to the strength of Affections and Reason page 87 SECT VI. Of Reason that saving graces are ingrafted on it page 88 SECT VII Of the Will The Will free as respecting self but depending on God No other will in Brutes but what receives immediate impression from Sense such a will as ariseth from but cannot put a stop to thought page 89 SECT VIII Of Conscience what it is of a tender Conscience page 90 SECT IX Os the faculties of the Soul working upon each other Sense works upon the Imagination and the Imagination upon the Affections and both upon Reason and Reason again on the Affections c. Reason influenced by the Divine providence page 93 PART III. SECT I. Of the prevailing faculty of the Soul and wherein the primacy seems to be Of the concurrence of the Imagination and the Affections and the power of the Affections page 98 SECT II. The potency seems to be in the Affections if we consult Scripture p. 101 SECT III. It may seem to be in some Affection from humane conjecture p. 103. SECT IV. Of the potency of the Affections They are not to be subdued by Reason alone but Reason is oft subdued by them page 104 SECT V. Some Affection is the substantial part of the Soul page 109 SECT VI. How the Affections move from the Imagination or otherwise as from Revelation Reason or Sense page 110 SECT VII What light the Imagination receives from Reason Of the weakness of Reason Of the dependence which the Soul hath upon the Body in its operations page 112 SECT VIII Of the excellency and advantage of Reason notwithstanding its inability and dependence page 115 PART IV. SECT I. Means to reclaim the Soul The Affections not opposed forthwith cool Reason shews us our Errors but neeeds Faith to enforce it p. 118 SECT II. Of Love Love toward man a principle of Nature and what Faith doth not set us at liberty from It should be Universal page 122 SECT III. How Love may be regent Though Love be the principal grace it ows much of its vigour to the concurrence of the rest as is exemplified in Humility Iustice and especially Faith page 129 The Conclusion Against Censuring That we search not into things too high for us but make the word of God our guide page 132 BOOK III. Containing several Epistles to the REVEREND the DEAN of CANTERBURY EPIST. I. Wherein the Author after some Apology for the not making publick his Treatises de Dolore de Animâ makes some reflexions on Atheism and blames the unnecessary and extravagant dsputes and writings against such as seem tainted with it That the way to convince such is by the practice of Religion That opposition doth often continue that which if neglected would fall of it self as men of sharp wits delight to find Antagonists page 1 EPIST. II. Wherein he treats of the cause of action or motion under the notion of Spirit That a Spirit conscious of its own work is durable That the flashes thoughts and actions of our own Spirits are often mistaken for and applied to the operation of the Spirit of God Four ways of Gods operation with respect to man 1. By his common Providence
any of the four things mentioned by Agur and I may confidently speak in the words of Solomon to any such diver As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit nor how the bones do grow in the womb so thou knowest not the work of God who maketh all 'T is not a thing I dare undertake to discover nor a thing I have absolutely desired to know But only to quiet and satisfie my self I have endeavoured to make some little search or enquiry which of the faculties of the Soul may seem a visum est only primary or most potent in operation not which in truth are for that shall never man certainly define And therefore let no man till he be able to find out himself the circulation of the Soul and the origine of that circulation and be assured to convince others in reason of that his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blame me of sloth or ignorance but allow me something of intellect if it be but in finding out my own defect therein And yet because I am willing in some degree to satisfie my self and others too but not wade herein further than some light from Scripture which I believe to be the true proper light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world may seem to direct and mark out I shall set down somewhat of my thoughts concerning the priority precedency or prevalency in the faculties of the Soul one before or above another Whereabout though I may seem to dissent from the received opinion and learning of the World and therein be exploded by some yet I trust and hope I shall in no wise wrench or screw that Sacred Word for my purpose nor much swerve from the true and genuine meaning of that which I alledge to be the principal if not the only ground of my opinion I am not able to find out any great ground of contest to arise between any faculties of the Soul for priority or precedency that is any dispute or question thereabout unless between the Imagination and the Affections barely Now that which we call the Imagination or cogitation in the Soul of man we find to be an unconstant fluttering as well as a restless faculty which at no time can be found settled or made to fix long nay much or often upon any one single object unless some affection do first seem to draw it and set it on work and in a manner fasten it as its attendant for a time though then also it have some momentary flyings out and extravagancies And though it be a thing undeniable that the imagination may often move or rouze some affection which was quiet before yet it is a thing as undeniable that the imagination or cogitation never created or made any affection more than any affection ever created that for we must agree they are contemporary in the Soul and so neither hath the precedency But yet where one seems to work more often in obedience and to some ends and designs or safe lodging or pleasing of another we may allow that other some kind of excellency and so priority And this I am ready to afford to some affection lodged in the center of the Body or innermost place of recess for the Soul there secretly fixed by its Creator with some reason to direct and guide as well as imagination to whet it Indeed the imagination and the affections when they are orderly or regularly working if not at all times and seasons do whet and as it were give edge to each other but surely as the Love of God far exceeds the thoughts of him so the Soul being an emanation at first from that Spirit of Love Love of him may be said to be a cause of thoughts of him and that if the Soul were not naturally capable to love and tend some whither we could not so much as think Sense must be agreed while we live in the Body to be the chief though not the only inlet or Port to the Soul and that every object by and through sense has some touch in its entrance upon the imagination or else we shall make a strange Chimaera of the Soul But not barely resting upon sense we may allow some prior inherent quality upon which by sense the imagination may seem attendant and in subjection to And though at some times the imagination do appear as the usher of the affections yet the least affection once kindled and something there must be allowed to be kindled whether of it self bursting out into flame or however inflamed or kindled will often hale the thoughts to the object without any farther help of sense But many things are presented to the imagination by sense upon which no affection seems to stir or move that we are able to discern and thereupon we may allow the imagination's work or motion to be chiefly from something occult whatever use it sometimes makes of sense to which it is or may be in subjection and not prior but rather posterior SECT II. That it seems to be in the Affections rather then any other from Scripture THere is a common saying how true I know not that life is first and last in that part of man's Body which we call the Heart and it is generally agreed and believed and I find no reason to dissent much from that opinion that there is the principal seat of the affections and that That is the Cell wherein they chiefly move and work Now nothing is so much called upon in Scripture as the Affections nor any part of man's Body so often named as the Heart the chief and principal seat thereof as if that part were taken for the whole and the content for the contained and whole man Soul and Body were included in that one word Heart and no act or thought of man were significant without affection or did arise or work but from an affection I shall not in this place going about to shew some peculiar prerogative the affections seem to have over the other faculties of the Soul scrape up together and cite the multitude of Texts wherein God by his Prophets and Apostles seems to strike only at the root of the affections the Heart and call upon that particularly to be given him or inclined or bent towards him they are obvious enough and I believe a thousand such are readily to be found But I shall only mention some peculiar places occurring at present to my thoughts which seem to allow not only a native or dative power in the affections over the whole intellective faculty whether Imagination Memory or Reason but also some primary influence which they have upon them all or as if the other faculties had their rise or spring from them Thus generally whensoever the intellect is mentioned in Scripture it is coupled with the seat of the affections and taken for them as if from thence it rose and had its influence For if the very imagination had any motion of it self or by sense
greater infinite power above that Prince of the Air who gave us our light of Reason and from whom we may expect support one who is able to strengthen his first heavenly gift by a second and if Reason it self be not Armour sufficient proof against the World or the Prince of this World where we now live there is somewhat to be asked and given that may be so which I shall speak of hereafter in due place I am at present in quest of Reason only that inherent Eye or light of the Soul of what use that may be towards our happiness or bliss Why truly unless it smooth out some way for the current of our affections and a little turn the stream of them it may prove in the latter end to have the quality Solomon attributes to knowledge increase our sorrow Be it never so great or shine never so bright Satan will allow it us and matters not though it be always imployed on Heaven so our affections be imployed on the World or at best only kept in that they move or search no whither beside it He knows well that for men to chain up or to condemn them to imprisonment within the Body is impossible When once from the light of Reason and its influence on mans Soul the affections shall become like a Water at full Tide seeming to move neither way if they return not to the Ocean they will be sure from so many Springs feeding them from Land to break in again upon that If Reason be but able so much as to give some stroke to the affections as I have touched in the definition of Conscience and doubtless every man has in some measure felt it then certainly 't is an earnest of some greater light which that Prince of the Air endeavours by all means to have hid from us And that the one may never lead us or direct us to the other whereby our affections might work another way and he be deceived of his hold he is willing we should believe that this our best native light Reason is but a pure emanation from the Body which if so how can we ever expect any other And 't is no slight artifice of his that he has brought us now-a-days to impute every sober serious thought arising in the Soul every check upon the affections every quid feci as Ieremy expresses it towards a return to some temperature of the Body and call it Melancholy and herein he has got the assistance of some of our bodily Physicians to attribute a little too much to that Mine wherein they dig their Oar. I would fain know what affinity there is between the thoughts of Judgment Justice Mercy or another World and the Body If I could find it I should then think the wiser sorts of Animals had such thoughts and could be melancholick too How the Body first espied any such thing with its Eyes is strange to me It is not the Body but Reason the off-spring from above and usher of some greater light that is of ability to behold some things future and when from the light of Reason the Soul shall stand for a while at amaze to behold what a thorny labyrinth she is got into whatever Flowers may grow in it knows not for the present which way best to move but desires direction from above in all her motions to attribute this to the Bodies temperature what ground have we Never let us seek for the Hellebore now in fashion for a cure If Reason be the Beam that which men call Melancholy will prove as steady a Hand to weigh things present and future in the Scales as any Airy temper in the Soul they call Sanguine And while Reason is in the Enquest it will neither hurt the Soul or Body but in some measure take an equal care of the one and of the other We might as well and upon as firm grounds impute every disease in the Body whatsoever to some impression of the Soul upon it as every motion or mutation of the Soul to some temperature or change in the Body There is no doubt some reciprocal operation between them and as they confess some diseases to have their origine from some passion in the Soul and yet not all or most diseases so shall I readily acknowledge that the Soul works many times diversly and in different form and manner in the Body according to divers lets and rubs it meets with there is brighter or dimmer according to the subject matter it works in and this without derogation from its Sovereignty or Immortality more then we do detract from the nature or quality of Fire when we say it gives a clearer light from Pitch than Brimstone I shall agree it is now and then dull and as it were lumpish and heavy from obstructions and whenever 't is stopped in its passage and its operation in its more noble and chief rooms and receptacles of the Body it makes its Exit I shall agree likewise that 't is tied by the Law of Nature to take thoughts and care not immoderate as well of the Body as it self and has Reasons allowance and accordance for it I am not endeavouring to bereave any man of his senses or hinder the Soul to look abroad that way or to make man expect to be fed and cloathed or healed of diseases from Heaven barely yet withall I think every defect or extravagance of the Soul every flight or turn of it is not rightly imputed to the Bodies temperature since we are able to discern its strange mutations and changes on the sudden even in a moment without any alteration of the Body or any seeming help of Sense and if it were possible to keep the Body always in one state condition and frame and deprive the Soul from all intromission of sense for a time Reason might consider its present and future being Yet 't is very requisite the Soul should move here as well by Sense as by Reason or any other light He who thinks he has it ravish'd from the Body here has it converted from a Pilgrim and Traveller to a Vagrant and a Wanderer And such there are too many who by the help of Satan would imagine themselves out of the Body while they are in it Extinguish their light of Reason and Sense too together sometimes by a new Light the World shall never be able to define nor say whence it arises unless from that Lake of Fire which has the title too of utter darkness 'T is not a little withdrawing of the Soul or consideration how it should or ought to act in the Body with the Body but this strange imaginary roving flight of it is that which may properly assume the attribute or title of Melancholly This is it surely in a literal derivation that is the suggestion or inspiration of some Black Fury SECT VIII The excellency and advantage of Reason and yet its inability and dependance REason in man may justly challenge the dignity and
of time without Medicine would heal Knowledge such as we have which some would to be the off-spring of Reason though I think it has no such issue of which I mean to say somewhat elsewhere may sometimes perhaps work contrary effects and decrease sorrow as well as the wise man says increase it but it will do neither of both from any absolute inherent quality in it We often experimentally find knowledge and a troublesom weary life as well as sometimes a sinful are not things incompatible but may subsist together Reason the Mother of most if not all excellent Humane gifts as Prudence c. is of some ability to judge of her own weak product that it cannot suppress what is bred of other faculties of the Soul When she has weighed all that the Imagination is capable to introduce though she apply yet she can judge and determine it not to be of full solid weight or efficacy to master that which for ought she can find or judge has the instigation and aid of a Foreign and stronger Prince she finds she has no absolute power at any time over the Imagination and if the Imagination forsake her but a moment and side with any other party she is at a loss What then must we cast away our Reason to be at peace and quiet and have her let go the Reins she is used to hold over the affections though she cannot stay them or rule them No! she teaches us of course and consequence from her disability found out and acknowledged to pray in aid of some stronger power and finding she has no power she may incline the subject by her motions and facilitate it for the admission of some new gift of greater strength and force She may and does sometimes draw in Moral Virtues for the superstructure of Spiritual Graces Nay if that cannot be said to be her work properly quatenus she is native in us but that they require the title of God's preventing restraining Grace in us they are then good symptoms that God will perfect and crown that work he has begun in us It is enough I say for Reason to shew us our errors if that ability may be allowed her though she cannot reclaim us to judge we are restless and uneasie though she cannot ease us There is no man that has her but at some time or other from her has taken up the Prophets wish and exclamation O that I had wings like a Dove for then would I fly away and be at rest But then 't is silently owned and agreed there is something else if it were to be found that must give us ease and give us patience to wait the leisure till that thred of life be cut which pinions our Souls to our Bodies so as at present they cannot fly away to any certain continuing rest and there is somewhat else beside Reason that must imp the feathers of our passions too that we flutter not too much here There is a rest in Hope which not Reason but Faith doth give us the prospect of and by the firm belief of which and in our Saviour who came to bring that life to light and hath gone before to prepare it for us we can only hope to bring our passions those restless inmates of our Souls into any order This our Saviour gives as the ground of assured comfort be of good chear I have overcome the World and the Author to the Hebrews spends a whole Chapter on the several wonders Faith hath wrought in the direction supportation and quieting of Souls in this Earthly Pilgrimage as a preparation for us against future troubles and as an argument for our agreeable behaviour under them Faith being the ground or substance of things hoped for and without which Hope had no sure Basis of Foundation Those excellent incomparable Heathens who saw so far and went so far by the light of their Reason as we say if that may be termed theirs what do we know but that they might have in company with it some glimmering light of some Saviour of the World as well as they had of a God and a World to come And though they are not recorded in Sacred History amongst the Acts of that peculiar people the Iews there might be other Heathen men as well as Iob that wished their words or thoughts were written or printed in a Book and were assured that their Redeemer lived and that they should see him with their Eyes It must be some such Antidote as this of Faith that of it self has power at all times to quiet the Soul and allay its surges and this may very naturally if I may be allowed so to speak accompany or follow Reason provided Reason can see her own inability not trust to her self and after she finds or doubts takes not upon her to be the sole Empress Ruler or Guide in the Soul We have the word of the chiefest of the Apostles what be found and perceived at last in the case of Cornelius That in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him and yet without Faith 't is said 't is impossible to please God And therefore Faith must be the Anchor of the Soul to keep it steady and from being tossed about and ready to perish from the waves raised by it self My Soul has somewhat wandred now indeed from its intended purpose my thoughts at first being only to depaint or set forth a Soul as well as I could in its ordinary Ethnick apparel and to consider what ways and means there are which we might possibly in Humane reason or probability find out for the quieting well-ordering and governing of our Souls and to that I shall return If we find or think our selves got into a streight or error Reason would that we make a stay and consider call a Councel of our faculties and have them all attendant Now first if our Soul be capable to err necessarily its error must be defined which is a wandring or going from its Creator that first gave it Being and from his appointed ways and methods and therefore of consequence the foundation of a more pleasant structure must be thus laid We must with all the inherent faculties of our Soul acknowledge the errors of all those faculties and therefore according to my shallow reason our Liturgy is well begun and I cannot see in reason what cavil can be made to that part unless we are thought by some to do ill in resembling our selves to those more innocent creatures Sheep and might have more truly said as the World now goes We have erred and strayed from thy ways like Swine or Goats This is the natural probable way for remission and restitution We have something like a Deity in our selves and whenever we receive an acknowledgment from any person who has dependance on us of his neglect of us and perceive any thing of trouble or sorrow in the party we forthwith
has been made and no allurement or invitation she can make shall draw them into the water An Element equally destructive to our nature and yet from which we are often inforced to use some care and industry to preserve our own young ones I speak all this to shew and to make it somewhat apparent and plain that that kind of Intellect which is in Animals how great soever it may seem to be is nothing else but a more curious kind of perception with sense and motion than that of Vegetables or inanimate bodies and arising in the blood or other such like thin fluid substance in Insects because as soon soever as it has its full current and motion the intellect of those creatures is at the highest unless some actions of theirs from our documents seem to make an improvement of it which in reality is no addition of intellect but the exercising a prior inherent Intellect some other way towards their acquiring food or the like But the Soul of man though chiefly seated in the blood and upon a total effusion or shedding thereof necessarily leaving the body do's not in the most florid and vigorous condition thereof and in youth so much shew it self nor is so quick in discerning things obnoxious to the body as theirs and therefore may seem rather some wonderful way inspired than to be connative and of the substance of the body for certainly a separate created Spirit though of a wonderful knowledg and apprehension as subsisting of it self yet sent into the gloomy dark vault or tabernacle of a body wants not only the introduction of species by sense as some inlet to work upon but also some considerable space of time to shew its intellectual power and vigour rather than a spirit raised in a body for the substance and government only of the same body without which speedy work in Nature to some perfection the body would not long submit in that state And therefore in the case of a first created and after infused spirit only it sometimes happens from the darkness or closeness of its mansion it has little other visible operation than the very carrying its Tabernacle about with it as I instanced in the case of an Ideot in my Treatise de Anima and yet as to its excellence and sublimity in point of its original being and intellective power were it freed and discharged of those obstructions ithas far exceeds that of the wisest Animal So as immaterial and from thence probably immortal spirits want but room to display themselves or having room want some space of time to recover and expel some mists of their present obstruction and then by gifts only break out in any lustre To will a Spirit endowed with some kind of preservative intellect to arise from a body is equally the wonderful work of an Omnipotent Power with the creation of a body and endowing the same with a spirit ab extra as I may say and no less than either to endow an inanimate body with peculiar operative Qualities or Vertues But if it be once admitted and granted that in Animals the blood is the life or that the spirit is essential with the body whereof there is some sufficient ground from the course of Nature to believe its motion and tendence regarding nothing else It will necessarily and consequently follow That the whole spirit and body how ever we divide it by particular names is subject to one and the same Fate Destiny or Period As to these spirits of ours If they were a part of and coessential with our bodies I cannot see how it were either natural or possible that there could at any time arise in the soul a desire of disunion or dissolution from that body of which it self was a part Which desire in certain humane spirits has most certainly at sometimes appeared nay often worked its desired effect Nor is it reasonable to conjecture that any thing can possibly will or endeavour its own destruction or annihilation and therefore if our Souls were of the very essence of our Bodies we must grant A man could never voluntarily or intentionally make away himself the contrary whereof is manifest As to those spirits of theirs if they were distinct or any way separable from the body and no part thereof since they labour and groan under the Creation as much or more than we and are no less subject to passions of fear and the like then at sometime or other upon some displeasure or other there would be espied a voluntary indeavour of its separation by its own act to ease it self of those flames it felt for the present But this could never be observed in any of them by any of us but alwayes such a voluntary resistance of Separation as there is usually in us unless at such times as this separable Soul of ours is ravished with Hopes and Joyes or tortured with Despairs and Fears At least if the Soul of beast were a distinct thing from the body and separable therefrom it might now and then as well as ours be observed naturally to act after such a manner as in no wise barely and simply tended towards the preservation of the same body but seeming to neglect the body were somewhat fixed for a while upon a subject matter altogether unnecessary to the bodies ease quiet or well being Now if any man could be able to satisfy me of so much as a voluntary abstinence in any creature save Man at any time from any thing which might seem to afford delectation or nourishment to the body or satiate or please the same at such instant as there was a present appetite or desire and when there was no impendent fear or other passion to obstruct so as the body might seem to be at the same instant voluntarily neglected for the pleasing or satisfaction of the mind Much more if I were able to discern any kind of motion of the spirit of beast the most subtle or wise tending out of its proper element the Flesh and the preservation thereof and exercising its passions about qualities or accidents as to love Justice or Mercy to fear ignominy or contempt to desire to know or the like whereby it might seem to be capable of or merit a future reward or punishment and be a just subject thereof for nothing uncapable to act voluntarily beyond the preservation of it self can so be I should then be inclinable to think that there is rather a continuation and some transmigration of that Soul than any evaporation thereof and vanishing into the soft air or a reduction thereof into Earth with the body But besides what has been alledged and some places of holy Scripture which might be alledged seeming to give a period to the soul or spirit of beast together with the body It will be difficult for our imagination so long as we have any reason left to go along with it aid or assist it or else but correct it to assign a place for the
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
of the Inventor such as otherwise would not have been viz. That he who first started this game for the Imagination to hunt after to the confusion of it self and the clouding of Reason so far as to betray the Soul to the delusion of Satan and averting it from a ready and willing obedience to that guide set over it was no good Christian nor no good moral man If he were alive I am pretty confident he would grant it were in my power to be idle that is permit my thoughts to ramble in obedience only to sense present or prior so as without exercising my Reason how weak soever that thought of him would never have risen within me but I should have believed or granted All he had said to be true and then had I prevented such as I suppose he would call it evil thought of him Reason though it be the least Earthly or the least of cognation with the Body of any faculty in the Soul yet is most like it in this that it acquires strength and vigour by use and exercise If it but once reclaim the Imagination If but once thereby we master an unruly Affection for a time If from it we once behold our past folly and madness and have some glimmering light of truth besides the present comfort therein how ready is it upon every turn to afford us its help and assistance It seems indeed at first an irksom thing to the Imagination perpetually working as of it self ad arbitrium and naturally working to feed and please the passions to have Reason called in for its regulation or direction in all or any of its motion It begets in us that disease we fansie so at least the Apostle calls a weariness of the mind Let the Affections and Imagination work and run together without control men seldom complain of a weariness of the Soul however it may fare with their Body in pursuance but if Reason be obeyed in its checks and called in to weigh all circumstances future danger as well as present enjoyment and to distinguish real good and happiness from colourable delights We presently faint and give over leaving our Imagination and Affections to themselves again And so instead of a weariness of the mind for the present subject it to Agues and Feavers doubts and distrusts anxiety and perturbation in the conclusion such as are far more unpleasant irksom and intolerable than the pains we indeavour to avoid If any man who has felt it shall make a diligent search into the cause of any his involuntary disquiet of mind he will find setting aside some particular cases not to be prevented it has been from the too great trust the faculties of his Soul have had of each other and the too familiar compliance with each other that which way soever the one has first moved the other has followed or at least not resisted as it should or might that in their course together which soever has been originally most to blame the Imagination has been the Ring-leader or File-leader that if they had been now and then at a little distrust and now and then had had a little contest for precedency and superiority it might have prevented that mutiny and disorder in the Soul which is not seldom occasioned by Reason's stepping in and exercising its power and shewing us our Errors when it seems too late I must confess every dispute or contest amongst the faculties of the Soul is for the present troublesome but who would not if he could indure a small trouble to avoid a greater A voluntary dispute or contest between our Reason and Imagination is never very dreadful or deadly neither can I foresee any dangerous consequent thereof The danger is only when it is involuntary when Reason is roused and awakened by some unexpected accident sickness crosses or the like when it starts up as it were on the suddain and as Gods Vicegerent of which we were not sensible before seems loudly to cry out and condemn us for not making that use of it we might or not obeying its private monitions before and this to the suddain amazement and confusion of all the other faculties in the Soul then does the Imagination sometimes according to its wonted falshood so far comply with it too as to present us a prospect of a just and revengeful God and forgetting mercy his utter desertion and rejection of us which likely ends in despair but if it be voluntary and so the Imagination and Affections be as it were prepared for the encounter let no man ever fear the evil success thereof Reason Gods Vicegerent will never condemn us utterly at such time as it works of it self and as it were of its free motion to reform us This contest in the Soul I recommend and this mutiny if it might be for the present I look upon as the readiest way and means towards a setled and lasting peace and quiet for the future We are prone and ready enough to distrust each other and to fall to foreign or outward dispute and controversie and to go together by the ears for God's sake as we say But truly if there be in Nature any struggling or contest any difference or division any fighting or combating acceptable to the God of Nature and the God of Unity Peace and Concord it is between the several faculties of a Soul amongst themselves when Reason shall as it were voluntarily exercise them and call them to an account when Affections good and bad shall as it were fight together when Pride and Vain-glory shall be undermined and fall to the ground through a sense of our own unworthiness when modesty and shame shall quench the flames of inordinate and more than bestial love when perfect love shall drive away fear and the like And this through Reason's shewing us the delusion of the Imagination before all the wound we receive thereby is that our Affections seem a little disgusted for their too great compliance with the Imagination and disobedience to some former checks of Reason which will be perfectly healed by their present compliance and the Imagination hereby will be somewhat reclaimed from presenting to them a pretence to any absolute authority for the future Surely this most excellent Divine gift Reason was not given us barely to condemn our selves for our neglect of the motion of Grace in us but that there is a kind of will and power in us attendant upon that admirable gift to act I own there is Grace co-operating with it or working in it by which it often moves and guides us but yet I judg it may move from some strength of our own or as of it self It stands by often as it were idle and unconcerned in relation to our thoughts and actions but we often find it is not dead in us and then surely we our selves may give it strength by exercise or add strength to it and exercise it we our selves may and that it will sooner and better work
as Reason in its greatest strength could not rectify or prevent though it strived to resist Nor are the Affections to be accused justly of any inflammation or disorder through the delusion of Satan or otherwise Neither can we justly think there has been any wilful defect or neglect in the Soul to occasion it Further thus when Pride or self-Love or Covetousness with their Off-spring and Darlings Anger Revenge Hatred Envy and the like distemper the Imagination and cause it to wander without any order or Government raising false and fictitious sights in the Soul the usual resort is abroad and in relation to others vileness or baseness overlooking all that is really or may be espied in Imagination at home and in this case we cannot so well impute the distemper to humors naturally bred in the Body as to the Devil and a wilful negligence in the Soul But when men without any great or visible Errors in the Affections condemn themselves falsly when the Imagination works at home and nothing seems vile or odious to a man but himself to himself I judge the fallacy to arise merely from dark and dusky vapours in the Body nay I cannot see how it should proceed from any unruly or depraved Passion by which the Soul shut up as it were a Prisoner from free communication with other Souls labouring of it self and in travail to be relieved for want of help a consternation is suddainly raised in the Affections and from them again the Imagination suddainly and violently set on work Sense before clouded is almost destroyed it becomes as useless as in a Dream the Imagination becomes without controul from without and is sole Master and will be sole Master till these vapours are dispelled or allayed which is best done as I think by Bodily Physick When I once see men come to Visions and Revelations and pronounce and proclaim them as given or sent to direct and instruct others thereby I shall very much suspect their Soul more nocent or more defective than their Body But if I find nothing but self-censure and self-condemnation in man unless in case of a very apparent wicked life before I have ever been so charitable as to think strange and dreadful seeming Apparitions in the Soul rather to be raised first in the Imagination through some defect or obstruction in bodily Sense than that the Imagination through Affection deludes Sense and that the Soul of it self is purer than we can well judge of through our Senses barely Most certain it is and experience tells us how subject this one faculty in us Imagination is to sudden change and mutation from things meerly Earthly received into the Body how a little Wine will sometimes clear and elevate it how the anointing with peculiar Oyls will dull and infest it how particular Herbs and Plants will presently distract and confound it Neither can we I think rationally observe the sudden alteration of any one faculty of the Soul from any distemper of the Body barely but this I neither cease to love what I loved nor hate what I hated nor believe what I believed nor will what I willed from any sudden fumes of the Body nor indeed until the Imagination by its continued disturbance from thence shall have raised and put on other colours on the Objects and through its influence it has over the other faculties in time subjected them to accept such Colours as true The Imagination is many times suddenly changed and altered distracted and confounded from meer Bodily Diseases and so it being as I have said the Eye of the Soul all the other faculties from thence are led into Error the evil consequents whereof the Body only or chiefly faulty certainly God in Mercy will not look upon as punishable or take vengeance thereof to which I shall speak somewhat more at large in the third place but first declare how far I think the work of this faculty is out of or beyond our power II. It is a common saying with every one of us when any Foreign Power lays a restraint upon our actions We can think what we please or what we list Which if it were universally true might perhaps in some cases render us more miserable than men of themselves can make us by disquieting those Affections which they cannot disquiet but through our own thoughts Which are often strangely diverted and the Soul at better ease than if that faculty were in our absolute power But blessed be God since our will is not generally so good as it should be the Will has no such native power over the Imagination 'T is not the strongest Reason the best Will nor any other inherent gift of a Soul placed in the most healthful athletick sound and clear Body that is able wholly to direct this faculty or guide it in any good or regular course for any space of time Whatever men pretend Indeed I have heard of some men who have so far gloried in their abilities this way and with all their devotion towards God for he is now and then formally brought in when we are minded to glory of our selves as to affirm They have been able to pray several hours in fervency of Spirit without the least wandring or extravagant thought Such are very divine men we may well think and happy were we all if we could be so in some less degree But yet I wish no man deceive himself herein and that through his own Imagination ex post facto as we may say chiefly and so have a belief thereof raised from the immediate work of that faculty rather than grounded on Reason or what indeed is the impress of a right Imagination perfect and sound memory Surely to raise this belief of and in a mans self a man must be in what we so call a Trance Sense must be closed and shut up for a time against all Battery In which case we 'll grant the Imagination to be sole or chief Master in the Soul and then 't is no marvel if it deceive men into such a temporary belief But I dare appeal to any such seeming devout Enthusiast if he has been at the receiving that holy Mystery a Spiritual Banquet whereat men usually are or should be as intent and careful to keep their thoughts from wandring as in any case whether presently after he were not able to tell me the colour of the Bread whether white or brown the fashion of the Chalice or the kind of Metal what Vestment the Priest had on what looks or gesture or action he used in the administration thereof and the like Now if he will confess the remembrance of any such thing which I dare say he cannot truly deny I may be bold to tell him His thoughts somewhat wandred For Memory being no other than the impress of Imagination or a cogitation renewed his cogitation did a little ramble and was through sense imployed about visible Earthly things And so long as we retain our Senses which I pray
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
through it take the advice of their Affections and so soonest believe that which they have in desire or a ready Will to Which thing Will is ever attendant on the Affections Now there are very few men but would be wise or so accounted wiser than their brethren though they are not so And thereupon if a man in the least estimation for Wisdom and withall reputed a sober godly man shall but begin to pity their Errors with a seeming sorrow and modestly acquaint them how long they have been led in darkness by others their liberty of Conscience for so it must be intitled enthralled and that it is high time to awake and become wiser and more discerning and that wiser they are or shall be if they will believe him That man shall not want a favourable attention at first and that usually terminates in a simple credit in the end That the Soul of man while it is conjoyned to a body here is a Prisoner and in a kind of Thraldom we all agree who believe it to be celestial and a substance of it self We naturally affect liberty and therefore upon the very sound of that one world Libertas Reason which is or should be Mistress in the Soul and free of it self though not so free as perhaps it might be out of the Body is apt to stir and move But I wish to God it were his blessed will before it moved in every man or in the beginning of its motion it might through his grace consider a little this common plausible Doctrine to the Affections of liberty of conscience The Affections indeed according to my definition of Conscience are therein included and 't is their liberty we would that they should not be in subjection to Reason but our best part we enthral usually by this very hearkening and compliance Our Reason and what proceeds from that though we are under some clouds of the Body is freer than we imagine neither can any man restrain it without our assent and that is the only way of slavery it is subject to in surrendring and yielding it self up to another mans and therefore to preach up liberty of Conscience is to me a strange Doctrine I dare challenge all the Potentates or mighty men of the World to deprive me of my liberty of Conscience that is a free consult of my faculties alone and by my self or to believe what I list which is the result of Reason it self Indeed they may by some hard usage of my Body hinder the free operation of my Soul while it is in the Body and they may separate them at last but that is the utmost they can do And they do often hinder the gratification of our Affections because to the gratifying of them there is necessarily some bodily act or motion and that it is to be doubted is the liberty most men aim at and catching at that shadow they lose the substance enslave their Reason to let their Affections reign and thus are men taken in a snare while they think to creep from under a net This is that medicine for cure of Souls which some men have found out that like some sort of poison tickles the heart till it stupify the brain pleases the affections so far on the suddain as that they insensibly attract Reason's consent make their own Reason submit to that of others because others have best pleased them and so possessed them Thus is that excellent gift Reason deluded which God has bestowed on every particular man in some measure for the government of his Affections and which every man may and ought to make use of alone and apart by it self and is a thing that seldom leads a man right when it moves by consent or Sympathy and is perswaded and stirs not but according to Chancellor More 's story in company They who thus readily lay aside their scale of Reason to make use of other mens for their Affections may be thought to have it of so weak a make and size as that it would prove a fruitless endeavour to advise them not to receive any thing for currant at any time but what they likewise well try and weigh alone by their own It would break some say it is so slight and this is the badge of the generality of mankind under the notion of the vulgar Well I do not think many men under that notion so weak but that they might very well and very safely do it and that it is a restiveness in Reason and a contracted rustiness rather than a weakness which a man might wipe off and that every man might of himself become able God assisting him to direct and govern himself and with more ease and surer peace work out his own salvation with fear and trembling At least if he made any use of his Reason he would soon discern the danger of this Foreign assistance towards his present peace especially voluntary aids without Authority of their Prince who seldom aim so much at others Spiritual advancement as their own temporal But for the present we will suppose the generality of mankind thus weak under the notion of the Vulgar and thereupon instead of advice to them we will deliver our thoughts by way of remonstrance to you who seem a man of a clear discerning judgment out of that rank and have taken upon you the care and cure of Souls and that is only That you continue ever careful as I verily think you are of your self at present not to impose on us any thing you have not first very well ruminated and digested by your Reason and besides that you advise others of your degree over whom you have any influence to use the like care There is envying and strife and divisions amongst us and we are carnal and shall be carnal But that gift of Reason in us hath nothing of carnality in it as of it self but is able to inform us that as God has no need of our quarrelling or contending for or about him so neither can such doings please him or be acceptable unto him And therefore it may be somewhat of wonder that Reason can assent or be transformed into a belief that the Deity whom we adore should be invocated in any such case or made partaker or Patron on either side Surely when some mens Affections have once deluded their own Reason there follows a necessary consequence that that Reason should alledge the tendency of such Affections towards God who is the protector of all that love and fear him to delude others too or else we could never believe at any time we fought for God or persecuted any man for God's sake Indeed he is strangely represented to us by some men somewhile the God of peace at other times the Lord of Hosts sometimes of Unity and Concord and making men to be of one mind in one house sometimes of division and discord and setting the brother against the brother according as it suits with their several Affections
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
there is a gracious dissipation of these sublunary Mists and Fogs which hinder and obstruct the clearer prospect of our Souls And as I so in all humility own it I cannot rationally expect any one should take it barely by reverberation from me or by looking into these Papers He who is Brightness and the Mirrour of wisdom grant unto me and every man so much of true reason and understanding as that while it is time we may in some sort behold the errors and follies of our own ways For though I and others may cry out Why art thou so troubled O my Soul and why art thou so disquieted within me yet they and I shall never argue our selves into patience without trusting that he is the help of our countenance and our God But if I may in humility present my thoughts to others who may by his gift believe with me I cannot think any rule herein or hereabout to be observed of so much weight as this one in two words custodi cor The wisest of men after he has partly shewed us the manner of wisdoms entrance into the Soul and her excellencies that the merchandize thereof is better then silver and the gain thereof then gold that she is more precious then Rubies and all that can be desired in the three first Chapters of his Book And after divers commendations of her and exhortations to attention in the fourth he does as it were lay the first ground-work of attaining her in this precept Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life Surely God has placed that in the midst of us to be the magazine and treasury of our Soul and has required it for himself of every one in express terms My Son give me thy heart I will not here in this place and upon this occasion enquire whether the functions of the intellect or the affections do follow the cogitations or the cogitations are actuated and stirred by them or which is the most proper seat of either The Soul is of so subtle a composure that it self could never yet find out the manner of its own operations but this I hope may be affirmed here that if the heart be the more peculiar seat of the affections and Love the chief of the affections the aim thereof must be good and what that good is our Reason under God will certainly best direct us For Reason as in a Watch-tower beholding as well absent as present good and the affections only beholding the present it is Reason only that must reclaim the imagination and bring it in subjection to it self and place the affections upon a right object there And surely Reason tells every man that has her that That from which the Soul it self had its primary being and existence is the chief good and ought to take up the chief room in our Soul I for my part with my little reason cannot find any such Engine as will remove the whole World unless it be the Love of God nor any place to fix this Engine in more proper then the heart If this Love do once possess the Citadel of our Soul we are safe we all too truly find that while we are cloathed with flesh it will let in sometimes other more visible and sensible objects which may make some mutiny in her but still she has this Love as a safe and sure Captain that will keep her from taking Surely methinks if Reason be but consulted this Love must be the predominant affection Were it possible for us to give being to some Creatures and to endue them with Reason too should we not desert them for deserting us and for too close an union amongst themselves and to other Creatures without respect to us And if God had never instilled into us by his Word that he is a jealous God who would punish for admittance of a Rival to his love could we expect less And therefore ought not we in reason as much as may be to keep out all Rivals 'T is a strange fascination in us to confine all goodness which is the aim of Love within our own bowels and sometimes the bowels of the Earth too No wise man will think neither can we justly own the affections in us to be moved from any habitual or inherent goodness in our nature or that we do thereby express any similitude or likeness to that Image whose goodness is universally diffusive to all Since our Love though it be owing to the whole Race of mankind as we are made of one lump from one Eternal power is concentred in particulars From which cause as our Love does often thereby upon our loss convert into sorrow so should that sorrow in reason convert into shame For to say I think the truth we excessive mourners in this case may be defined to be persons who have locked up our hearts from the love of God and shut up our bowels from mankind in general and confined them to work only within our own imaginary Sphere And were we accosted with that rough speech of Ioab to David That we hereby declare that we regard neither Princes nor Servants but that the World may well perceive that if our Absalom had lived and an hundred else had died it had pleased us well we could find no sufficient reply to justifie our selves but must confess our own error And now if our gourd be withered shall we sit down in a sullen mood And if that perfect love that should have held place in us be dispossessed shall not reason and understanding struggle for her Sure the most rational way of cure is since we have given up our hearts to follow that which flies from us as a shadow to leave the pursuit and catch hold on something else if may be Though our Children are gone the World is yet full of various objects of delight But that which makes all or any of them so is God and from that original must they so glide into the heart and therefore we most of necessity reduce and bring back our wandring love to its proper state and original for which 't was first implanted in us and fix it upon that delightful object and through that Mirrour all things will have a more lovely aspect Understanding and the Love of God are always so coupled and linked together that the one cannot be or subsist without the other If a man love not his God and Creator 't is for want of understanding and if a man has not a right understanding of his present and future well-being it is alone because he wants that love For that love will infallibly fix every mans thoughts upon a hearty endeavour to perform the whole will of God Thus hath St. Iohn truly defined the love of God to be a keeping of his Commandments This is the love of God if we keep his Commandments And our Saviour himself has made that the test and tryal of love And both David
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
course They are these passions which metamorphose a man into a furious Beast 'T is they which are able to destroy that best faculty or light of the Soul Reason and therefore Solomon's maxim is to be observed above any Custodi cor But Reason was never yet found of ability to destroy or wholly mortifie any one passion It may somewhat from Divine assistance regulate or calm lead or direct but if it should wholly destroy the affections as some have pretended to do by it it would prove in the condition of a Prince without Subjects that is indeed no Prince or Governour at all but we find the Subjects able sometimes for want of his vigilancy to destroy their Sovereign and set up a strange confused Anarchy amongst themselves Whatever faculty of the Soul we may give precedency to we sometimes too sensibly find the strength and power of our passions For besides that they are able to destroy one another and that love or hatred can drive away fear and fear is able sometimes to suppress love or hatred so as it seems more difficult to determine which of the passions are strongest then it would be of those things Darius his Guard disputed about while he was asleep They are all strong and either of them is of power enough oft-times to make us destroy our selves or at least neglect our selves and work more hurt to our Bodies than any other faculties of the Soul whatsoever Reason never destroyed any man the imagination might help to do it but never did it of it self but sorrow has done it if we believe the wise Son of Syrach And this common experience will tell every man who lives and is not yet destroyed that the slightest of the passions is able to keep us waking by its proper strength when the imagination were it not for some affection would let us sleep By the strength of that only I mean the imagination we seldom so much as awake from our sleep unless by some terrible presentment it do irritate the affections and then they are the cause and not the imagination and if we do awake thereupon Reason forthwith shews us the folly of our imagination and our affections become quiet But when they have their rise from sense more peculiarly than from the imagination then is the combate dubious they then go on in their rebellion and there is no mastery to be obtained over them by power but by fraud as it were The Will they outlaw which was ordained the subject of Reason and that necessarily carries with it the Organs of the Body as its ministers The aim of the Will may be good in general but that is not of power to distinguish between reality and apparency of good neither good the end nor virtues the way to that end have any corporal shape and therefore cannot be shewed as so to the senses whereby the affections might be reclaimed and made to fix upon any real good Besides Sense is only judge of present things Reason of future as well as present the imagination is somewhat capable of both And therefore if ever the affections become fixed on a real good 't is not that they are mastered but that next and immediately under God's special Grace often leading and directing them they are deceived into good hoodwink'd a little from sense and caught as it were by a wile or stratagem The imagination is slily drawn away from taking part with them and somewhat of real good is first from Reason as it were darted into the imagination and by the imagination conveyed unto them Affections being native visibly working in us as soon as we are born without controul for a long while unless ab extra as we say and no Reason to govern till they have encamped and fortified themselves the wise man might well say He that ruleth them is better than he that ruleth a City The City where they inhabit is a deceitful place many Caves and Vaults in it for them to lurk in we find it but too true when we enter into it and search it and think we have wholly won it We may well wish that Ieremy were a false Prophet and somewhat deceived himself in telling us it is deceitful above all things and therefore we have a hard task to make those Citizens there good Subjects and fit for another City whose maker and builder is God If ever they prove so they must be dealt withall like as with men wedded to their affections as we term them proverbially and as they are usually dealt withall that is allured and led not thrust and driven they are too stubborn to move that way SECT V. That some Affection is the substantial part of the Soul I Have thought and do think and believe which is somewhat more then a thought it is a thought with the concurrence approbation and allowance of ones Reason that the Soul of man is immortal and that the very Essence or substantial part of an Humane Soul disrobed of a Body or subsisting of it self is some restless working however at some times invisible affection and that if those more noble faculties of our Soul next and immediately under that bright heavenly Star are the Pilots to conduct us unto rest some affection as it seems to me is the chief Passenger in this frail and weak Vessel of the flesh St. Paul in that admirable Encomium of his of Charity tells us that it abides when many other gifts fail And if we shall know as we are known as he tells us in another place there will be then little use of the Invention Memory Reason or the like which are but the Handmaids to knowledge Neither can I rationally imagine after return of the Soul to its place of rest or for default thereof in its banishment to everlasting wandring any use of other faculties than the affections unless towards the exalting or heightning them in their several degrees whether love and joy on the one side or sorrow fear c. on the other The Soul of man being an emanation from that Divine love must necessarily partake of it love and not able at present by any natural light it has to reach unto it self its proper object lays hold on any thing rather than seem to vanish or be extinct and withall that it happens to have such several inclinations in man while it is here is surely by reason of some false imaginary light or the want of a true one and that we want both power and skill in the setting or tuning some strings of the affections as I may call them And 't is want of a clear inspect into our nature and frame that we become as David speaks a stubborn generation a generation that set not their hearts aright and whose Spirit cleaveth not stedfastly to God And I do further believe that all the faculties strength and power of the Soul which we have are given us towards the performance of that
pardon and receive again into favour And 't is our only rational way in the like case to acknowledge our errors and get our affections somewhat hot and then melting in us that any dross contracted in our Souls any cankering rust cleaving to them may drop off that they may be somewhat bright and shine again The Heathens who had no other light but this to lead them had their purgations of which Socrates I think was the beginner which though after a vain manner may seem no ways to hurt them And certainly this manner of purgation that is melting into sorrow may do us good and prevent many sharp pains the Soul might otherwise feel even here in the Body I am not about to enquire and determine whether after thus doing we shall be at rest here or how far more or less from hence the Soul may become obnoxious to afflictions or crosses but certainly in all reason she will bear them better when she has done all she can towards a return and can find in her self no ground to think but that her boils proceed rather from some outward than any inward cause and that her disease is rather Epidemical than singular Having our Souls somewhat restored and cleansed somewhat at ease and calm we may I trust without offence and without rejection of more Sovereign Antidotes make use of our Reason towards the preventing of a Tempest in her for the future by finding out and judging if we can first the most probable and chief cause of her billows and why she is often thus tossed and almost shipwrack'd in the World and next espy out some ways or means for the future prevention of these storms But first by the way let us acknowledge that Reason in man such as it is and whereby we exceed all other visible creatures as it is the special gift of God and the thing we have least cause to term our own or too much think of the nativeness or inherency of it in us so it wants a more than ordinary daily support and supply for 't is that faculty or ability in the Soul which I have said man is most subject wholly to lose and be deprived and bereft of and without beholding through it that light which gave it being we may as I may say run mad with our Reason And such Rationalists there are in the World for why some men who have had a greater outward visibility and appearance of Reason than others have yet acted in the conclusion as if they had less if this presumption in them be not the cause or that they looked on their strength of Reason too much as an Habit and too little as a Grace I can find none If the Donor of the Talent be but owned it may surely as well be Traded with as laid up in a Napkin and not unlikely even from it may be found out too some other inherent gift in the Soul which if rightly disposed and ordered I will not say disposed or ordered by Reason may somewhat abate all excrescencies in the Soul and become the chief and only Foundation-stone for any Spiritual building spoken of before even that Tower of defence Faith Reason I say may point at or find out the proper corner-stone for building though she cannot move it of her self or erect any thing on it SECT II. Of Love SUrely he who created us neither gave us Invention to find out nor Reason to judge in vain I must acknowledge I am not able so much as to think a good thought nor well able to judge when my thoughts are as they should or might or ought to be yet that roving faculty of mine call it men what they best like labouring to introduce into my Soul divers and sundry causes of the disquietness tumults and disorders happening in her as well as others my weak Reason after rejection of some has seemed to rest satisfied and pitch'd upon this as the chief if not the only proper cause thereof That that essential part of the Soul Love from whence at some times we feel greatest delight suffers often too narrow an inclosure is pent up and imprisoned by some means or other and has neither that free scope and range or full and clear prospect abroad into the World which Reason is able to allow it and afford it whereby it loses that common acceptable title of Charity in a word Love is not rational but sensual Love may seem with the allowance of our Reason I think to be placed in every of our Souls like the Sun in the Firmament which though it may have peculiar Flowers that require more than its ordinary influence at least its visible rays and we are allowed some such things as we may more particularly call here Flowers of our Sun yet its circuit should be to the ends of the Earth and nothing hid from the heat thereof And then whatever becomes of those Flowers though they are cropt dead or withered it finds innumerable objects to exercise its rays upon and still shines bright and pleasant but if it become once eclipsed by the interposition of any peculiar objects there happens such an Aegyptian darkness in the Soul as most properly may be said to be felt Whenever we look into the Soul and find such a thing as Love there Reason though it be not able to quicken nor blow it up to any bright extensive flame for that is ever from Divine influence yet can demonstrate to us to what end and purpose that spark of Love is inherent in us that is to love the Author of our Being Now as we cannot see God but by his works so neither can we be properly said to love him but through his works Amongst which as there is nothing more deserves our love than such as bear his Image in common with our selves so there is no more certain way to judge of the sincerity of our love to him than by our love to them Thus the Apostle If we love one another God dwelleth in us and again He that loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen This is so much the dictate of Reason that I should have thus thought upon consideration had I never seen Scripture and it is to a certain Law antecedent to all that is written that the Scripture it self doth refer it Thus the Apostle speaks I write no new Commandment unto you but an old Commandment which ye had from the beginning and calls it the message from the beginning of the breach of which he gives an instance in Cain's unnatural murder of his Brother before there was any written Law so that the Apostle might in this sense say As touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you for ye your selves are taught of God by the light of Nature and the Law written in the heart to love one another Now if the obligation to this Charity ariseth
from a general Reason as we are born alike are of the same mould have our Being from and equally bear the Image of the same Father should not our Love be universal And may we stile our selves of Paul or of Apollos and then in assuming the Title cast away our Charity and our Reason too Must we in bandying for our Teraphim so far arm our passions and blind our Charity as to reject and contemn others persons for the sake of their Opinions which they differ from us in Whatsoever our Opinions are Truth is God's peculiar we may seek for it and pray for it but I question much whether we ought to run over and trample down one another in the finding of it We are all very apt to err in the pursuit and as I have once said our Liturgy is well begun in the acknowledgment of our errors so I now think it ends as well in our request That it would please God to grant us in this World some knowledge of his Truth and in the World to come life everlasting His it is and so locked up that I doubt no man yet ever had the certain infallible Keys to open it to others Though Pilate believed not our Saviour to be God yet if he had not known that he was taken and believed on for such I do not think he would ever have put that ironical question to him What is Truth He well knew man was not able to define it nor attain to any certain knowledge of it much less appropriate it to himself St. Paul never told us he himself was the Light or the Truth he rather assures us otherwise and that he was not crucified us and we are not very apt to believe St. Peter was But a sober Heathen that should see our heats would be prone to judge we almost thought some other men were who they are I will not go about to determine and that though Truth may be the colour and pretended yet 't is Mammon or Dominion are the Gods they fight for when for the sake of Truth they lose all Charity and in contending for and exalting of Faith the solid fruits of both Good Works are despised I would not be thought in the least to undervalue or reject that gift or tenure in Frankalmoign or Free-Alms a Lawyers term not improper for this place Faith since without it from all the labour and search I am able to make I cannot find sufficiency in man to attain to any possession of a present or reversion of a future happiness I do own it to be the most excellent gift which comes down from Heaven but I fear we are subject sometimes to relie too much on it or if it be not improper so to say put too much confidence in it place it always uppermost in the Soul to the starving of that otherwise vigorous and active quality of the Soul Charity I stand convinced that if the most righteous man on Earth did take a full and intire view of all his best actions whether proceeding from himself or of Grace such as we call gratis data we will not here dispute together with his wilful errors and deformities and make his Reason judge of the weight and merit of each he would distrust and deny himself and all he were able to do and expect his Justification if he expected any of God's mere favour and grace and therefore I am content it should stand for a received truth that the best works of an Infidel are not only unacceptable with God but sinful Yet as I believe the Scriptures excluding many men from the Kingdom of Heaven or future happiness under the divers titles of sinners and all under the notion of Infidels so since there is a salvo for penitents I know not who those sinners are much less do I know the faithful from any outward badge or cognizance they wear and therefore am unfit to judge any but my self For I could never yet nor shall I believe unless I become able first to reject and abandon that Reason I have or that Reason leaves and forsakes me find just cause to condemn in my thoughts any one Nation or People any one Sect or Party or any one single person in the World besides for the bare want of a publick profession I exclude here wilful denial or owning of Faith just according to that model as any one Nation or Council or selected number of men have framed it so long as I behold in him or them those works which are the usual concomitants and attendants of what I think and is generally held to be the true Faith I do not think it safe to wish my Soul with the Philosophers but had all my actions after some knowledge of good and evil been always conformable and agreeable to their Writings and such as the actions of some of them seem to have been I think I should never despair of future happiness or rest were my Faith weaker than some men perhaps will imagine it from my thus writing What was the cause of their good works was it Faith If it were not I am sure it was the Grace of God and to them who owned it so or the work of a Divine power that Grace was not likely to be in vain If any of them was withheld at any time from sinning against God 't was the same God withheld them as withheld Abimelech an Heathen as they and Abimelech and some of them might for ought I know at the last obtain from a bountiful and gracious God mercy and forgiveness as well as a restraint The sound of a Saviour of the World from the beginning and long before his bodily presence on Earth had gone into all the Earth for St. Paul borrows those words Their sound went c. out of the Psalm intitled Coeli enarrant the Heavens declare c. These men might look for some strange deliverer and God might please to shew them more than we can judge of We read of a good and charitable man a Gentile who so loved the Nation of the Iews that he built them a Synagogue concerning whose Faith at that time there is nothing more to be collected from the story of him than that having heard of the fame of Iesus he did believe he was able to heal his Servant and yet the Author and finisher of our Faith gives this testimony of him That he had not found so great Faith no not in Israel though there are others mentioned before who forsook all and followed him and owned him for that Christ the Son of the living God too Truly a Centurion's Faith may best become us an humble not an arrogant Faith and it may in some sort be safest for us to think that if he vouchsafe to come under our roof we are unworthy he should and unfit any manner of ways to entertain him We are apt not only to extol our Faith but to impose and force it upon others
so that again doth give perfection to them and without which they are in St. Paul's phrase but as sounding Brass or a tinckling Cymbal that whatever noise they may make are of no benefit to us Thus the Apostle speaking of the abiding here of Faith Hope and Charity tells us the greatest of these is Charity of which reversing his method and order in placing of them I shall say thus much in short 't is Charity must guide and direct us 't is Hope must relieve and support us and 't is Faith by which we must enter into rest that must be the Key that must open to us and let us in after all our travails and if Faith do ever become a Crown and Hope an Helmet we must have before Charity for our Breast-plate badge or cognizance which we must always wear and never put off lest we be left open to divers and various assaults here and notwithstanding any Armour we think we have got on notwithstanding any allegation of prophecying in Christ's name or casting out Devils or doing other wonderful works if we be found to be without this Livery we shall be disowned and receive that sentence I never knew you depart from me ye c. from which Good Lord deliver us The Conclusion IN my entrance upon this subject I said how I had a desire to take some view of my Soul and see its operations and now this here is become its weak product perhaps more unfit for the World than that of my Body yet this I can say 't is not spurious and if my Brain has been the Father of it and gave it Being my Heart has been the Mother and lodged it and brought it forth without any other aim or design desire or affection whatsoever than the easing quieting or calming of her self unless that she desires or hopes it may through God's Grace have some mollifying or sanative quality towards some others I have not upon my own view of it so far transgressed as to fall in love with it I am conscious of its mis-shapes and deformities and doubtful nay very fearful of its defects and errors in many particulars and so have little reason to desire it should live long to my shame and disgrace But if man will not wink at those errors nor pass them over with charity I trust and hope that he who made me subject to errors and knows them best and their causes will pardon them which hope is to any man a sufficient Cordial against the fear or trouble of others censure I pretend to no supernatural Revelation in any of my thoughts and he who is free from error in them must necessarily have somewhat more than a pretence to it Let the World judge of me what they please I have been before-hand with them and I am sure no man can have meaner or more contemptible thoughts of me than I have sometimes had of my self and if there be any thing of true and unfeigned humility in man he can be as well content others should think meanly of him as he of himself but they are not always so proper Judges and I think that question What man knoweth the things of a man but the Spirit of man which is in him may not be altogether improperly applicable to the present purpose and for prevention of rash judging of other mens Spirits since we have been told by one who well knew We know not our own or of what Spirit we are I have lived to see often the vanity of my first thoughts from my second and may live to see the errors of these if I do I will acknowledge and amend them I have groaped in the dark to find out the easiest plain way towards content and quietness and rest even while I am a Traveller but I desire not to become an Ignis fatuus to lead other men out of their way and if this Hand point not right I beseech God any man who sees it may hear that gracious word behind him This is the way walk ye in it Search the Scriptures they are they which testifie of the God of power the God of peace and the God of consolation That Sacred Word has already received so clear an Humane rational vindication of its truth and excellency so plain a demonstration of its virtue and efficacy towards the health of Souls and such excellent methods have been lately prescribed towards the application and use thereof as there wants no additional assistance of so weak a Soul as mine I must confess and acknowledge I do believe it may and does often cause strange inflamations in many Souls and renders them not only painful and dangerous but malignant and infectious for want of a good digestion and all that I am able to advise any one further in the reading thereof is that he first observe the temper of that man according to God's own heart in the Old Testament who found that very Word Moses Law a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path became wiser than his Enemies by it took comfort and delight in it and gives so large an Encomium of it in that most excellent Psalm as is not to be parallel'd wherein it has been observed there is mention made of it almost every line or verse that he do not exercise himself in things which are too high for him but refrain his Soul and keep it low like as a child that is weaned from his mother If he can but obtain that which certainly a man might do from the reflexion of the very light of Reason in beholding his own weakness I presume to say after he has read and seriously considered our Saviour's Precepts in the New Testament he will be at peace and in charity with all men and so by consequence within himself More I cannot say but that I beseech Almighty God the Lord and giver of Life in whom we live and move and have our Being the provident Ruler and Governour of all things one Eternal infinite wise power that Ens or Essence of it self that first cause that which we are in no wise able to comprehend that he would enlighten and purifie our understandings direct all our thoughts regulate the vain wandrings of our imaginations strengthen our memories so far as they may be retentive of all good make our Wills obedient and tractable allure and draw away all our affections from the vanities and false appearances of the World actuate and enliven them towards the pursuit of all good and the detestation of all evil that we may possess our Souls in patience and with one mind and one Soul glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and out of the abundance of his mercy forgive us all the errors of our ways that he would not be extreme to mark what we have done amiss that as our sins and follies have abounded and do abound his Grace may superabound more especially to me
the greatest vilest miserablest and most deformed of sinners and the most defaced Image of his goodness that he would again restore that Image here in some measure give me a Fountain of tears to wash away all its blots and wilful sullies direct me by his Grace here towards his Glory increase my weak Faith that it become an assurance convert my fearful hopes into a full perswasion and certain expectation of that glorious Vision be with me comfort me and strengthen me at the hour of death And when this wearied tossed and turmoil'd Soul that can find no settled rest here shall leave its polluted and sinful habitation purified by Repentance and Faith receive it into Glory And this for the merits and mediation of his Son Iesus Christ our ever blessed Saviour and Redeemer to whom be glory and honour and praise now and for ever Amen SEVERAL EPISTLES To the Reverend Dr. TILLOTSON DEAN of CANTERBURY WHEREIN The Nature the Immortality the Operations and the Happiness of the SOUL of MAN Are further Considered and Illustrated And the Divine Providence over it in a particular manner Asserted By the aforesaid Author LONDON Printed for George Downs The Author's Apology for his Writing To the Reverend John Tillotson D. D. DEAN of CANTERBURY EPIST. I. Wherein the Author after some Apology for the not making publick his said Treatises De Dolore De Anima makes some reflexion on Atheism and blames the unnecessary and extravagant disputes and writings against such as seem tainted or infected with that opinion SIR HAVING reduced my sometimes sad solitary or serious considerations at all times and upon all occasions very inept weak and imperfect ones God knows into some kind of Method and made them legible in paper I took upon me the boldness altogether unknown to you and without so much as discovering my name to approach you before all others and begg the favour of your perusal And this I did not only from a hearsay of your clear judgement and courteous disposition to all men as well strangers as familiars but from a singular opinion I had of you my self That you were a person of a frank and open discourse and one who would plainly and roundly tell me of my faults and my follies discover your real opinion of what lay before you and not permit and suffer me a meer stranger for want of admonition to cherish an imperfect or deformed Embryo and such as might casually hereafter be born into the world to my disgrace but rather while I lived and had the power over it to smother and consume it in the flames The most favourable censure I expected from you was a reprieve of it for some season not a present enfranchisement of it or making it free of the world in my life time and by consequence a kind of confinement of my future thoughts if they should vary from or disagree with these And yet the latter I met withall from you and find that you are pleased to move me not only to allow it present life and future birth but to afford it instant liberty and freedom to walk abroad I might seem ill natur'd not presently to grant his request who so readily condescended unto mine had I no just cause to alledge for a demurr at least if not for a denial and such as may work upon you to desist from any such motion as much as on me for a denial For I must tell you If I hereafter suffer therein I shall readily transfer the blame on you and some perhaps will give you the precedency therein when they come to know the person who perused these papers and blame your oversight beyond my weak and feeble inspect Your universal Charity may so far abound as to overlook many deformities if not errors occasioned perhaps from my immoderate affection Which kind of Charity is a thing not to be expected from other men at least from all Indeed if any man receive good from these Papers he will find greater cause to thank you next under God than me who never at first intended them as a Legacy to the world nor durst nor dare yet own them under any name I trust they would hurt or prejudice no man if publick further than the spending of his time in vain in reading them and surely that 's a sufficient damage or loss to any ingenuous spirit There is enough good seed already sown more than any man can reap in his life time 't were well if the tares of this nature were gathered together in bundles to be burnt from which fate I I know not how to exempt mine I have given you my opinion already in discourse from which I know not well how to recede That if some Judicious person were of power to do it and should banish out of the world and cause to be buried in utter oblivion many thousand volumes now extant he would merit more of the world and perform a far more acceptable service to the wise and learned thereof than he who added one though of never so great use or excellency There is enough said about the soul of man already more perhaps than is or ever will be understood and too much I fear of a higher-subject Every age in each single Nation has afforded or rather introduced some subject matter or other whereabout the Souls of men have more peculiarly busied themselves by way of disputation and made the canvasing of particular opinions a thing in mode and fashion for a certain time and season That which at this instant seems to imploy and busy the tongue the pen or the Press except seditious Pamphlets and the like from the spirit of contradiction or an overweening conceit of ones self never out of fashion most or above all other is the different opinion of men about the original of all things under the notion names or titles of Theism and Atheism wherefore we had some little discourse together occasioned by some short passages of mine in my aforesaid Treatise And for as much as all those Atheistical Tenets now more than ordinarily vented do seem to strike at the very root of religious worship and are wholly derogatory of the glorious Attributes of that God we serve and adore I perceive you are not only to your praise a strong oppugner thereof your self but take pleasure in them also who do the same Now truly I must here tell you That which has fell from me in relation to that subject was rather accidental upon my weak search into the nature operation and faculties of the Soul than of any designed purpose to convince any man of the falshood of those Atheistical opinions Because I am not yet fully convinced in my thoughts of the necessity of any such endeavour but do rather believe all those men we term or hold for professed Atheists would yet gladly receive and imbrace a full perswasion and conviction from others of what they themselves maintain in words and not seldom some of
commission from thence too familiar with it Now whether this too often talking of the Spirit in Pulpits has been a feeding with milk or the same be not a thing of difficult digestion and may be of evil consequence if not well digested and whether they had not done much better only to have smoothed the way for the coming of that Spirit by instilling into men the principles of obedience justice and honesty and integrity of life and conversation than talk of its being and effects which are only known to God himself I leave to their Conscience that is their reason who have preached and do usually preach of it Such a salve there is as that of the Spirit to comfort us but if it be too often and ill applied it may cause a Lethargy in the soul rather than ought else And such a Sword there is as that of the Spirit to beat down our adversaries withall and indeed it may be said of it as that of Goliah There is none like it But if men be told of the force of that spiritual Sword and have not judgement to discern it They will be prone to catch up an imaginary one such a strange Weapon as they will be able to puzzle if not foile their very Masters with So as if God in his infinite and wonderful mercy prevent it not instead of a spiritual one every mans temporal Sword will be drawn against his brother at the last We have justly deserted without doubt that infallible Church with the head thereof for its strange arrogance of ingrossing the Holy Spirit and presumption that it cannot err But methinks it might be no imprudent caution or wariness in each of us particularly that we carry not about us every man a Pope as is said in our belly which will in time after some maturity if we take not good heed break forth and usurp the Chair with as great confidence as that whom at present we condemn and reject and at last for want of strength to defend it self yield the prerogative to and set up the old one again in his full power and strength Certainly did we believe some men enlightned or possessed after the manner they talk of averring as much a real presence of the Deity in themselves as the Papists do in the Sacrament we should adore them rather than the Host the adoration whereof we equally condemn and think gods were come down to us in the likeness of men And therein perhaps these kind of men would not blame us nor seem so angry as Paul and Barnabas with the men of Lycaonia Yet surely all men are men and of like passion with us And truly 't were to be wished 't were not the spirit of pride rather than ought else which makes some of us seem to our selves not like other men though we seem to thank God for it as well as that Pharisee The Scripture seems plain and I think there is no true Christian that ever questioned but that the very spirit of God that ever blessed third person in the Trinity may and does dwell in some men How else could a man constantly and cordially and pleasingly retain a belief of that thing which his reason is not able to comprehend nay that which it combates with and is sometimes ready to condemn since no belief can be without the consent of reason as I shall make plainly appear in another place and therefore my enquiry only is in relation to its effects Whether thereabout we do not often alledge that for its effect which is not its effect It is a dangerous thing we are told to sin against it and from that sin whatsoever it be good Lord preserve us Now this light of the Holy spirit and its special work in man further than that true faith with its necessary concomitants is certainly effected thereby No man in my opinion can have such an assurance of at this day as that he can safely and without danger avouch it in any particular cases of action or opinion to be his immediate present guide much less with ostentation challenge it for his peculiar and reject and condemn others as void of that true light For as without it I do believe there can be no true faith so too great a confidence in any man of its present infallible operation in him as to other matters which necessarily depend not thereon in some sign in my opinion that his faith is not true and such as it should be For surely he whose faith is such will daily and hourly pray for that enlightning grace and fear he has it not which he who seems assured of it neglects by consequence to do Saint Paul concerning spiritual gifts willing not to have us altogether ignorant and about to shew us that there are diversities of operations but it is the same God which worketh all in all Giveth us to understand that No man can say Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost which thing I do believe but yet I take his meaning there to be not a bare outward profession and confession by the tongue for surely there are many who have professed so much and uttered as much with a clear audible voice at that very instant they have intended to deceive and with a very intent to deceive which could never be the work of that good spirit of truth in them And therefore we cannot take his meaning there to be other than an intus dicens A cordial and total from the whole soul embracing and laying hold on that word by faith as the alone Saviour and so Lord of the whole world And this thing we cannot as of it self behold in any man He has given us to understand likewise in another place that there are fruits proceeding from the work of that spirit and enumerated some of them yet since no man now a days can or will I think pretend to any inmediate gift of discerning the spirits more than he can or will pretend to working of miracles prophecy divers kind of tongues without study and labour or the interpretation of tongues which Saint Paul has linked together in one verse and placed that gift of discerning the spirit in the very midst How shall we judge of the reality of those fruits otherwise than by our reason And therefore why do men talk to us so much of that blessed spirit and seem to take it unkindly we do not believe their works proceed from thence if at any time our reason as sometimes it do's inform and satisfy us they may be and often are without it Some of those fruits there mentioned by Saint Paul as temperance patience goodness c. have appeared much more real in many Heathen than some of us and yet our reason is not convinced that they proceeded from any thing more than that bountiful goodness of God in his providence over them nor until we have that special gift of discerning the spirits
can we acknowledge a belief of a better fountain if so good in some of our present spiritualists without a breach upon our reason whateever our charity may incline us to I am so far from denying the often immediate blessed effects of that spirit of truth in the soul of a true believer that I would not be thought to make use of my reason in the least so as to interpose it as a cloud or mist between that and any mans Soul to obscure it if I could from the light thereof I would sooner wish or be content not barely to lose my reason but he changed into a brute as to visible shape than do it Yet since I challenge and own my very reason from one and the same Godhead however miraculously and diversly working as several persons I hope I may even from that without offence or grieving that Holy Spirit tell men they may possibly err in the opinion of its effects and through some inherent lurking pride have their conceit raised to that height as to believe and therefore would have us believe they bare the fruit of that spirit when Sedition a work of the flesh is more manifest to our reason Indeed Saint Paul has told us the works of the one are manifest but not the fruit of the other though it has its fruits and therefore why men should cry up their fruit to be the undoubted product of that ever blessed spirit until they can manifest the same so to be and be able to convince our reason by some infallible demonstration that it could not proceed from ought else I find no just or sufficient ground That true faith an invisible thing and best seen by works though by any outward work it cannot infallibly be known is the very effect of that blessed spirit we may safely affirm but further than so I cannot see how we can without danger affirm its immediate operation in us or retain a positive belief that any particular effect wrought by us or in us did proceed merely from the motion of that blessed spirit dwelling in us If any it may to my weak judgement be in some such particular case as this when the soul sometimes on the suddain beholds as it were at one intuition all earthly things as vanity and rejects them with a kind of longing desire to behold somewhat that is not such and to have some present fruition thereof And this at such time as the soul may seem at ease and quiet and is surrounded and as it were courted with all wordly affluence and prosperity and seems to have wordly honours laid down before it in its path not when it rejects and seems to contemn those things out of a sullen temper because it either cannot attain them or is crossed in the fruition of them When this happens I cannot think it to be the mere work of the Soul it self nor of the deity either in any ordinary providence and care over it but some special grace moving it and darted as it were into it from that blessed spirit towards beholding an everlasting true joy by faith Besides this there may be other cases happen which may induce us to think that there is something more than ordinary moves in us from above as this When a man shall by his reason with the invocation perhaps of divine assistance have weighed the good and evil of some particular action and all circumstances in relation thereto as near as he can and concluding of the lawfulness thereof perhaps through the fallacy of some covert and latent affection in him shall pursue the same If afterwards he chance to be stopped in his full cariere not by any audible voice or visible light as Saint Paul that is not to be expected now a days and whenever 't is averred I will determine it the effect of Melancholy or which is worse averred upon contrivance with an intent to deceive but by some secret whisper as it were or suddain conviction of his error and the light of the truth breaking out as at once upon his soul on the suddain which doubtless has happened to some men I should be ready to acknowledge it as the work of some extraordinary spirit from without and not his own For this cannot be said to be the effect or stroke of his own conscience that is the dictates of his reason contrary to what he acted before For in this case he no ways erred against that but as we put the case consulted it made the best use of it he could with an invocation of the divine power to enlighten the same Yet in neither of these cases do I think it safe or convenient the party in whom such effect is wrought should presently determine it in his own thoughts to be the undoubted immediate work of that good spirit within him lest if he should err those thoughts embolden him to continue therein against the plainest demonstration of truth in future much less to discourse and proclaim it to be the very light of that spirit of truth in him lest he induce others to be led away by every fantastick light their brain is able to forge within themselves They on whom God himself breathed they on whom tongues as of fire visibly sate they who saw Christ after his resurrection and had power to work wonders in his name might safely make use of their own tongues to declare their immediate knowledge of the will of that Almighty spirit and not be thought too familiar with the Deity in declaring its manner of working But for us to take the same liberty and casting aside all thoughts of moral goodness fall to talking and describing of that strange admirable effect that being born again of the spirit sometimes wrought in the soul of man which we cannot possibly comprehend how or when or where it is wrought may be of dangerous consequence I think and further to glory as if we were the only men in these latter days on whom this spirit is poured is such an arrogance in my apprehension that a sober Heathen might well think us distracted If we would needs glory let us make use of Saint Pauls own subject ready at hand our infirmities We shall find little else if we examine our selves that we have any tenure of or may call our own or that we can have such knowledge of True faith as I said which I take to be the peculiar work of that spirit in man is a trembling though a fast hold on the Deity and proclaims not the body to be the temple of the Holy Ghost otherwise than by the good works done therein the beholding of which and we can behold them as good though we cannot be infallibly assured they always proceed from that spirit is the readiest way to draw others to glorify that God whom we adore not to dissect it as I may say in ordinary discourse no not in the Pulpit and tell men exactly after what manner
Why give me leave to tell him Knowledge Wisdom Power Truth Mercy Justice Love Goodness and the like for I hope we may safely affirm as well as some Philosophers that there is morality in the nature of God and that his happiness consists as well in goodness as in power and knowledge united in one eternal mind is that God which we adore not through amazement and out of a confounded astonishment bestowing these attributes on him but rationally believing they are essentially compleat and perfect in such mind of which ours is some image or shadow but now dark and imperfect Moses brings in God himself speaking after this strange manner My spirit shall not always strive with man and this came to pass at such time as men began to multiply on the face of the earth and this happy solitude God and a mans self seemed to be rejected for visible company The citing any books of Moses to an Atheist will 't is likely prove to little purpose perhaps he may say Moses was an Impostor if not worse and to talk of God's spirit under any notion whether grace of illumination or sanctification c. will be to as little purpose until a man has some knowledge of his own spirit I will only say this more That if any man please to follow my advice and withdraw himself a little from the world and all company in an humble manner in relation to enquiry on that subject Himself How himself so intellectual from whence and whom himself or the like he may perchance find a striving or strugling within himself in relation to that other subject matter God Whether it be his own spirit or somewhat else that so strives or struggles in him I will leave to his own determination This I am sure of that upon such withdrawing and search he will be afraid there is some such thing as a God and I believe for that present instant would venture a considerable summ for the return of an infallible assurance there were no such thing and he is a most insensible man that would venture a farthing to be secured from that which his reason plainly tells him is impossible says that most excellent Author whom I had rather cite than seem to rob though such notion came into my head as of it self before reading him and why then should he not confess his fears and jealousies Those fears and jealousies are an heavy nauseous burthen to the soul retained and kept in but cast up and discharged in that manner will cause very much present ease and may fit and prepare the soul to let into it a more pleasing and cordial belief in relation to a Deity than such an one as that of Felix which only makes it tremble I doubt not but you have sometimes as well as I thought on the madness of the people and more especially these two seeming kind of opposite mad-men I have mentioned both equally bold with God the one avouching him as the sole and immediate spring of all his good and such he is ready to term any or most of his own whatever they seem to others thoughts and motions and that in an high and admirable sense and notion not in his providence but by his very spirit The other denying that he is at all or that there is any such thing as either What either of these believe I know not or whether any of them really and cordially believes what he says I know not But whatsoever either of them believes 't were to be wished for peace sake amongst us they sometimes would be more sparing of their speech especially the latter And I think he might in prudence soonest be silent because I cannot judge of any great design he should have to gain proselytes whatever the other may But the best way to quiet them both is I have thought and do think not to provoke them over much but leave them a little to themselves that so by degrees they may through Gods providence over us seem to be at quiet of themselves And I beseech almighty God that none of us ever provoke other in the way of dispute out of some secret lurking passion the love of somewhat else rather than the love of truth the sight whereof if we are once so happy as to behold and can but retain any glimmering light thereof the same will reduce us to unity of mind and not set us at discord and variance Shall I in the conclusion of this Epistle plainly tell you the result of some of my solitary thoughts in relation to the fluttering motion of our spirit here That though it be governed and enlightned in some case by that good spirit of God the very eternal spirit of truth yet it is unsafe and dangerous for us to conclude when and how far we are thereby actuated further than the bare embracing that eternal word by faith as the alone Saviour of the world That the providence of God may be safely averred and affirmed in all things and that it is or may be visible to all men and he who beholds it not in some degree is not rational That were there not some foreign or operative power ruleing in and over our spirit besides what is natural or what we call nature that is any absolute power it has of it self it could not notwithstanding any present lust of the flesh or eyes be drawn any wise to promote any act the inevitable consequents whereof viz the disquiet of it self and disease of the body it naturally loaths and abhors upon consideration And that consequent certainly every soul more or less foresees in all intestine division and civil War That he who considers our late past troubles and the madness of the people then may safely conclude our punishment therein was from God's just vengeance for our sins in his providence And that if he thinks there was any thing of his spirit therein as was then much pretended or contributing or assisting thereto he is besides himself That if the like madness now beginning to possess us again perhaps through the general neglect of our ordinary duty to God or the like break not out into open rage and hostility I will without hesitation affirm 't is the merciful providence of God alone and what we can scarce rationally expect beholding our selves to sin so much against the light of reason And thus much may any man see That the soul of the wisest man at best receives but a dim and short sight of the truth of things and causes that if such sight at any time happen through the goodness and bounty of the Deity it is apt to vanish again on the suddain by reason of the interposition of some clouds arrising from the flesh so as the soul cannot long behold it nor know where to fix but in faith of some future clearer vision That Man cannot find out the work that is done under the Sun because though a man labour to seek it
out yea further though a wise man think to know it yet shall he not be able to find it But to believe there is wisdom and truth and justice and mercy in some one eternal mind and that the judge of all the earth must needs do right is almost a necessary consequence raised in the soul of man upon any humble search into himself and that the whole duty of man is no difficult thing to know That even Solomon whom we agree to be endowed with the spirit of truth as well as naturally wise appears to me in that excellent book intituled the Preacher to have had his soul at a stand and in a maze not knowing where to fix in the demonstration of any certain wordly course that ours might follow But that he seems to allow its guidance by the providence of God rather than his spirit For if it were guided by the latter it could not so often err neither then would he call all its works vanity That the spirits of men are then most keen and most sharp set towards the world and most likely to resemble the hawk or the birds of prey when there is most talk of the dove and that we are willing to hide our selves under that shadow though we have little of the light of truth That some mens outward profaneness and publick contempt of God seems ground sufficient in justice for our punishment by the hands of those who driving at wordly designs only pretend to honour him And that if those in authority took vigilant care to see the very form of godliness better observed those pretenders to it in humane probability could not have obtained those advantages of alluring and drawing the vulgar to their side as now they have That in the misery of civil dissension we shall be all more or less involved the Atheist the spiritualist c. and every of us more or less shall feel the smart of it in the end whatever any of us aim at present that though there seem a necessity of offences yet there is a consequent woe particularly attending every offender and therefore we should all indeavour to be void of offences towards God and towards man and prevent if we can that storm which seems to hang over us But if it be otherwise decreed then we who seem spectators only but spectators only we are not since we are sinners and neither deny God in word to provoke him to shew himself in our punishment nor boldly vouch him in his spirit to cover the lust of our flesh have this ready and open passage to fly unto God until our calamities are over-past His just and wise and merciful providence And this certainly must necessarily be the door or gate of the Lord as is expressed for every man if ever he enters to enter in and truly behold that stone which the builders of this world refuse For in the instant of personal affliction chastisement or correction I dare confidently aver the Atheist will neither boldly deny God nor the spiritualist boldly ingross him but both own him as he is just and wise and wonderful in all his doings and to be feared To whom be Glory c. EPIST. III. Wherein the Author sets down some further grounds and reasons of his opinion of the mortality or utter annihilation of the Souls of brutes upon their death And therein indeavours to clear himself of all seeds and principles of Atheism wherewith that opinion seems taxed in a certain Book presented him by the said Dean THat Soul which pries into things even below and inferior to its self do they seem at first never so ordinary mean and obvious and be it clear-sighted as may be and perhaps from the clearest sight the soonest will at length if it dwell long on any subject begin to stagger and suspect it self of dimness and weakness and that there is something more in every Creature than it is able to discern or comprehend and if it resolve not into a blind kind of chance or fall asleep in occult qualities it will own one Almighty wise and only all-knowing Being or existence and therein resting it self will dare to assume no knowledge but conjectural and seeming probable that is no more than belief This is my present thought and confession But because in my Treatise De Anima I might seem to you a little too positively to assert the soul of Beast to be no other than part of a body rarified to a proportion and with the body perishing and upon the dissolution thereof becoming annihilate and totally extinct I am now desirous to declare unto you a little more fully the grounds of my opinion thereabout And the rather because in that little discourse we had together I received this only Querie from you How an intellectual spirit could naturally arise out of a material or bodily substance And if the same were an infused spirit and not part of the body how the same with the body should cease to be or move A Querie perhaps only made to hear what answer a plain rational man without learning would make to it and though a curious one and such as I acknowledg my self altogether unfit to resolve or so much as to handle yet I have made this further adventure in reference thereto Truly Sir I am not or ever was so positive in any assertion of my own or so enamour'd therewith as not to suspect my self of fallibility and whenever I consider the soul of beast with those excellent faculties it is endowed I cannot but wonder at and admire and extol the God of Nature who was pleased to ordain That from such individual corporate substances there should spring so much of intellect especially to be seen in many of them as might seem to be rather a special gift and emanation from that Spirit alwayes and every where moving and which was once said more locally to move upon the face of the waters than any peculiar essence of so rare framed bodies But yet I am not satisfied nor methinks could easily be convinced in reason That therefore there is any duration of such Spirit after the body is again converted to earth That Spiritus Mundi if I may so term our God and Creator blessed for ever is every where and moves every where by his Original fiat His works are manifold in wisdom hath he made them all But yet without offence I hope or any breach in that reason he hath given us above other creatures we may conjecture his emanations are not all alike If in relation to brutes for of such David there speaks When he letteth his breath go forth they are created and so the face of the earth is renewed Yet there may be a reassumption and taking away again of that breath and then things die and are turned again to their dust and no local continuance of that breath remaining so as to be a spirit circumscribed There is no manifestation
seats and cells fit for its proper work and operation towards the conservation of that body whereof it is a more refined part as necessary and requisite thereto and without which we cannot so much as imagine it were capable to have duration and continuance in that form it is But yet withal no ways comprehending or desiring any matter or thing further than in relation to the sustentation or preservation of the same body And therefore for such a Soul or Spirit to perish with the body and to resolve again into its first elements is not altogether incongruous to our reason And we may I think further conjecture in reason that though for his pleasure all things are and were created Yet he being worthy to receive glory and honour voluntary from some terrestrial creature For whose sake next and immediately after his own Glory and Honour it may seem to us all others were made He might endow the most excellent of his terrestrial creatures us men with such a spirit as might not only have some glimmering light of him here but might have continuance to magnify him for ever when the Earth and Heavens should be no more Yet herein again I must acknowledge that the thoughts of the immortality of our soul are more apt and ready to encounter and stagger our reason than the mortality or vanishing of that of Brutes Since we are not able with reason to imagine but that as I have already said in my Treatise de Anima whatsoever thing had a beginning may or will have an end and that there is nothing Eternal but God alone the Maker and Creator of all things out of nothing And therefore there is no perfect Medicine to cure those reeling cogitations of ours about our immortality but Gods promise in his Holy Word with his special grace to believe it to be his Word Nor any thing else to strengthen us therein more than some specifick and not barely gradual difference to be found out and espied between our Spirit and that of Beasts That is some acts or thoughts of man even extra-corporeal or peculiar to a soul or Spirit wholly separate and disjoined from a body and which indeed are no ways discernable in the wisest Animal whereof I have made some mention in my Treatise de Anima and which seriously and duely weighed and considered I leave to the World to judge of and shall repeat nothing of it here in relation to our present subject only or chiefly now inquiring about their Mortality or Immortality without questioning our own There are indeed many and various different kinds of operation between the soul of Beast and that of us in many things as not only sufficiently distinguish us without appropriating to our selves and wholly ingrossing the word rational but seem plainly to demonstrate their Soul rather essential with the Body and a peculiar substance of the body than ours and therefore more probably terminating in and with the body some whereof having now and then occurred to my thoughts and drawn my reason to accept and allow thereof I here present you and submit the weight and consequent thereof to your more serious or solid judgement though they have already somewhat prevailed over mine to conclude the Spirit of Beast though an admirable work in nature to be a thing only temporary and fading or mortal There is in all living Creatures whatever not humane either immediately upon their first being and motion or so soon as there is any vigorous bodily strength for motion a perfect clear and evident apparency of that intellect they at any time have or enjoy as a special present attendant of their being and subsistence And whatever Adages we have of a cunning old Fox or proverbial interdiction of catching old Birds with chaff I could never yet discern but that the young Fox or the young Hawk had the same compleat stratagems to preserve themselves as the old and that if they sooner fall as a prey to the Dog 't is want of strength rather then subtilty The Kitling sure needs no instruction to catch a Mouse with a kind of cunning watchfulness as soon as it hath strength and the young Bird makes her nest with as much curious art as the old one And what is somewhat wonderful most creatures at their first production into the world are able to distinguish sounds and capable to understand the very language of their kind I have observed a very young Lamb to distinguish the bleating of its Dam from twenty other doing the like almost at the same instant and to move at her bleat only and not otherwise 'T is observable in Fowls and I have taken more special notice of it in the Turky that whereas they use three or four several notes or tones to their young ones one of allurement for food another of attraction for covering with their wings a third for progression or motion along with them when they move a fourth of admiration and wonder or warning to preserve themselves upon apprehension of danger and approach of Birds of prey they have within an hour or two after they have been brought forth apprehended the differences of these several tones and readily observed the old one's dictates Especially it would almost amaze one to behold these little things of an hour or two old upon that alarm of danger how instantly they will couch down and approach the next covert to hide themselves Nay many of these Creatures need little of document from their Parents or Dams or yet our Mistress experience there being in them a Native intellectual perception as I may say of every special and more peculiar destructive nature or quality towards them in as much as we may observe Birds taken out of the Nest never so young and bred up in a Cage shall upon the first sight of an Hawk or other Bird of Prey brought into the room presently by their fluttering and otherwise discover a kind of knowledge of some approaching danger or adstant peril which upon the sight of any other Fowl or Beast they will not Whereas most probably or undoubtedly rather to a man brought up in a Have or otherwise never beholding before any creature save humane A Lyon and a Calf would prove equally terrible upon their first approach And whereas there are many Herbs Plants and Insects too of a poysonous nature and of an absolute destructive quality to Man and Beast if received into the body for food What creature is there to be found young or old except man not able by sense or otherwise to distinguish between what is agreeable and what destructive to his nature and will at all times most certainly avoid and reject the latter unless by man inserted or intermixt with some food agreeable to its nature We see many of these brute creatures even Physicians to themselves and all of them naturally avoiding such of the Elements as are destructive to them Let a Duck hatch Chickens trial whereof
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
faculty in mans Soul and the other faculties to be raised and created thereby and to work in obedience thereto as I hold it does in Beast But so long as I find I have willed I have affected I have imagined without the help beyond the reach and sometimes as it were in a direct opposition to Sense I shall continue to believe my Soul is somewhat more than an extracted quintessence of the Body and subject to the influence of some incorporeal power Nay were not the Imagination at least subject to the influence and stroke of some supernatural invisible insensible power II. There would necessarily be a certain concatenation of my thoughts and a dependance upon each other until they were interrupted and broke in sunder by some immediate stroke through Sense which happens not at all times as may be observed I do here agree that there is generally as I have touched a concatenation of all mens thoughts even at such time as they seem to ramble upon some prior inlets through Sense without any introduction or help through present Sense But yet narrowly inspected we shall find and observe the Imagination now and then to catch and lay hold on or rather to be caught with things strangely different from and independent of what it last entertained and that a thought may succeed a thought such as has neither the least dependance with the former nor yet can be found to proceed from the stroke of any Object through Sense present or prior For instance After a long sleep wherein the Imagination has roved some few hours and in those few hours has touched upon a thousand several things and each several prior thing might be found the cause of introduction of the subsequent if the impression were so deep or our memory so good in sleep as to afford us any ground for asearch and observation and judgment thereon we no sooner awake whether through a vain fear or joy attendant upon a vain Imagination or otherwise from a sufficient temporary refreshment of the Body c. but there is sometimes darted as it were into our Imagination we may say before our Reason is awake something as clean different from independent of and contrary to all our past thoughts as may be or is possible perhaps very divine thoughts such as were not in us at any time before possess us for a while and pass away again without due regard or examination perhaps good moral thoughts of Justice c. clean different from what we had at any time before arise in us and this in such dark and quiet silence of the night as no Sense could help it to catch hold on unless that of feeling by which these thoughts certainly could never arise Nay we will put this waking case of the Imagination if I were looking and lusting and withal contriving to satisfy my what some men may admit innocent Lust that is all my faculties were busied and imployed in the fulfilling thereof and no battery through Sense is made upon me nay no recollection from any former stroke through Sense occurs to me If I shall on the suddain be startled through Imagination and begin to think that which I never thought before my Will and Affectons still standing bent and inclined as they were before that the thing I am now about is evil be it Reason Conscience or Grace or whatsoever men are pleased to call it that is the cause of such thought most certainly my Imagination is not the Subject of a bare stroke through Sense only but somewhat more For to think clean contrary on the suddain to what a man thought without the help of Sense nay perhaps against the present delectancy of Sense shews more of a mere spiritual effect in the Soul than bare independency of thought can do And he who finds not and acknowledges this sometimes strange stroke upon his Spirit upon his Imagination at least if it go no further is wholly deprived of the custody of that seal or stamp of the Imagination which we call Memory or else is very stubborn The Soul is doubtless a good subject to think on If the very thoughts of it in general raise not such a sight and such a belief in man as shall make him endeavour to pursue that which is good and right in the sight of all men It will raise such a doubt attended with some kind of fear of its perpetuity as shall somewhat obstruct his pursuit of that which is evil and naught in the sight of all men But above all the very thought of his thoughts in particular how strangely they arise how inconsistently they work how insensibly they are imployed shall amaze him for the present and at length drive him to the invocation of some Spiritual Eternal Omnipotent being Lord evermore keep this door of our Soul this common passage that nothing enter thereby to the pollution or disfiguring this most admirable frame in Nature lodged in human Body for the present but made to endure after the dissolution thereof to thy Glory whether by misery or happiness and though parted from that Body for a time never to vanish Keep it shut against all deadly and destructive assaults from Satan and his Emissaries Never let it be wrought upon to contradict Sense directly and Reason too though it sometime surmount both through thy gracious influence When a man begins to think how far his thoughts are out of his power how little his own or of himself and who is there that now and then thinks not after this manner and that Sense is not the only inlet to the Soul but we are often led by the Spirit into temptation as well as guided to that which is good It is sufficient to make a man besides himself I confess and on the one hand if he pursue that which is palpably evil in the sight of most men to excuse his sloth with a kind of inability in himself to resist and on the other hand if he find out or light on that which is good but in his own conceit and Imagination to mount a little too much above himself and conclude he is graciously inspired This notion of an insensible Spirit working in man and this insensible thinking say some proceeds from a scurvy black humor in the Blood only called Melancholy Well let it be so thought by some for the present for it cannot be made out so long as we retain our Reason to correct our thought in some measure think not too highly nor too dejectly of our selves are not dismaid nor altogether confounded in thought And then in that thing called Reason Let any man first waving his objection of Melancholy as much a chimaera of his making in some cases as any God of mine shew me and convince me by any satisfactory argument why my thoughts if but thoughts alone have been thus intent and busied on this subject the Soul of man whence it is how and after what manner it works beyond many
never so credible witnesses who should testify upon Oath a call or voice of this Nature to a third person and own as much as is recorded of those who journeyed with St. Paul to Damascus I profess I should very hardly give credit to any such thing now adays For being already sufficiently satisfied and convinced even in Reason that the Reason and necessity of supernatural Oracles Revelations and Miracles since God spake to us by his Son in those last days and the Christian Religion was fully established is at an end and ceased I shall rather believe there were some imposture in the case or the Imagination of those two laboured under the same fallacy with the third by infection from it and by a kind of Sympathy to which way of fallacy some of the learned have subjected this faculty of the Soul and that neither of them in reality heard ought 'T is Imagination only or chiefly which renders men thus bold and familiar with God which makes them so positive and dictating to man Reason is not so towring it is ever attended with humility and fear It is weak in us God knows and it is his Wisdom and Will it should be so yet a faith from thence though weaker and trembling is usually more lasting than from that predominant faculty in man Imagination 'T is Imagination that makes us believe well and highly of our selves and meanly of those whom it might seem in Reason God has placed over us dictating and prescribing forms of Government with a nolumus hunc or hunc regnare But in this very case Affection may rather seem to corrupt Imagination than Imagination to debauch Affection I did once mean to discourse to you of the general deception of mankind herein but I know you see and espy it and God alone is able to prevent it which I trust he will do in some measure and therefore lest I seem to some to be of any party I forbear and to all such as at present hearken to our argumentative as if they had Reason on their side Imaginatists I have only this to say If they have left them but half an Eye a Phrase sometimes used for an ordinary Reason and will but make use of it if they then do not find out and espy some self-Affection aiding and assisting most of our Contrivers Imagination in their Plat-forms and Expedients rather than Reason Let them then swallow down with them this as a good rational maxime That evil may be done that good may come thereon I have ever in my judgment looked on evil Affection and strong blind Imagination always so actually in conjunction together above other faculties to our confusion and so pernicious to our present and future happiness as nothing more I know not which to give the precedency to nor indeed well how to distinguish them in some cases Pride in general the Mother of all evil passion is defined and rightly defined to be nothing else but a good opinion or high conceit of a Man's self Spiritual Pride is somewhat more it is a bold presumptuous arrest of the Deity making him our Inmate to cover and colour our Pride and where that once is and takes possession 't is in vain to knock at the door of Reason If I should admit Reason it self to be wholly out of our power and that we were specially directed in our very judgment I can yet say truly with David Them that be meek shall he guide in judgment and if you who are God's Ministers over us could through his blessing once change or metamorphose that passion in us Pride into its contrary lowliness of mind then should we all see the vanity madness and folly of most of our past inventions then should we be all of one mind then should nothing be done by us through strife or vain-glory then would men obey and withal work out their own salvation with fear and trembling rather than through an exalted Imagination believe God worketh that in them which may be from the insinuation of Satan wherein that you may prevail in some measure God to whom be all Glory crown your labours Amen EPIST. VI. Wherein the Author treats of the various impress of the Divine Power upon each particular created substance more especially upon the Souls of Men And further shews how proue we are to mistake about the case and temper of others and our own and that they generally are not what they seem And thence proceeds to discourse of Friendship and of Love MY good and kind Friend for so I am bold to salute you in this Epistle wherein I mean to say somewhat of that human yet sacred tye Friendship Let a man behold any thing he will or can and search for the original cause of its so being and 't is somewhat a wonder to me he should prove so stupid and senseless not to behold it or at least not to afford it some proper attribute and allow it so much as the title of incomprehensibly Wise or the like since that that his name is near his wondrous works declare Some such different or distinguishable form there is in every visible Body whatsoever upon the face of the whole earth narrowly inspected or observed as that howsoever we generally stile all things the work of Nature our Intellect by and through our Sense is able to espy some Image of an infinite wise Essence ruling in and through that thing we call Nature for she of her self as a blind Goddess like Fortune could never imprint so various a stamp upon every individual unless directed by such a first power as is eternally one and the same and yet able to give various forms unto every created or extracted substance but would produce though not the same yet often some indistinguishable or unperceivable like I do not think it will be denied me by any rational man that amongst all the faces of men not the worst index of a Soul which have been or now remain upon the face of the Earth there never were two Visages as we say so like but that they might be easily known or distinguished from each other or the one from the other And if I should of my self further alledge that there never was one single grain of Corn nay so much as one single medal of the same metal with others and receiving its impress from one and the same stamp or mold but there might be found upon the same by diligent and curious inspection or observation some different form or mark sufficient to distinguish it from any other which could be produced of the same kind or species I should say no more than is true being confident that no man is able to produce two such Bodies together of any magnitude wherein I or some other may not be able to shew him an apparent diversity I would fain know how it otherwise comes to pass that the Bee knows any one of a separate Hive or
an one notwithstanding all the disguise that can be put upon it either by frown or smile which yet is the Soul's work nay age shall not so wear out the lines of it but that to a curious eye upon comparison it may be known But truly to delineate or depaint any Soul by ones pen requires a far greater cunning than its window the face by a pencil there will be found no Apelles for that that Art indeed a man might wish for as the Poet did and to know men before we deal with them might prove some would think an happy thing But it is far safer to trust to a Divine Power in the present moulding of them than to think we our selves shall ever know of what frame and fashion they are or to what height we may screw them It is that alone which is both rough and smooth sweet and sowre and yet the same as the Poet pictures his companion and the fiction of Proteus no doubt had its rise from some other power over his Soul not from any power he had over his own Body Surely were there any Soul to be found that might appropriate to it self Queen Elizabeth's Motto of semper eadem I should adjudge it to be somewhat more than human and then believe a man might easily know himself but that is no such easie matter if it were every one would observe it of himself and we need not maintain as an Heathen says and avow that that saying or command came down from Heaven I know a Gentleman who was wont to say of himself that he merited not any praise for his being a just and honest man for that he had a plentiful estate left him which he enjoyed in peace Had I been poor says he I know not what I should have been to become rich I fear I should have been a knave which was a true saying in the main whether the good man feared it or not The knowledge of a mans self is more heavenly than the command and if ever man had such a gift as that I am sure he must receive it from Heaven There is certainly such a saying came down from Heaven as Ye know not of what Spirit ye are are though that speech as you seem to intimate in one place may receive some limitation or qualification and it may be manifest to any man upon search for the time past from whence his Soul had its motion and in what state and condition he at present stands yet surely no further than the very present for if any man could foresee his future thoughts or the motion of his Affections his consequent intentions and actions c. he must necessarily know more than himself and dive into the secrets of the Almighty after what manner he has preordained all things to work for his Glory Every particular Soul is so unlike every other and not subject to any course of Nature sometimes so unlike it self that it is not to be known by any but its Maker neither is any man able to declare or rightly conjecture his future manners And this is from the goodness of God that we might find just cause to ascribe all goodness if any such thing be found in us to him Rely on him trust in him solely and thither fly for relief in all our wants and for a cure in all our infirmities and not to ascribe any thing to our selves or any other Creature There are some perhaps who seem to think the Souls of men more similar in their original Creation or emanation than in truth they are And that of themselves they would be more quiet and bend or incline more one and the same way perhaps like those of Beasts were it not for some several Genius or instructor that every human Soul had for its concomitant whereby it is sometimes directed bended or inclined Indeed I do think there is such a thing as a Genius in every man that is some distinct or different character on every Soul in the manner and way of expressing and delivering it self out to others such as thereby a wise man when he comes to be familiarly acquainted with it will be able in some measure to distinguish it from any other as well as the face by any grace or feature and so a Soul may be outwardly distinguished though not inwardly known And the Soul has most properly this attribute bestowed on it or conjoyned to it when by some unusual sharp edge or smart stroke it enters with a kind of life into others nay gives life to Paper it self as he who had a very quick and piercing Genius seems to express it and not for being led it knows not whither for if by Genius men who talk of it mean any informing helping or assisting Spirit diverse in creation from our own and such as Socrates is said to have had whether by name Genius or Daemon I understand it not nor can find in Reason any manner of way how a man should become so well acquainted with any such Familiar I deny not from Scripture but that we may have tutelary Angels or Guardians And I believe besides vulgar sluggish ones which seldom gratify the innate appetite in themselves there are confident daring Spirits enough which for secret purposes best known to God find not always resistance though sometimes restraints like that of Mark Anthony's in Caesars presence and from thence men frame and fansie within themselves some brave discerning Spirit or Genius more than in truth they ever were indowed withal But if every Soul has necessarily this kind of Attendant to advise with and to inform him what were best to be undertaken or let alone whereon to place his Affections in this World or not to place them and the like My Genius has proved a very ignorant one or else deceitful and treacherous to me for this I can say whenever I have been confident to obtain or trusted in my own strength or wisdom I have ever had the worst success when I have feared or suspected the worst event things have succeeded better When I have placed my Affections too strongly on any thing it has never prospered so well as those I less regarded which is ground sufficient for me to believe not a Genius or familiar Spirit but a God on whom I might cast all my care and who careth for us And surely the Soul of every other man notwithstanding any liberty of Will it may now and then seem to it self to have upon diligent inspection and view of its own strange and sometimes weak and ignorant manner of operation and yet better than it self or its Genius could contrive may soonest terminate and rest in the opinion of one original Spring of all motion that sum non mutor without introducing any strange Spectrum Genius or Familiar or yet delivering it self up to the dominion of Necessity or Fortune These strange opinions we have in relation to our Souls and the impossibility to
on him You 'l say he has reason to love me I say so too but it will be but with a sensual Love notwithstanding his Reason for in the first case he may think and his Reason may well allow of such thoughts My Charity or kindness was with an eye to some praise to be seen of men c. or at least in expectation of some future reward and not from beholding any thing of good in him In the second case he may with the like reason conjecture my liberality flowed with expectation of a return and with some reference to my own Worldy advantage that I intended to make use of him or the like But if at any time there appear to this man a sight of truth in me that upon the greatest advantages or greatest offers and temptations to desert him I stuck to him and would not be drawn to do him the least injury or injustice for any gain whatsoever and he behold the principles of Justice and Honesty engraven in me He will then think it proceeded from my view of his deserts and some good I saw in him and seeing the like in me and placing some trust and confidence in this my Love he will make me a return and love me cordially as we say with the allowance of his Reason free and at liberty and this I call a rational Love or friendly Love and the inition of true Friendship We will imagine there are three persons before whom I have a Cause depending to corrupt whom I offer to each a Bribe the one refuses the other two accept and thereupon I have a Judgment by the two according to my sensual appetite or desire and am very well pleased therewith the question is whether of these I should love best from my heart root or soonest enter into a League of Friendship with Undoubtedly he who refused and yet I must necessarily love the other two who gave judgment for me according to my sensual desire best with a sensual Love Now in this case of my sensual Love to the two Reason was assistant towards the raising of it or else I could not have thought on a Bribe On the other side Reason free and at liberty must be the thing solely which causes me to love him who refused my Bribe and that in beholding his integrity for it is impossible I should do that by Sense his action being or working visibly against my interest There are two Litigants before me the one a Christian by the Seal of Baptism and outward profession as I know the other not but a Turk we will suppose These two I delay in point of judgment with some shew perhaps of my readiness to take a Bribe from either the Christian offers me one the Turk not but trusting to the merits and justice of his Cause and hating and detesting corruption in such case as I observe utterly refuses though upon hearing I were fully satisfied of the justice of the Christians cause and gave judgment for him whether of these two think you should I have the firmest or deepest Love for or soonest enter into a league of Friendship with upon occasion I will tell you the Turk For as concerning the Christian's action my Reason will inform me that there is no person that indeavours to corrupt me by Bribe but either thinks I am unjust or at least would have me so If I once suspect he thinks me unjust 't will be in vain to love him after the manner of a Friend for he can never love me so again or place any trust or repose in me If I perceive he would have me to be unjust he is most certainly so himself and then I can place no trust or repose in him Now if outward profession were to be the standard of this Love and my own Religion the guide I should sooner make choice of the Christian for my Friend For I behold him through Grace the better of the two and believe the Turk a Reprobate notwithstanding his hate of corruption and Love of Justice and that the Christian may be by repentance in the state of Grace notwithstanding this injustice in him yet beholding and condemning falshood in any man by my Reason I cannot in that man place a trust or repose with allowance of my Reason nor raise a trust in my Soul so as to confide in him which must be effected through Reason as the proper Judge of human Safety or felicity here for upon that is Friendship builded not on future hopes or Heavenly prospects And therefore Grace which is a kind of prospect through Faith of future felicity can neither create friendly Love nor judge rightly of a fit subject thereof but Reason Whoever would be my Friend I desire he may so be from the very formation as well as allowance of his Reason I know not what any man can behold in me whatever he see in himself worthy friendly Love by any other light than that of Reason Neither do I know if his love should move otherwise or by a greater gift how to repay him a burthen to every man till it be done but by such a return a Love from my Reason since I confess I have no other light to do it by nor without it can judge of the reality of his Love or any good in him I know there are some men who would confine their Love to move only by what they call the Spirit but whether it be not the Spirit of Delusion rather than Love will appear by its confinement within such a particular Sphere That Spirit of Love surely directs us not to reject any man in whom we behold just and upright dealing and other effects of a sincere and well-disposed mind by our Reason what falls not within the compass of that light viz. Reason may be beheld by him who infuses it through the merits of his Son not by us And whom I think we do ill to vouch in our ordinary familiar intercourses and to make him so much a party that he must love only as we whilst we love only as we please and as our own fancy doth direct us To love as Friends needs not the seal of adoption and Grace the seal of Creation is sufficient You have seen doubtless as well as I contracted mystical subscriptions in very familiar Epistles such as Yours or thine in the Lord only which though it be good and allowable in some Sense cannot be acceptable in the common notion as we are men neither can we rationally think such men will ever love us as sober men when once they seem to think themselves out of the flesh while they are in it But we may allow such as in our days use the salutation and who make bold thus to write in every Epistle to cloud their kindness in Divinity since there never was party some thereof at least that bore about them less of humanity But if such kind of men who would seem out of the flesh here and
reject all moral Vertue and Goodness as insignificant will not be drawn to affect or love us otherwise than aforesaid nor imbrace us for any Justice or Mercy shewed them for as for Spiritual Graces theirs and ours are equally invisible we shall do well so to frame our ways as to please our Maker that if they become our enemies because we do not take the same imaginary flight with them they may at least be at peace with us and that if it be possible as much as in us lyes we may have peace with all men In the Christian World I doubt nay I believe there is least visibility of Friendship and this I take to be the cause that the very outward noble badge or cognizance of Christianity I will not say true Christianity by the help of Satan has so much elevated many Souls in opinion and fancy as to make them think no others who wear it not outwardly for ostentation and shew as themselves worthy their common Friendship It is a seeming unhappiness in our nature that our Affection cannot be long at rest and that Love in man only has such several Pilots or Guides Sense would have it stay at home chiefly and please or work for the Body that at least it should not move far nor otherwise than to bring in freight for the ease and pleasure of that Reason would it should traffick abroad and imbrace whatsoever that heholds good and virtuous laudable and amiable in another man and the man withal therefore Grace now and then raises it to mount upwards and beholding that fixed bright Star by which we all move attracts it in some measure to bend and incline thitherward without regard to danger It moves at all these several Summons or calls wherein that in Beast never stirs otherwise than from Sense But yet upon every turn and occurrence so weak is our light of Reason and so uncertain and often clouded through our sins is that other bright and gracious light that it is apt to be drawn and haled home again by Sense and then it catches up every weapon offensive and defensive for the Body Anger Fear and the like Thus are we tossed to and fro as it were by contrary Winds and often shipwracked before we come to shoot that dreadful gulf of Death and we may well cry out before the time O wretched men that we are who shall deliver us from this Body of Death Reason sooner than Sense will shew us some ground whereon we may anchor and fix our Love as it were in a good and pleasant harbour for a time but it self will often loosen it again by shewing us it is sandy that there is no trust in man nor in the children of men and that whatsoever we see of Justice or Truth or any thing of goodness in them for the present those are not things of permanency in them Men are various fickle and mutable in their Habits and in their Affections too We cannot rationally trust our selves We have no power over our selves 't is most certain And we have beheld some seemingly very rational for want of Grace destroy that Body they best loved their own with their own hands And how then can we place any setled trust in another Faith must throw us out at last an anchor for the Soul sure and stedfast and that must be of Love not that it directs or should direct our Love quatenus human that is and ought to be guided by Reason But it may inflame our Love to that height towards our Maker that we shall not be troubled above measure though we behold the inconstancy of human Nature and the falshood and treachery of our dearest Friends though they deceive us and all the World forsake us nay Though the Earth be moved and though the hills be carried into the midst of the Sea We may wish perhaps but as much setledness of Affection and seeming constancy of Nature amongst our selves as in those poor Creatures which serve us and were created next to God's Glory for our use that we might find ground to trust each other here and lodge our Affection safe out of our selves for a time in any fellow-member since we can behold no better by our Sense nor comprehend what is above us by our Reason But his Wisdom is infinite and unsearchable and yet perhaps may appear to us herein that we should trust even while here in none but him who is for ever one and the same and Lord over all And who if we love him will withhold nothing he sees good for us and become himself our Comforter in all our Afflictions EPIST. VII Of the different vain pursuits of the Souls of Men wherein we are ready to accuse each other of Folly though not our selves and yet are all Fools in some degree That no pursuit of the Soul here is praise-worthy or commendable further than it intentionally advances God's Glory which is the mark set before us and which if we do not behold in all our travails our labour will not profit IN my Treatise of the Soul I made some glance at the various and different pursuits of it in man that is the affectionary or imbracing part of it but I could not but behold withal the several opinions that men seem to have of the pursuit of each others Affection how vain every man thinks that to be which he himself affects not or desires But the beholding the variety of opinions and judgments in the case with the folly and madness of all men would have conduced little to the present cure of any Soul diseased and therefore I needed not to insert my thoughts thereabout in such Treatise but have reserved and now sent them to you for your perusal Truth is all our courses as various as they are in any excess and not necessarily relating to some other end than what they seem to an ordinary Spectator to tend after are equally frivolous and vain and though we are every one of us very dimm-sighted towards any espial of our own follies and ridiculous eager and longing pursuits yet are we quick and apt enough to see and deride the same madness and folly in others and we never need with the Psalmist attribute laughter to him who dwelleth in the Heavens from his only or alone beholding our futile contrivances since we our selves are able to afford it one another from the weak inspection we do or are able to make into any mans madness or folly but our own I do think the Creator of all things who affords himself that blessed center of rest unto our Souls and to whom our best and chiefest Affections might from very gratitude rationally tend has of his abundant wisdom and gracious goodness permitted and allowed them not only a divers and innocent vagrancy towards various and several terrestrial objects but withal so framed the Intellect and Judgment as that each several person shall in some manner or measure approve and allow
often call for and place that no beautiful nor pleasant thing Suspicion as a Centinel in the Soul I do believe there is a righteous and good God in Heaven continually beholding all human actions and a rewarder and punisher thereof according to demerit and since I do believe so much I may conjecture that he would not frame human Nature capable of any bodily affliction or suffering but what by his gift of patience and contentedness might be born with some kind of pleasure or delight The Mind or Soul distinct and of it self is not vulnerable in any part but where it yields of it self and I am sure pleasure which is the health of the Soul will sooner arise in being deceived from a good and innocent intent and meaning than in deceiving from a bad and evil one and therein the deceived has the advantage and therefore I do not nor dare not recommend that thought to any one Wise or Prudent we would all be whether we know when we are so or not It is a very pleasant prospect some have said sitting on the side of an hill to behold the Errors in the vale below but then a man had need be very well seated and fixed left that through some mist arising from thence or some giddiness or inadvertency in himself he rowl down into the same or the like Errors he beholds If I could espy out or find a ground for this kind of sedency that it ever were or could be possibly obtained and held while we remain here on Earth I would presently grant that man might be happy here whatever became of him hereafter and that a wise man in no other notion than the Heathen took him were certainly an happy man In case of Prudence as I define it I will agree with him who says that while she is present a Deity is seldom absent at least there is a Deity ready at hand to assist and help but I do not agree with him that she I mean Prudence was ever yet within the power of any Mortal or at his beck or call or that I am able to shew her to any man in such manner as that he may lay hold on her and detain her He with others who seems to undertake so much has done no more than what Solomon had done before him endeavoured to shew us the vanity of all things which indeed is a prospect from Prudence and which most sober men see by fits and yet often court those things they beheld as deceitful and which usually carry repentance and sorrow as their attendants So as to see vanity do's not amount to a clear sight of all things conducing to Happiness Prudence is a flitting companion of human Nature if she rise with us she may hap not to lye down with us and if she lye down with us she may hap not to rise with us If the Spaniard had his wish and the World should be able to rise wise one morning it is to be doubted or feared above half of it would go to bed foolish So much is a man apt to differ from himself and that from causes sometimes appearing and sometimes not A great and wise Statesman was wont to say from some experience 't is like that that was seldom or never good and sound Counsel which was given soon after dinner and surely there may be found many other and far greater obstructions to Prudence than fumes arising from a full stomach The Soul is subject to many imperfections as long as 't is subjected to work in a Body and to become tired as well as stifled or blinded If Alexander could always behold sleep as the earnest of death a man of a meaner capacity may see it and term it the emblem of folly and find that his Intellect that is the better part of his Intellect for I do not mean his Imagination but his Reason is not able sometime to watch for his will one hour nay one moment We may sometimes find Reason or Prudence in the Soul that is Reason in her best native dress and behold her as an handmaid to Happiness and quiet and she may often prove no less and so we claim and challenge her to be under our jurisdiction when ever we find her but yet still she is often out of the way when we want her and would have her nay when we have most need of her We may think to borrow her or lend her and indeavour to shew her to another but if we do we must lend the party our eyes too at the same instant and season for he who is Prudent himself if at any time he will take upon him to make another so had need be as well able to infuse his own or some discerning Spirit into him as afford him his rules and documents to walk by We are too ignorant and blind I fear in finding out or discerning the manner of conveyance of very human Prudence as we call it whence it is and by what ways and methods 't is attained Prescriptions or directions for Prudence in the Soul are good and yet may be compared to our Physicians methodus medendi towards recovery or health of the Body the method may be orderly observed and a man never the better it may be somewhat worse The best and most prudential saying is no otherwise to be looked upon than a Recipe which works on several Subjects several Effects and several Effects on the same Subject at several Times and Seasons We may grant Solomon to be as great a Doctor as any in that case but none of his precepts are so far approved as to be Universally infallible and without exception It is generally true indeed which he says as for instance in this A soft answer turneth away wrath but we meet sometimes or at particular seasons with tempers and constitutions where a rough blustring or bold answer shall soonest work that effect Though he generally tells us there is a time for all things he could never prefix that time to particular occasions or particulars to time that must be left to every mans Prudence or rather to God That may be Prudence to day which will not prove so to morrow For though we are able sometimes to judge rightly of anothers disease we are apt to be deceived in the secret inclination or suddain alteration of tempers with which we deal And therefore he himself is forced to leave us at large with some such excellent general sayings as these The preparations of the heart are in man but the answer of the tongue is of the Lord. Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be directed The heart of man purposeth his way but the Lord directeth his steps The lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. Mans goings are of the Lord how can a man then understand his own way And that power to a please a mans very Sense at
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
And they give him these various Attributes and Offices at several times as if like the common people of Rome we were to be kept in ignorance of his proper name that it should not be Well known for a sure refuge or at least we might call on it rightly when the Kings of the earth are gathered and gone by together St. Iames by way of question informs us a very truth Whence come Wars and Fightings amongst you come they not hence even of your lusts God has put desire or lust in our Natures and has given us that divine gift of Reason as superintendent over it to regulate and rule and direct it and because we make not that good use of it we should we are ready and willing to call on him for a colour in our siding and fightings and thereby make him as it were the Author who as we are told is not the author of confusion but of peace It must needs be that nay in St. Luke it is impossible but offences will come but there is a wo to them by whom and sure God permits it only to punish our inordinate desires I may in some measure believe there is somewhat of truth in the opinion of those Philosophers who held strife and contention necessary in Nature and that were it not for a continual opposition all things would be at a stand and even heavenly Bodies cease their motion But I shall as soon believe all the Poets fables to be real and that in truth there was such a Goddess as Harmonia begotten of Mars and Venus as that the God of Nature and God of the Christians is either pleased with or alloweth or approveth of our contentions for him and in his name and that that thing is harmony to him Neither do I believe that right Reason in any man whoever had it and consulted it ever approved to him such a thing as an Holy War or an Holy Rebellion be it against Turk or be it against Papist Me thinks the Scribes and the Learned on either side when they help to foment our differences and would set us together by the ears for I am of opinion there never was yet a civil national division or distraction without some Levites or pretended Levites in company would shew much more of a generous Nature if they would hang out the right and proper flag and declare to us what Aesops Fox told his Cock in the end that they must feed on us and I am sure we had better labour to feed them otherwise than under pretence of fighting for God fight for them which Reason if it were not very weak or rather lazy and credulous would soon espy we do in most cases I never doubted but God has appointed and raised up for his service many good Shepherds of our Souls and such as strive to correct our Errors and faithfully endeavour to enlighten our Reason for the well and orderly government of our Affections such as neither go about to court or yet terrify our Affections that they may thereby enslave our Reason But they are rare and of such I need ask no pardon for these my thoughts set down in writing if they happen to be seen of any beside your self they will I know readily pass them by with a charitable censure And of others I will not ask it but still continuing to think Credulity in the vulgar or more properly a lazy Reason to have been the Anvil on which the greatest mischiefs and evils in the World have been hammered and wrought I presume to advise every man that he make that good use of his Reason as to see it was given him to direct and guide himself chiefly and not to be led thereby And to our wise men of this World I say It is no difficult matter for one of an ordinary capacity who is minded to get up and ride for the vulgar is often resembled to a Beast of burthen to cast a bitt into mens mouths that is their Affections whereby they will yield up the rein of their Soul Reason to be guided any way the Rider pleases But he who so does besides the casuality of a fall here I must tell him he incurs some future danger It being a Beast which is apt to carry a man into perdition at the last And in my opinion a Beast which seldom or rarely bears a truly good man If I should change my Metaphor of riding into flying my thoughts tend to the same effect That popularity indeed is a seeming present delightful Air which many men strive to fly or at least to flutter in and some thereby have mounted very high But if the shout be not so very great that like that of Plutarch's story it break the very air and cause our Eagles that spy so quick and see so far beyond other men to fall to the ground sometimes here I question much whether it ever brought a man to any station of happy rest in the end My thoughts of Faith or belief were intentional only of looking straight forward and directly upon it to behold what and whence it was And this kind of reflexion on it will perhaps be esteemed by you as very uncomely and unfit for a person of my condition and therefore I will endeavour to turn my thoughts again into their first channel And thereupon we continue to think Faith at utmost is no more than a perswasion of Reason If that perswasion be operated and effected barely from man we call it an human Faith or Belief if it be from above we call it and will allow it divine In either case we still think it is Reason yielding or Reason quiet and at rest Reason is that Forge in the Soul whereon it is wrought at least Faith is no other than a termination of Reason's work Now having owned Reason in the Soul of man to be a special divine gift in no wise arising or possibly to be extracted out of flesh and blood according to any ordinary course of Nature and a thing which distinguishes us from all other Creatures We cannot but think it here capable of an impression from above and so may terminate in a blessed Faith but that is above our reach to define how it comes to pass The other qualities it has we may a little observe It is capable I think quatenus human to make and receive an impression without the help of Sense nay above and beyond sense When it is properly active and makes this impress and informs a man for instance that the fulfilling of Lust is a beastly sordid act which Sense could never do and puts some little stop to the Affections and to the Will I have called it and do call it Conscience When it complies assents or yields to embrace a thing as good or true which may be without any help of Sense too in some case I term it Belief and do think that neither the one or the other can at all
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
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
should I cannot conjecture any good it will do a man towards future Happiness how ere it pleases in present fancy Reason is a gift which no man that has it how sure soever he be to have it weakned by infirmity or age would at present part with to gain the whole present World And in relation to the future I trust he who has bestowed that gift on us will not be offended with the modest use of it thereabout since as to this present World we find it does not so far avail the best of us as to make us much happier than the Beasts that perish who generally make as good use of this present World from Sense as we do from our Reason So long as we trust not in our Reason neither suffer it to contend with or strike at or batter that Faith which it self of it self is not able to raise but let it stand by as a spectator methinks those men who ingross and appropriate to themselves the title of the Faithful as others do of Infallible need not make declamations against it nor go about to affright men out of their Reason But may allow it a good gift though not a perfect gift since we own both from above and have so much Charity as to think or if they please to believe other men may be saved with it as well as other men believe they may be saved without it or at least its strength Provided they do not wilfully sin against it continue to spurn it and colourably trample upon it to raise themselves rather than any saving Faith in other men Men look upon their Belief as a pretious and tender Plant however raised not to be touched and I would offend none in seeming to do it and therefore I shall say no more of it But pray God wherein I hope I cannot offend who has indowed us with Reason such a Reason as is capable to take an impress from Heaven as well as men and as it were to resolve and melt into a blessed happy and saving Faith That of his infinite mercy he would frame in us that Anchor of the Soul fure and stedfast which may secure us against all the raging waves of the World And yet continue to enlighten our Reason while we travail here that it may be able to espy and resist all the delusions of Satan and our own and others Affections marching under the notion and colour of Religion And preserve us ever from unreasonable men whatsoever or howsoever they say they believe as well as those we term and reject as Infidels The Soul of man considered in its ordinary faculties is wonderful and perhaps a dangerous subject to treat of but especially as it may be cloathed with graces from without And he who searches too narrowly into it may sooner lose himself than benefit others From all that I could think of it I adjudge it immortal and that is the main termination of my thoughts which I dare make publick We may please our selves sometimes with a conceit of knowledge of I know not what but all is so little and nothing that let go our tenure of immortality and cast away the thoughts thereof we are at best but the wisest Beasts that perish and need not a comparison with them Did I say cast away those thoughts They are so united I think to our Nature that I dare the boldest man who denies the subject matter of those thoughts and would willingly do it to cast them away or wholly and perpetually disburthen his Soul of them Such thoughts as these to wit of some future reward and punishment have been conjectured from some actions of theirs to be inherent and arising in Mutes whereof I my self from Sense and with concurrence of my Reason stand convinced And when I can in like manner be convinced that such thoughts can be made to arise in the Spirit or Soul of any the wisest or most intelligent Brute I shall not then think my self much undervalued to have such a Beast compared to me For unless it be to resolve that question What shall I do to inherit eternal life Mine or any mans knowledge signifies but very little The resolution of that quaery belongs to your office an office you have solemnly taken upon you the cure or care of no mans Soul but my own is commited unto me The office of King Philip's Crier might better have become me To tell men they are mortal which every man owns than to tell them they are immortal which is your duty Now having in a manner intruded my self into your office and yet referring my self therein to you If you incourage me to go on and proceed and so in a manner patronize any Error by me therein committed the fault as I told you at first will lye at your door Now to God Eternal and only of himself Immortal be adscribed all Praise and Glory Amen A PRAYER of the AUTHOR'S unto Almighty God for the Guidance and well government of our Souls and the discovery and prevention of such Mistakes and mischiefs whether publick or private arising from thence as in the foregoing Tracts and Epistles are more especially discoursed of O God from whom all Spirits receive their being and who art the lover of Souls favourably in mercy look upon the Souls of us men thy most apparent image Reform us all in that part or faculty thereof by which we chiefly go astray from thy truth and do amiss Give to every one of us such a sight and sense of our own particular defects and offences before those of others as may make us humble not proud in Spirit Create and raise in us such a Faith as may not only imbrace thee in thy wonderful works of mercy but be visible in all our works Moderate and rectify our Affections by our Reason and let them not so over-power our Imagination as to make us believe and disbelieve as may best gratify them Let us not suffer that Reason thou hast given us to be born down by the strength of an elevated fancy or the unruliness of a stubborn Will but what our Reason clearly dictates to us let us readily obey Let us not abuse thy sacred Name and holy Word to gratify any evil or ambitious Affection nor suffer us at length in these our days and in this our Island through our own precipitant madness and folly to become the scorn and derision of all that are round about us and to fall as a prey to some of them Grant we may be subject for conscience sake or rather for thy sake since whosoever will or endeavours disturbance and confusion doth set himself against thee the God of order Look down and behold in goodness our gracious Sovereign whom thou hast already from banishment restored to his just right and as it were miraculously again placed over us one who retains so much and so perfect an Image of thee as to be just to all men and merciful to
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
occasion to speak when I shall enquire which of the faculties of the Soul may seem primary in operation yet I think even native reason in some men is able so to throw a Vail over the senses and frame the imagination that there may be conceived in the imagination some more glorious and amiable thing than it can well conceive and from that conception it shall have readily attending it a sensitive love as we call it that is a motion of the heart from some Nerves or Tendons at least a fixation of the heart not to move too extravagantly but be readily obedient to the dictates of reason and I see no ground why we should with reason hope to quite discard them from its obedience or have our passions and affections clean rooted up lest by avoiding that which one kind of Philosopher resembled to the Itch that is be always desiring and joying loving and fearing c. we do light upon a kind of felicity which another Philosopher resembled to the felicity of a Stock or Stone I would not indeed willingly grieve but I had rather sorrow than never joy and the one can never be inherent without the other either rationatively or sensitively Reason I say has some ability and power yet left since our fall not only to correct and reduce the imagination but to direct and point it to seek after somewhat so that if all men should deny a pure rational love they may grant there may be a good sensitive love 'T is true the imagination from sense shews us no living creature better than our selves and we are apt to see through it as in a false glass some amiableness in our selves and so we become lovers of our selves more than lovers of God yet that little strength of reason does sometimes hinder and stop the imagination from presenting that false glass stays the affections from looking too much into it wins the imagination to take part with it self for a while in conceiving our vileness and then by consequence forces it to represent to the affections some amiableness in that being from whence all other things have their being and without which we cease to be any thing so as about some amiable good do the affections always move if they move From one of these two Mirrors I say do I think is the rise of the affections quatenus working in a Body the one of these Mirrors is clear yet false and only of the imaginations framing from sense the other is dark and cloudy unless amended by special grace but true and of reasons correcting The root of each Tree of affections whether bad or good springing from hence is Love Neither can I upon my review find cause to alter my opinion in my Treatise of comfort against loss of Children but do think that some innate faculty of love is the primary mover in the affections and thus I think it may sprout up and bring forth Trees of divers colour'd branches If we look in that false glass mentioned and by reflexion have a good opinion of our selves which is from a love of our selves there shoots out a branch called Pride or in short that is Pride If we become mounted in thoughts to exceed others that is Ambition if we see some cause as we think that others should have a good opinion of us that is Vain-glory if from this sight we are troubled that any other should seem to exceed us and withall there be an endeavour in us to exceed them that is Emulation but if it be only to supplant or hinder them that is Envy If we espy any opposition in another and behold that person as mean and not able to hurt us that is Contempt which is a kind of contumacy or immobility of the heart but if otherwise we discern an ability to hurt it is Frowardness Impatience Fretting Anger Hatred Malice or Revenge according to the nature of the Soil And here certainly Love must be agreed to be the root and to give being on either side There is no man ever opposes or does wrong for the wrongs sake it is to purchase to himself profit pleasure or repute and that is from the love of himself and therefore says Bacon wittily If a man do me wrong why should I be angry with him for loving himself better than me But to go on If we look after or espy ways or means to adorn beautifie and sustain our beloved selves be it by Money Lands or Goods that is Covetousness if we espy a failure in others of love mutual and reciprocal to our beloved selves where 't is expected that is Jealousie if we apprehend future danger or loss it is Fear if present Heaviness Sadness Sorrow if we espy any probable way or means of our acquiring or adding to our acquisitions Hope c. And after this manner might I reckon the springing or growth of all evil affections whatsoever On the other side if that true but dim glass be at any time presented or set before us and we receive any distant sight of an excellency and goodness in the Creator and continual preserver of the Universe our Love a little moves another way and raises a Tree of other manner of affections If we behold in that his Power his Justice or his Love there arises Fear if his Mercy then Hope Joy Comfort If we apprehend him a Protector against all injury Courage Trust and Fortitude if a Revenger of wrong Patience If we espy his providence and care there arises Contentedness if we discern our own inability Humility if our own evil dealings to others Meekness if our failings and errors Trouble Grief and Sorrow if affliction fallen on our Brethren Pity and Compassion and the like And were my opinion asked of the ground and cause of the most Heroick worthy or pious particular action ever done in the World I for my part should determine it in short to be the parties love to God or himself for if it be not the one that has made a man die willingly for his Country as the phrase goes I am sure 't is the other if not Charity some desire of a perpetual lasting Fame of his memory which is a love to and of himself Now whatever men pretend there neither is nor was nor will be any created Soul within a Body wholly exempt from any one passion or affection whatsoever And though some affections seem very contrary so as not to subsist together at least in any height or excess and therefore it was not without some wonder observed of Nero if I remember aright that he who singly beheld his Cruelty would believe he had no Lust and he who beheld his Lust apart would believe he had nothing of Cruelty in him yet they can and do subsist together And though some men may take their denomination from some one faculty or affection chiefly and most commonly predominant as for instance it may be said Moses was a meek man Nebuchadnezzar a proud man