to place mankind here in an immature and more imperfect state that so we might in a way congruous to free and rational Agents by degrees be fitted for and at length arrive at a better and more raised condition of life As in nature all things commence their Beings in a rude and immature state and make orderly progressions to farther degrees of maturity 'till they arrive at the utmost perfections their Beings are capable of so is mankind Created and born into the World as it were in the Spring in a Budding and Blossoming season that so we may by proceeding forward in the differing Periods of our lives grow up to higher and more excellent Capacities till at length we ripen into a state of maturity and perfection Our natures are at first somewhat rough-cast to the end that they might be refined and polished by Vertue and Religion so that 't is the main and perhaps only designe of Religion to perfect and advance our Natures and make us capable of a higher and more noble condition of life Now I need not declaim and expatiate upon the neatness and consistency of this Hypothesis when we know by experience that 't is the way and method pitch'd upon by Providence to conduct mankind to its Perfection it being an Oeconomy hugely agreeable to all the designes and purposes of Religion the Natural tendency whereof is to raise us to higher Capacities and nearer approaches to the Divine Nature This gives a more general Reason of the present low and imperfect condition of mankind but that I may give a more certain and perspicuous account thereof and more close to the main Origenian objection viz. why God should put pure and immaculate Souls into these disorderly Bruitish Bodies I shall make my Hypothesis more distinct and particular Mankind then is an order of Beings placed in a middle state between Angels and Brutes made up of contrary principles viz. Matter and Spirit endued with contrary Faculties viz. Animal and Rational and encompass'd with contrary Objects proportion'd to their respective faculties that so they may be in a capacity to exercise the Vertues proper and peculiar to their compounded and heterogenial Natures For the perfection of humane Souls does not consist in an effeminate Beauty and Physical proportions but in a manly courage and moral accomplishments as at the Olympick Games there was no regard had to Beauty and Neatness they only were capable of honour and reputation who had courage and patience enough to combate And the life of man in this world is nothing else but an Olympick exercise God having placed us here not to admire the native Beauty and Perfection of our Beings but to exercise our selves in the conflicts and difficulties of Vertue therefore the worth and praise of the Soul consists in a Braveness and Gallantry of Spirit when it scorns to be usurp'd upon by those faculties that ought to obey her and checks and controules all their unruly and tumultuous exorbitances by her own sovereign and imperial Laws and resolutely defends its own Authority and Prerogative against all the furious and rebellious attempts of Passion and Concupiscence And therefore though humane Souls be capable of subsisting by themselves yet God has placed them in Bodies full of bruitish and unreasonable Propensions that they might be capable of exercising many choice and excellent Vertues which otherwise could never have been at all such as Temperance Sobriety Chastity Patience Meekness Equanimity and all other Vertues that consist in the Empire of Reason over Passion Appetite Religion is common to Men and Angels appertaining to them purely as Spirits but Vertue is proper to man alone and belongs to him as a Being made up of contrary principles whence spring contrary desires and inclinations in the good or bad Government whereof consists the Nature of Vertue and Vice upon this score 't is that Vertue is never attributed to God because being of a simple purely spiritual nature he has no unruly passions and sensual Appetites to Govern And therefore the Platonists though they place all Intellectual Vertues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the abstracted Soul yet they will have all moral ones reside 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Composition denying the naked Soul to be capable of moral Good or Evil these belonging only to the whole which results from Soul and Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saies Plotinus And this by the way is their meaning when they unanimously resolve that grand perplexing enquiry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the terrestrial Hyle because our material Principle by reason of its intrinsique dulness and stupidity naturally hinders and obstructs the intellectual efforts of the mind and inclines it to the love of material and sensual objects which if it suffer it self to be so far immerst into matter as to persue only or chiefly the satisfaction of its gross and sottish Propersities thence naturally spring all those Irregularities that pass under the name of Moral Vices And this account of the Origine of Evil is not so devoid of Reason as some Learned men would perswade us For 1 it does not as is objected make matter to be essentially evil but rather the occasion thereof from its extra essential union with the soul. Nor 2 does it make the existence of evil natural and necessary for it dos not assert that it results from the nature of matter as they would make us believe but only an accidental effect thereof after its union with the soul in that from the sluggishnesse of its nature it inclines the soul to the love of gross and material objects and if the soul be so carelesse as to yeild to its inclinations it becomes the voluntary cause of its own evil But you will think my Pen very unruly if it be so apt to flie out into Digressions when 't is in so great speed and therefore I return Now because the nature of Vertue consists in the minds governing the Bruitish and Animal appetites and motions of the body Providence has furnish'd it with instruments convenient for that purpose for having its principal and commanding residence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the Nerves that convey all motions and impressions backward and forward have their Original 't is able by its immediate influence upon them to command and bridle all the Animal motions of the Body Thus because all excess of Passion consists in an irregular motion of the blood the Nerves which the soul uses as its reins are twisted about the veins and arteries that so by contracting them it may be able to refrain and check the Impetuosity of the Bloods motion and consequently curb the eager and unruly passion as when for example such an object is presented to us that naturally provokes to anger which mainly consists in a violent ebullition and fervor of the blood about the Region of the Heart which violently hurrying from thence into the Brain disorders the motions of the Spirits there and so
by confounding the phautasms that lodge therein disturb all its conceptions and operations then does it concern the Soul to abate and cool this unruly heat which is effected by restraining the violence of the Torrent which is effected by its influence upon those Nerves that are the passage and high way from the Brain to the Heart And therefore the Providence of nature has made a peculiar passage for commerce between the Head and the Heart in Man where it has made none in Beasts viz. whereas the Praecordia of Beasts are furnished with nervous branches only from the Par vagum to supply the vital functions with spirits in man there are peculiar large branches derived from the Intercostal Nerve into the same region only for a way of commerce between the Brain and the Heart and passage of the Animal spirits from the one to the other as need shall require In so much that we may define Prudence and Virtue to be nothing else but a due commerce between the Brain the Heart which Plotinus only expresses more abstractedly when he describes it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which the fore-cited machless Author supplys us with a clear Example viz. that dissecting a Changeling or Natural Fool the chief defect he could discover in him was that this Plexus of the Intercostal Nerve which is proper to the body of Man and is the way of commerce for the Animal spirits between the Heart and the Brain was exceeding small and its branches very thin By reason whereof his Soul could have but very little command over his Passions and Appeties in the impotency and irregularity whereof consists the nature of Folly The result of all is this that mankind is compounded of contrary Principles endued with contrary desires and inclinations to the end that there might be an order of Beings in the world without which there would perhaps have been one Species wanting to compleat the Universe capable of all those Heroick Vertues which consist in the Empire of Reason over the brutish and sensual Faculties As also that by the right use and emprovement of our superiour Powers we might be raised to greater Capacities and qualified for higher and more divine Accomplishments So that man seems to differ from the Angels only in this that he must by conquest and industry win the happiness which is entail'd on their Natures for when we become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in our dispositions we shall be made so too in our enjoyments the Divine Goodness having graciously appointed that when the Soul is so far advanced in Vertue as to live above the reach of all its Passions and Desires that then it shall be translated into a more free and disintangled state where it shall be neither enticed nor vex'd with the importunity of these lower and bruitish Appetites but shall enjoy the Serenity and Pleasures of a pure and intellectual Being as the Reward of its former Pains and Industry As on the contrary when any man suffers his Passions and Brutish Appetites to beat Reason out of its Throne and to run headlong into an ungovernable Anarchy he degenerates from humanity grows incorrigible in sin and sinks so deep into the Animal life as to be made uncapable of acting Vertuously and suitably to the ends of his Being and thence is congruously doom'd to the Portion of degenerate and apostate Spirits as being fit for nothing else So that the whole designe of Providence in sending us into this world is only that we may in a way congruous to rational Agents prepare our selves for another and therefore the Souls of men shall at their departure hence be stated in a condition proportion'd to their good or bad Qualifications I am apt to be positive and dogmatical in this Hypothesis not so much because it gives a rational and satisfactory account of Gods sending pure and innocent Souls into Bodies full of brutish and irregular Inclinations as because it exactly agrees with the Condition of our Natures with the natural tendency of Vertue and Religion and with the whole Oeconomy of Providence in conducting mankind to their future happiness Not to mention its consonancy with Saint Pauls Hypothesis in his Account of the Civil and Intestine War between the law of the Mind and the law of the Members And now having laid my Hypothesis I come to shew 1. that mankind is endued with such faculties by the use whereof he may attain to the highest degrees of Vertue and Happiness 2 that we have the greatest endearments and advantages in the world to push us forward to a diligent and vigorous Prosecution thereof And if Vertue and Happiness be in our own power and if we are invited to pursue and endeavour after them by the greatest endearments and perswasions then certainly Providence has placed us in a sufficient capacity of being happy and if it happen that we should at last be abandoned to Misery we must owe it to our own choice and prodigious folly 1. First then Mankind is furnished with such faculties by the use whereof he may arrive at Vertue and Happiness To evidence this I require no other Postulatum then that which is the great foundation of all Religion and Morality viz. that the Mind of man is endued with Reason and Understanding able to discern the essential differences of Good and Evil and with Liberty and Election able to choose and pursue the one and eschew the other This I say is a Postulatum so just and evident as that it cannot be denyed without destroying not onely the Nature of Good and Evil but of Man himself For if in any thing we differ from Brutes 't is in the Reason and Liberty of our minds all our other faculties we have in common with them 't is these alone that are the peculiar Prerogatives of humane Nature and therefore without them we may be Sheep or Oxen but not Men. Separat haec nos A grege mutorum atque ideo venerabile soli Sortiti Ingenium divinorumque capaces Atque exercendis capiendisque Artibus apti Sensum à caelesti demissum traximus Arce However these are the efficient Causes and necessary Foundations of all Morality for no Action can be morally Good or Evil but what we can choose and concerning which we can deliberate because without them all our Actions would be either Casual or Fatal and the meer Issues of Chance or Necessity and by consequence as uncapable of being moral as those motions that result purely from Mechanical Powers as I have already I think demonstrated in what I have discoursed concerning the Freedom of the Divine Goodness And now if the mind of man be a deliberative and elective Principle able to discern between Good and Evil Happiness and Misery and to choose the one and refuse the other then 't is at its own choice and in its own power to be Vertuous and Happy for no body questions but that Goodness and Happiness are much
and wickedness are in use and practise there seems little less then a necessity of swimming down in the stream of our Countrys Vices And then the greatest part of the World having been always over-run with all manner of Lust and Barbarity for God to send out of his pure and holy hands an immaculate soul capable of living elsewhere and fit for all virtue and heavenly Wisdom into an habitation in such parts of the Earth where reigns nothing but gross Ignorance and Vice by which she cannot fail without a miracle to be over-born what is this say they but to betray his own off-spring unto unavoidable miseries As to the second of these they argue thus seeing there are in mankind strange fatal propensities to all manner of vice wickedness that flow from the very intrinsick constitution of their Bodies how can it be consistent with the Goodness and Righteousness of God the blessed spring of all virtue and Holiness and tender lover of all his Creatures to put innocent souls into such foul and untamed bodies which so fatally and necessarily hurry them to that which alone of all things in the world he disapproves of and which he knows will be their utter bane and miserable ruin And here some of them argue more particularly from the absurdity of the two opinions of the souls immediate creation or seminal traduction for if it begins neither of these waies it must have pre-existed therefore 1 against the first of them they use the forementioned Argument viz. that it seems inconsistent with the Goodness and Benignity of God to put pure and immaculate spirits into such Bodys as will presently defile them pervert all their powers and faculties and incline them to all manner of vice and impiety And then 2 against the second viz. seminal Propagation of souls they argue from the nature of the soul it self for say they if the soul be generated then it must be made of the soul of the Parent which is against the nature of an immaterial Being the cheif propertie of which is to be indiscerpable These are the most material considerations urged in behalf of Preexistence others that either depend on these or are less considerable I shall have occasion to mention as I proceed and withal to replie to a few passages of Scripture that for the better countenance of the business they press to serve in the cause of this Controversie Having given you this brief but comprehensive account of the Hypothesis it self I now proceed to give in my Exceptions First then although I am not oblig'd by vertue of what I have discoursed in my fifth exception against the Platonick Philosophie to oppose this Hypothesis by Counter-arguings because 't is out of the sphere of Humane knowledge and to be ranked among Epicurus's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things meerly possible and meerly contingent and so is sufficiently confuted by destroying the grounds on which it stands yet to render my Triumph over it more full and entire I shall make my first onset from an objection drawn from its ill corresponding with the divine Attributes of Wisdome Justice and Goodness and that upon a twofold account 1. In that it supposes God to inflict the severities of his Justice without attaining the ends thereof for to what purpose is it to inflict penalties upon any Person for offences of which he is as ignorant as he could have been though they had never been committed For assign they what ends of Justice they please this is most undenyably certain that to punish a guilty Person that is invinvincibly ignorant of his sins is as far from attaining the ends of Justice as to inflict the same Punishments upon one that 's guiltless for if he has no knowledge of his miscarriages he has the same reason to be faultless in his own esteem as he that is really so But for God to chastise with the rods of his vengeance any Creature that is in the same condition with the Innocent and guiltless in reference to the ends of Justice and Punishment bids not a less defiance to the Reputation of his Attributes then to inflict the same Punishments upon one that never deserved it I conclude therefore that if the calamities of this life were inflicted upon us only as punishments of sins committed in another Providence would have provided some effectual means to preserve them in our Memories and therefore because we find no remainders of any such Records in our minds 't is I think sufficient evidence to all sober and impartiall enquirers that our living and sinning in a former state is as false as inevident 2. In that it would be an invincible Temptation to mankind to have hard and jealous thoughts of Gods dealings with them For when they see themselves environed with miseries and punishments and feel the heavie strokes of divine Anger and yet are utterly ignorant that they have offended him what more just and reasonable grounds can they have not only to call in question but flatly to denie his Goodness and Equity For if it will not comport with Gods Righteousness and Benignity to place us in these sad Circumstances we are in unless thereby to punish us for our former prevarications as the patrons of Preexistence fiercely and clamarously contest when we know our selves to be in this sad plite and yet are utterly destitute of all knowledge how we deserved it what can we more naturally infer then that God has contrary to all the Laws of Justice and Equity made us Wretched and Miserable Should he take the most lewd and debauched Vilain upon Earth and thrust him into the Dungeons of endless misery but withal take away all sence and memory of his former state and wickedness would not that miserable wretch have just reason to exclaim against the Crueltie of his Maker as supposing himself created in that sad deplorable state And suppose it possible for God to have produced any being in the same miserable condition the damned in Hell are supposed to suffer that wretched Creature might as well argue for a state of Preexistence in which it had deserved the Torments it endures as any other being that finds it self in that forlorn condition but is deprived of all knowledge of any former scene of Life Now God cannot in Reason expect we should acknowledge his Justice and Righteousness contrary to his actings and therefore if he has inflicted upon us those Calamities that cannot justly be inflicted upon any but sinners and yet not let us know we are such what else can we conclude but that we innocents are unjustly doom'd to the sad and miserable Portion of the Wicked Perhaps it would not be difficult to invent many other not inconsiderable Objections but these are all that occurr to my thoughts at present all those I have met with in Authors are most lamentably frivolous and impertinent And therefore I shall immediately pass on to the main and only needful part of my
Task viz. to evince the Groundlesness of this Hypothesis I oppose for if I can shew the Ratiocinations from whence they conclude its Truth and Reality to be apparently vaine and frivolous I shall thereby sufficiently evidence the vanity of the Hypothesis it self as being built upon vain and trifling Pretences But before I descend to their particular Examination it will not be impertinent to observe 1. That it would be no difficult task to erect other much different or quite contrary Hypotheses Methinks that purely Phisical account which Porphiry some where gives of the Souls descent into these Terrestrial Bodies is as neat and handsome as the Origenian or Moral one for as this derives our lapse Originally from our voluntary and chosen Immoralities that other derives them meerly from a Physical necessity which it illustrates by this similitude As a fruitful field though it may for a certain period of years yield good Grain yet at length it is exhausted and grows barren and then if sit be laid fallow though it brings forth nothing but weeds and tares yet it thereby recovers its ancient vigour and fruitfulness so our Souls having been for many ages impregnated with the seed of Divine Ideas by degrees spent themselves in bringing forth large returns of contemplation till at length their Intellectual powers decaying the higher part falls into a swoon and they can exert no acts but of Imagination whence spring forth the powers of the Vegetal life which cause in them strong and irresistible propensities to an union with these inferior and terrestrial Bodies in order to the awaking of the higher Powers for because every thing in the Etherial Regions is too calme and serene to awake them they are therefore conveyed into this place of noises and disturbance and invessel'd in a body full of rude and impetuous passions by which they may be chafed into life and sensation again Or what if I would out of a perverse humour of contradiction assigne a quite contrary Hypothesis of Pre-existence and as they will have this world a place of Punishment and maintain the Soul came into it by lapsing from a happier and more excellent condition so why may not I assert that 't is a place of Reward and that God sends us hither to reward our vertuous actions in a lower and less happy condition of life or that they that had miscarried in a weaker and less advantageous state might once more try their fortunes in better and more advantageous circumstances Which Hypothesis would be as much and perhaps more consistent with it self then the contrary For seeing they will needs have it the design of Providence in thrusting the Soul down into this Region of Misery to amend and reform as well as chastise it it seems much more consonant to effect this by raising it to a more perfect state then dooming it to a worse for 't is a very preposterous way to Reformation to put the soul into such fatal propensities of sinning as they say 't is in here this being the directest course utterly and irrecoverably to undo it And now had I a mind to set up for a Maker of Hypotheses which you see is but an easie trade I might so trim and adorn this with artificial and affected Phrases and so support it with a set of Theorems Pillars and Fundamental Principles as to make it appear a competently handsome and well built Structure And withal I think it would be able to stand the shock of those Objections and Counter-evidences that would shrewdly shake if not utterly demolish the Origenian Hypothesis But if any Origenist shall disapprove my Hypothesis I only challenge him to confute it for I am sure the like arguments will confute his own and therefore to shew him the Vanity of inventing groundless and imaginary Hypotheses I will be so cross-grain'd as not to abandon mine as long as he shall persist peremptory in his 2. The second thing I am to observe is that they which is the usual oversight of unwary disputants dispute not more against their Adversaries then themselves in that the Arguments they use to destroy all other Hypotheses and confirm their own do as evidently oppose it as them For their own account of our descent into this world is that 't is onely a merciful provision and contrivance of the infinite Wisdom and Goodness of God the end of all whose Councils is his Creatures Happinesse to put lost and delinquent Souls into a capacity of acting their parts anew that so so many of his excellent creatures might not be lost and undone irrecoverably but that they might be in a condition to recover the old happiness of their Celestial state Now is it not highly derogatory to the infinite and unbounded Wisdome of God that he should detrude those souls which he so seriously designs to make happy into a state so hazardous wherein he seeth it to be ten thousand to one but that they will corrupt and defile themselves and so make themselves more miserable here and to Eternity hereafter A strange method of Recovery this to put them into such a fatal necessitie of perishing 'T is but an odd contrivance for their Restauration to happiness to use such means to compass it which t is ten thousand to one but will make them infinitely more miserable This is such a contrivance of Mercy that puts us in a worse condition then it abandons the Devils to for if the conditions of our Recovery be so near being impossible our state is as bad as theirs and if the non-performance of these conditions be punisht with greater penalties 't is worse Better be abandon'd to an eternal dispair then have hopes to be rescued onely by such means as 't is ten thousand to one but will exceedingly encrease our Torment and Misery Again If we call to mind the sad accounts we have met withal in History of times and places almost all the world over over-run with all manner of barbarity and lust adopted even into their Laws and practised in their most solemn Religions how can we but think that the Soul then and there born and living is inevitably condemned to all Iniquity and Impiety But can we imagine that infinite Wisdom seriously purposes to restore us to our ancient Holiness and Purity when it places us in such a state in which we are inevitably condemned to all Iniquity and Impiety If God had contrived to betray us into all manner of vice and wickedness how could he more effectually have accomplish't it then by putting us into such a condition as should inevitably condemn us to all Iniquity and Impiety That Father would take a strange course to reform a debauch'd and wretchless Child that should go about to effect it by abandoning him to the Society of Rogues and Villains Pag. 28. For God therefore to send an immortal Soul whose happinesse is his greatest design and contrivance into an habitation in such parts of the Earth where
reigns nothing but gross ignorance and vice by which she cannot fail without a miracle to be over-born what is this but to betray his own off-spring for he is the Father of Spirits unto unavoidable misery whilest he pretends to plot and contrive their happiness and so govern the world with less prudence then an ordinary discreet man would do Once more in their own words Pag. 35. I would aske them whether or no the condition of our nature considered the strong inclinations naturally to that which is evil and those strengthned and further confirmed for several years before we can come to have any considerable use of our Reason or arrive to any command over our selves Lastly the way and manner how the Elections of our will are performed which we never find free where there is a custome or passion against it and how corporeal motions determine the thoughts and passions of our minds I ask them whether these things being considered it be not hundreds to one odds that we shall choose the ways of Vice rather then Vertue Or let the proportion be as little as they can with any colour pretend they cannot clear the Wisdom and Discretion of Divine Providence by their Hypothesis which thrusts the Spirits it intends to make for ever happy into so great a danger of being defiled and corrupted by the passions of the Body and of soundly smarting for it hereafter Thus you see what strong Objections the Arguments they urge with most noise and clamour are against themselves if therefore these Phaenomena be inexplicable without the Origenian Hypothesis they are so too with it and if so then the result of all is that they are not so much Arguments of Preexistence as Aspersions of Providence For whatever Hypothesis is true they charge Gods Transactions with mankind either of Injustice or Folly and therefore I shall attempt their solution not so much to oppose the Hypothesis of Preexistence as to vindicate the Divine Providence from so many contumelious and unworthy Reproaches After these more general considerations against the Hypothesis it self I come now to a particular Examination of the Arguments on which 't is founded First then as for that strong Demonstration as they stile it taken from the Nature of Gods goodness which they suppose constrain'd to do always that which is best 't is so fully not only answered but confuted in what I have already discoursed of the nature and extent of Gods Goodness and Dominion that to subjoyn any formal Reply would be but a needless and troublesome Repetition For having made it apparently evident that any state better then that of Non-existence may be the object of Gods Dominion and the effect of his Goodness every condition of Being preferable to that of Not-being is not onely consistent with the Divine Goodness but a Product of it and therefore if they will make good this Argument drawn from the Divine Goodness for their Hypothesis they must first either disprove the Truth and Validity of my preceding discourses or else make it appear that the condition of Souls in this life is more deplorable and less desirable then the state of Annihilation And when they shall have done either they will deserve a farther reply but not till then And yet I cannot forbear to super add this one Consideration more viz. that the boundless Infinity of the Divine Goodness is consistent with the existence of different Ranks and Orders of Creatures God being not constreined to make every Creature the most Perfect he can for then there would have been but one sort of Beings viz. the highest and most consuminate Rank of all whereas we see the World replenish'd with divers species of Creatures some more some less perfect Now if notwithstanding the Infiniteness of the Divine Goodness there may be various kinds of Creatures of various and unequal Perfections then what necessity or Reason imaginable is there the Divine Goodness should be constrain'd to let forth its largest Emanations to mankind for why may not our species be of an inferiour Rank in the Order of Beings And if so then what necessity is there we should be endued with all possible Perfections Are there not several Ranks of Spirits or Immaterial Beings And are not the Assertors of Preexistence the most Zealous Patrons thereof And do they not Marshal the Souls of Men in one of the lowest and most imperfect Orders as being united to the grossest and most ignoble Body viz. Terrestrial matter whilst all the rest reside in Bodies of Aire or Aether and therefore for men to deem the Divine Goodness less infinite because its Communications are not so great to them as they are to others is as absurd as it was for the Figs in the Fable that complain'd to Iupiter because he had not made them Grapes Again why might not all these several Ranks of immaterial Beings be at first created in the same estate they are in at present without lapsing from a higher to a lower condition of life as well as several sorts of material creatures which were at first disposed in the same order they still hold If God could his Goodness notwithstanding create such an innumerable variety of Insects which are but imperfect and half Animals then why might he not also notwithstanding the same Goodness create among spiritual Essences a species not more perfect then humane Souls For if the boundlesness of Gods goodness does not hinder but that some Creatures may exist in a much more imperfect Condition then others then neither can it hinder but that the Souls of men might be placed in a much lesse perfect condition then other immaterial Beings From all which it followes that it cannot with the least pretence of Reason be argued from the Nature of Gods Goodness that the Souls of men did once preexist in the happiest state which Beings of their Nature are possibly capable of enjoying As for their Arguments taken from the Providence of God their whole force Centers in this one difficulty that God has not taken sufficient care for the happiness of his Creatures but has left them too obnoxious to Sin and Miserie now to assoil and clear this Objection I need only evince that the Divine Providence has made not only sufficient but large provisions for the Happiness of Mankind But I shall not be content nakedly to answer their Objections unless I can confute them too In order to which I shall undertake to do these two things 1. To propose a plain and easie Hypothesis that gives a rational and satisfactory account of all the forementioned Phaenomina of Providence And then 2. To shew that Mankind is not only endued with such Faculties by the use whereof he may arrive at the highest degrees of Vertue and Happiness but also that we have the greatest Endearments and Advantages in the world to engage and assist us in a diligent and vigorous prosecution thereof My Hypothesis is this That it has pleased Providence
or Transmigration of Souls that was the common Opinion of the Jews 't is stiled by the Rabins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Revolution of Souls in opposition to their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Revolution of the Dead whereby they meant the Rowling of the Carcasses of Jewes that happen to be Interred in the polluted Earth of the Gentiles through the secret Caverns of the Earth to Palestine where they believe all Jews shall arise at the last Resurrection and hence some of them have in their old age travelled to the Holy Land to lay their Bones there to avoid the disturbance of their Subterraneous Pilgrimage and R. Salomon tells us the Reason why Iacob charg'd his Son Ioseph to conveigh his Corps from Egypt to Canaan was partly that his dust might not afterwards be turn'd into Lice a cleanly old man and partly to escape the trouble of this posthumous Journey But their impertinencies tempt me to be so too Now that the opinion of Transanimation obtain'd among the Jews is proved from the testimony of Iosephus lib. 2. de Bello Iud. cap. 7. where he relates among the dogmata of the Pharisees that the souls of good men did not perish but did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Tisbi relates that 't is the common opinion of the Circumcised Doctors that every Soul animates three Bodies which they after their usual rare of arguing prove from that passage in Iob. 33. 29. All these things God worketh with man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tribus vicibus And by vertue of this Vicissitude they assert the Soul of Adam to have inform'd the Body of King David and that the Soul of David will by secret Revolutions wind it selfe into the Messiah which they think is clearly intimated by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being compounded of the Initial Letters of Adam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 David 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Messiah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As also that those two mighty zealots Phinees Elias were animated with the same spirit because of the resemblance of their Zeal and that Labans Soul was translated into Balaams Abels into Seth and Abravanel that bold Jew asserts that it was Esau's Soul that possest our Saviour Manasse Ben Israel cites several of their old Books and Authors to this purpose And therefore if this passage proves any thing it proves too much viz. not onely the Preexistence but also the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or perpetual revolution of Souls For if they can infer any thing in favour of Preexistence from our Saviours silence in so apt an occasion to have rectified the common Errour concerning it they may with the same reason conclude his Approbation of the Transmigration of Souls this being the common Opinion of the Jews and so as probably implyed in the Disciples Quere 3. It was not our Saviours custom to take notice of every impertinent Question much less the suppositions on which they relyed Thus when his Apostles asked him Acts 1. 6. Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel Though it was an important Question and bottom'd upon a grand and dangerous mistake he makes no reply to it but only takes occasion thence to discourse of matters of a widely distant nature but that more closely toucht their concerns And therefore nothing can be fairly inferred from our Saviours silence especially when he had replyed so fully to the direct scope of the Question there was not any necessity he should take notice of the Theories it collaterally implied And if the Hypothesis of Preexistence were so principally implied in the main scope of the question as is pretended then is it expresly enough destroyed by our Saviours plain and unlimited Negation To conclude he had as good ground to take occasion from their Enquiry to discourse of the Equity of punishing Posterity for their Ancestors sins it being one of the main Phaenomena of Providence and of as grand importance as they can presume the Hypothesis of Pre-existence to be and yet notwithstanding the fairness of the opportunity and the weightiness of the subject 't is evident he took no notice of it The other Resembling Passage I meet with in Iob 38. 4. where the Almighty undertakes to pose Iob through all the Phaenomena of Nature and among other particulars of the true Origine of things and to convince him of his ignorance he tells him he was so far from being acquainted with it that he was then shut up in the dark state of Non-existence Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth c. Now if all Spirits had been in Being when the foundations of the Earth were laid as our Adversaries conclude from the ensuing words When the morning Stars sang together and all the Sonnes of God shouted for Ioy. By the former whereof say they is intended the Angels by the latter the blessed untainted Souls But if this gloss were as true as 't is precarious then Iob might have justly replied to the Almighty that himself was present among the Sons of God at the laying the Foundations of the earth and joyn'd in that great and unanimous Acclamation And then the Almighty having discoursed of each particular mystery and contrivance of Nature he concludes with this bafling Ironie Knowest thou them because thou wast then born because the number of thy days is great And yet they conclude from hence for Preexistence because the 70 render it without the Interrogation I know that thou wast then born for the number of thy days is many A various Reading may serve for a subterfuge to escape the force of an objected Testimony but certainly 't is a pitiful Argument that relies barely on the Authority of a Version when it not only contradicts the Original but the plain design of its own Context For if Iob had then been born how could God have convinced him of his unacquaintedness with the Origine of things because he was not then in Being so that unless Reason it self be out in its Logick our Adversaries are Having thus gain'd back these Texts to our side I pass on to the rest of their objections And first as for that pasage Ier. 1. 5. urged with so much Jewish confidence by Manasse Ben Israel Before I form'd thee in the Belly I knew thee and before thou camest forth out of the Womb I sanctified thee and I ordain'd thee a Prophet unto the Nations It implies nothing else but Gods designment of Ieremy to the Prophetick Office for his knowing of him imports in its native and most unstrained sense meerly his foreordaining him to that employment and then his sanctifying of him signifies in its genuine and most proper use only the separating or devoting of him to that peculiar Office which is exegetically expressed in the last branch of the Period I ordained thee to be a Prophet Besides this passage is peculiarly applied to the Prophet Ieremy in opposition to any other but should it have referred to his