but it was refused by darknesse Ignoti nulla cupido Thus the understanding and light are different in names may be different in degrees but not in nature For what that Reverend man i Doctor Twist saith most acutely of a spirituall gift I may say of spirituall light The soule cannot refuse a spirituall gift I now speak in his phrase The soule and any spirituall Being doe not as corporeall things greet each other by the help of the Loco-motive faculty but when Grace is given by God to the soul there is as it were da veniam voci an hypostaticall union betwixt the gift and the soule and the soule cannot reject it because they are no more Two but one So to be in the capacity or act of receiving light is to be light Lastly how passeth this light from the understanding to the soule Will not here be left as vast a gulfe as they make betweene the understanding and the will which make them divers whence grow those inextricable disputes How the the will is made to understand what the understanding judgeth fit to bee willed CHAP. III. A prosecution of the second Argument wherein these three notions are applied to the understanding being made one with the truth ALl these rubs are easily taken out of the way if you make that which you call the understanding truth For then have you First the Father of mercies dispencing light and truth Secondly light and truth dispensed Thirdly the totum existens consisting of matter and forme of materiall and immateriall Beings as wee distinguish them called a reasonable creature thus informed or constituted which we name the recipient of this light and truth Doe not tell me that I thus make the recipient and thing received all one that is not strange in emanation divine In Scripture you have a parallel of this 1 The fourth viall is poured out upon the Sun scil. the Scriptures and the Scriptures are the viall it selfe the Scripture is emptied upon it selfe it is agent and patient receiver and received I know learned Mede to prevent this which to him is a difficulty imagineth the Emperour to be the Sun but in two words that is thus disproved First the Emperour is no where called the Sun in this book when he receiveth a metaphoricall typicall title he is called the Dragon Secondly the Scriptures are in the Revelation divers times set forth to us by the Sun So that if you refuse the sense which I fix upon then you doe not onely forsake but oppose the Scripture-phrase But were not this truth mounted in a celestiall chariot Reason it selfe would evince it For consider any individuall Being you please vegetative or rationall or what you will who is it that entertaineth this Being but the Being it selfe which is entertained Who is it that receiveth from the womb of Eternity that reasonable creature but the creature received The ignorance of this Point hath raised that empty Question Whether the Soule or the Body be contentum For if every Being be its own contentum this Question will seeme to be no more a difficulty And if there happen any neare union betwixt two Beings as the Body and the Soule the first is not continens the other contentum but as husband and wife each bringeth his part towards the making up of the compositum Thus without any violalation of Reasons right I seeme justly to conclude that the totum existens consisting of matter and forme the reasonable creature is the Recipient of this truth CHAP. IIII. This Argument further cleered by more objections propounded and answered BUT still it is demanded why may not the understanding supply the third place why may it not be this Recipient To whom I give this answer That if they make the understanding but a quality and depending upon some other Being it cannot as I have proved in this Discourse course be the recipient but if they look upon it as this light this truth it selfe then the dispute is reconciled Some conceive all these difficulties are cured if you make the understanding only virtus quâ concluding with the Philosopher that ibi subsistendum est without inquiry after a further progresse I could Iurare in verbamagistri I could acquiesce here but that I desire to be convinced by reason and not by termes I shall therefore humbly ask this question What difference is there betwixt virtus quâ and a faculty as in a knife the cutting ariseth from the sharpnesse and this sharpnesse is virtus quâ or the faculty whereby the knife doth cut If it be but a faculty then I repaire to my former answere but if something else than a faculty it must either be a nominall Being or reall existence If the first it beareth no weight If the second then I say it must entertaine species for all spirituall glories doe operate by the communication of their divine species and then will you be cast upon the former rock Yet still they say the understanding being a spirituall Being receiveth light in some way which we know not and so they proceede to obscure distinctions and voluminous discourses concerning intellectus agens intellectus patiens or passibilis But the wiser sort of them perceiving the thinnesse aerialnesse and crazinesse of this Spiders web have with greater probability made God to be intellectus agens by his influence upon the understanding Respon. Is not this the Athenian Altar which groaned under that Superscription * To the unknowne God I would I could discover with S. Paul to them this light this truth which they know not that they might love it and imbrace it But secondly I dispute not against things I know not They know not this I know that I may better maintaine the other that the Understanding is not the Recipient of this light than they averre that it is in a way whereof they never hope to finde any footsteps CHAP. V. The Soule and truth in the Soule are one I May yet be pressed with this objection All these difficulties may be urged against the Soule which have been produced against the Vnderstanding Resp. Are not these like the untrue Mother who will kill the childe because she cannot call it her own If these inconveniences be justly urged against the Soul it will not deliver the Vnderstanding But I will deale ingenuously and confesse that if you take the Soule under any other notion than Truth If you deeme it first to be a Being and then to be light as God made Adam first I meane the body and then breathed life into him if I say there be first a Being and then an infusion of light you will be pressed with the former arguments But if you make the Understāding the Soul Light Truth one then are you quite delivered out of all these straights and then is it true which I averre that that degree of light which we enjoy
this that darkeneth wisedome with counsell Alas are we not all since Adams lapse buried under the shadow of death and lost in the region of darknesse Who is there that knoweth truth * He that thinketh hee knoweth any thing knoweth nothing as he should Morall truth which as some thinke is yet more within our reach than those sacred mysteries is unknown to us both in the universall nature and in the particular actings of it Difficilia quae pulchra Indeed Truth is that golden apple which though it hath in some sense beene offered to the fairest yet the most refined wits the most high-raised fancies of the world have courted her in vaine these many ages For whilst they have sought with a Palsie hand this glorious star through the perspective of thicke reason they have either mounted too high and confounding the Creator with the creature made her God or descending too low and deserting the universal nature have cōfined their thoughts to some individuall Truth and restrained her birth to severall parcels within the Chaos THE NATURE OF TRUTH It s union and unity with the SOULE CHAP. I. The Vnderstanding and the Truth-understood are one TRUTH is indeed of the seed Royall of Progeny Divine yet so as to be for I may say of her what the Spirit saith of Faith * neere us to be in us And when she is pleased to descend into our valleys and to converse with us shee erects her own pavilion and doth fix it in whatsoever is lovely in us The Vnderstanding is her throne there she reigneth and as she is there seated as she shineth in that part of the soule she appeareth to me under two notions which are also her measure through the whole sphere of Being as will be discovered more hereafter when these lesser streames shall have emptied themselves by progresse into a larger river First that very Being which immediatly floweth from above and is the rise or the first and uniforme ground-work in this particular Being which we now treat of and which under this notion wee call the form or substance Secondly those workings which breathe from thence as all actions and sayings which are in our phrase the effects of a reasonable soule I shall first in few words treat of the first and then very briefly conclude with a word or two upon the second part of Truth This first Truth is the Vnderstanding in its Essence for what is the Vnderstanding other than a Ray of the Divine Nature warming and enlivening the Creature conforming it to the likenesse of the Creator And is not Truth the same For the Beauty of Truths character is that she is a shadow a resemblance of the first the best forme that she is light the species the sparkling of primitive light that she is life the sublimation of light that she may reflect upon her selfe That she is light none will deny that light in reasonable creatures is the fountaine of life is manifest For the forme of a reasonable soule is light and therefore when the soul informeth and giveth life to Animal rationale it enableth the creature to work according to light and upon Her accesses the organs can entertaine light as the eye then beholds the light of the Sun upon Her retirements they are dark and uselesse Thus whilst life is light and light is Truth and Truth is conformity to God and the understanding as we yet discourse of it is this light to the soule the Vnderstanding and Truth can be but one CHAP. II. The second Argument proving that truth is the Nature of the Vnderstanding I Know the learned choose rather to stile the understanding a faculty and so institute a soule recipient a Being scil. Truth received and a faculty which is the understanding whereby the soule receiveth and acteth according to what it doth entertaine But with submission to their better judgement I should crave leave to make one Quaere Are there not to the constitution of every Being three notions requisite First the Fountain communicating Secondly the Channell entertaining Thirdly the Waters imparted I confesse we must not in Metaphysicall Beings expect Physicall subsistencies yet {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} all learning doth allow of But where shall wee finde these in the understanding whilest the intellect passeth under the notion of a faculty Indeed wee may discerne the last scil. those sweet beames of light which beat upon us continually But where is the second which entertaineth them If it be the understanding then the light which differēceth us from the vegetative and sensitive creatures lieth in the understanding and not in the soule and the soule which all men hold to be a spirituall Being is but a Theca to the intellect as the body is the Tabernacle of the soule Or if the soule hath light as well as the understanding then are there two enlightened Beings in one reasonable creature Non belle quaedam faciunt duo sufficit unus Huic operi Two reasonable Beings in one Compositum is too unreasonable a thing Thirdly Who is it that communicateth this light It is conveyed to the understanding either from the soule or some other way If from the soule then the soule doth not finde the defect of the understanding For if the soule can communicate light then hath it light already the same or more excellent then can it worke diffuse light and enjoy it selfe and so this faculty the understanding shall be in vaine If in any other way it must either be immediately from God or mediante Creatura If from a creature and not from the soule it must be by some other facultie intervenient For if the soule which by their consent is a more noble Agent than the understanding cannot according to their Doctrine act without a faculty how shall an inferior Being work without some such like subservient help And thus may you excurrere in infinitum which according to the Philosophers may not be done for Entia non sunt multiplicanda nisi necessariò If the truth come from God then why is it not immediately intrinsecally infused into the soule it selfe But however the understanding bee enricht with this treasure of Truth if it be imparted to it then is it it selfe that Truth that light which I contend for For God doth not communicate light by light which I take in a Metaphoricall sense I understand some spirituall excellency and such light I say God doth not offer but to light For quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis Cleopatra her dissolved union would have been to Esops cocke of lesse value than a barly corne And if the understanding have not light it cannot take it unlesse by being turned into the nature of it For what giving and receiving can here be besides that which maketh both to become one and the selfe same Light came into the world
up the totum Compositum The Soule is but one Act distinguished to our notion by severall apparitions and these intervals with all variations either are nothing or are of the nature of the Soule and serve to make up that confort that truth that life that we now discourse of And that this is so I hope by this cleere ratiocination to leave you assured Time and Place seeme to me nothing but an extrinsecall modification of a thing I cannot finde that the learned have made anything at all of them Let us survey them as they define them when they treat of them as they esteeme them when they meete them occasionally How hath Aristotle defined Place Est superficies concava corporis ambientis Where is the truth of this in the highest heaven which incompasseth all the rest Hath Ramus any whit advanced the cause in his definition Est subjectum rei locatae Idem per Idem Are not those who propound and they who entertain such a definition justly compared to the Constable and the Country-Justice The first having received from some higher power a Warrant wherein in was this hard word Invasion repaired to his Rabbi for Solution he that the question might seeme somewhat obscure paused a little that it might not shame him after he had consulted in a stroke or two with his grave-learned beard replyed the sense of this word is very plaine it is Invasion it signifieth Invasion with which the Constable being fully satisfied gave him many thankes and departed Locus and spatium corporis locati is little better what have we in this definition of the intrinsecall nature of place So that if I be not wholly blinde they whilst they treat of it as Scholars make it nothing when they make use of it by the By it is the same As the Soule they say is tota in toto and tota in qualibet parte whilst they spread and diffuse the soule over the whole body from one extremity to the other Place maketh no division in the soule it is but one soule yet extended quite through the body Angels are definitivè in loco that place which is within the circumference so limited doth not at all cause them to make two in this angelicall Being I may affirme the same of time Tempus est mensura motus What doe I know of time by this how can I from hence ghesse time to have so considerable a Being as that it shall make two of that whith otherwise would be but one In the Deity we are sure it can have no such effect In the Deity wee have creation preservation redemption decree and execution of that decree All these to our apprehension are distinguished by time and yet no man will say that in God they are two for God is purus actus nulla potentia But you will say this is obscurum per obscurius and not to unmask and unveile difficulties Which no Simile taken from the Divinity can doe because That is all mysticall To which I answer Si magnis licet componere parva wee shall finde the same in our selves we shall find that Time doth not at all difference or any way act I suppose it is cleare that Place hath lost all place and credit in this argumentation Why may not I say the same of Time seeing by all mens confessions they are twins of the same womb But secondly I affirme this and I hope truly that if you make Time any thing you annihilate all the act of the Creation that is you will admit of no one perfect action A thought I confesse passeth in a moment and yet in this moment under this moment are many subdivisions of Time We have in an houre an halfe a quarter a minute a second the 60 part of a minute how many subdivisions will a scruple admit of For ought I know Time and punctum Physicum agree in this that they are divisibilia in insinitum If then you will make so many thoughts in a thought as you have divisions under a scruple you will have no perfect thought no compleat act To shun this you wil confesse that Time doth not divide one act alone but one Act or thought comprehendeth many Times Why may not I say that if Time doth not parcell out one act it cannot act upon two when the duality ariseth onely from Time This not being well weighed hath cast our wits upon strange rocks hath raised this Question How doth God see things If in their existencies then all things are co-eternall with God if in their Causes onely then all things are not present with God but you must admit of succession a former and a latter to eye divine which is blasphemy This dilemma seemeth strong but it is because we make Time something whereas indeed all things did exist in their Beings with God ab omni aeterno For aeternum tempus are all one in eternity and this succession is but to our apprehension Thus if Time and Place be nothing I hope the weight of this objection is is taken off But I foresee another objection Object If Time and Place be nothing if all our Actions are but One How can there be evill and good Answ. I fully conclude with Aristotles Adversaries Anaxagoras Democritus c That Contradictions may be simul semel in the same Subject same Instant same Notion not onely in two distinct respects or notions as one thing may be causa effectum Pater Filius respectu diversi but even in the same respect under one and the same Notion For Non ens is nothing and so the Being which it hath may subsist with that which contradicts it I speake in their termes Now let us view our actions either as Many in pieces or One entire act As many impute Transgression to what you please either to the effects in the body or the Will and its workings all these so farre as they have Being are good for all Being is good Where then is the sinne Certainly sinne lieth in this that there is not so full a goodnesse as there should Sin is onely a Privation a Non-Entity But a Privation a Non-Entity may subsist according to the subsistence it hath with Being Such a co-existence of Entity and Non-Entity was in his faith who cried Lord I beleeve help my unbeliefe This Contradiction of Entity Non-Entity must be in the selfe-same Act and not in two distinct Acts else the Act is perfect having complete Entity goodnesse without admixture of Non-Entity and so is onely the Creator or else it is more imperfect than Beelzebub for It is Bad and no Good Non-Entity wholly and no Entity and so no Action Thus we see Good and Evill may co-exist in severall in particular Actions Why then not so if all Acts should bee but one entire Act undistinguisht by Time or Place If the members composing the Body have matter and forme why then not the
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} divinae providentiae renuntiare velit c. Rutter Exerc. Apolog. Exerc. 1. c. 1. Sect. 8. 1 Ioh. 3.9 Difference betwixt Knowledg and Faith Object Experience collection of particular lights Knowledg reall apparent Psal. 14.1 Psal. 12.4 God mercy and sweetnesse to the divels As wee know wee love {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Arist. Eth. lib 3 c.6 vide c. 7 ciâ—ca finem What we know we are Affection handmaid to Knowledge according to some Knowledg a step to Affection according to others Knowledg affection names of different degrees in the same nature Affection perfection of Knowledge Knowledge often no Knowledge but a vaine swelling Tit. 3.6 Knowledg without power even in the law forbidden Ceremoniall law included in the Morall Mat. 5.28 Mat. 7.29 1 Cor. 11.16 Cant. 2.1 2 Cor. 13.2 God from whom all light commeth is stilâ—d Love 1 Ioh 4 16. Women in greatest number truly gracious because most affectionate 1 Tim. 5.17 The Pastor preferred before the Teacher because the truth of truth in the heart lieth in the affection Knowledge where it is eminent in truth as well as appearance there affection is equally eminent David and Salomon compared with Paul Solomons preeminence in knowledg extended to Politicks and naturall Philosophy only 2 Cor. 12.3 2 Cor. 11.26 True knowledg true affection separated from all appearances or outward advantages of the body or the like are one Apprehensions conclusions affirmations c. all one truth in the soule The operations of the soule are proved one with the essence thereof The activity which is the form of the soul not different from the actions thereof Not of a higher straine Nor of a lower Neither can it be various The distinction betweene actus primus and actus secundus examined The distinction betweene Substance and Accident called into question The nature of Beauty illustrating time and place Time and Place nothing different from the essence of the soul The definitions of time and place rejected Place Time All actions nothing if time be any thing The difficulty untied how God seeth things The same truth taking varicus shapes in our apprehensions Set forth by a similitude taken from the Sun The same act of sense perfectly one yet varied unto many formes A Similitude from the trigonall glasse Sense confuted by Copernicus * Capernic Kepler Gallilaeus de Galil Object Succession of moments apparent not reall The scule never acts falsly Object Resp. In false propositions of the soule so farre as it acts it acts truly where it is deceived it is by not acting Paine hath no reall Being Mart. lib. 2. Epigr. 80. The happinesse of our lives advanced by this opinion Mart. li 6. Ep. 70. This Vnity the fountaine of knowledg Action wholly depends on knowledg Ob. Resp. All things one piece Mat. 20.15 Propriety maketh lovely The vanity of dividing knowledg into many Sciences Confusions from division in knowledg Knowledg double of Beings of their Causes Knowledg of Beings twofold of their existencies and their natures Knowledg of existencies necessary but altogether uncertain Knowledg of the natures more uncertain than the existencies * As all those laws concerning slaves whereas a slave indeed is non ens for if any man have given away with Esau his birth right yet he hath not lost it because manhood and religion are not mei juris they are talents which God hath intrusted me with and are no more deputable than places of jud catuâ—e Et sic de caeteris In what sense Knowledg of Beings is to be wished Two only causes received God and emanation from God Aristotles materia prima brought to light Matter Forme have their matter and forme both of which meet in the emanation The vaine search of causes in Physicks * Platonici who make the world animal magnum Vide Gal. in System Ptolem Co. pernic Keplers Harmo Aristot. Prov. 30. 18.19 See Aristot. de mundo de coelo c. Like Plato's and sir Francis Bacon's Verulan Augment Scient. Many reasonable Beings placed by Philosophy in the Soule Eurip. Tragaed Seeing and doing one in the Soule as knowing and willing Vanity of dispures in Metaphysicks Darknesse in Divinity through the ignorance of unity Faith and Repentance coevall The generall promise the object of faith Declarativè The ill consequence of the division between doctrine and discipline Doctrine of mater inworship Discipline of manner both are Doctrine both prescribed by the same God The monstrous effects of division made manifest in other peices of Divinity The weaknesse of the distinction Scientia simplicis intelligentiae purae visionis Scientia maedia discussed In what sense intermediate causes may be allowed Division the policy of the Prince of darknesse Recapitulation of all The sense of the Sabbaths command All things Ordinances The intention of speciall Ordinances Mourning and joy reconciled * Matth. 24 Various sorts of Millenaries The first too earnall The second only Spirituall A third sort in some things too literall
Proverb I must remaine a Sceptick although one undertake to teach me how and whence it is that various rowlings of the tongue shall send forth so many articulate voices and so many severall languages Till it be known how all numbers gather themselves into an Unity I must not give credence to another who promiseth an accompt of the estuation of the Sea I know some surrender Neptunes Trident to the Moone and there six the reason of Thetis her uncertain ebbings Others * give the world a good paire of lungs and from these Bellowes expect the causes of what they inquire for Others take a dish of water and shaking it up and down think to cleere this difficulty But these their ratiocinations discover cleerly that with NOAHS Dove through over-much water they can finde no ground for footing For veritas non quaerit angulos And if the reason were ready they would not have disputed and yet they are very confident and why may not they be so who dare venture to give before they prove any Orbs the government of the Orbs to a band of celestiall intelligences I shall not wonder if these men every where finde an Euripus and at its bankes imitate their Grandy's outcry Quia ego non possum te capere tu me capias How doth the Spirit befoole these men First hee telleth them that they are so farre from finding out the Causes that they are ignorant of the Effects Knowest thou the time when the wild Goats of the rock bring forth or canst thou mark when the Hindes doe calve Canst thou number the moneths that they fulfill or knowest thou the time when they bring forth Salomon saith There are three things too wonderfull for me yea foure which I know not The way of an Eagle in the aire the way of a serpent upon a rocke the way of a ship in the midst of the sea and the way of a man with a maid How doth our great Master perplexe himselfe in the inquiry of causes Sometimes he makes the principia of naturall things to be contraria whereas neither the heavens nor the starres nor anything that is by univocall generation is that way produced Sometimes he allowes three principia Privatio Materia Forma forgetting his own principle that Ex nihilo nihil fit not remembring that when hee hath matter and forme he is yet to seek for the Rock and Pit out of which matter and form are digged and hewed and therefore instituteth two severall authors one of matter another of forme I confesse his Commentators doe file of some rust from these Tenets but not so cleerely as to make him give the right cause of Being Romance's and New-Atlantides I shall gladly embrace as pleasant and glorious entertainements from specious and Ambrosian wits But for true knowledge of causes having no cause to expect I will not hope Sis Walter Raleigh saith exceeding well that the Cheese-wife knoweth that Runnet curdleth Cheese but the Philosoher knoweth not how All this while I doe not reject an industrious search after wisedome though the wisest of men saith He that increaseth wisedome increaseth griefe I doe only with Sir Francis Bacon condemne doctrinam phantasticam litigiosam fucatam mollem a nice unnecessary prying into those things which profit not Too great exactnesse in this Learning hath caused our Meteorologists to blush when their confidence hath proved but a Vapour Too great hopes of discovering the mysterie of nature hath caused some contrary to the authority of Scripture contrary to the opinion of Iulius Caesar Picus Mirandula Cornelius à Lapide Ioan Barclaius cum multis aliis to attribute an unwarranted power to the starres over our bodies But this ensueth while we follow for learning what is not And so that noble comprehensive activity the soule of man is hindered from entertaining in its place more generous more usefull and sublimated Truths How would the soule improve if all Aristotles Materia prima Plato's Mens Platonica Hermes Trismegistus his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} were converted into some spirituall light the soule might soare and raise it selfe up to Universall Being bathe it selfe in those stately deep and glorious streames of of Vnity see God in Iesus Christ the first chiefe and sole cause of all Being It would not then containe it selfe within particular rivulets in whose shallow waters it can encounter nothing but sand or pebbles seeing it may fully delight it selfe in the first rise of all delight Iesus Christ Thus when you see the face of Beauty you will perfectly be assured how many the severall pieces which make it up must be what their nature and their severall proportions So shall you with certainty descend to knowledge of existences essences when you shall rest in one universall cause and Metaphysicks Mathematicks and Logick will happily prove one while they teach the variations of Vnity through severall numbers All particular Sciences will be subordinate and particular applications of these So all shall be according to Ficinus Circulus boni per bonum in bonum rediens and the face of divine Beauty shall bee unveiled through all CHAP. XVI The unhappy fruits of Division in other parts of Learning made manifest CAst your eye on Morall Philosophy and see how the truth is darkened by distinctions and divisions How our Masters have set up in the same soule Two fountaines of Reason the Will and the Vnderstanding Have they not virtutes Intellectuales Morales Is it not a great question Vtrum Prudentia sit virtus Moralis Vtrum Summum Bonum sit in Intellectu an Voluntate Vtrum Prudentia possit separari à virtute Morali Vtrum virtus Moralis sita sit in Appetitu Rationali an Sensitivo I say these questions especially the dividing of the soule into so many faculties enthrones many reasonable Beings in the soule For when the will entertaineth or rejecteth the proposition of the understanding shee must doe it one of these three wayes Either by an instinct and this men will not have for hoc est brutum Or by chance and this many reject for then she hath no liberty Or by discourse and this most pitch upon for then she doth exercise vim illam imperatricem which I reade of amongst them but understand not Now if they conclude upon this third way What is this Discourse but the Work of an Vnderstanding if the Will act that way which is or ought to be to the Vnderstanding proprium quarto modo Is not then the will an Vnderstanding Thus like an unskillfull Artist they mince with distinctions they whet till there be no more Steele and whilst they would sharpen they annihilate Whilst they would inlarge they overthrow the Soule They create names and say with Ajax they are Vlysses and so fight with them They do as one faith very well giving Passion eyes make Reason blind raising the will they ruine the