considerable part of the Divine Workmanship were at first made in the highest invigoration of the spiritual and intellective Faculties which were exercis'd in Virtue and in blissful Contemplation of the supream Deity Here we see the chief Faculties of the Soul are supposed to have once enjoyed the perfectest Bliss for quality that their Natures were capable of which if in truth it had ever been so their Condition would have been in all reason eternally happy For First The Intellect and the Will being in their highest inactuation and exercise they could not purely of themselves without some Argument or Motive desert the Beatific Object because the one most perfectly understanding and the other most perfectly loving being in their highest invigoration the same they should otherwise without regard had to any Object withdrawing them from God have left and forsaken what was most clearly known by the Intellect to be the Soul 's chiefest Good and as such practically delighted in with all the strength of the Will which is a thing impossible the Intellect being never drawn but by some Argument true or false nor the Will inclined without a Motive really or apparently good Neither Secondly could the Souls copartner the Body nor the inferior Powers of the Soul relating to the Body have drawn the supream Faculties from that which they fully experienced to be amiableness it self and the only true Felicity to gratifie any or all of them for the Soul was united with the most subtil and aethereal Matter that it was capable of inacting and the inferior Powers those relating to the Body being at a very low ebb of exercise were wholly subservient to the Superior and employed in nothing but what was serviceable to that higher Life so that the Senses did but present occasions for Divine Love and Objects for Contemplation and the Plastic had nothing to do but to move this passive and easie Body accordingly as the Concerns of the higher Faculties required Lux Orientalis Chap. 14. pag. 114. Whence it plainly appears that the Souls inferior Powers and the Body were so far from having a stronger propensity to Objects of Sense than the superior Faculties had an inclination to God that those were wholly subservient unto these in the exercise of their proper Functions and so could be no inducement to make them forsake their enjoyed Felicity Nor Thirdly could long continuance through Torpitude or Defatigation in performing their Offices be a Cause why the Soul should desert its Bliss because when it shall be re-estated therein to Eternity it shall according to the Praeexistentiaries have a Body of the like pure aethereal Matter and the same innate triple congruity for ever which it had at first For since the supream Faculties were by Creation in their highest inactuation exercise and invigoration that their Natures rendred them capable of and the Soul united to the most tenuious pure and simple Matter as the fittest instrument for the most vigorous and spiritual Faculties as the Author of Lux Orientalis Chap. 14. pag. 114. expresly says they were the first and last state of Soul and Body will not be different which if really so then if ever we had been in perfect Bliss we should have continued therein to Eternity for the last Estate of the Blessed shall abide the Praeexistentiaries grant for ever The Annotator upon Lux Orientalis I know offers pag. 116 117 118. several things to evade this Consequence That if the last estate of the Blessed be unalterable the first would have been so also for he says First That it may be a Mistake that the Happiness is altogether the same that it was before For our first Paradisaical Bodies from which we lapsed might be of a more crude and dilute Aether not so full and saturate with Heavenly Glory and Perfection as our resurrection-Resurrection-Body is I answer that tho the Annotator makes some scruple whether the Body was by Creation such as the Author has described it to be yet I do not find that he differs from him as to the state of the Soul which in regard it was in its highest inactuation exercise and invigoration the Body that it might be adapted thereunto was of necessity to be of the most subtil and pure aethereal Matter that the Soul was capable of inacting as the Author we have seen says it was or else there would have been that disproportion between the Soul and Body as that the praeexistent state should not have been the best that Rational Nature was capable of which the Praeexistentiaries cannot admit of to be true without yielding the very Foundation of their Hypothesis to be subverted thereby since they lay it as hath been seen in this That the Eternal and Almighty Goodness the blessed Spring and Root of all things made all his Creatures in the best happiest and most perfect condition that their respective Natures rendred them capable of The Annotator's first Reason why happy Souls might formerly fall albeit they shall never hereafter in the future world do so again being you see of no validity let 's proceed to examine the rest for he saith 2ly The Soul was then unexperienced and lightly coming by that Happiness she was in did the more heedlesly forgo it before she was well aware and her Mind roved after new Adventures although she knew not what 3ly It is to be considered whether Regeneration be not a stronger Tenure for enduring Happiness than the being created happy For this being wrought so by degrees upon the Plastich 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with ineffable groans and piercing desires after that divine Life that the Spirit of God co-operating exciteth in us When Regeneration is perfected and brought to the full by these strong Agonies this may rationally be deemed a deeper tincture in the Soul than that she had by meer Creation whereby the Soul did indeed become holy innocent and happy but not coming to it with any such strong previous Conflicts and eager Workings and Thirstings after that state it might not be so firmly rooted by far as in Regeneration begun and accomplished by the operation of God's Spirit gradually but more deeply renewing the Divine Image in us 4ly It being a renovation of our Nature into a pristine state of ours the strength and depth of impression seems increased upon that account also 5ly The remembrance of all the hardships we underwent in our lapsed condition whether of Mortification or cross Rancounters this must likewise help us to persevere when once returned to our former Happiness 6ly The comparing the evanid Pleasures of our lapsed or terrestrial Life with the fulness of those Joys that we find still in our heavenly will keep us from ever having any hankering after them again 7ly The certain knowledg of everlasting punishment which if not true they could not know must be also another sure bar to any such negligences as would hazard their setled Felicity Which may be one reason why the irreclaimable are eternally punished
Vice the Path of Hell is the preferring the Love of the World before the Love of God. And as the Beatified Souls according to the higher degree of Love wherewith they are affected to God are more happy because fuller of delight so the damned Spirits the stronger affection they have to the things they lust after are more grievously tormented the disappointment of a stronger affection being more afflictive than of a weaker Object 3. According to this Doctrin neither the Bodies of the glorified Saints would participate of Bliss nor the Bodies of the damned have any portion of Pain Solut. Not so for if when the Soul abounds with Joy and Delight it be able to quicken chear and make brisk this dull and heavy Lump of Clay as we see it doth how much more will it through the immense Joys of Heaven have a powerful influence on a spiritual Body And if Grief for the disappointment of mens wished desires here can cast them into violently scorching Fevers how should the excessive Pain of the perpetual Frustration of the damneds hot Lusts but put their Bodies into an everlasting state of Burning Besides since all Bodies must be contain'd in Place as the Bodies of the Saints shall possess the most glorious which are suitable for them so the Bodies of the damned shall in habit the most dismal that are proper for them and therefore what difference of Place can contribute to Bliss and Misery they 'l differently share therein in respect of that also Object 4. Murther is a Sin that cries for Vengeance and yet if the Torments of Hell consist in the Disappointment of mens Desires there would be no Punishment but only the loss of Heaven allotted to that most horrid Crime Solut. Murther is a crying Sin indeed for it stays not for the Judgment of the World to come but it self begins its own Punishment here the Mutherer being tortured and distracted almost with the representation of the Act alone whilst it is a thing so detestable and repugnant to the very Being of human Nature that in despight of all his endeavours to the contrary he starts and is agast at the horror of it as often as it occurs to his mind though but in sleep when he neither dreads the Sentence of a terrestrial nor celestial Judg. So that when after this Life he shall have no intervention of necessary business to divert his Thoughts from it 't will be terrible and tormentive to him beyond expression since his very Essence will have a perpetual perfect antipathy to it and yet he shall ever be haunted and infested with its ghastly and dreadful visage But besides murtherers are tormented as well as other Sinners by their frustrated desires for Good being the Object of the Will every Creature which is endued therewith has an affection for some or other either real or apparent Good and 't is this latter that the wicked of all sorts ardently affect though they judg in general the state of the glorified Saints to be true felicity and their own condition a state of misery notwithstanding that they can by no means relish the manner of delight which the Blessed have for otherwise there could be no such Pain as Poena Damni the loss of Heaven since none are troubled for the want of that which they have not any respect or esteem at all for whence the very Inconsistency of the Thoughts of the damned concerning true and false Bliss set their minds upon the Rack To which is to be added yet another Torment which afflicts likewise without exception the whole Crew of reprobate Souls to wit the gnawing Viper of Envy and Malice towards the Saints in Bliss in that they obtain their full desires when they themselves are totally deprived of their own SECT VIII The only Evil which is prejudicial to Man in respect of the End for which he was created is Malum Culpae the Evil of Fault and it is either Privative or Positive The former consists in an Aversion from God the latter in a Conversion to the Creature Each of them is called Sin the one Formal the other Material The greatest Alienation of the Heart from God makes the greatest Sinner 1. SEeing it was proved sect 4. that God created Man not for any Good whatsoever to accrue thereby to himself but solely and wholly to communicate Good to his Creature 't is manifest that nothing can harm or prejudice Man in respect of the End for which he was created but that alone which is prejudicial to him in respect of his own final Good which since it has been shewn sect 4. par 13 14. to consist in the perfect Love of God 't is clear that nothing is evil to man as man or created to inherit Bliss but either the very Alienation it self of the Hearts Affection from God or something which causes the same or is an inducement thereunto 2. And since the alienation of the Hearts affection from God is in respect of God an aversion from him and that it is evident there can be no aversion from God in whom there is not any the least appearance of evil but through the inordinate desire of some temporal Benefit or Pleasure which is preferred before him 't is manifest that in these two Aversio à Deo Conversio ad Creaturam an aversion from God and a conversion to the Creature is contained the whole Evil that befall man as man or a rational Creature made to enjoy everlasting Bliss since nothing else can make him fail of being eternally happy 3. And forasmuch as the Evil which is an Aversion from God is a meer Privation of that Love of God which the Soul ought to have towards him 't is plain that actual Evil called by Divines Malum Culpae actualis or Peccatum actuale cannot be placed in an Aversion from God but in a Conversion to the Creature 4. Yet in regard it would be no hindrance to man's Felicity however strongly his Soul were addicted to any temporal Good provided the Soul's Affection to God were not any thing abated thereby 't is clear that Sin formally taken is that Evil which is an Aversion from God and that the Conversion of the Heart to the Creature or the inordinate Love of the World and worldly Vanities is Sin materially only and not formally considered 5. But this notwithstanding since it is not possible but that the Soul which immoderately affects the Creature or the satisfying an inordinate Desire must of necessity have its due Affection to God hindred or abated thereby 't is evident that in every inordinate immoderate Conversion to the Creature there is always necessarily implied and involved an aversion from God because to love two Things God and the World chiefly that is God above the World and the World above God both at the same time is plainly repugnant and impossible in regard of which it is properly sinful or formally a Transgression of the Law of God. 6. Hence
no influence at all from them but is wholly miraculous as every Effect immediately produced by God is To me it seems more rational to say that as those Children who live till they be of years capable of understanding the Reason and Use of Baptism are appointed by the Church to be informed thereof that they may make good the Engagement of their Sureties without doing of which their Baptism will not avail them to Salvation so Infant-Children upon the separation of Soul and Body are illuminated by their Angels for are they not ministring Spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be Heirs of Salvation Heb. 1. 14. And that Baptized Children are such we be taught by the Answer to the second Question in our Catechism where the Word Inheritor is rendred in the Latin Haeres and in the Greek κληÏονόμος with the Knowledg of their Baptism for then they are capable of apprehending any thing offered to the intellect it proceeding from the disposition of their Bodies and not from the nature of their Souls that they are ever uncapable of actually understanding And seeing the inclination to the Creature through Original Sin is not by far so strong as that which is contracted by frequent Acts of sinning their affections will be instantly turned to God by virtue of their Baptism signified unto them But however the Truth in this obscure Point stand this is certain that in regard Felicity consists in the Love of God sect 4. par 13. baptized Infants must some way or other obtain Charity before they arrive at Bliss or at least upon the very instant of being possessed thereof And how their Baptism should be useful to them for the obtaining of Charity except they have Knowledg of it and by whom it should be made known unto them but by their Angels unless miraculously and Miracles are not wrought where there 's no necessity of them I do not understand Yet since I know of no Divine Revelation nor of any clear demonstration after what manner their Love of God depends upon their being baptized I do not presume to affirm that my delivered Thoughts are positively true SECT XVIII In the exercise of the hearty Love of God or Charity consists the sincere observance of every Precept of the Decalogue But the absolute entire fulfilling of the Moral Law is not accomplished till Charity have attained its ultimate Perfection in Heaven 1. WHen treating of the Moral Virtues I shewed the Assistance which Prudence Temperance and Fortitude exhibit to Charity sect 14. par 2 4 5. I said I would defer my intended Discourse on Justice till I came to the Explication of the Ten Commandments whither being now come I shall endeavour to make it appear that every Precept of the Decalogue tends to the causing a firm establishment of Charity in the Soul of Man and that in the exercise thereof when it is acquired the sincere observance of the whole Law is practised albeit the absolute exact fulfilling of it be not accomplished till Charity have obtained its utmost Perfection which human Frailty will not permit the attainment of while Men carry about them a Body of Flesh 2. For since to love God with all the Heart with all the Soul with all the Mind and with all the strength Mark 12. 30. is required to the compleat exact fulfilling of the Law and that such Love would perpetually take up all the Powers of the Soul it is plain that in regard while we live in this world our Thoughts must be often employed in taking care for the necessary accommodations of Life and in using Means to further our own and others Welfare here and hereafter we cannot in this mortal state so fully fix our Affections on God as to have our Souls fully possessed of him 3. And yet forasmuch as to give God the pre-eminence in our Affections and to despise all other things in comparison of the fruition of him to eternity so as that when we are tempted to violate any of his holy Commandments the ardent desire we have for the enjoyment of him enables us to resist and overcome the Temptation forasmuch I say as thus to love God permits us not wilfully and advisedly to break any of his Precepts but engages and puts us upon the keeping them all in sincerity of Affection and unfeignedness of heart it is apparent that in the exercise of Charity is virtually contained the sincere unfeigned Observance of the whole Moral Law. 4. Which Law consists of Ten Commandments the four first whereof totally respecting Man's Behaviour towards the supream Being the only Object of these is God whom therefore they command us to look up to as he is the Author and Finisher of Eternal Salvation in which respect we are to esteem him as he truly is the prime Verity whom we are to believe the sovereign Power in whom we are to trust and the chiefest Good whom we ought to love above all things or the Object of Faith Hope and Charity 5. And seeing neither Faith nor Hope are available to Salvation save only as they contribute to Charity either in helping to produce the Habit thereof or being obtained to confirm and strengthen it sect 13. 't is clear that the Precepts of the Former Table are not observed till we love God as our Sovereign Good or be endued with Charity 6. Whosoever therefore exerciseth the Grace of Charity he is all the while employ'd in the sincere keeping of the Four first Commandments the whole design of God's forbidding us to have any other Gods besides himself to make any graven Image to fall down before it and worship it to take his holy Name in vain and to do any unnecessary worldly Business at Times appointed for Divine Offices being totally accomplished in this to cause us to fix our Souls Affections on God and to pursue with earnestness the eternal Fruition of him as our sole Sovereign Good. Object 1. If Faith and Hope be not absolutely necessary to Salvation in themselves abstracting from this that they are Ministerially beneficial to Charity then are the opposite Vices to them Infidelity and Apostacy Presumption and Despair not Sins damnable in themselves or as destructive of the contrary Virtues but only as they cannot consist together with the Grace of Charity But Infidelity and Apostasie Presumption and Despair are Sins damnable in themselves or as they are destructive of the contrary Virtues Faith and Hope abstracting from this that these are Ministerially beneficial unto Charity Ergo Solut. The Minor Proposition must be denied and justly I conceive may for although it be most certainly true that Infidelity and Apostasie Presumption and Despair debar Men of Felicity yet the Reason thereof is not because of their immediate opposition to Faith and Hope but for that they are totally inconsistent with Charity For since that no Habit is truly virtuous but in virtue of the End whereto it serves and that the End of all Virtues is Charity
namely that it may the better secure eternal happiness to others 8ly Though we have our triple vital congruity still yet the Plastick Life is so throughly satisfied with the resurrection-Resurrection-Body which is so considerably more full and saturate with all the heavenly Richness and Glory than the former that the Plastick of the Soul is as entirely taken up with this one Body as if she enjoyed the Pleasures of all the three Bodies at once Ethereal Aereal and Terrestrial Since the Annotator in the first Argument he offers why Souls will not lapse in their future state as they did in their first says only that our first Paradisiacal Bodies might be of a more crude dilute Ether not so full and saturate with heavenly Glory and Perfection as our Resurrection-Body but in his eighth Argument positively affirms that the Resurrection-Body is considerably more full and saturate with all the heavenly Richness and Glory than the former yet without any reason alledged for the same and that also in his fourth Argument he calls our last state the renovation of our pristine state and in his fifth Argument our former happiness his Assertion in the eighth Argument appears to be precarious besides that it plainly contradicts the Author's description of the first Paradisiacal Body backed with Reason unconfuted by the Annotator as in my Answer to the first Argument was observed Yea considering that Man's Nature is capable of all the Glory of the Resurrection-Body if the Glory of our first Bodies was inferior to it the Foundation of the Praeexistentiarian Hypothesis is totally razed which is That the Almighty made all Creatures in the best Happiest and most perfect Condition that their respective Natures rendred them capable of This in Answer to the eighth Argument And as to the 2 3 4 5 6 and 7 all the Motives recited in them for causing the Soul to persevere in Bliss once again obtained by fixing its Affections unalterably on God fall so far short of the immense Power Force and Efficacy which the full Fruition of God by clear Vision affords to that end that the Disproportion between them in that very respect is unspeakable insomuch that if the Soul were capable of infinite influx the Beatific Vision would infinitely ravish it with the Delight thereof And therefore if ever we had been in that height of Felicity which the Author of Lux Orientalis chap. 4. p. 113. holds we once enjoyed we could not voluntarily have deserted the same and that God by whose meer Goodness it was bestowed should have thrust us from it is incredible and if neither we had forsaken God nor God us we should certainly have remained for ever happy If it be said that the triple vital Congruity would have been given by God in vain if it had never been exerted my Answer is that all good Souls did not lapse but that some still continue in Bliss Lux Orientalis Chap. 14. p. 119. And the Annotator in his eighth Argument we saw allows the triple vital Congruity to accompany us in the next world in case there be any such thing as that Congruity is said to be 9ly The Annotator concludeth thus And lastly which will strike all sure He that is able to save to the utmost and has promised us eternal life is as true as able and therefore cannot fail to perform it This I own strikes all sure indeed but to have recourse to the Divine Promise to do it is after all the high Efforts of Wit and elegant Philosophical Essays that have been used by the Praeexistentiaries to leave their fine Hypothesis to shift at length as it can for any help that 's to be had from Philosophy at the upshot of all when it should have received its consummation from it and might in reason have expected it if in truth it had been really founded on a sound Philosophical Bottom For though the Promise of God must of necessity stand firm yet in that he does not use to accomplish the same but by something which immediately brings it to pass and establisheth it there must be a more immediate Cause of fixing the Saints in everlasting Bliss than the Divine Promise and the Beatific Vision is as has been shewn that very Cause Angelic Nature you 'l say is a much more sublime and excellent Constitution than Humane and therefore the lapsed Angels fell from an higher pitch of Glory than the Praeexistentiaries suppose lapsed Souls to have done I answer That comparatively they did not for the Author of Lux Orientalis writes that Blessed Souls were in the highest Bliss their Natures rendred them capable of But the Angels that fell never attained to the highest Felicity they were capable of enjoying for though they saw in the Glass of the Creature and more especially in that most clear one of their own pure Natures the Divine Excellency yet they never saw it immediately in it self and to do that is the alone highest degree of Bliss that Rational and Intellective Beings can attain unto which Supream Glory if they had once been possessed of they could never have lost it For since Good is the proper and adequate Object of Desire it implies a Contradiction that what is immediately seen or known and experimentally found to be essential Goodness which God is should ever be voluntarily deserted by Men or Angels for otherwise they should decline good under the very Notion of good and thereby cease to be what they essentially are a thing impossible for it is the essential Nature of the Will to love good as good By what hath been said in this last Paragraph it is easie to apprehend the Cause of the different final condition of good and bad Angels for as the good Angels by reason of the free and full conversion of their ardent desires to enjoy the immediate sight of God were accordingly rewarded with the Beatific Vision which makes them eternally most happy so the bad Angels on the contrary through their voluntary aversion from God in preferring something in their Affections before the fruition of their Maker by immediate Vision deprived themselves for ever of that Blissful Sight and by their Conversion to the more valued Object of their inordinate desire violently affected but never to be obtained render their Condition most miserable to Eternity But after all this though the highest state of Bliss be an illapsible Condition and cannot after it is gained be fallen from may it not however be reasonably enquired whether there might not have been a lapsible praeexistent state of Men not unlike to that of Adam's in his Innocency but coming much nearer to Perfection than his did And if there might why considering that the almighty Goodness does always what is best for the Creature there really was not such a State My Answer is that from the seeming possibility of such a State it cannot be rationally evinced that the actual Existence of it would have been best as may be seen from the
Fruition of Good there is that in God which corresponds to the Will in Man by which he may enjoy good And seeing there is nothing in God which is not essential to him as he eternally necessarily primarily actually knows so doth he also eternally necessarily primarily actually will or love and since there is nothing which has an eternal necessary Being sect 1. par 6. to be so beloved save only God He eternally necessarily primarily actually loves himself And because this Love or Respect to the Object beloved is a Relation to another for another for Love and the Thing beloved are relatively distinct and mutually oppos'd there is another Relation besides the two former of knowing and being known found in God to wit Loving or Love which Relation in that it has an immediate Respect to Good for Good is the proper Object of Love Good known to be good ignoti nulla cupido is the Correlate to Love. Wherefore in regard that nothing but God himself can be the Object of his eternal-necessary primary-actual Love he alone being eternal God known to be good must be the Correlative of that Love. And forasmuch as Truth is the Good and Perfection of an intelligent Being God known to be Truth is that very Good. And seeing Truth known is the express Character of the Object in the Knowers Intellect without any dissimilitude whatsoever from it in it self God in God is God known to be Truth Since therefore God to be in God is the Father to be in the Son par 5 7. the Relative which is Love must be related to the Father and the Son directly according to their very joint-Relation and consequently seeing every Relate denotes Distinction from its Correlate LOVE which is the third Relative is distinct from the FATHER and the SON according to their very joint-Relation of Father and Son. Whence it must of necessity be that because nothing is in God which is not God sect 1. par 11. LOVE is God distinct from Father and Son and so an intellectual incommunicable Substance and consequently a Divine Person and thus a Third Person is found in God. 10. And because this Third Person is related to the Father and the Son as Father and Son whence they are both but one joint Principle of Love there are but three Relatives in the Deity and consequently three Persons only or a Trinity of Persons in Unity of Essence 11. But yet albeit the Third Person proceeds both from the Father and the Son he nevertheless proceeds principally from the Father because Good as Good is that which produces Love though it cannot be beloved unless known And therefore though Good known to be Good be the adequate Principle of Love yet the whole Force of moving in Good known is in the Good and Knowledge is but the application of it that it may move Whence appears a considerable Ground of Reason why our Blessed Saviour and some of the Primitive Fathers might very well be induced to speak of the Holy Ghost's procession from the Father without mention made of his procession from the Son. 12. Why the Third Person is called the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit and the Lord and Giver of Life seems to be in respect of the Church which is the peculiar Office of the Holy Spirit sent by the Son from the Father to enliven with Grace and to breath or inspire Sanctity into and not in respect of the other two Persons in whom Life and Holiness abound no less than in the Third 13. Lastly Whereas the Divine Essence is both Subjectum and Terminus of the Relations in God and that Relatives are simul natura cognitione it s plainly consequent in regard the Divine Essence is an eternal Being sect 1. par 4. and that the Divine Persons are eternally related to each other par 4 9. of this Section that the whole Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are co-eternal together and co-equal Obj. 1. That God should necessarily know himself and be known by himself and likewise necessarily love himself appears not to be any such great Mystery as that of the adorable Trinity has been ever held by the Catholic Church to be Solut. The stupendious Mystery of the Trinity in Unity appears not so plainly in that as in the Consequent of it namely that God necessarily knowing himself and being necessarily known by himself constitutes two distinct Persons and that necessarily loving himself constitutes a third Person distinct from both the other two whilst every one of them by reason thereof as hath been shewn is an incommunicable Substance notwithstanding that there be no more but one only Substance in God. Object 2. Inasmuch as every one of the Three Persons is said to be an incommunicable Substance there seems rather to be Three entire Substances than only one Solut. It doth not necessarily follow that because the Father is an incommunicable Substance the Son an incommunicable Substance and the Holy Ghost an incommunicable Substance that therefore there are three several Substances for the Substance of any one of the three Persons is not a several Substance from the Substance of the other Two whilst the very same numerical Essence Nature or Being is God knowing himself God known of himself and God loving himself known And yet because there is nothing at all accidental in God sect 1. par 11. but every thing in him is substantial and that to know and to be known and to love what is known as such cannot possibly be the same we must of necessity hold that the Divine Nature is substantially One but relatively More or that the Substance of God is distinguished yet not into more Substances but into more Relations subsisting in the same Substance whence there are three Subsistences in one Substance or a Trinity of Persons in Vnity of Essence SECT III. The Vniverse was created by God. There was no prae-existent Matter whereof it was made It is not of the Nature and Essence of God. It neither could have been eternal for Duration nor infinite in Extension There is no Endless Number of Worlds The Vniverse is only one the best for Kind that was possible to be created 1. VVHereas it was proved sect 1. par 6. that there is only one First-Being whose Existence alone has no dependence on another it must needs be that the Universe is either God himself who is that first Being or that it was originally derived from him in every part and parcel thereof 2. And that the Universe is not God himself is plain from this that God is one simple uncompounded Being sect 1. par 10 11. whereas the Universe in every part of it is some way or other compounded as for example Body is composed of several material Atoms Man of Body and Soul and Angels of Essence and Existence and all these again of Substance and Accident The Universe therefore with all that therein is was originally derived from God alone 3. And since
or sav'd in that his Safety proceeded from a present unstedfast Inclination 't is obvious that the former would have cause to be more intimately and cordially thankful and to love him more tenderly and affectionately that saved him alive than the latter would have reason to be unto the other who preserv'd him from perishing SECT IV Man was created by God. He has an immaterial Substance which is the Principle of Motion proper to him immortal and indued with the Rational Faculties of Vnderstanding and Will. He was created in a State of Innocency What the State of Innocency was The End for which Man was created In what his Chief Good and Felicity doth consist 1. THat God is the Creator of all things and therefore of Man was proved sect 3. par 2 3. Who in that it is evident by certain Experience that he moves himself whenever he pleases after what particular manner he pleases and to whatsoever Object he pleases without being necessarily agitated by Sense or Passion or Phantasie as Brutes always are he must have some Power or Principle within him which is not material especially since he doth sometimes with great Deliberateness and Reason set himself to oppose what the corporeal and animal part solicits and prompts him to and prevails thereby against the Allurements of Sense the Assaults of Passion and the Insinuations of Phansie which could not be if there were nothing but corporeal Substance or the animal Life in Man because Matter Sense Passion and Phansie make up the whole Animal and it is not possible that the same numerical Matter Sense Passion or Phansie should have at the same time quite contrary Motions Inclinations or Impulses crossing opposing and controlling one another and therefore it must be some other Power residing in Man which resists and masters their Motions Inclinations and Impulses 2. There is then in Man something besides corporeal Substance and consequently something which is not subject to Corruption but is of an indissoluble and immortal Nature For since Corruption is the dissolution of a thing compounded and dissolution is separation and separation division which cannot be made but in something that is divisible or may be divided into separate parts it is apparent in regard nothing is divisible into separate parts but what is corporeal and that Man has a Principle of Nature in him which is not so par 1. that there is something belonging to human Being which is incorruptible and immortal viz. the active Power or Principle in Man which we call the Soul since besides it and the Body there is nothing else conceivable that constitutes the whole Substantial Frame of Man. 3. Man's Soul then is of an immortal Nature And seeing we experience within our selves that it has a Faculty to frame Notions of things conceived to it by the Senses and from Notions put together to make Judgments and from those Judgments orderly disposed to infer or find out some Truth whereof it was ignorant before the Soul is said to be Rational or endued with Reason for by Reason is meant a Power in the Mind of Man which enables him to proceed from the knowledg of one thing to the knowledg of another by due Consequences made to that intent and purpose The Soul then has a rational Faculty or Ability whereby it discovers the Truth of things and this Faculty we usually call the Intellect or Understanding 4. And forasmuch as the End and Benefit designed by Nature to accrue to Man by the knowledg of things is to discern what is convenient or inconvenient or good or evil for him and that it would be to small purpose nevertheless to attain thereunto if he had not a Faculty or Power enabling him to apply himself to that which is good for the obtaining of it and to deeline that which is evil for the avoiding of it 't is clear that since God and Nature make nothing in vain there is in Man a Faculty by which the Soul is impower'd to desire good for the acquiring of it and to have an aversion to evil for the avoiding of it which Faculty is called the Will or rational Appetite because framed by the nature given it by God to follow the Dictate of Reason 5. Wherefore seeing the all-wise and all-good God was the Creator of Man who consists of Soul and Body 't is manifest that he had by Creation not only an Understanding and Will whereby he was capacitated to apprehend and desire what was truly good for him but had likewise a Body duly qualified to contribute its assistance towards the fruition of the same 6. And since nothing is good to Man as Man but either that which of all things is most convenient for him or which will do him most good and is therefore called his chief Good or else something that is useful and beneficial to him for procuring the same 't is plain that Man in the state wherein he was created understood what was his chief Good and what the proper Means whereby to procure it were and made use likewise of the same seeing his Intellect was clear his Will upright and his Body in a frame duly subservient to the same par 5. 7. Which chief good of Man in regard he is composed of Soul and Body must be something that is best either for the Soul alone or the Body alone or for both together That Man 's chief good cannot consist in what is best for the Body alone is evident from this that the Soul is undoubtedly the more excellent part of Man so that what is best for the Body be it what it will must of necessity be some good which is consistent with the good that is best for the Soul. 8. And what is best for the Soul the same must give the greatest and highest Perfection to it which it is capable of And the greatest and highest Perfection which the Soul is capable of must needs consist in that which will most of all perfect the prime Faculties thereof which being the Intellect and the Will par 3 4. 't is manifest that that which will most perfect those two Faculties is best for the Soul. 9. And since the Intellect is a Faculty of Knowing and the Will of Desire the utmost Perfection of the one will be the largest and highest Knowledg and of the other the greatest and noblest good which they are respectively capable of 10. Wherefore seeing the Object of the Intellect or knowing Faculty is Truth and that the more a Man knows he is both the more desirous and more capable still of farther and higher Knowledg 't is apparent that the Intellect could not be perfected to its utmost Capacity by the Knowledg of all created Beings if really possessed thereof because there would be a more excellent Object than all that still unknown to wit the prime independent Being which is the Origin and Cause of all created Being The Knowledg therefore of the prime independent Being so far as
amorous Gestures often overrule their kind Husbands of which sort Adam was undoubtedly one and induce them to do what otherwise they would abstain from And if Secondly we consider that the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledg of Good and Evil being sweet and delicious and for that greedily fed upon by Eve would not only quicken and augment her animal Spirits but would also by its too much Nutriment enflame and overheat her Body of an equal Temper till she had listened to the Tempter and thence excite Venereal Desires which are apt to enliven the Luster of the Eyes the Briskness of the Countenance and the Amorousness of the Gesture in her and so render her more delicate and taking than she had formerly appear'd to be 't will be the less wonder that Adam should be surprised and hearken to the Voice of his Wife especially if withal it be minded that the State of Integrity consisted more in the even and unbyass'd Frame and Constitution of the Body and Soul of Man than in the strong Habit of Virtue which was by degrees through the frequent Exercise of pious Duties perform'd to grow to perfection in the Soul as is manifest by this that diverse both Men and Women under the Gospel Dispensation have through the Power of Christian Virtues encountred far sharper Tryals of their Obedience to Gods Commands and victoriously triumphed over them than those which our Prime Parents were at the first assault easily vanquished by as the Multitude of Holy Confessors and glorious Martyrs abundantly testifie 6. Thus our first Parents fell that is they eat of the forbidden Tree by which they were deprived of that Estate which if continued in would have made them at length for ever happy seeing that before their consenting to eat their Minds were placed chiefly on God and so only on other Things as subservient and tending to further the full Fruition of him by loving him with all the Heart with all the Soul with all the Strength and with all the Mind But as soon as their Desires were ardently set on the coveted Fruit their due Conformity of Mind to God was violated thereby in that their Affections were turned away from the due Love of God to the inordinate Love of the Apple by which they departed from their Original State in preferring the Vanity of a Sensual Pleasure before the Spiritual Delight of the Soul. 7. After the forbidden Fruit was eaten and digested our Prime Progenitors were yet more estranged from their Maker by strong Venereal Desires which it raised in them strong I say because if they had continued in their first Estate those Desires would have been wholly regulated by their Rational Faculties and not at all violent whereas after the Digestion of the Fruit they were inflamed with immoderate Lust to each other whence looking towards the satisfying of their Carnal Appetite their Spiritual Love to God as their Sovereign Delight stood at a still greater distance thereby For that the Fruit through its deliciousness and nutritive Nature excited them to Venery besides that Physitians inform us that Sweet being compounded of what is moderately hot and moist is very nutritive and generative Seed the Superfluity of Nutriment may be easily gathered from Gen. 3. 7. compared with Gen. 3. 11. whilst it is said in the seventh Verse And the Eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed Fig-leaves together and made themselves Aprons and in the eleventh Verse God replying to Adam who had rendred this Excuse for hiding himself that he was afraid because he was naked said Who told thee that thou wast naked hast thou eaten of the Tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat fairly intimating that the eating of the Tree was that which discovered to our first Parents their Nakedness not so much by putting them in mind of their Sin as by manifesting of their Shame the latter of which it was that troubled them not the former as seems evident by their covering of their Nakedness and excusing their eating of the Fruit. So that this which was their Fault gave them not their Disturbance but 't was the Effect thereof that caused their Trouble to wit their Nakedness or the swelling Motion of their Generative Parts not then under the absolute Power and Command of their Wills as they had formerly no less then the rest of the Members of the Body always been which thing being ashamed of they sought to cover those unruly Parts by sewing Fig-leaves together and making themselves Aprons to hide them with Nor is this a new Interpretation of the Passage as the great St. Austin will witness whose Words are these Posteaquam Praecepti facta est transgressio confestim gratià deserente Divinâ de corporum suorum nuditate confusi sunt unde etiam foliis ficulneis quae forte a perturbatis prima comperta sunt pudenda texerunt quae prius eadem Membra erant sed pudenda non erant senserunt ergo novum motum inobedientis Carnis sitae tanquam reciprocam poenam inobedientiae suae Aug. de Civitate Dei Lib. 13. Cap. 13. i. e. After a Transgression of the Precept was committed the Divine Grace straightway deserting them they were troubled for the Nakedness of their Bodies whereupon they covered with Fig-leaves which haply they first in their Perturbation met with their undecent Members which before were the same Members but were not undecent they felt therefore a new Motion of their disobedient Flesh as a reciprocal Punishment of their Disobedience SECT VI. Original Sin the natural Consequent of eating of the forbidden Fruit and how What Original Sin is God cleared from being the Author of it Actual Sin is excited by Original All Miseries incident to Man as well as Sin are the bitter Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledg of Good and Evil 1. AFter the Equability of Temper in the Bodies of our Common Parents was corrupted Sect. 5. Par. 4. the same Objects which had no power to move the sensible Appetite of themselves before more than was convenient would now raise a different Motion in it by reason the same Causes in a Subject diversly disposed will have different Effects Wherefore since there would be a perpetual Commerce between the Senses of our first Parents and corporal Agents from every hand incessantly almost beating on them with Objects grateful to the now corrupted sensitive Appetite the Inequality of their Bodies Temper once begun could not chuse but still continue And in regard the Seed of Generation is an Extract from the Body participating of the Nature and Qualities of it the male Disposition of our Prime Progenitors Bodies never to be restored to their primitive Constitution would be transmitted by propagation to their Children and from them to their Off-spring and so successively downward to the Worlds end 2. Wherefore since we are convinced by constant Experience that Mans Body by reason of its close
kept his Native Integrity yet our Blessed Saviours Incarnation Doings and Sufferings occasioned by the Laps were as primarily intended by God as the very Creation it self For the All-wise and All-good God infallibly knowing what Use Man would make of the Freedom of his Will designed his Creation no sooner than he did a Way which should not only prevent the defeating of the End for which he made man but would also be a means to advance it to an higher degree of Perfection than it could have had without it whilst man has by the Blessed Incarnation of the Son of God of which hereafter in the 9th Section and the gracious Sequel of it far greater Motives to the Love of God in which Felicity consists sect 4. par 13. than by the Creation and all other things besides whatsoever and consequently a certain Means of augmenting the intensness of his Affection to God and thereby the greatness of his eternal Bliss as will hereafter be made out sect 11. 6. This occasional interruption over I go on to shew that Grief Fear Discord Damnation and the Torments of Hell are so many several Branches of the Tree of the knowledg of good and evil For as for Grief it is a Passion which arises from the Sense of an incumbent Evil and Fear from the apprehension of an evil approaching so that in regard there could have no evil happened if Man had continued innocent there would have been neither Fear nor Grief in the World. Nor should Discord or Wars have been found amongst men if their Appetites had continued regular and subject to Reason for generally it is because that several men desire the same single thing which one alone can but enjoy at the same time that differences arise which if the Parties concerned be Sovereigns often grow to Wars But whatever other cause of Dissentions there be 't is the effect of immoderate Desires which sprouted from the Tree of the knowledg of good and evil There is then no Misery incident to Man if Damnation and the Pains of Hell be within the List but derives its Origin from thence which that they are shall be the Work of the following Section to make appear SECT VII Eternal Damnation or the perpetual Loss of Bliss inevitably follows from the perpetual Alienation of the Souls Affections from God. Eternal Torments or the Pains of the Damned necessarily for ever accompany their impious Desires of preferring worldly Vanities before the Enjoyment of God. Hence by these two an Aversion from the Creator and a Conversion to the Creature Man makes himself eternally miserable 1. SInce it has been proved Sect. 4. par 13. that eternal Felicity consists in the immense Pleasure Joy and Contentment that flows from the Beatific Vision or Intellectual Sight of God and that the same Pleasure Joy and Contentment is the Love of Complacency or Delight whereby the Soul inseparably adheres to God with all its might sect 4. par 14. 't is plain that such Alienation of the Soul's Affections from God as shall for ever deprive it of such adherence to him must of necessity deprive it of everlasting Bliss 2. And in regard an everlasting deprivation of Bliss is that eternal Misery which the Schools call Poena Damni 't is clear that Damnation or the perpetual Loss of Bliss inevitably follows the perpetual Alienation of the Souls Affection from God. 3. And whereas it is impossible to alienate the Souls Affections from God upon his own account because in him is no appearance of evil 't is manifest that for the gratifying of some inordinate Desire as the Lust of the Flesh the Lust of the Eye or Pride of Life man's Soul is alienated in affection from God. 4. Wherefore if the Souls Affections be in this Life so bent upon Riches Honour Luxury Revenge or other worldly Contentment that it prefers any of them before the enjoyment of God and thence makes choice thereof as its chief Good and Felicity or the thing wherein it is above all others delighted it must needs be that whatsoever Soul departs this Life so affected must either forsake and leave off that its desire or be satisfied with the Fruition of the Thing desired or else be eternally tormented for to be for ever deprived of that which the Soul perpetually longs for will be an endless affliction 5. And first That a Soul departing this Life with an habitual affection to some worldly Vanity wherein it delights cannot ever shake off that its Desire is apparent from this that the Will which is an essential Faculty of the Soul can never be void of some Desire or other and that it is unconceivable how it should part with those it is habitually possessed of when it leaves the Body since it is certain that the love of God in pious Souls begun here on Earth continues after Death and accompanies them to Heaven as will be seen sect 13. par 2. and that the Nature of Qualities or habitual Dispositions whether good or bad as to their inherence in the Soul is in all men alike And secondly That those Lusts which inseparably adhere to mens Souls after death can never with the enjoyment of what they desire be satisfied is as certainly true as that their Return to the Earth to enjoy the Pleasures of this World shall never come to pass And thirdly that men who have inordinate desires shall after death endure Torments answerable to the strength of Affection which they have for the Things they lust after and cannot possibly enjoy may be gathered from the afflicted miserable condition of those Persons upon Earth whose Hearts are irrevocably set on Riches Honour Luxury Revenge c. when they find themselves totally disappointed of what they earnestly desire For does not Experience shew us that the Heart of many a covetous Wretch is so cemented to his Gold that when it is stollen from him his Life which before he would not have exchanged for Heaven becomes his Hell so as that he hastens by the first thing in his way to be delivered from it And are not the Thoughts of some vain-glorious and ambitious men so intent upon Honour that falling into Disgrace their very Hearts burst for grief of the want of that alone amidst the affluence of almost all other worldly Goods besides As sad distress befals not a few forlorn Lovers whose Affections are so fast glewed to their Mistresses that they judge no Pain like that of frustrated Love insomuch that they chuse the readiest for the best way of offering violence to their restless wearisom Lives What shall I say of envious and revengeful wishes not accomplished than which no Viper can more cruelly gnaw mens Hearts If then mens Desires may be so violent and the frustrating of them so grievous as hath been said while the Soul is involved in a Body of Clay how fierce will the one and how intolerable will the other be when its Operations are not damped thereby Object
beneficial if sincerely obeyed to every one for promoving his everlasting Welfare and not meerly because it is according to the eternal Rectitude of the Divine Mind for so is also every positive Command of God for whatever God once approves of he eternally approves of as good for what and so long as he intended it for the longer or shorter Continuance of any of Gods Ordinances or Institutions or the more or less usefulness they are of towards the End to be obtained by them makes them neither more nor less agreeable to the eternal Rectitude of the Divine Wisdom which exactly fits every thing the Almighty institutes for the Occasion he intends it with irreversible Council the whole Change which ever happens in Divine Commands being wholly for the Creatures Sake to whose variable Condition in several Ages of the World several different Institutions and Dispensations have been suited by the eternal immutable Wisdom and good Will of God Opera mutat Deus sed non consilia St. August SECT IX Mans Recovery from his laps'd and lost Condition wherein it consists and how wrought Natural ways and means unable of themselves to procure it Supernatural Causes chiefly prevalent to that End. Of these the Free Love of God to Man and the Incarnation of his eternal only begotten Son with the Consequents of it are the chief 1. SInce it has been made apparent First that the Honour wherewith God requires to be eternally glorified is the loving him with all the Heart and with all the Soul and with all the Mind and that so to love him is Mans ultimate End and everlasting Bliss Sect. 4. Secondly That Man by Creation was placed in a Condition through the Rectitude of his Intellect and Integrity of his Will and the due subordination of the inferiour Faculties together with a good Constitution of Body which put him in the direct Way towards the obtaining of that his Ultimate End and chiefest Good. Sect. 4. Thirdly That by eating of the forbidden Fruit Man fell from that Condition wherein he was created into a State of Sin and Misery the latter of which is the necessary conseqent of the former Sect. 5 6. and 7. and Fourthly That Sin is an Aversion from the Creator and a Conversion to the Creature or the deserting the Love of God for the Love of the World Sect. 8. 't is plain that to cause Man to withdraw and take off his Affections from the World and so to place and fix them again on God that he shall at length attain to the full Enjoyment of him in loving him with all his Heart and with all his Soul and with all his Mind is to restore him or to put him again into the Way which shall bring him to the End for which he was created 2. That this could never have been effected by any Natural Means is plain from hence that ever since the native Temper of our first Parents Bodies was corrupted the Objects of sense which before contributed Help and Assistance in their Kind towards the Souls Progress in the Love of God wrought a contrary Effect by alluring the Sensitive Appetite to the immoderate Love of themselves not through any newly acquired Malignity in them but because the Subject receiving them was changed from its first Constitution which being once corrupted the Distemper consequent upon it if not by some means corrected would grow worse For Children by the frequent beating of corporeal Objects on their Senses would be much addicted to those which were grateful to the Carnal Appetite before they grew up to the use of Reason And when they had attained to riper years their Bodies would be grown so hot and their Passions thereby especially being often fomented so strong and violent that they would commonly overbear and sway their Rational Faculties Add to this that Men being prone to be led by the Example of those they converse with the Vices of one another would mutually debauch and confirm them in their inordinate Lusts from all which a general Neglect of God and consequently a gross Ignorance of him would at length ensue The truth of this was so evidently seen among the Gentiles that the Knowledge of the one true God was mostly lost Yea and even those of them who had some right Notions of him did not very well consider the Enjoyment of him by Love to be the sole Sovereign Good of the Soul. Nor were Mens Understandings only exceedingly darkened but their Wills likewise very much vitiated whilst every one through a natural inbred desire to be happy frequently persuing some particular fancied good or other as Wealth Honour Sensual Delights c. which the Constitution of their Bodies their Education Conversation with others or some Occasion or Temptation they met with in the World inclined them to more than to any other Object because so eagerly bent upon their miserable mistaken Felicity that tho the truly chief Good had been demonstrated to their Understandings yet would they not have been induced thereby to endeavour after the Fruition of it as their only Bliss Motives being as necessary for a thorow Amendment to incline the Will as Arguments are to convince the Understanding For as a setled Judgment concerning any supposed Truth cannot be reversed without stronger Reason at least in appearance given than that whereby it is established in the Mind so neither can an Affection rooted in the Will be eradicated but by more powerful Motives than those by which it is fixed there 3. Wherefore seeing then that the Objects of Sense and almost every thing Man is concerned with since the Fall are apt by reason of his corrupted State to alienate his Affections from God 't is clear that Causes not within the Limits of Nature would be necessary to withdraw his Heart from the Love of the World and the false Delights thereof to the Love of God if ever he should arrive at Bliss and such Causes as are not within the Bounds of Nature are supernatural Supernatural Causes therefore are necessary to reduce Man to the Way which leads to the End for which he was created 4. And forasmuch as Man is a Rational Creature and cannot be moved but in a Way agreeable to his Nature without violence offered to the same those supernatural Causes must not force him but connaturally draw and win him by convincing his Understanding of the Truth and by inclining his Will to the Love thereof which are not to be effected but by Arguments and Motives For as the impression of Force is a proper Means whereby to move a Corporeal Substance from one place to another so are Arguments and Motives proper means whereby to draw the Mind off from one Object to another For to say that a Man either assents to or chuses with Reason that for which he sees no Reason general or special so to do appears to be a Contradiction and either to assent unto or to make choice of any thing without Reason is repugnant
Return Admitting it were so which yet I think may modestly enough be denied the Doctrine of imputative Righteousness would be never a whit the more true because inasmuch as it necessarily implies in it that a man might possibly be if God would permit it an absolutely righteous and unrighteous person at once though it never actually fell out to be so it supposes a possibility of two contradictory Assertions to be both true together But it is farther argued against imputative Righteousness thus If man be made formally righteous by the Righteousness of Christ then is man truly righteous abstracting from every thing which he himself doth more than what is necessary on his part for applying Christ's Righteousness to his Soul viz. Faith or a stedfast Belief that Christ's Righteousness is made his according to some or a Recumbence or resting on Christ for Salvation as others will have it But man is not truly righteous abstracting from every thing he himself doth more than what is necessary on his part for applying Christ's Righteousness to his Soul viz. Faith or a Recumbence on Christ for Salvation Ergo Man is not made formally righteous by the Righteousness of Christ The truth of the Proposition being evident I prove the Assumption thus If a real and hearty turning from Sin or the love of the world to the love of God be necessary to Justification then is not man truly righteous abstracting from every thing he himself doth more than a stedfast Belief that Christ's Righteousness is made his or a Recumbence on Christ for Salvation But a real and hearty turning from Sin or the love of the world to the love of God is necessary to Justification ergo man is not truly righteous abstracting from every thing he himself doth more than a stedfast Belief that Christ's Righteousness is made his or a Recumbence on Christ for Salvation The Minor which alone can be doubted of proved If Christ's imputed Righteousness be not sufficient without a real and hearty turning from Sin or the love of the world to the love of God to free the Soul from deadly Sin and the Consequent of it eternal Misery then is a real and hearty turning from Sin or the love of the world to the love of God necessary to Justification But Christ's imputed Righteousness is not sufficient without a real hearty turning from Sin or the love of the world to the love of God to free the Soul from deadly Sin and the Consequent of it Eternal Misery Ergo A real and hearty turning from Sin or the love of the world to the love of God is necessary to Justification The Major needs no Proof and the Minor is evidently true if deadly Sin be nothing else but the preferring the Enjoyment of the World before the Enjoyment of God or an Aversion from God and Conversion to the Creature and that everlasting Misery is the necessary Result of the perpetual Continuance in Sin according to what is said in the 7th and 8th Section Lastly The Doctrine of imputative Righteousness seems erroneous from what here follows If men be formally justified by the Righteousness of Christ made theirs then are all men justified alike or have equal Righteousness because Christs Righteousness is one and the same and if justified alike then also glorified alike seeing Glory depends on Righteousness or rather is compleat Righteousness it self or the perfect love of God in Heaven Par. 9. But all men are not glorified alike therefore neither justified alike That all men are not glorified alike I gather thus The perfect or entire love of God without any mixture of Affection to any thing besides as the Souls Sovereign Good being Mans Felicity for tho the Blessed Saints and Angels mutually delight in each other and more or less according to every ones Excellency yet it is only as they are and appear so many bright Rayes issuing from the Sun of Glory and not as having any proper independent Loveliness of their own or Excellency which is not totally derived from God it will be so that if of two enjoying Bliss the one love God more intensly and vigorously than the other tho both with their whole Affection for so do all the glorified Saints and Angels he will be the more happy for he that more intensly and vigorously affects or takes Delight in the Object he enjoys must of necessity have more Joy Pleasure and Contentment then he that adheres to what he loves with less ardency of Affection This being clear let 's compare in our Minds the Intensness or Vigor of Love to God wherewith the Holy Virgin the Blessed Apostles and Pious Martyrs or any of them particularly the Virgin Mary departed this Life with that remiss but sincere Affection which some other good Christian has to God when he leaves this World and we shall easily perceive there must needs be a great Disproportion of their love to God. When therefore the Beatific Object shall be presented to both their Affections will be encreased proportionably to what they wâ—â—t from hence with as for Example suppose the Blessed Virgin departed this Life with an Affection to God in comparison of what the other had at his Departure as five is in proportion to two then in case his Affection which stood in proportion to the Virgins as two to five be raised by the fight of God to the degree of five hers will be advanced thereby to the degree of eight for why the Beatific Object since it is able to give infinitely more satisfaction than Mans Nature is capable of should augment the one and not the other proportionably I see no appearance of reason Affections thereof for as the Strength of the Body is placed in the Nerves so is the strength of the Soul in relation to Objects of the Will in its Affections the Vigour of which the more the Mind is set upon any thing it desires and employed in the Contemplation of it is the more augmented like as the strength of the Sinews is encreased by the Exercise of the Body Wherefore since our gracious God will reward every one according to his Works Matth. 16. 27. and that no Work is acceptable to him which is not done for the love of him or out of a desire to enjoy him eternally it follows in all reason that seeing God himself is the Reward of the Ever-blessed and that therefore the difference of Rewards must proceed from the difference of the manifestation of his Glory he will manifest Himself proportionably to the Ardency of desire which every one has to enjoy him and consequently that they who love him most here in that they most son likely to be given If it be said that every glorified Saint loves God with all his Might and consequently that seeing one mans Soul differs not in Effence from another every one will love God alike in Heaven I answer that to love God with all the Might of the Soul is to love him with
all the desire the perpetual Enjoyment of Him will also love him most hereafter for exactly according to the measure of the Manifestation of Gods Glory both to the Saints and Angels is the Measure of their Love of Him or Delight taken in the Contemplation of his Excellence and in this consists their Felicity which though it is sufficient and satisfactory to every one of them inasmuch as they all love him with their entire Affection or are delighted in him with all their might and so are happy to their own Desire yet do they not however enjoy equal Happiness because the love of God in some of them is more intense than in some others as answering to a fuller manifestation of his Glory to them Object 4. If the formal Cause of Justification be inherent Righteousness or Charity then doth every degree thereof truly justifie so that man's Righteousness may be greater or less and consequently either every degree of Righteousness will not give a just Title to Heaven so as Possession shall ever ensue thereupon or else imperfect Charity shall estate men in everlasting Felicity which is contrary to what hath been often said Solut. In Answer to this Objection I grant that every degree of habitual Charity from the highest to the lowest if either it be not lost or being lost be renewed entitles men so truly to Heaven I that they shall not departing this life therewith finally fail of the full possession of Bliss but sooner or later shall certainly obtain the same sooner or later I say because such an absolute full desire to enjoy the Presence of God as totally excludes all appetite to earthly Enjoyments and Satisfactions of this Life is the sole immediate disposition which prepares the Soul for Bliss so that those alone who through their ardent desire to be with God are weary of this World shall strâ—ight upon their departure hence go to pure and simple Joy but yet so intense as they shall afterwards have at the last upon the re-union of Soul and Body I do not say All the rest that depart this life not having the like ardency of desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ their God and Saviour will in all appearance of Reason retain the mixture of Affection to God and the World which they left the later with for how a meer separation of Soul and Body should root out all Affection to the World is I think a thing unaccountable till the Resurrection from the dead If it be said as indeed it is by some that Christ's appearing to the Souls of good men that departed this Life before his Death must needs have been a Motive and Cause of Change unto them whence it came to pass that the Graves were opened and many Bodies of the Saints which slept arose c. Matth. 27. 52 53. I answer that since it is here supposed that there had been no Motive offered before that his shewing himself to them which had altered the state into which they entered at their separation from the Body it is reasonable to think that there will likewise be no Motive to cause a Change in those which have left or shall leave this World after that his appearing till his coming to Judgment at the last day which in that it must needs in some degree or other be both dreadful and amiable to every one that hath not totally rooted out all Affection to the World according to their different Measures of Fear and Hope arising from their finding themselves more or less clogged with terrene Desires will be a Motive rightly adapted wholly to purge out all the Dreggs of impure Affections and so cause them to fix their Minds for ever upon God. But in the intenim they 'l continue in that condition which they left the World with and so each of them as their Love to God is greater will have more and purer Delight yet not be altogether void of anguish of Spirit by reason they cannot go immediately to God through the load of Sin which though not so heavy as to press them down to Hell yet will not suffer them to soar up to Heaven For we see even in this Life the more Pious that men are the more serene Joy and greater inward Contentment they enjoy but have not withstanding their Groans and Sighs and trouble of Spirit because they find the Old Man is not throughly conquered and subdued and however brought low is nevertheless often giving check to their Spiritual Joy and causing their Grief Nor is an incompleat imperfect State after this Life till the Day of Doom only consonant to Reason but the Sacred Scripture also and Catholic Tradition appear to make for it for what mean these Expressions of being recompensed at the Resurrection of the Just Luke 14. 14. Of the Spirit being saved in the Day of the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 5. 5. Of finding Mercy of the Lord in that Day 2 Tim. 1. 18. but that something is to be received at the Day of Judgment not to be obtained before Which the practical Tradition of the Church both Eastern and Western give Testimony to by their praying for the Dead but not for the delivery of Souls out of Purgatory a Practise so universal that the Learned Mr. Thorndike saith It hath been a Custom so general in the Church to pray for the Dead that no beginning of it can be assigned no time no part of the Church where it was not used Epilogue to the Tragedy of the Church of England Book 3. Ch. 29. P. 333. And another of our Learned Country-men Dr. Hammond writeth thus 'T is certain that some measure of Bliss which shall at the Day of Judgment be vouchsafed the Saints when their Bodies and Souls shall be reunited is not till then enjoyed by them and therefore may safely and fitly be prayed for Annotat. on 2 Tim. 1. 16 17 18. For besides that it is evident from Holy Writ that there shall be a general Resurrection The hour is coming in which all that are in their Graves shall hear his Voice and shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life and they that have done Evil unto the Resurrection of Damnation John 5. 28 29. it is manifest likewise to our Reason that there must be a Re-union of every Soul and Body at the last Day for since Christ shall then appear in his Humanity Ye Men of Galilee why stand ye gazing up into Heaven this same Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into Heaven Acts 1. 11. corporeal Eyes will be necessarily requisite to behold Him with and that not only because the Organs or Sense are the proper Means instituted by God for the giving notice of corporeal Objects to the Souls of Men but for this farther reason also that there may be a manifest equal Distribution of Justice to the whole Generation of Mankind for
assisted by the Spirit of God they are as apt to convert as a Knife being employed by the Hand is to cut cannot actually convert but when they are applied to a Subject fitly prepared to take impression from them and therefore when they meet not with a due Disposition or right Preparation of Heart to receive them Conversion will not ensue And forasmuch as such Disposition or Preparation of Heart is not in the Power of Mans Free Will as Pelagius impiously held it was but is the undoubted work of God every ones Conversion is truly attributed to the Power of the Holy Ghost in that he works the mentioned Disposition in the Soul by causing it to give due Attendance to the means of Salvation offered as may be clearly collected from the Instance of Lydia's Conversion whose Heart the Lord opened that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul Acts 16. 14. For through that her attention the Word of God delivered by St. Paul took effect and converted her There is then no Scruple at all to be made but that every man's Conversion is the Work of Gods Spirit in the heart both in respect of the Application of the Means of Grace and of giving due Attendance thereunto The only difficulty lies in this how the Attention to the Doctrine of Salvation requisite on Man's part to his Conversion is wrought whether by some physical Influence or real Emanation issuing from God and penetrating the Heart of Man as Fire warms by sending forth Heat into the thing warmed by it or by the sole force of the Divine Will without any such either Influence or any intermediate Cause whatsoever or lastly that through the Almighties Government of the World in ordering second Causes which are all in his disposing man's mind becomes inclined to give due heed to Instruction and Exhortation by Motives offered several ways such as are pain of Body loss of Estate or Friends Plagues Desolation sudden and violent Deaths great and unexpected Mercies and Deliverances with divers other things seen heard or read of The first of the three rehearsed ways the absolute Perfection of the Divine Nature makes impossible for how should any Physical Influence or real Emanation proceed out of him whose Being is Immutable one essential Act and entirely simple Sect. 1. Par. 8 9 10. The second Way would be as miraculous as the creating of all things out of nothing and the Attention given to the Means of Grace would be irresistible in all Men. The third Way therefore I take to be truth and am confirm'd therein from St. Paul's Conversion which though strange and unusual yet was it not effected by the immediate Will of God without all intermediate Means from his becoming all things to all men over and above his zealous preaching of Christ and indeed from the constant manner and method of God's dealing with Mankind since the very Creation If it be replied that I seem to place the sole and whole immediate Cause of Man's Conversion in the Means and only the remote Cause thereof in the Spirit of God which yet is held by Divines actually to reach and work by its immediate Inspiration the Effect I answer that the Divine Will which instituted and orders the Means as well for Conversion as for the Preparation of the Heart goes still along therewith to make them effectual not unlike to a mans Mind which after he hath made a Pen to write with and prepared Ink and Paper continually goes along with the Pen to effect the intended Writing so that I plainly maintain what answers to that which others call the immediate Operation or Inspiration of the Holy Ghost or Divine Influx or Concourse with the Means of Grace whilst I hold that as the Pen cannot write without the continued assistance of the Hand moved by the Will so neither can the Means of Grace convert a Sinner or cause any other holy Act without the perpetual Aid of the Divine Will or Power of the Holy Ghost enabling them thereunto If it be said that albeit Man's Mind guide and go along with the Hand and Pen yet the Pen alone immediately touches the Paper and makes the Impression in it my Answer is that both the Mind and the vis impressa conveyed by the Hand to the Pen reach as far as the Pen it self otherwise the Pen could not write what it doth either as to the Character or the Matter for what knows it of the difference of any Figure or Subject whatsoever and even so doth the Spirit of God no less than the Means of Man's Salvation reach the Heart both to prepare it and convert it unto God but with this difference that the Writing on the Paper is an Impression necessarily received by it but the preparative Disposition and Conversion of the Heart are Effects wrought therein by a voluntary Compliance and Concurrence of the Will of Man with the Author and Means of Grace SECT XVI Praise and Thanksgiving to God are proper and efficacious Means for procuring and augmenting Charity Vocal Prayer Musick and Gestures of Body betokening Humility and Reverence towards the Divine Majesty are useful and advantageous for begetting inward Devotion and Affection towards God. 1. AS Prayer hath been shewn to have its proper effect in procuring the Moral and Theological Virtues in order to the uniting the Soul to God by Charity and by causing the frequent exercise of it and them when they are acquired by which Charity is confirmed enlivened and augmented in us Sect. 15. so likewise will it appear that the virtue and good of Praising and Lauding God for the Excellency of his Essence Power and Wisdom and of his great and noble Acts in creating and governing the World is terminated in setling and confirming the Love of God in Mens Souls for whose Cause and not for his own as he commands Prayer to be made unto him so doth he enjoyn Honour Laud and Praise to be perpetually given unto Him. 2. For since every Command whether of God or Man must of right tend to and design the obtaining some good by fulfilling of the same and that it is impossible for the Almighty who was all Perfection within himself to receive any good either of Profit or Pleasure from abroad Sect. 8. it necessarily follows that God requires Honour Laud and Praise to be given unto him not for any accession of Advantage to himself but solely for the Benefit of his Creature 3. And because the uniting the Soul to God by Charity is the alone Good whereunto all that can be truly said to be good to Man tends Sect. 11. every one is required to praise God in his Holiness to praise him in the firmament of his Power to praise him in his noble Acts to praise him according to his excellent Greatness Psalm 150. ver 1 2. by reason the often hearty doing thereof cannot chuse but exceedingly advance the Love of God and cause a longing in the Soul to
understand him more and more and to obtain the sight of him for ever 4. And as the praising and exalting God's Excellence in respect of his Essence Power and Wisdom has an Influence on the Soul to beget and strengthen the Love of God therein so doth also the giving of Thanks unto him for his loving Kindness and Mercy to Man in creating preserving and redeeming him proportionably to the seriousness and frequency of doing it of necessity elevate the Heart to God and make it in Love with him Object 1. If the design of commanding Prayer to be made to God and of Praise and Thanks to be given to the Divine Majesty be to cause the Elevation of the Heart unto him Vocal Prayer Praise and Thanksgiving the howing of the Knee the lifting up of the Hands and Eyes and all Gestures of the Body are to no purpose seeing the Heart may be raised and lifted up to God without them Solut. That Bodily Exercise is not absolutely necessary to Salvation is plain from hence that some are dumb and cannot speak some are not able through Infirmity to bow the Knee or lift up their Hands others want their Sight and have not Eyes wherewith to look up to Heaven and yet all of them may be saved and go to Bliss and undoubtedly shall do so if they be habitually possessed of Charity when they leave the World. But nevertheless this is no Argument that Bodily Exercise is to no purpose or that it may be omitted by those who are in a condition with convenience to perform it For an earnest and vehement expression of words an humbling our selves with reverence on our Knees and the lifting up our Hands and Eyes to Heaven are all of them Helps to stir up inward Devotion and make our Prayers Praises and Thanks more fervent and consequently more effectual to promote Charity Nor is the Musick either of Voices or Instruments unuseful for exciting Devotion whilst it is apt to put the animal Spirits into such a motion as will cause the Heart to be carried with delight towards the Object of Worship which men endeavour to honour and celebrate thereby Object 2. Although external Actions and Gestures may improve internal Affection to God yet that men should be obliged to this or that Form of Words or manner of Gesture in the Church seems unreasonable seeing the same Words and Gestures do not move all men alike Solut. To use several Forms and Gestures in the publick Congregation at once would be very inconvenient and a great hinderance to Devotion For as to Words wherein Prayer Praise and Thanksgivings are offered to God in a public way 't is requisite they should be the same to all as well to avoid Confusion and Distraction which otherwise would certainly fall out as also for that Christians meeting together to offer up in common Prayer Praise and Thanks to God and desiring the same things should use the same means to testifie their joynt Consent and Concern for the mutual Encouragement of their Devotion in Christianity as Members of the same Body under one Head Christ Jesus And in regard the same Form is convenient to be used by the whole Congregation and that some of necessity must appoint the same it is apparent to see that the chief Governours of the Church who being generally ancient and learned men and constantly exercised in matters of Religion are the best able to do it well should have that Charge principally committed to them And as for the Ceremonious part of Religious Exercises in public since all decent Habits and Gestures are indifferent in themselves to be made use of and that it is evident that the more public and of greater Authority Ecclesiastical Persons be the easier and more obvious will it be for them to know what Habits and Gestures are esteemed the most common and commendable Signs and Tokens of Decency Humility and Reverence which every private Person who hath his particular Concerns to look after and is not called by the Course of Providence to order Church Affairs cannot do it must in reason be granted that the Principal Managers of Ecclesiastical Matters the Prelates ought in prudence seeing the Signs of Respect and Honour are different in different times and places so as no Rule more than in general could be left in Scripture for them to be the Persons entrusted to declare appoint and enjoyn what Ceremonious Habits and Gestures are to be used in the administration of Public Divine Offices SECT XVII The two great Sacraments instituted by Christ for the Benefit of his Church Baptism and the Lords Supper were ordained to be serviceable to Charity the one in procuring it the other in preserving it Yea and all other Divine Institutions and Ordinances whatsoever are only so many designed ministerial Helps thereunto 1. WHatever Virtues or Christian Duties have hitherto been spoken of 't is apparent from what hath been said of them that they every one of them have their Accomplishment in establishing Charity in the Souls of Men. And no less certain is it that all other Ordinances of God particularly the two great Sacraments of the Church to pass by for brevities sake Confirmation Holy Orders c. Baptism and the Lords Supper have no other end or design save either to beget Charity in the Soul or to advance it towards Perfection being first seated there 2. For in that a Sacrament is an outward and visible Sign of an inward and Spiritual given unto us ordained by Christ himself as a Means whereby we receive the same and a Pledg to assure us thereof it is clear that if Charity be the Spiritual Grace here intended it is the End and Accomplishment of every Sacrament 3. And that Charity is the Spiritual Grace here intended is plain not only from hence that nothing is truly Virtuous or of any prevalency towards the obtaining of everlasting Life which is not done out of Love to God Sect. 14. Par. 1. and from the Apostles Testimony averring that all other Gifts Graces and Performances without Charity profit nothing 1 Cor. 13. but also from the account given of the two mentioned Sacraments themselves in the Churches Catechism 4. For according to that the inward and Spiritual Grace given in Baptism is a Death unto Sin and a new Birth unto Righteousness and Charity in that it formally expells mortal Sin and frees from everlasting Damnation and the Torments of Hell is formal Righteousness Sect. 11. 5. And to the Question proposed what the Benefits be whereof we are made partakers by the eating and drinking the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper The Answer is made the strengthening and refreshing of our Souls by the Body and Bloud of Christ as our Bodies are by the Bread and Wine by which it is manifest that in the nourishing and strengthening of our Souls by spiritual Food is the End of this great Sacrament attain'd And as Bread and Wine are
therefore said to nourish the Body because being digested by the Stomach they afford Chyle which sanguified immediately refresheth and strengthens it so the Body and Blood of Christ crucified are there said to nourish the Soul because being applied to it by Faith they confirm it in Charity which is the Spiritual Nourishment and Strength thereof being that which immediately unites it to God Sect. 11. and in the Souls Union with God is the Spiritual Life Strength and Vigor thereof 6. That then the Sacrament of Baptism is the Sacrament of Initiation and introduces Charity into the Soul and the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper the Sacrament of confirming and strengthening the same is in general made manifest And how each of them in particular effects what it was instituted for shall be briefly seen 7. Baptism which is the initiating Ordinance is not to be administred to any that are capable to understand to what intent it was ordained till they give an account of their Belief of the Articles of the Christian Faith and make a serious and solemn profession of their unfeigned desire and stedfast resolution to forsake the World the Flesh and the Devil and to lead a godly righteous and sober Life in which if they be sincere and understand as they ought to do that the external washing with Water or dipping therein denotes the inward cleansing of the Soul from Sin or a dying to Sin and rising again to newness of Life and is a Seal likewise and Means thereof how can it be doubted of but that the Sacramental Action of Baptism being duly performed should to one so prepared have the Effect it was intended for and improve his holy purpose and resolution of leading a new Life into a real performance of the same For to suppose the Soul rightly prepared and immediately disposed to receive Baptism and Baptism duly administred and yet the Effect of Baptism or Res Sacramenti not to follow were to suppose an entire adequate Cause actually causing without its proper Effect ensuing or a thing actually to cause and yet nothing answering thereto actually caused which is impossible 8. And as to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper which is an Ordinance for Confirmation and strengthening of Grace in that it represents unto us the bloody Passion of our Saviour in a more solemn sacred and venerable manner by Christ's own intendment and designation than any other divine Institution doth it must certainly to him who comes with due Reverence and Devotion to that august Mystery and stupendious Token of God's immense and endearing Love to Man be the most effectual Means possible to cause a deep impression of Charity in his Soul and even ravish and transport him with the Love of so good and gracious a God and Benefactor Object 1. If the expulsion of Sin by the accession of Charity be the Effect of the Sacrament of Baptism then can no man be justified without being actually baptized with Water although he really repent and be truly converted to God. Solut. If so be that external Baptism were the only Cause of the Remission or taking away of mortal Sin the consequence would be good but the desire of Baptism for the washing away of Sin may be so ardent and operative in some that Charity will be obtained before the actual administration of the Sacrament and whensoever and by what means soever Charity is introduced into the Soul Mortal Sin is necessarily cast out thereby sect 11. par 6. But few without the Sacramental washing with water though piously disposed have the habit of Charity compleated in them Neither is Baptism given in vain even to those whose mortal Sin is expelled out of the Soul before it be administred for since there are as many degrees of Righteousness as there are of Charity sect 11. par 8 9. the actual receiving of that Sacrament will cause in them an encrease of Charity and so of Righteousness which is never perfect till the Love of God be so ardent that it wholly burns up all the dross of carnal and earthly Affections in the Soul Sect. 11. Object 2. If the Belief of the Articles of the Christian Faith and an earnest desire and a stedfast resolution to forsake Sin and to lead a godly Life be Dispositions necessarily required in those who are to be baptized then is Infant-Baptism a fruitless and insignificant thing Solut. It is evident as well by the Office of Baptism as by the Church-Catechism that Infants through their Sureties are engaged before the Church will admit them to Baptism except in imminent danger of Death in which Case the Church enjoyning speedy Baptism becomes it self Surety thereby and therefore orders that the Child if it live be brought into the public Congregation and that the Godfathers and Godmothers undertake for it like to what is done in public Baptism to believe themselves the Articles of Christian Faith and to renounce the World the Flesh and the Devil when they come to Age no less than such as are of ripe years are obliged to declare they already do unfeignedly all those things by which it appears that the Benefit which accrues by Baptism to both has a reference to and proceeds on their part upon the account and ground of a true profession of Faith and a real endeavour after Holiness of Life So that although Baptism be administred to Children before they understand it yet the effect and benefit of it more than this that they obtain thereby the grand Privilege of becoming Members of the visible Church whence they are brought to enjoy the great Blessing of Christian Education takes not place nor is reaped till they do And thus it is easie to apprehend as to those Children that live till they have the use of Reason how Baptism becomes profitable to them whilst if they get benefit thereby they must perform what their Sureties promised for them which if they unfeignedly do by cordially believing the Christian Doctrine and by taking a firm resolution through the Grace of God to live a godly Life the Consideration of the gracious Design of Christ's instituting of Baptism to take away Sin and of the solemn Celebration of it by the Church for their sake to that end will if the Consideration be such as it should be cause a loathing of Sin and a real forsaking thereof for the Love of God. For why Baptism already past should not through a serious reflecting on it especially when Confirmation is duly according to the great importance of it administred be an effectual Means of cleansing the heart from Sin as well as it is by the earnest desire thereof before it be had will not be easily I believe resolved The main difficulty to unfold is how Baptism can profit Children that die young Those who say that Grace is immediately infused by God will be hard put to 't to give a tolerable Reason to what good purpose the Use of Means is when the Effect receives
and slight those Benefits which God by them tenders to him and in so doing not only sets slight of the Author of them but also rejects the End at which they ultimately aim Felicity No man therefore possibly can deliberately dishonour his Parents or other his Superiors but his Heart will be thereby estranged from God. But much more in wilfully disobeying their just Commands is there an Aversion from their Sovereign Good for therein is a direct Refusal of God's Goodness offered by them whilst every thing they lawfully command is some way more or less directly or by consequence advantageous to the acquisition of Bliss if right use be made thereof The 6th Commandment which is Non occides Thou shalt not kill or Thou shalt do no Murther is not kept by a meer abstaining from desiring contriving or attempting the Death or bodily Harm of our Neighbour but in wishing and doing likewise our Endeavour to preserve his Life and Health in order to the eternal Welfare of his Soul which we cannot do save only as we are excited thereto by the Love we bear to our own Life and good Estate of our Bodies as serviceable to the End for which Life and all the Helps and Attendants of it were given For neither Health nor Life ought to be desired if such Circumstances occur as that the Preservation of them is inconsistent with the everlasting Welfare of the Soul which because it is placed in the Fruition of God the Love we have thereto is the principal reason and motive why we ought to desire to continue in Life and Health our selves or wish the like to our Neighbour for making preparation towards the full Enjoyment of him after this Life is ended And on the contrary the bare doing of bodily Harm to our Neighbour or even the taking away of his Life is no sin simply in it self considered but in this respect only that he who does it has not that due regard for want of the Love of God to the preservation of it which the importance thereof in order to the end whereunto it was given requires For who is ignorant that the Execution of the Penalties in Laws for capital Crimes is no Sin either in the Judge who gives Sentence of Death or in him that executes the same provided they have no personal Malice to the Offender but solely have an Eye to the satisfying of the Law which intends not any Mischief to the Malefactor but Good to the Weal-public by removing an incorrigible Member from among the People But if the Judg or Executioner desire his Death out of hatred to him albeit he deserve to die and be justly condemned and executed there is Murther committed notwithstanding that the Party suffering has no more Torment inflicted on him than if no Malice had been towards him whence it is apparent that the Breach of this Commandment lies in that depraved Disposition of Mind which is opposite to the sound desire of wishing a Man's Neighbour's bodily Welfare in order to the Health of his Soul which because none ever heartily doth but in virtue of his own Love of Bliss the Want of that Love is the formal Reason why the bereaving any one of Life or working his bodily harm is a sin or hinderance to Felicity The 7th Commandment is Thou shalt not commit Adultery the Breach of which doth not consist in the material Act of carnal copulation with anothers Wife but in forsaking the Love of God for an unlawful Pleasure For suppose a Wife should leave her Husband and be married to another Man inculpably ignorant of her former Marriage the Woman alone would offend against this Precept albeit the Man also transgressed the Letter of the Law in carnally knowing anothers Wife Or in case a Man should have his Neighbours Consort put into his Bed thinking her to be his own he offended not although he should commit the external Act of Adultery with her And on the contrary if an Husband lay with his own Wife thinking her to be his Neighbours he would in so doing sin against this Precept and yet no Transgression of it would thereby be made as to the external Act prohibited Hence it is plain that the Violation of the Seventh Comandment is in the depraved Affection of the Will in turning the Heart away from the Love of God to unchast Pleasures and that it is kept by having a Mind undefiled with fleshly Lusts which every one so long hath as Charity or the Love of God above all things is predominant in the Soul. If it be objected that simple Fornication also alienates the Heart from God through the desire of unlawful Venereal Pleasures whence it should be a sin no less grievous then Adultery I answer that he who attempts to pollute his Neighbours Bed knows that he ought upon a double account not to do it First because his Neighbours Wife is not tied in a Matrimonial Bond to him Secondly because she is bound to another and therefore he will have his Heart more hardned in sin or farther estranged from God than if he only desired to satisfie his Lust with one from whom upon the former account alone he holds himself to be restrained and so the sin of Adultery all Circumstances being equal is a more heinous Transgression of the Law of God than the Sin of simple Fornication is The 8th Commandment is Thou shalt not steal by which we are obliged not only to abstain from taking by Force or Fraud whatsoever temporal Good our Neighbour has a Right to but also to employ our Endeavours if just occasion require to help to secure him in the lawful Possession of the same yet with this intent that he use it as a Means to further him in the pursuit of his Eternal Good the fruition of which is the Vltimate End of all Laws whether Divine Moral Canonical or Civil in the sincere Desire whereof they are only truly kept and for want of which they are solely broken as to their principal and Grand Design albeit not as to their particular respective ends which they more immediately but less beneficially look at And therefore even this Precept which more obviously regards and enjoyns the doing Justice may be violated as to the letter of it without a formal Breach thereof as will appear by shewing that in some Case one Man may without violating this Precept take from another without his Consent what the Municipal Laws of the Land where they both live entitle him to which I thus undertake to do No Man by the primary Law of Nature or Reason can or ever could except Adam who was Lord of the whole Earth claim Propriety in any thing without himself Propriety came by a latter Law namely either by Distribution of Lands and Goods made by Adam or else by Division or Occupancy after Adams Decease of what he had not disposed of immediately or mediately in his Life time to which purpose Grotius in his Second Book
designs it to be a Warning to others not to imitate them in their gross Impiety and at that time when he knows the Offenders will rather grow worse than ever after come to amendment And as Man's Condition here for any Decree of Gods to the contrary is as good as can be considering the Causes Natural and Moral which render his Condition what it is so will his State hereafter likewise be the necessary and voluntary Causes considered which bring him to it of which Causes the Variety in respect of all Mankind is so great at all times and so differently circumstantiated in their Influence and Application and the Subjects to be wrought on so contrarily often disposed one to another that it is easie to conceive that they may very well become effectual Means of Conversion to some great Sinners while other less Offenders are not moved to a thorow Amendment by them so that the dying of men in their Sins cannot justly be so attributed to the Divine Will and Pleasure as if the Almighty suffered them to perish out of pure design for the manifestation of his Glory the infallible Word expresly declaring to us the contrary God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance 2 Pet. 3. 9. And again who will have all Men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the Truth 1 Tim. 2. 4. To which knowledge though they do not all attain yet is the Word of God no less firm and sure Why all Men in the World have not heard of God's infinite Love manifested in the Death of Christ many Causes may be assigned all grounded on Gods infinite Justice and Mercy Of Christ's Death many which heard not might have heard many which are not might have been Partakers save only for their free and voluntary Progress from evil to worse or wilful refusal of Gods loving Kindness daily proffered to them in such Pledges as they were well content to swallow foolishly esteeming these good in themselves being good only as they plight the truth of God's Love unto them which he manifested in the Death of his Son. With this manifestation of his Love many again out of meer Mercy have not been acquainted lest the sight of the Medicine might have caused their Disease to rage and made their Case more lamentably desperate Dr. Jackson in his Treatise of the Divine Essence and Attributes Cap. 17. Paragr 3. All which I mean that hath been said in the whole Answer to the Objection considered together with this that it was not only better to create than not to create but also that no other World could be created save only that which doth exist Sect. 3. Par. 8. 't is clear that the Almighties Wisdom and Goodness are justified even to the Eye of Human Reason notwithstanding the different times and ways of men departing Life either in respect of Age or of dying more or less in Sin. Objection 14. From the Instances given in the explanation of the Seventh Commandment sect 19. you seem to hold that there can be no external Sin in the Body of any one denomination where there is not an internal Sin in the Soul of the same kind from which alone the exterior Act as being produced by it can be called sinful Against this Opinion I offer it to your Consideration whether there may not be external Idolatry where there is no internal as suppose an Idol be commanded by the Magistrate under pain of Death to be worshipped by bowing down before it and a Christian to save his Life bows his Body towards it but at the same time abominates the Idol in his heart so as that he is far from giving any internal Honour to it and yet surely you will not say but that he commits the Sin of Idolatry and may be justly censured by the Church as an Idolater Answer Since the Christian instanced in does what is commanded so far forth as that the Lookers on have sufficient cause to believe he has committed Idolatry the Church ought to esteem and censure him as an Idolater for what he has done by reason it cannot judg of the Heart but by outward Signs and inappearance he has committed Idolatry But yet if you 'l go to the exact definition of Idolatry you 'l find the Fact comes not within the compass of it and that Sin which will not come under the definition of Idolatry you must needs grant cannot be truly speaking the Sin of Idolatry for Idolatry is a Crime which exhibits the honour due to God alone to another Object and therefore since the bowing down of the Body is not an Act appropriated to the Divine Majesty for we lawfully and laudably bow unto our Prince Parents and others in Authority over us of which there are several Examples in Holy Writ it is evident that the mentioned act of bowing towards the Idol is not Idolatrous according to the definition of Idolatry To make this more plain by an Instance let 's suppose another Christian to be brought before the Idol and commanded to bow unto it as the other did which he likewise in appearance does by stooping down that he may catch it by the feet to overthrow it and according to his intent casts it with scornful indignation to the ground in doing of which he gives full satisfaction to the Beholders of his abhorrence of performing any manner of Worship to it notwithstanding that they all see him bow towards it as low as the other did judg him an Idolater till the Reason of his incurvation becomes apparent to them by seeing the Idol so contemptuously used at the length Is then you 'l say the formerly spoken of Christian who is granted to deserve the Churches Censure as an Idolater no more guilty of Idolatrous Worship according to the strictest Notion of Idolatry than the latter I refer you to the definition of Idolatry which cannot delude you for answer Is he therefore you 'l peradventure reply only sinful in the sight of Men and not also in the sight of God Yes undoubtedly he is a very grievous Offender even before God as well as men for he not only scandalizes Christianity in giving the Enemies of it an occasion to triumph in hardening them in their idolatrous Worship and in encouraging them to proceed to persecute Christians with hope of desired success but also in disheartning of the weaker Brethren in making them to stagger in the Faith and in grieving all the Members of Christ in general to do any one of which is a great Sin but to do all of them together is a Crime of complicated Scandal to the Gospel of Christ which at once instructeth and exhorteth saying Be not afraid of them that kill the Body and after that have no more that they can do But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into Hell yea I say unto you fear him
Conjunction and Union with the Soul has such an Influence on it that it certainly inclines it to all manner of Affections which the animal Parts excites it to except when Reason prevails with the Will to resist the Motions of the sensitive Appetite which cannot be while the Intellect is uncapable of the Exercise of Reason 't is manifest that seeing Children in the Mothers Womb have not at all the use of Reason there will be in their Souls an Inclination or Habitude agreeable and correspondent to the Disposition of their corporeal Part which in that it is begot and conceived of Seed issuing from disordered Bodies will it self be in disorder and thereby cause an unanswerable disorderly Disposition in the sensitive Faculty inclining it to Objects of sense and that again work a proportionable inordinate Habitude in the Will which bereaving it of the due Inclination it ought to have towards the true Object of Felicity causes a Want of that Original Disposition of Soul which should and would have been in Children if so be Man had continued in the State of Integrity which Want is that Malady of the Soul Men call Original Sin or Privation of Original Righteousness and is the Consequent in the manner above explain'd of eating the forbidden Fruit. 3. By this Explication of Original Sin God is justified and cleared from all Suspicion of being cause thereof whereas if the Sin of Adam was transferred to his Posterity because their Wills are included as some say in his I see not how the Almighty could be cleared from being the Author of it For since the Wills of Children are not really and truly by Nature in the Wills of their Parents for otherwise all Children should of Right be guilty of all the Sins of their Parents the Wills of Adams Progeny could not be included in the Will of Adam unless God in whose Power the Wills of all Men are would for his Preasures sake have it so If therefore by Gods meer voluntary Constitution the Wills of Adams Posterity be included in Adams Will it follows that by the same Constitution the Sin of Adam is his Posterities Sin also in that the very Reason why the Sin of Adam becomes the Sin of his Posterity is because their Wills are voluntarily constituted by God in his Will which if it were true would make God the Author of Original Sin. Object 1. If Original Sin be derived from Adam by Propagation it cannot be a Privation of Original Righteousness because Privation is the meer want of a thing and not a Positive thing which may be propagated Solut. There are two things to be considered in Original Sin an Habitude or Proneness in the Will towards the Enjoyment of the Creature and a Want of Original Righteousness or Disposition of the Soul towards God which it had by Creation Now although the Want of Original Righteousness be truly and properly Original Sin because if there were no want of that there would be no Original Unrighteousness yet in that the native Habitude or Proneness of the Will towards the Creature Par. 2. instead of God is the reason why the Soul becomes deprived of Original Righteousness that Habitude or Proneness of the Will is also called Original Sin which that and how it proceeds by means of natural Generation was shown in Par. 1. 2. And it is so in all manner of Vice that the irregular Act or Habit is not Vice formally taken but the Privation of the opposite Virtue which ensues upon that irregular Act or Habit and yet nevertheless the irregular Act and Habit are both called Vice Metonimically because it is a necessary Result of each For instance an intemperate Act or Habit is said to be a Vice and yet the formal Reason of their Vitiousness confists in this that the one at least weakens the other destroys the Virtue of Temperance or in case a Man be intemperate before they render it more difficult for him to become Temperate by strengthening or encreasing his Intemperance for it is impossible that any thing should be morally evil but as it deprives of some moral Good or weakens it or puts a Man farther from it for if by Intemperance a Man were not a whit the less Virtuous he would not be one jot the more Vitious than if he were not Intemperate at all And the like may be as truly said of any other irregular Act or Habit of the Will. If it be urged that in case Original Sin descend in the manner before described by propagation it would rather be derived to us from our immediate Parents than from our First since another Temper of Body is communicated by them to us then what was derived from Adam to his own Children as is evident from the manifold different natural Dispositions we meet with in young Children and yet Original Sin is solely fixed to the eating of the forbidden Fruit my Answer is that though it be very true that Infants receive another Disposition from their more immediate Progenitor than what has been perpetually derived from Adam and consequently that some of them also have a greater propensity to Vice through the personal Faults of their nearer Ancestors and Parents yet in that the whole Stock of Mankind ever since Adam has had a proneness from their Conception to the Creature in room of the Creator by reason of the first Transgression Original Sin is rightly imputed to the eating of the forbidden Fruit it being certain that from that Fault alone though there had never been any other therewould have ensued a Want of Original Righteousness in all Mankind Object 2. If Original Sin proceed from a Proneness in the sensitive Appetite towards the Creature and that from the unequal Temper or male Disposition of the body unless the Body be restored to its primitive Constitution which is not to be expected no Man shall ever be quit or clear from Original Sin in this Life Solut. Although Concupiscence be never totally rooted out of the sensitive Faculty in this Life yet it doth not always as it does Infants who have not the use of Reason necessarily so influence the Will as it does the sensitive Appetites and the Will is the only proper Seat of Sin but may through a virtuous Course of Life be so far mastered and subjugated to the Power and Command of the Will that it shall be able to give but small and ineffectual disturbance to the Rational Faculties which actually falls out so often as the Soul acquires the Habit of Virtue whereby it obtains a sincere Affection to God as its Sovereign Good for such Affection or Charity as shall be shown afterward Sect. 11. not only frees the Soul from Original but all other mortal Sin likewise whilst it is thereby formally justified and put into a State of Grace and Salvation 4. The mentioned Difficulties about Original Sin removed I go forward to shew that as Original Sin proceeds from our first Parents eating of the Tree