no Reason assign'd why iâ— shou'd be otherwise but because there is more of the sensible Nature in one part than there is in another but how can there be more or less when the whole feâ—ls both wherefore if there are degrees of Pain in the Sentient Parts if we câ—n feel pain in this part and none in the other and can at once feel several distinct Pains in several distinct parts then the Soul must either feel by parts which an Indivisible cannâ—t or Sensation must belong to another Principle whose Properties are Extension and Divisibility and if those Properties do not belong to Body or can belong to Spirit we have no Notion either of Body or Spirit Whoever throughly considers this Argument will find that the Judgment of most Learned Physician concur with this Opinion of the Corporiety of the Souls of Brutes and that the same is plainly hinted in those places of Scripture which relate to the Jewish Prohibition of Eating Blood because the same contained the Life or Soul For as our Animal Spirits 〈◊〉 off by what we call the insensible Transpiration we are sensibly enfeebled and grow unactive till there are new ones maâ—e out of the Arterial Blood which Blood must be again sâ—pâ—ly'd by Corporeal Nourishment Thus we see Bodies unâ—â—â—ustom'd to hot Countries in those places their Poâ—es are so much open'd as to cause the Spirits flying away in such quantities that the Life would soon expire without the assistance of spiâ—â—tuous Liquors which give a speedy supply of Spirits On the other hand we find Dormice will sleep whole Months without the help of Food but if you observe those Creatures in their sleep they are stiff and cold their Pores are so contracted that the Life cannot fly off and therefore they want no Recruit but when warmth awakens them whereby their Pores are opened they can fast no longer than other Creatures therefore if the Animal Life flies off by parts which are again renew'd by Corporeal Nourishment it is a clear Evidence that the Soul of Brutes or Animal Life is Corporeal and by this we come to a plain and true Notion of Death that it is not as usually defin'd a Separation of the Soul and Body which is but a Consequence of Death but an absolute Extinguishment of the Animal Life or Vital Flame For to suppose that meer Animals are a Compound of Matter and Spirit and that Death is only a Separation of them is to ridicule all the Natural Arguments for Man's Immortality by making them hold as strong for the Immortality of Brutes which is both against Divinity and Common Sense And indeed the reason why some Physicians who of all Men should admire most the wonderful Works of Creating Wisdom have been Atheistically inclin'd is because they are able to demonstrate that Sense is made by Matter and Motion and therefore have carelesly concluded Reason to spring from the same Principle and all our Actions to be accounted for by Mechanism and those Men help much to the Confirmation of this Opinion who assign the Office of Sensation to the Rational Soul and allow Reason to other Animals there is no Adversary to Religion but will readily grant the Animal Life and Rational Soul to be the same thing and that all Animals are Rational but then he subjoyns that the Animal Life is Corporeal and therefore concludes that Rationality is no Argument either of Immateriality or Immortality My Lord Bacon upon this Subject delivers his Opinion in the following words The sensible Soul or the Soul of Beasts must needs be granted to be a Corporeal Substance attenuated by Heat and made invisible let there be therefore made a more diligent Enquiry touching this Knowledge and the rather for that this Point not well understood bath brought forth superstitious and very contagious Opinions and most vilely abasing the dignity of the Soul of Man of Transmigration of Souls out of one Body into another and lustration of Souls by Periods of Years and finally of the too near affinity in evey point of the Soul of Man with the Soul of Beasts This Soul in Beasts is a principal Soul whereof the Body of the Beast is the Organ but in Man thâ—s Soul is it self an Organ of the Soul Rational Having made this Enquiry into the Soul of Brutes and given I hope sufficient proof that the same is Corporeal we shall next inform our selves what Knowledge they are endow'd with and enquire whether or no there is a Principle of Reason in the most subtil of their Actions Our common Observation may assure us That all the Actions of meer Animals are either the Effects of a bare Sensitive Nature which in various degrees is common to all or of Sensitive Creatures as they are fram'd of this or that peculiar Species or Kind for what those Creatures act according to the Nature common to all is plainly the Effect of bare Sensation We see Ideots do as much who have no use of Reason they distinguish who feeds them and fear who beats them Outward Objects must affect the Animal Spirits the Animal Spirits must make Traces in the Brain and lodge those Idea's and so far Will and Reason have nothing to do And altho' the Actions of meer Animals as they are of this or that peculiar Species or Kind seem somewhat agreeable to Reason yet they prove only a wise Author of their Beings and that the more strongly because 't is visible that those Actions are not the Effects of a reasoning Principle in those Creatures for Actions that are constantly agreeable to Reason must be somewhere directed by Reason but they are not the Effect of Reâ—son in those Creatures In earthly created Beings we find Reason is improv'd by degrees from a Series of Observations or from Information Men cannot conclude or reason about any thing but a Posteriori from the operation and effects of things but meer Animals act according to their Nature immediately and without observation which are so many Demonstrations that they are instructed by a secret Instinct and not by Reason or a Knowledge of what they do for they ever act according to their Natures when by plain and visible Accident they act against the most apparent Reason One wou'd think a little very little Reason wou'd instruct Creatures that they cou'd not eat when their Mouths are sewed up at least a trial might learn them that knowledge yet stitch up the Mouth of a Ferret day after day and for all that he 'l as warmly pursue the Rabbits for his food as if his Jaws were at liberty Farthermore Meer Animals must act according to their kind when so acting is visibly their certain ruin Take a Bull-dog and muzzle him throw him Bones that he may find he cannot open his Mouth â—â—t after that shew him a Bull and he shall as boldly attack the Bull as if he had no Muzzle on Again It is certain that young Birds bred in Trees will
actuating the nervous System after their wonted manner by the same Series produce local Motions by which the hungry Horse is carry'd from place to place till he has found out the imagin'd Pasture and indeed enjoys that good the Image whereof was painted in his Brain After this manner the sensible Species being intromitted by the benefit of the Exterior Organs in the more perfect Brutes for that they affix their Characters on the Brain and there leave them they constitute the Faculties of Phancy and Memory as it were Store-houses full of Notions farther stirring up the Appetite into local Motions agreeable to the Sensions frequently they produce an habit of acting so that some Beasts being taught or instructed for a long time by the assiduous Incursions of the Objects are able to know and remember many things and learn manifold Works i. e. to perform them by a complicated and continued Series and Succession of very many Actions Moreover this kind of acquir'd knowledge of the Brutes and the practick Habits introduced by the Acts of the Senses are sometimes promoted by other means to a greater degree of Perfection Living Brutes are taught by Example by the Imitation and Institution of others of the same or of a divers kind to perform certain more excellent Actions Hence it is that the Ape so plainly imitates Man that by some it is thought a more imperfect Species of him for this Animal being extreamly mimical as it is endow'd with a most caepactous and hot Brain it imitates to an hair almost all the Gestures that it happens to see presently with a ready and expeditious composing of its Members and is furnisht with a notable Memory and retains all its Tricks which it hath once acted very firmly afterwards being wont to repeat them at its pleasure Yet notwithstanding t is very clear and apparent that Brutes are directed to all things which belong to the Defence and Conservation of the Individuum and that are to be done for the Propagation of their Kinds by a natural Instinct as it were a Law or Rule fixed in their Hearts when as therefore we behold for these ends ordained by Divine Providence Brutes to order their Matters wisely and as it were by Counsel no Man esteems this the Work of Reason or any Liberal Faculty for they are led into these Enterprises by a certain Predestination rather than by any proper Vertue or Intention Having given you this Account of the Soul of Brutes prov'd the same a Corporeal Divisible Substance whose peculiar residence is in the Blood and Spirits and evinced their knowledge not to exceed the powers of Sensation and Imagination it is time that we return to discourse of the Rational Soul of Man and if it can be discover'd that there is a Principle of Action in him which proceeds from a different way of Operation than Sensation doth and that there are such Operations of this Soul which are not Imaginations it will be then as clear that there is a Principle in Man higher than Matter and Motion and impossible without a spiritual immaterial Being to solve those Appearances in him which thus transcend the Power of Imagination The renowned Philosopher Gassendus has given sufficient proof That the Sensitive Soul in Man is exactly the same with that of Brutes Corporeal Extended Native and Corruptible but that the Rational is a Substance purely Incorporeal and Immortal Dr. Hammond in his Notes upon Thessalonians v. 23. says Man consists of three Parts First the Body which denotes the Flesh and Members Secondly the Vital Soul which Animal and Sensitive Soul is common to Man and Brute Thirdly Spirit which is the Rational Soul This Division he confirms by the Testimony of Heathen Authors and ancient Fathers So that those who disregard the Scriptures may in these admirable Authors be furnisht with other Authorities but those who do may consider what the Apostle saith in the foremention'd Text viz. I pray God your whole Body Soul and Spirit be preserved to which we may add what he says in another place The Word is sharper then a two edged Sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit and of the Joynts and Marrow The meaning whereof is Let things be never so closely united God can separate them but then they must be in their nature separable or else it implys a Contradiction So that if the Soul and Spirit are separable we have gain'd our Point if they are not the Apostle has told us that can be which cannot be But further This Truth that there is two distinct Souls in Man is by the Apostle demonstrated from the dictates of Internal Sense I find saith he a Law that when I would do good evil is present with me for I delight in the Law of God after the inward Man But I see another Law in my Members warring against the Law of my Mind and bringing me into captivity to the Law of Sin which is in my Members So then with my Mind I my self serve the Law of God but with the Flesh the Law of Sin Now what can be more expressive of two several perceptive Souls in Man whose Natures and whose Laws are contrary to each other But perhaps you 'l say These contrary Laws do indeed arise because Man is a Compound of contrary Natures yet there is but one perceptive Nature in him but that Nature having the several Faculties of Reason and Sensation and being united to Flesh whereby the Sensitive Faculty may be gratify'd hence arises the War between Sense and Reason To which I answer Thus far then we are agreed that Sense is the Source of all Carnal Delights Pains and Aversions therefore Sense is no Faculty of the Spirit or all Carnal Delights Lusts and Passions spring from the Spirit and what excellent sence would this make the Apostle speak I find a Law in my Mind warring against the Law of my Mind so then with the Mind I my self serve the Law of God but with the Mind the Law of Sin for if Sense be a Faculty of the Mind the Laws of Sense are are as much the Laws of the Mind as the Laws of Reason The Soul and Spirit by reason of their close unaccountable Union have also unaccountable mutual Influences upon each other but for all that their contrary Natures are very discernable and to make Sense and Reason Faculties of the Spirit is to make the Spirit as the Man a Compound of contrary Natures for that Sense and Reason are of contrary Natures is discernable from the natural and constant strugglings and contentions between them Secondly From the natural Fruit they bring forth which is certainly contrary if Good and Evil are so wherefore we may with all imaginable certainty affirm the Souls of all meer Animals and the Sensitive Soul of Man to be Corporeal but the Rational Soul of Man to be truly a Spiritual Immaterial Substance if there were not such a Substance in
Divine Light we have as little Reason to credit them as in their pretended Revelations The Holy Spirit can neither be the Author of Absurdity or Incoherency in Discourse neither yet of Repugnancy in Opinion Difference between each other and palpable Confusion amongst them all Those who have the Grace of the Holy Spirit or the Advantage of the Divine Light will see a necessity not only to be acted by but to think more reverently of the true Revelation of Christ Jesus of his Incarnation and outward Sufferings as well as of his second Coming to Judge the Quick and Dead Now whatever these People may insinuate to the World under the Notion of their Belief there are notwithstanding several dangerous Heresies got in amongst them They do most of them at the bottom set up their own Light and private Inspirations to the written word which their calling a Dead Letter Food for Children of little use to the Regenerate or such as are grown in Grace do plainly intimate there are many of them speak slightingly of the Mosaick History ridicule the Notion of Original Sin and disparage or discredit the manner of its Translation They have none of them any other infallible Criterion or standing Rule of Faith than a mistaken Conscience which they Nick-name the Divine Light This is plainly evident by their wild Enthusiams the gross Immoralities among some of them and the intestine Janglings amongst them all They do consult the Scriptures in order to an imitation of the Apostolical Writings but alas their high Pretences and Conceits are foil'd and quaâ—ht so soon as ever we compare them and notwithstanding their strenuous Pleas with their seeming assurance that they have the same Prophetic Spirit and are equally inspir'd with the Divine Pen-men I defie the whole Body of Qu sm to produce me one single Instance of any one of their Prophets that cou'd ever give the Proof and Attestation of their Inspiration with the Founders of Christianity when they come to this they most wretchedly prevaricate and cry out with Mahomet There is no need of Signs and Wonders Believe me Sir adds he this late Pretence to Inspiration is both the most egregious Cheat that was ever put upon the Christian World and the most dangerous and destructive Fallacy that ever the grand Deceiver cou'd have invented or contriv'd Weigh all things fairly and without prejudice consider all impartially and give the greatest scope you can to the best of their Arguments you will find all as pure deception and as certainly false as the Divine Illumination of the first Christians was most conspicuous and demonstratively true If we consider the tendency of this Notion we shall find that shou'd the World but once comply with or countenance the same the Fundamentals of Government both Civil and Ecclesiastic wou'd presently be unhing'd we shou'd have one Revelation in opposition to another the Gospel of our Saviour that Divine System of true Religion wou'd be trampled under soot we shou'd be expos'd in our Fortunes to the State of Levellers in our Minds to Diabolical Illusions or Phansiful Suggestions Our Religion wou'd soon grow volatile and fly away into Air and Spirit a profound Sign oâ— lamentable Expiration wou'd be all we shou'd have to do whilst clothed with the Flesh and all our Religious Duties for want of the Support of an establisht Form wou'd quickly leave us Our helps to Devotion such as Watchings Fastings and servent Prayers wou'd be quickly laid aside and in a little timâ— we shou'd find our selves in the midst of a destructive Ignorance and barbarous Confusion I can the more readily presage this having been much pester'd with these People in some of the Towns of New-Eng tho' not altogether in such a manner as Germany has been with the frantick Anabaptists I shall only take notice to you in one word more that when ever you may happen to discourse these People upon almost any single Article of the Christian Faith you will find that there are scarce two of them of the same Opinion Their Ignoâ—ance in the Explanatory part of Religion is so great that for want of a settled Creed or generally establisht System they will unavoidably clash and jar with one another indeed so far as I perceive they are capable of arguing nothing solidly but the Principles of Deism and even their grand Notion of the Light is as yet unprincipled and as Mr. Norris says unphilosophic notwithstanding the two learnedest Props of their Cause have set it out to the best advantage their Learning cou'd â—nable them 'T is true there are some of the most Judicious who will talk to the purpose for some little time but there is no keeping them close to their Argument The want of Catechistical Exercise to instil their Principles into those under their Care has rendred their Religion rude and ill-shapen and to me this seems none of the least Causes that the greater part of them are so very unknowing in Divinity that they can say nothing for themselves but this that they have a feeling Sense of an inward Light which is sufficient to direct them Thus ended my Friend's Discourse which I shall leave with this short Remark That for the most part his Idea's seem to be clear and Rational his Judgment sound and setting aside a little Heat his Discourse in the main to consist with Truth or Matter of Fact and Common Observation Whoever consults Antiquity or the Chronicles of the Times may find many Histories of this wild Enthusiasm and the Extravagancies that have attended this Whimsical Pretence to Inspiration In the Reign of Henry the Sixth one La Pucel a French Maid was burnt at Roan she declared that she was sent from God for the good of her Country to expel the English In the Year 1591. and the 34 th of Queen Elizabeth 's Reign was memorable the prodigious carriage of one Hackett born at Oundle in Northamptonshire a mean Fellow of no Learning whose first Prank was this That when in shew of Reconciliation to one with whom he had veen at variance he embraced him he bit off his Nose and the Man desiring to have it again that it might be sewed on whilst the Wound was fresh he most villainously eat it up and swallowed it before his Face After this on a sudden he took upon him a shew of wonderful Holiness did nothing almost but hear Sermons got Scriptures by heart counterfeited Revelations from God and an extraordinary Calling Thus he grew to be magnify'd by certain zealous Ministers especially of one Edward Coppinger a Gentleman of a good House and one Arthington a great Admirer of the Geneva Discipline insomuch that they accounted him as sent from Heaven and a greater Prophet than Moses and John Baptist and finally that he was Christ himself come with a Fan in his hand to judge the World This they proclaimed in Cheapside giving out that Hackett participated of Christ's glorified Body by his especial
as I have elsewhere explain'd they will at last be incapable of penetrating into any thing that is a little difficult or which requires a little Application The Operation of Divine Grace upon the Souls of those who are qualify'd for its Reception is so invisible and so insensibly communicated that the Irreligious and Profane have hence taken an occasion to ridicule and contemn it and as far as lyes in their Power to explode the very Notion out of the World These will allow of no other Grace than the force of certain Habits by which Men suffer themselves to be govern'd and which are for the most part the Result of their Education We must own indeed that the Efficacy of this Grace above the Prevalency of Habits however deeply radicated or woven into the Constitution or the Difference between one and the other is certainly known by none but the Regenerate Man Those who are never so intimately acquainted with the Nature and Powers of the Mind know how the Vestigia of Sensible Objects come to be imprest and drawn out upon the Brain or after what manner not only Imagination but the pure Acts of the Understanding are perform'd Those I say who know all this by the clearest Idea's together with the whole Process of the common Mode of Natural Understanding can at best but guess and that very faintly at this Divine Influence which must co-operate even with such Persons whose Habits of Goodness are as deeply rooted as possible if they receive a solid Pleasure and Satisfaction in its Practise Meer Habits of Moral Goodness may be in many respects very serviceable and an occasion of securing us from an limitation of the Practises of Wicked Men from being at all times over-power'd by the Storms and Tempests raised in our own Breasts They may keep us from being extremely injur'd by the Precepts of such by whose evil Communication our Manners wou'd be corrupted and our Minds debaucht They may serve to render us somewhat the more impregnable and better fortify'd against the treacherous Assaults of those who endeavour to frame and model us into the same temper with themselves In a word they may place us in a State of some little Security against these and the like Adversaries ready to bâ—set us but they will never be able of themselves to give us any sensible fruition of the Divine Goodness or to crown our Desites with an Eternal Felicity Now if true Piety be an empty and a useless Sound if neither that nor the Divine Grace have any other Being in the World than what proceeds from a contracted or long continued Habit if Conversion of the Heart to God Contrition for past Offences if Renovation or Regeneration have no better Ground for their Support and Truth than meerly natural Habit how comeâ— it to pass that some Men who have been throughly harden'd in Iniquity by the force of an obdurate habit of Impiety shou'd be at some times so sensibly touche with a sudden Horrour as presently to awaken out of their Dreams of Carnal Security and by a refulgent Ray of the Divine Light to have their Souls so strangely illuminated as that they have often found themselves even contrary to their own natural Inclinations put upon impeaching their formerly beloved Lusts and darling Satisfactions and also upon an open Confession of their desperate Madness in having so long pursu'd them The Instances of this Nature are very numerous some of them I have already mention'd and more might be here inserted if I thought it necessary not only of those whose Understandings being weak or shallow we might believe impos'd on but even of the most accute and profound Desperado's in all sorts of Villany Men who have undauntedly bid open Defiance to Heaven and admir'd how the silly World shou'd be frighted with that Childish Whim as they have term'd it of their Immortality But leaving these I shall take notice that as on the one hand there are some who will allow of no Grace at all so on the other we find those who reckon every several Vertue to be a distinct Grace thus there must be a Grace of Temperance a Grace of Chastity a Grace of Patience a Grace of Charity and so in like manner there is nothing more common than to hear them talking of Restraining Grace Preventing Grace Saving Grace Renewing Grace Persevering Grace Regenerating Grace as if these were so many several Graces and not one and the same Grace of God Thus others of them will have the Divine Light the Spirit of God the Grace of God and the Grace of Jesus Christ to differ essentially which improper ways of speaking have for want of Explanation been the occasion of lessening and obscuring the Fundamental Notion as well as of Contempt to the profane Jesters at all things Sâ—câ—ed I remember sometime since before I made my first Visit to the Reverend Dr. H k I sent him a long Epistle containing my own Sentiments of Divine Matters and desired him to inform me wherein he dissented There were some particular Queries therein relating to this Subject last mentioned which as I find them in the Copy of my Letter I shall here Transcribe Query 1. Whether there be any thing essential to Salvation but a holy or good Life or a Conscience kept without Offence towards God and Man Granting this 2dly Whether it is not possible for this happy Man to be found under any Christian Communion 3dly Whether this State of true Felicity and content is to be attained by any surer Method than that of a due attendance upon the Divine Monitor which is planted in our Souls I mean the Divine resplendent Light of the Archetipal World as explicated by Father Malebranch and after him by Mr. Norris for however inconsiderate Men may cavil at the Notion as a Principle of Q sm I am satisfy'd we do all receive a certain secret irresistable Reproach from this faithful Monitor when we have thought of or committed any unworthy Action and an inexpressible Satisfaction from our doing Good I desir'd with submission to be farther inform'd whether or no these words the Grace of God the Spirit of God or Jesus Christ have any other true import than that of this Divine Manifestation to the Soul or if to say commonly speaking such a Person is endow'd with the Grace of God does not bear a strict Analogy with his being more than ordinarily attentive to this Lux Divina it seems hard indeed to conceive any other different Degrees of Grace than there are different Degrees of Reflection upon or attention to the silent Admonitions of this Invisible Being and surely it can be nothing but the want of this Reflection and Attention to which our present Infidelity owes it Rise I know Mr. Norris will have this Light in some degrees thereof to be not only the same with what we call the Grace of God but that it is also in a more inferiour acceptation the common Mode of the
Humane Understanding I desire to know in what you dissent herefrom as likewise your Explication of the word Conscience it seems to me but little short of an Absurdity that there should be any other Sence presiding in the Soul over all her Actions than what is communicated from the Supream Being Moreover I wou'd gladly be inform'd whether any Man has the power as of himself heartily to believe that which at sometimes he confesseth with his Mouth The Rehearsal of a Creed is no difficult matter but a solid Conviction that what we do rehearse is apparently clear to us as Mathematical Demonstration is very rarely to be met with It is surely impossible for any Man who limits his Faith within the narrow bounds of his Reason to submit an entire assent to those Propositions which tho' perhaps necessary to be credited he himself cannot account for I have often thought this the Infirmity of the Supplicant in Holy Writ when he cry'd out Lord I believe Lord help my unbelief for it is otherways very difficult to conceive how a vicious Life can consist with a full Conviction of the Divine Existence and our own Separate Beings 6thly What you think of Enquiries into Nature whether they prove not to some the Causes of Modern Deism and to others of pure Scepticism I have been often apt to imagine that there are no Natural Phaenomena which may not admit a Solution from those two grand Principles of Matter and Motion or by Axioms deduc'd from the Corpuscular Philosophy and I doubt not but 't is our resting in an ability to discuss the same by this kind of Disquisition has been the occasion that the prime or supream Cause of all has been veiled from our Eyes Curiosity is so natural to the Soul of Man and the seeming Satisfaction that does at sometimes attend a Philosophick Enquiry is so great as to render the same to some sort of People a dangerous Temptation it is not that I think the Enquiry of it self such but the resting in the simple knowledge that such or such Productions must be the Result of such and such Causes without reflecting upon the first and chiefest which puts these upon concurring must certainly be so and truly 't is very seldom that the generality of Men make any farther Appeal unless it be to Fate Fortune Chance Destiny or some such like unaccountable Chimaera which they substitute in the room of an all-powerful infinite and intelligent Being Lastly I desire you wou'd send me your Thoughts of the especial Providence of God and your Opinion of Mr. B late Draught of the Q rs Principles In some few Days after the receipt of my Letter the good Doctor was pleased to return his Answer in these words SIR I Do charitably believe c. but waving the Introduction he proceeds A pious Life and holy Conversation are without peradventure the principal things aimed at in the Gospel of Jesus Christ but since we are there told that there are such things as dangerous and damnable Heresies the Fundamental Doctrines which all Christian Churches have believed it is our duty sincerely and conscienciously to receive and whoever does so will find them very excellent Motives to the practise of Religion I deny not the possibility of a Man's being devâ—ut and holy by himself i.e. without attending upon the Publick Offices of Religious Worship yet since such Assemblies are not only commanded but of great use and even necessity in the Christian Church it behoves us to joyn with some one or other of them and among these I see not how any Man can reasonably or justly quit a National Church on any other account than that of its obliging him to a breach of the Divine Commands or injoyning him to any thing which is manifestly sinful Grace and Divine-Light and the Spirit of God c. are the same in effect It is the Holy Spirit which both gives us Grace and inlightens our Minds by a Divine Manifestation to our Souls Every true Christian is in some â—egree a partaker hereof for without it we can neither believe nor obey nor as we ought rely upon the Promises of our God It is this which we receive upon our earnest and fervent Prayer and it is thâ—â— which doth excite both our Attention and pious Resolution which as the same produces in us lesser or greater Effects or different degrees of Love Obedience Self-denial c. so these are called the Degrees of the Divine Grace as our endeavours are either weaker or stronger uneven or steddy inconstant or more constant and as our Self-denial rises to a higher or a lower pitch Now to secure us from the danger of a mad Enthusiasm from the disorder of Imagination the deception of Phancy or the delusion of Evil Spirits in the business of private Inspiration and pretended Revelations we are most certainly to bear in mind that the Holy Spirit and the revealed Will of God do exactly at all times correspond so that whatever Light we pretend to which contradicts or is not justifiable by the written Word the same is most certainly either Design or Delusion and always false and counterfeit For my own part I am not against the Notions either of Father Malebranch or Mr. Norris provided their Hypotheses do not dishonour God by supposing Him in any manner the Author of our Sins however there were very good Christians in the World before either of them spun Philosophy to so fine a Thred To believe in God and that he inspects the most secret of our Actions to be truly sensible of the Love of the blessed Jesus and to expect a Life hereafter to believe what the Gospel delivers to us so as to be acted by those Principles to become truly penitent meek and humble patient and charitable and ready unto every good word and work in a word to be sincere and constant and faithful unto death this is to be a Religious Man and a true Christian an Heir to Heaven and a much happier Man than all the Masters of Philosophy can make you In order to this Attainment we are to quit anticipated Prejudices instill'd either by Education or our own false Reasonings and we may much shorten the trouble by seriously resolving to our selves this single Query viz. Whether the Matters related in our Saviour's Gospel are certainly true if they be there is nothing in this World must hinder us from a serious and consciencious Practise and from living up to those holy Rules and Precepts as far as we are able For the Promises and Threatnings if true are things of that consequence that all is to be laid aside for to gain the promis'd Blessings and to avoid the threatned Misery I doubt not but a Person of c. must have had a liberal Education and altho' a superficial or slight knowledge in Physicks may dispose to Scepticism yet you have doubtless by your Profession a very great advantage for however it may be abus'd
them nor whatsoever may be the Opinion of some is it that which they are united to The way and manner how the Spirit assists us in the Spiritual Understanding of Things is either through its immediate indwelling if I may so speak or through the communication of new Principles a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an ablation of every thing extraneous a dissipation of those fuliginous Vapours that both obnubilate the Mind and do imbuere objectum colore suo by the Purification of the Heart the Understanding is clarified By the Spirit of Life in the new Birth the Subject is elevated and adapted to the Object the Divine Grace renders the Mind idoneous for and consimilar to the Truth And farther there is a suggesting of Media for elucidating the Truth there is also frequently an irradiation of the Word it self an attiring and cloathing it with a Garment of Light and upon the whole the Soul both feels and is transform'd into what it knows its apprehensions are no longer dull and languid but vigorous and affective This Mystical Union of the Soul of the true Believer with Jesus Christ however difficult it may appear and hard to be reconciled to the Natural Understanding ought not to be debated or distrusted by us upon the account of our Ignorance in the manner of it We do assent to the Continuity and Adhesion of one part of Matter to another notwithstanding the Difficulties that encounter us about its Mode and tho' there be not yet any Philosophic Hypothesis that can resolve us how it comes to pass that one part more indiscerptibly cleaves to another than if they were fastened together by Adamantine Chains and therefore there is no Reason why the incomprehensibleness of the Manner of our Union with Christ shou'd any ways obstruct or weaken our belief of it having all the assurance that Divine Revelation can give us concerning our being united to Him as we assent to an evident Object of Sense or to that which is plainly demonstrated by Reason tho' there occur many things in the manner of their Existence which are unconceivable so the Quod sit and Reality of our Union with Christ being attested by him who cannot lye it becomes us to embrace it with all steddiness of Belief tho' we cannot conceive the Quo modo or manner how it is we have reason to think that through our Maker's leaving us pos'd and nonplust about the most ordinary and certain Natural Phaeâ—omena he intended to train us up to a mancipation of our Understandings to Articles of Faith when we were once assur'd that He had declar'd them tho' the Difficulties relating to them were to us unaccountable Nor is the manner of the coherence of the Parts of Matter the only Difficulty in Nature relating to Union that perplexes and baffles our Reason but the Mode of the Mystical Incorporation of the Rational Soul with the Humane Body doth every way as much entangle and leave us desperate as the former That Man is a kind of Amphibious Creature allied in his constituent Parts both to the Intellectual and Material Worlds and that the several Species of Beings in the Macrocosm are combined in Him as in a System Reason as well as Scripture instructs us That we have a Body we are fully assur'd by its Density Extension Impenetrability and all the Adjuncts and Affections of Matter and that we have an Immaterial Spirit we are demonstratively convinc'd by its re-acting on it self its consciousness of its own Being and Operations not to mention other Mediums whereof we have spoken elsewhere and that those two are united together to make up the Composition of Man is as plain from the influence that the Body hath upon the Soul in many of its Perceptions and which the Soul hath upon the Body in the Motions of the Spirits and Blood with all that ensues and depends thereupon Nor could the Affections and Adjuncts of the Material Nature nor the Attributes and Properties of the Immaterial be indiffâ—rently predicated of Man were not the Soul and Body united together in the Unity of Man's Person But now how this can be is a knot too hard for Humane Reason to untye How a pure Spirit should be cemented to an earthly Clod or an immaterial Substance coalesce with Bulk is a Riddle that no Hypothesis of Philosophy can resolve us about 1. The Aristotelick substantial Uniter will not do for besides its repugnancy to Reason that there should be any Substantial Ingredient in the Constitution of Man save his Soul and Body the unâ—â—ion of it self with the Soul supposing it to be Material or with the Body admitting it to be Incorporeal will remain unintelligible and to affirm it to be of a middle Nature partaking of the Affections and Adjuncts of both is that which our reaâ—onable Faculties will never allow us to subscribe to the Idea's which we have of Body and Spirit having no Alliance the one with the other and to style it a Substantial Mode is to wrap up Repugnancies in its very Notion for tho' all Modes be the Modification of Substances yet they are predicamental Accidents and how essential soever this or that Modification may be to a Body of such a Species yet it is wholly extrinsecal and accidental to Matter it self In brief the voluminous Discourses of the Aristotelian's both about Union in general and the Union of the Rational Soul to the Organical Humane Body in particular resolve themselves either into idle tattle and insignificant words or obtrude upon us Contradictions and Nonsence 2. To preclude all Union betwixt the Soul and Body on Supposition that they are distinct constituent parts of Man is plainly to despair of solving the Difficulty for not to dispute whether the Soul and Body may in Philosophic rigour be called Parts or whether Man in reference to them may be stiled a Compositum 't is enough that the one is not the other but that they are different Principles and that neither of them consider'd seperately is the Man Tho' the Soul and Body be perfect Substances in themselves and tho' the Soul can operate in its disjunct State and in its Separation will be no less a Person than Soul and Body now together are yet there are many Operations belonging to the Soul in this Conjunct State of which it is incapable in the Separate and there are many things predicable of the Soul and Body together which cannot be affirmed of them â—sunder How close and intimate soever the Union betwixt the Soul and Body be and how great soever in their mutual Dependancies in most of their Operations upon one another yet not only the Intellectual Spirit and the duly organized Matter remain even in their Consociation classically different their Essences Affections and Operations admitting a diversity as well as a distinction but there are some Operations belong to each of them upon which the other hath no influence For as the Mind is Author of many Cogitations
and Conceptions to which the Body gave no occasion so the Body is the Spring and Fountain of several Functions over which the Soul hath no Dominion nor any direct influence they remain as much distinct nothwithstanding the Union which intercedes between them as they would have done shou'd we suppose them to have had an Existence previous to their Confederations or as they shall be after the dissolution of the Lâ—â—gue between them From all which it may be Scientifically concluded That they are distinct and different Principles in Man's Constitutâ—on but whether thereupon he ought to be called a Compositum or they to be stiled Parts will be resolv'd into a meer Longomachy or Chat about Words tho' to speak my own Mind I see no Cause why Man may not properly enough obtain the Appellation of Compositum and the Soul and Body be allow'd for Constituent Parts Nor thirdly doth the Cartesian Hypothesis tho' the most ingenious and best contrived of any hitherto thought upon fully satisfie an inquisitive Mind in the Matter before us their Hypothesis is briefly this That God in his infinite Wisdom chose to create three distinct and different kinds of Beings 1. Some purely Material which through difference of the Figure Size Number Texture and Modification of their Parts come to multiply into many different Species 2. Some purely Immaterial among whom whether there be any Specifical Difference is Pro and Con disputed 3. Man a Compositum of both having an Immaterial Intellectual Soul joyned to an Organical Body Now say they God having in his Soveraign Pleasure thought good to form Man such a Creature he hath not only by an uncontroulable Law confined the Soul to an intimate Presence with and constant Residence in the Body while it remains a fit Receptacle or till he give it a discharge but withal hath made them dependent upon one another in many of their Operations and in this mutual dependence of one upon the other with respect to many of their Operations they state the Union betwixt the Soul and Body to consist for through the Impressions that are made upon the Organs of Sence there result in the Soul certain Perceptions and on the other hand through the Cogitations that arise in the Soul there ensue certain Emotions in the Animal Spirits and thus say they by the Action of each upon the other and their Passion from one another they are formally united But all this instead of loosing the Knot serves only to tye it faster For 1. this Mutual Dependancy as to Operation of one upon the other cannot be apprehended but in Posteriority of Nature to Union and consequently the formal Reason of Union cannot consist in it 2. There are Cases wherein neither the Impressions of outward Objects upon the Sensory Nerves beget or excite any Perceptions in the Soul which whether it proceed from obstinacy of Mind or intense Contemplation alike answers my drift and also Cases wherein Cogitations of the Mind make not any sensible Impressions upon the Body as in Extasies and yet the Union of the Soul and Body remains undissolved which argues that it imports more than either an intimous Presence or a Dependance between them in point of Operation 3. 'T is altogether unintelligible how either a Body can act upon a Spirit or a Spirit upon a Body I grant it may be demonstrated that they do so but the manner of doing it or indeed how it can be done is not intelligible That a Tremour begot in the Nerves by the jogging of Particles of Matter upon the Sensory Organs shou'd excite Cogitations in the Soul or that the Soul by a meer Thought should both beget a Motion in the Animal Spirits and determine through what Meatus's they are to steer their Course is a Phaenomenon in the Theory of which we are perfectly non-plust How that which penetrates a Body without giving a jogg to or receiving a shove from it shou'd either impress a Motion upon or receive an impression from it is unconceivable so that to state the Union of the Soul and Body in a reciprocal Action upon and Passion by and from one another is to fix it in that which supposeth the Sagacity of our Faculties to conceive how it can be Now if common Unions of whose Reality and Existence we are so well assur'd be nevertheless with respect to their Nature not only so unknown but unconceivable we may lawfully presume if their lye nothing else against the immediate Union of Believers with Christ save that it cannot be comprehended that this is no Argument why we should immediately renounce the Belief of it If we can but once justifie that there is such an Union betwixt the blessed Jesus and sincere Christians the incomprehensibleness of the manner of it ought not to discourage our Faith if we can take up with the Evidence of Sense and Reason as to the reality of other Unions whose Modes are as little understood I see no cause why the Veracity of God provided we can produce the Authority of Divine Testimony shou'd not satisfie us as to the Reality of the Union tho' the manner how it is were a question we cou'd not answer and indeed if Men will not be huff't and talk'd out of the perswasion of those things of whose Existence their Senses and Reason ascertain them tho' they cannot answer all the Difficulties they are accosted with in their Enquiries about them much less ought Christians to be hector'd out of the Belief of the Doctrines of Faith because of the Entanglements which attend the Conception of them 't is the Nature of Faith to embrace things upon the alone Testimony of God tho' it understand nothing of the Mode and Manner how they are the highest Assurance of the Reality of any thing is God's affirming it and what he asserts we are with all reverence to assent unto its Truth tho' we can frame no adaequate Idea of it nor fathom it in our own Conceptions Our Saviour himself hath adjourned the perfect knowledge of this Mystery till the glorified state in these words At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you Thus far you have had the Thoughts of the before-mention'd Author which I shall leave you to consider seriously at your leisure the Subject is indeed noble how despicably soever it may be treated by the Libertine whose Belief is stagger'd because he himself is not possest of what he has slighted and contemned and for that he finds himself at liberty to live as he listeth I must own indeed that it is scarce possible for one Man to infuse such Idea's into another as may be able to perswade that other that he himself is a Partaker of such a Spiritual Refreshment and Divine Consolation as nothing less than the Divine Gaace can communicate to his Soul and on this account I have the less admir'd that both Paelagius Socinus and their Adherents have gain'd so
Confession from you that you are fearfully and wonderfully made you must at least allow your self to be the Workmanship of some Intelligent Being and altho' the commonness of the Object takes off your Admiration and you now find the Propagation of Mankind in a Method setled by the Divine Providence yet if you transgress not the Bounds of Reason you must affirm their first Production to be by the immediate Power of the Almighty Author of all Things and that every succeeding Generation of them are the Off-spring of one primitive Couple Having survey'd some of the Extremities of this mighty Machine and diligently passed over its outward Covering or Teguments my next advice to you is that you retire within and carefully examine not only the Parts wherein those Offices are perform'd but the Processes themselves such as that of Mastication Deglutition Chylification Sanguification the Inkindling of the Blood for the Lamp of Life its great Analogy in some respects with Culinary Fire viz. it s constant nenecessity of Ventilation through the vesiculae of the Lungs and a perpetual supply of a fit Pabulum or Fuel out of the received Aliment for the continuance of its Flame when you have done here and discover'd all the Secretions or Separations of the several Juices which are put off from the Sanguineous Mass in its wonderful Circulation and deposited in their several Receptacles till called for to their proper Employments you may lastly with that profound Humility and Veneration which becomes the Enquiry ascend into the Sanctum Sanctorum that Divine Emporium of the Soul the Brain where not only our Sensations but all our Cogitations our Perception Reflexion Intuition and all those noble Faculties of Memory Phantasy or Imagination c. are surprisingly transacted Here if you diligently and Philosopically take to pieces the several parts of the Soul I mean the Sensitive you may readily comprehend with an excellent and most judicious Man that its Systasis or Constitution is made out of these two parts viz. the Vital or Flamy which respects the Blood and the Lucid or Ethereal which respects the Brain or whose Hypostasis are the Animal Spirits by whose alone Energy and Intervention we account for the Phaenomena of the Animal Regiment in all things where the Superiour or Rational Soul is unconcern'd When you have thus finish'd your Physiological Contemplation an Application of this Consequence will I think be not only pertinent but natural and genuine That since first in relation to the Vital or Flamy Part there are so many prae-requisites in order to Digestion or Transmuting the gross and solid Matter of our Food into that soft and pappy Substance we call Chyle if any one of which be wanting some certain detriment will ensue whether this be in the Ventricle it self a deficiency of its native Heat a weakness in the Tone of any or all its Fibres a want or perversion of the secreted Juices which compose its Menstruum or Dissolvent Or if all things are orderly performed here and safely delivered hence yet since there are also many requisites to a fit passage of the said Chylous Juice into the Blood such as the admistion of the Bile and the Pancreatic Juice either of which being peccant in quantity or quality many Mischiefs will ensue but if in these secondary Passages all things have gone on well yet if the Passages to the common Store-house or Receptaculum happen to be obstructed and thereby rendred impervious to the liquor they should receive or if others of those curiously slender Tubes the Lacteal Vessels by the forcible protrusion of the contained Matter should break or suffer a Solution of their Continuity the Chyle must be extravasated and a fatal Inundation thereof in some little time comes on But if hitherto Matters have succeeded as they ought and this noble Liquor is at length safely arriv'd through its many Meanders and inconspicuous Ways and as safely deliver'd up to the Heart yet if here it be not rightly sanguify'd or turn'd into Blood or if when it is so made and continued in its Circuit the containing Blood Vessels either from a Deficiency of the Vis Motoria or Disorder of the Spirits in the Orbicular nervous Fibrils implanted in the Tunics of the said Vessels labour with an Obstruction or suffer such a Distension by the impelling Blood as produces a Diruption there presently follows Extravasation and Stagnation of the Vital Liquor Farther If the Blood it self as from many Causes it may contract too great an Acidity or Viscosity or by Adustion grow perfectly Corrosive if its Crasis be considerably vitiated or disorder'd the Nutritious Juices must partake of the Infection and consequently the Assimulation or Apposition of their Particles for the growth and encrease of all the Parts of the Body cannot at all or not regularly be performed neither will the subtil parts of such a Blood tho' never so well elaborated in the Brain afford either a sufficient Plenty or an exactly homogeneous Spirit for the influencing the Nerves those Causes sine qua of every particular Function and Operation In a word that I may not tiâ—e you with a more particular Description of the parts of the Encephalon or Cabinet containing that inestimable Jewel the Soul when you consider that from any of these slightly mention'd Errors committed in any part the whole Fabrick suffers and the same becomes a tottering Carcass when you consider how very easily an heterogeneous Copula is admitted into the Nervous System there exciting those dismal irregular and horrid Explosions which after they have for sometime excruciated the frail Body leave it lifeless when you consider also how very easily those slender and to our fight impervious Conduits of the Nerves may by many ways be obstructed which happening at their Source as in the Apoplexy Lethergy Coma Carus we are presently deprived of our Sensations the Soul suffers an Eclipse and the ghastly Tyrant takes possession when you consider that the very Air so absolutely necessary for our Respiration does sometimes prove a Vehicle to those malign Miasâ—â—ata which impetuously rush on and notwithstanding our pretended strength in the twinkling of an Eye extinguish the Lamp of Life when you consider these Particulars with a due attention you will find abundant reason instead of denying any thing to be Supernatural to confess that the Life of Man whether it be conceived as limited to a shorter or longer Date is nothing less than one continued Miracle Before I finish my Discourse of Supernatural Productions or those Effects which do surmount what we call the Powers of Nature and frequently hare witness to God's especial Providence I will take the liberty to make a short Digression and give you my Opinion how it comes to pass that these unusual and extraordinary Events have gained so little Credit not only with the Profane and Sensual but even amongst very many Sober and Learned Men. That I may do this to your greater Satisfaction I must
give you to understand that many of those surprising Symptoms which are produced by the Disorders of the Nervous System are by the generality of all Men unless Physicians very frequently lookt on as unaccountable Prodigies Thus many Hysteric Persons have been esteem'd Planet-struck especially if by a Resolution of some particular Nerves one Muscle has been relaxed and its Antagonist contracted by which the Parts have been distorted and thereby rendred deformed or if the Celestial Bodies have been acquitted it must be imputed to Fascination or Witchcraft Epileptics in like manner are taken for Daemoniacs and the surprising Phaenomena they exhibit such as Dancing Singing Crying Laughing c. are presently supposed to be wrought by a Praestigious or Diabolical Possession and if as it often happens the Priest be sent for instead of the Physician to eject the Evil Spirit the mistake is then so far from being rectify'd or the Fallacy detected that whole Cities have been impos'd on by such like Reports and the supposed Authentic Testimony of the Parson of the Parish has serv'd for an irrefutable Confirmation By these means when Atheistical Men have understood that such like Accidents have proceeded from no other Causes than the Convulsive Disorders which do frequently disturb the Animal Oeconomy and that by Mechanic Principles they are to be explain'd 't is natural for them presently to conclude that all Relations of the like tendency proceed either from the same Origine and exceed not the force of second Causes or that they are downright Cheats which for the countenancing some Design are promoted and carry'd on by a Knavish Confederacy or Combination and indeed tho' I am far from denying all accounts of Daemoniacs or the Satanical Power of Fascination yet I cou'd heartily wish that none of them were publisht without the proper Examen of Expert Physicians for to speak freely I am well satisfy'd that those Subjects which have furnisht so many Histories Discourses and Reports upon this Matter have been for the greatest part no other than Maniacal Hypochondriacal Hysterical or Epileptical Persons and that the usual Appearances they exhibit belong properly to Spasmology or the Doctrine of Convulsions 'T is not long since my Curiosity lead me to take a view of a young Woman the Report of whose Circumstances had brought a Multitude of Spectators from all parts of the Town who generally return'd amaz'd at so surprising a Spectacle and gave out that she was Daemonical or possest with an evil Spirit who did sometimes utter very unusual Sounds some of them not unlike the howling of a Dog without any perceptible Motion of her own Organs of Speech When I came into the Room with a particular Friend we found her accompanied by two or three other Women and discoursing rationally which they said at some intervals she used to do During the time I stay'd there was a continual Motion of the Vertebrae of her Neck and sometimes those of her Loins the former occasion'd a violent throwing backwards and forwards of her Head and that which they lookt on as unaccountable was this That if any one offer'd to stop this motion of her Neck and Loins the same was then quicker and continued with a redoubled force Upon this Advertisement just then receiv'd from her self and the good Women my Friend on one side and I on the other as she was sitting on the Feet of the Bed laid our hands on each side on the top of her Shoulders and first gently pressing of them down to retard the Motion I perceiv'd a very sensible Opposition or Resistance even beyond my Conjectures of her own strength insomuch that at length endeavouring with all our Power to suppress this uncommon Motion of the Head and Body the Resistance made against us was so very forcible as almost to throw us from her and the Agitation of both began to grow so vehement as to occasion very irregular Distortions of the Eyes a Foaming at the Mouth together with a very considerable Influx of Blood upon the Surface of her Face which frighting her Acquaintance and rendring her uneasie we were desired to desist and after some few Minutes the Disturbance went off she returning to her accustomed Motion of gently moving her Head backwards and forwards During this time of her Agony she spake nothing but being pretty well recover'd I found her very willing to believe it a Supernatural Power that thus impetuously mov'd her and the rather she said she was induced to think so because it was involuntary and much against her Inclination for when at any time being all the while sensible she wilfully endeavour'd to stop the Motion and to keep her self in Aequilibrio she was so violently tormented in some other parts of her Body that if she did not submit her self to the Evil Spirit he wou'd certainly kill her Before I attempt an Explication of these several Phaenomena it will be requisite that I acquaint you with the Method I took in the Exploring thereof There was at that time in the room an ancient Midwife who as I understood had put this young Woman under a Course of Physic tho' altogether unsuccessfully Upon which Information I enquir'd on what account the Physic had been given or what expectation she design'd it should answer which understanding who I was she very freely told me That what she had order'd was for a Suppression of under which Obstructions the Patient had labour'd for a considerable time I enquired no farther but having given my Opinion came away with this Satisfaction that if the whole was not Imposture and she a Counterfeit as it was not impossible but she might there was nothing in all this but a Spasmodic or Convulsive Disorder of the Nerves frequently attending Hysterical and Epileptic Persons I had before-hand asked her whether there was Truth in those Reports she had suffer'd to be printed concerning the Devil's speaking in her and barking like a Dog She utterly deny'd this and reply'd she knew nothing of that Matter and that it was both unknown to her and against her will that such Discourses shou'd be disperst The Maid I must needs say seem'd very modest and soberly dispos'd and was extraordinarily lamented by some of those who knew that her Education and Converse in the World had been unblamable and pious I never certainly understood how her Distemper terminated and being willing to judge Charitably of her so far as I was concern'd shall only intimate by the way that it was publickly reported not long after that she was proved a Cheat and had got much Money by it But as to this I am not certain being rather inclinable to believe the contrary and that she labour'd with the Symptoms of an Hysterical Affection I shall not think my self concern'd to give you here a Mechanical Account of the Progress of these Distempers or to tell you by what means the Morbiâ—ic Matter is contracted which insinuates it self into the Muscular Fibres and there
starve with Meat before them if it be not put into their Mouths whereas those whose Kind breed on the Ground can never be taught to gape for their Food but so soon as batch't betake themselves to seek out and pick up their food These I say with a thousand Instances of the like nature are evident Marks of a Providential Wisdom because they are Rational Actions many of them at least perform'd not accidentally but constantly by Irrational Agents Understanding being got by a Series of Experiments Observations or Information therefore it is some old Arts are improv'd some quite lost some new ones found out but all meer Animals act the same yesterday and to day thus far they always went and no farther which fully proves they were originally compell d and limitted to act according to their Kind and had nothing to do with Will or Reason It may be objected That several sorts of Animals are very dâ—cible Creatures and learn several things by the Discipline of Mankind which wou'd make one ready to think that those Creatures have some degrees of Reason To which I say thus far is prov'd that those Creatures do act artificially and for ends without Deliberation and Knowledge and those being the chief ends for which they were made we cannot reasonably suppose that they shou'd blindly act that part and yet have the use of Reason in things of lesser moment It must therefore be concluded that the utmost extent of their Ability is to do and not to know and therefore tho' by the Impressions made upon the Senses they may be forced to do what their Nature is capable of doing yet this is all from the Senses and Reason but begins where the Senses end To do and to know why we do proceed from different Principles 't is true the most docible Creatures may mimick several things they see Men do yet can they give us no Indication that they know why or to what end they do them for that their Souls being Corporeal it follows necessarily that all their Motions must be made either by an External or Internal Force or Impulse whereas Will and Reason can be no other than the Powers of a self-moving Principle which is a spiritual immaterial Essence Sense and Imagination can conceive nothing but what is Corporeal and the highest Conceptions which depend on Sense amount no higher than Imagination which likewise is unable to receive any other than Corporeal Idea's Nor can it reflect or make any Conclusions about what it perceives So that Brutes may very well be thus far endow'd without any such thing as a Rational Exertion For a farther Explanation hereof I shall give you the Descriptton of a Learned Man of the Mechanic Process by which Brute Animals come by all their Habits and that acquir'd seeming Knowledge which tho' in some degrees it surpasses their Natural Instincts is however most strictly ty'd to Sense and Imagination When the Brain saith he in the more perfect Brutes grows clear and the Constitution of the Animal Spirits becomes sufficiently lucid and defaecated the Exteror Objects being brought to the Organs of the Senses make Impressions which being from thence transmitted for the continuing the Series or Order of the Animal Spirits inwards towards the streaked Bodies affect the common Sensory and when as a sensible impulse of the same like a waving of waters is conveyed farther into the callous Body and thence into the Cortex or shelly substance of the Brain a Perception is brought in concerning the Species of the thing admitted by the Sense to which presently succeeds the Imagination and Marks or Prints of its Type being left constitute the Memory but in the mean time whilst the sensible Imprâ—ssion being brought to the common Sensory â—ffects there the Perception of the thing felt as some direct Species of it tending farther creates the Imagination and Memory so other reflected Species of the same Object as they appear either Congruous or Incongruous produce the Appetite and local Motions its Executors that is the Animal Spirits looking inwards for the Act of Sension being struck back leap towards the streaked Bodies and when as these Spirits presently possessing the beginnings of the Nerves irritate others they make a Desire of flying from the thing felt and a Motion of this or that Member or Part to be stirred up then because this or that kind of Motion succeeds once or twice to this or that Sension afterwards for the most part this Motion follows that Sension as the Effect follows the Cause and according to this manner by the admitting the Idea's of sensible things both the knowledge of several things and the habits of things to be done or of local Motions are by little and little produced For indeed from the beginning almost every Motion of the animated Body is stirred up by the Contact of the outward Object viz. the Animal Spirits residing within the Organ are driven inward being stricken by the Object and so as we have said constitute Sension or Feeling then like as a stood sliding along the banks of the shoar is at last beaten back so because this waving or inward turning down of the Animal Spirits being partly reflected from the common Sensory is at last directed outwards and is partly stretched forth even into the inmost part of the Brain presently local Motion succeeds the Sension and at the same time a Character being affixed on the Brain by the sense of the thing perceiv'd it impresses there Marks or Vestigia of the same for the Phantasie and the Memory then affected and afterwards to be affected but when as the Prints or Marks of very many Acts of this kind of Sensation and Imagination as so many Tracts or Ways are ingraven in the Brain the Animal Spirits oftentimes of their own accord without any other forewarning and without the presence of an Exterior Object being stirr'd up into Motion forasmuch as the fall into the footsteps before made represent the Image of the former thing with which when the Appetite is affected it desiring the thing objected to the Imagination causes spontaneous Actions and as it were drawn forth from an inward Principle As for Example sake The Stomack of an Horse feeding in a barren Ground or Fallow-land being incited by Hunger stirs up and variously Agitates the Animal Spirits flowing within the Brain the Spirits being thus moved by accident because they run into the footsteps formerly made they call to mind the former more plentiful Pasture fed on by the Horse and the Meadows at a great distance then the imagination of this desirable thing which at that time is cast before it by no outward Sense but only by the Memory stops at the Appetite that is the Spirits implanted in the streaked Bodies are affected by that Motion of the Spirits flowing within the middle part or marrow of the Brain who from thence presently after their formerly accustom'd manner enter the Origines of the Nerves and
of the Humane Soul and whatever else belongs to the Science of Metaphysics which teacheth us to abstract from all Matter and Quantity Nay I presume it will not be accounted Paradoxical in me to affirm that Immaterial Objects are most genuine and natural to the Understanding especially since Cartes hath irrefutably demonstrated that the knowledge we have of the Existence of the Supream Being and of our own Souls is more certain clear and distinct than the knowledge of any Corporeal Nature whatever according to that Canon of Aquinas Nulla res qualiscunque est c. The Moral Considerations usually brought in defence of the Soul 's Incorruptibility are principally three 1. The Universal Consent of Mankind 2. Man's inseparable Appetite of Immortality 3. The Justice of God in rewarding good Men and punishing evil Men after Death Now as Cicero judiciously observes Omni in re consentio omnium Gentium Lex naturae putanda est and thus the Notion of the Soul's Immortality is so implanted in the Nature and Mind of Man that whoso denies it doth impugn his own Natural Principles As for that common Objection the Alteration observable in Infancy and old Age we may answer with the great Master of Nature at least one so esteem'd by some Innasci autem Intellectus videtur substantia quaedam esse nec corrumpi nam si corrumperetur quidem id maxime fieret ab habitatione illa quae in Senectute contingit nunc autem res perinde fit ac in ipsismet sensuum instrumentis si enim Senex Occulum Juvenilem reciperet non secus ac ipse Juvenis videret unde Senectus non ex eo est quod quidquam passa Anima sit fed quod simile aliquid ac in Ebrietate morbisque eveniat ipsaque intelligendi contemplandi functio propter aliquid aliud interius corruptum marcescit cum ipsum interim cujus est passionis expers maneat Which words consider'd we have good reason to affirm that all that Change which the Epicurean would have to be in the Rational Soul or Mind during the growth of the Body in Youth and decay of it in old Age doth not proceed from any Mutation in the Soul it self but some other Interiour thing distinct from it as the Imagination or Organ of the common Sense the Brain which being well or ill affected the Soul it self suffereth not at all but only the Functions of it flourish or decay accordingly for as the Philosopher remarks if it were possible to give an old Man a young Eye and a young Imagination his Soul would soon declare by exquisite vision and quick reasoning that it was not she that had grown old but her Organs and that she is capable of no more Change from the impairment of the Body than is usually observed to arise pro tempore from a fit of Drunkenness or some Disease of the Brain so that it is evident from hence that whatever Change Men have thought to be in the Soul by reason of that great decay generally attending old Age to not really in the Soul but only in the Imagination and the Organs thereof which are not so well dispos'd as in the Vigour of Life In like manner are we to understand that the Soul when the Members grow cold and mortify'd doth then indeed instantly cease to be in them yet is not cut off by piece-meal or diminisht and gradually dissipated but the whole of it remains in so much of the Body as yet continues warm and perfused by the Vital Heat until ceasing longer to animate the principle Seat of its Residence whether the Brain or Heart it at length bids adieu to the whole and withdraweth it self entire and perfect so that Death is an Extinction of the Vital Flame and not of the Soul which as Solomon calls it is the brightness of the Everlasting Light the unspotted Mirror of the Power of God and the Image of his Goodness and being but one she can do all things and remaining in her self she maketh all things new The like may be said with relation to those failings observable in swooning fits which fall not upon the Soul but on the Vital Organs at those times render'd unfit for the uses and actions to which they were framed and accommodated and if the Causes of such failings shou'd happen to be so violent as to bring on a sudden Death then the Soul must indeed depart yet not by reason of any dissolution in its Substance or imbecility in it self but for want of those dispositions in the Organs of Life by which she was enabled to enliven the Body Now if saith this Author in such a Thesis or Proposition which is not capable of being evinced by Geometrical Demonstration there can yet be expected such substantial and satisfactory Reasons Physical or Moral as may suffice to the full establishment of its Truth in the Mind of a reasonable Man If this be granted I thence argue that the Soul is an Immortal Substance and that its Immortality is not only credible by Faith or upon Authority Divine but also demonstrable by Reason or the Light of Nature To be convinc'd of our Immortality and satisfactorily perswaded whether or no there is any thing in us which shall not perish with the Life we are shortly to lay down is of so great and so important Consequence that I can readily expect your forgiveness if I trespass upon your Patience and inlarge a little farther upon this weighty Argument That there is somewhat in us essentially differing from distinct and superior to other Animals or that the Rational Soul of Man bears no Analogy with the Souls of other Creatures is farther elegantly toucht upon in these words of Dr. Willis The Eminency of the Rational Soul above the Brutal or Corporeal shines clearly by comparing either both as to the Objects and to the chief Acts or Modes of Knowing As to the former whenâ—â— every Corporeal Faculty is limited to sensible Things the Object of the Humane Mind is every Ens whether above or sublâ—mary material or immaterial true or fictitious real or intentional The Acts or Degrees of Knowledge common to either Soul are vulgarly accounted these three to wit Simple Apprehension Enunciation and Discourse How much the power of the Rational excels the other which is Corporeal we shall consider 1. The knowing Faculty of the Corporeal Soul is Phantasie or Imagination which being planted in the middle part of the Brain receives the sensible Species first only impressed on the Organs of Sense and from thence by a most quick irradiation of the Spirits deliver'd inwards and so apprehends all the several Corporeal Things according to their Exterior Appearances which notwithstanding as they are perceived only by the Sense which is often deceived they are admitted under an appearing and not always under a true Image or Species for so we imagine the Sun no bigger than a Bushel the Horizon of the Heaven and the Sea to meet
durable impression thereon or in other words they grave as it were Prints more deep or superficial according to our continued view of the said Objects and hence it follows that our Animal Spirits have not only a more difficult or ready Inlet into the Traces which are cut out but also into those Nerves which excite the Motions of our Bodies subservient to us or by whose assistance we procure to our selves the desired Object accordingly as we have indulged the Thought of prosecuting the same For the better illustration hereof If at any time we are intent upon or please our selves with any lewd Idea if we keep the whole bent of our Minds upon the same and are both solicitous to obtain and uneasie till we have accomplisht our impure Designs We must expect that the same or the like Object will make a very durable Print or very deep Vestigia in our Brains that the Traces into the same will lye always open and the said Object is no sooner excited afterwards but the Spirits as it were of their own accord rush in and even compel us almost contrary to our Desires to will those Motions of our Bodies which were before employ'd in its prosecution and attainment This is the true Mechanic Process the Objects that are about us must excite in us some Sensation or other and as we pursue or fly its appearance or more or less keep up the Idea there will be consequently the firmer or slighter Trace drawn out and accordingly the same will either continually approach or withdraw from us So that by the repeated prosecution of the beloved Object these Vestigia are so very plain and open and afford so easie a passage to the income of our Spirits that it is very much if for a long time after the same should be obliterated or the said Avenues blockt up Again It is by the frequent or reiterated Indulgence of our Thoughts and cherishing our Idea's that the Sensitive or Inferiour Soul gets the Ascendant over us 't is by these means that we contract our Habits and in this the force of them consists which when we have done all that lyes in our power to highten and aggravate our unhappy Circumstances when we have after this manner suffer'd an ill Habit to get the Victory over us and to subjugate our Strength to allure our Passions to its free command we then cry out of the Frailty of our Natures exclaim against our Maker or else justifie our detestable Actions and foolishly please our selves in thinking that God Almighty would not have implanted these Appetites within us if he design'd that we shou'd not satiate our selves in their Enjoyments if not they expect that however by their own voluntary Actions they have with their whole strength heartily embraced the sinful Thought and as desirously brought the same into a repeated Act by which means the Traces in their Brains lye so open to receive their Spirits here I say they expect Omnipotence to intervene and by a Miracle to close up the Prints they have engraven to snatch from them the Idea's they are hugging with all their might or to intercept the passages of the Nerves that their Animal Spirits may not fall into those parts by which they are to obtain their short-liv'd Satisfactions Surely there is no reasonable Man will countenance the folly of this Plea nor can he who rightly considers the Fabrick of our Bodies the Organization of our Brains and the necessity for sensible Objects to leave their Marks upon the same think it a fair Impeachment of the Divine Wisdom or Justice especially if he reflects upon that high Prerogative we enjoy above the sensitive Soul and that it is within the Sphear of our Reason to obviate these Disorders to correct the Irregularities of our Senses and by the practise of contrary Habits to set us out of the reach of those Mischiefs we should be exposed to How these Disorders may be corrected and the Vestigia which have been imprest by former Objects wiped out I have toucht upon elsewhere and indeed were not Matters thus to be transacted were our Objects elected to our hands and we not able of our selves to choose some and reject others I see not any business for the Exercise of our Reason or any advantage we could brag of above necessitated Agents A considerate view of this kind of Imagery thus transacted in the Brain will not only inform us of the Mode of Imagination but will also give us some small insight into the extraordinary Effects of an over-heated Phantasie and direct us to an Explication of some of the prodigious Phaenomena and extravagant Actions of our late Visionaries or wild Enthusiasts who by a constant application of their Minds to some particular Idea come at length to have the same so strongly imprest upon their Brains that the whole Systasis of the Soul is taken up as it were aâ—d loseth it self in its Contemplation the Vestigia are so deeply cut and all others at that time effac'd that the tendency of their Spirits altogether is into these Footsteps the Acts of Reason and Understanding are laid aside the Result is this They quickly grow giddy by an uninterrupted Thought upon the same Object they fall into a sort of Madness and Delirium at some times dangerous to themselves and those about them they are possest with invincible Opinions and Conceits of extraordinary Illuminations Illapses of the Spirit and Revelations finally by the contracted Disorders of the Nervous System they are often seiz'd with very direful Paroxysms believe themselves in Rapts and Extasies and when the Fit is over endeavour to perswade the By-standers that they have been the Lord knows where and received a Divine Mandate or Commission to do the Lord knows what I was never over-credulous in the business of Possessions but doubtless according to some very impartial and faithful Accounts some of these I am speaking of have been pure Daemoniacks and the unaccountable Phaenomena they have exhibited have been clear Indications of a Praestigious Delusion or Satanical Power According to the Relation of a Learned Man my late Acquaintance whose Residence has been for many years in New-Eng that Country has been the Stage on which abundance of these Tragae-Comedies as he was pleas'd to call them have been acted He gave me at our last Conference a very Rational Account of several Instances of this Nature particularly two which I was almost surpriz'd at their Names I shall designedly forbear to publish The one had been a particular Acquaintance of this Gentleman 's for some years past He told me he always lookt upon him to be as Harmless and Innocent as he knew him to be Ignorant but of late he began to retire more than ordinarily from Conversation and betray'd in all his Actions in his Gesture Speech Motion and Behaviour all the approaching Symptoms of a mad Enthusiast It was not long before he betook himself to the Society of half a dozen
Spirit and was now come to propagate the Gospel over Europe and to settle a true Discipline in the Church of England Farther That they themselves were two Prophets the one of Mercy the other of Judgment with many other such incredible Blasphemies whereupon Hackett was Apprehended Arraigned and at last Drawn Hung'd and Quarter'd continuing all the time and at his Death hâ—â— blasphemous Assertions Coppinger a while after starved himself to death in Prison Arthington repented and made his Recantation in a publick Writing In the Third Year of the Reign of King James the First we have an account of a knavish Counterfeit one Richard Haidock who not only pretended to Inspiration and to injoy Supernatural Visions but to preach and pray in his Sleep This Person was by the King himself detected to be a Counterfeit and humbly asking forgiveness had his Pardon granted on Condition that he shou'd publickly and openly acknowledge his Offence In the Sixteenth Year of this King's Reign John Trask was Censur'd in the Star-Chamber for depraving the Ecclesiastic Government and for holding divers Judaical Opinions as that it was not lawful to do any thing forbidden in the Old Law nor to keep the Christian Sabbath for which he was set on the Pillory at Westminster and from thence whipt to the Fleet there to remain a Prisoner but Three years after he writ a Recantation of all his former Heresies and Schismatical Opinions In the Year 1636. in the Reign of King Charles the First one Leighton a Scotchman publisht his Zion's Plea of a very fiery Nature exciting the Parliament and the People to kill all the Bishops and to smite them under the fourth Rib He bitterly inveghs against the Queen calling her a Daughter of Heth a Cananite an Idolatress For which he was Sentenc'd to be whipt and stigmatiz'd to have his Ears cut off and his Nose to be slit all which was inflicted upon him In the Year 1656. in Charles the Second's Reign most remarkable was the Trial of James Naylor the great Champion of the Q rs who having spread his Doctrine and gained many Proselytes to it in divers parts of the Nation was more especially taken notice of at Bristol and from thence was brougt up to London attended by several Men and Women of his Opinion who all the way they came especially the Women are said to have sung Hosanna 's and to have used the same kind of Expressions towards him as anciently the People of the Jews did to our Saviour when he road triumphant into Jerusalem The Parliament took upon them to judge him themselves before whom being conven'd he was charg'd with Blasphemy for assuming to himself Divine Honours and such Attributes as were due unto Christ only After he had used many cunning Sophisms and Evasions to clear himself such as argu'd him not altogether ignorant of Humane Letters he was Sentenc'd by the House to be first at London whipt pillory'd and stigmatis'd as a Blasphemer then to be convey'd to Bristol there to be also whipt lastly to be brought back to London to remain in Bridewel during pleasure which Sentence was publickly inflicted on him The Insurrection of Thomas Venner in King Charles the Second's Reign 1660. a Cooper and a Preacher to the Fifth Monarchy Men is so prodigious an Example of an over-heated Imagination and a pretended Revelation that I am apt to believe no History can parallel The madness of these Men being in all about Fifty or Sixty extended so far that they believ'd themselves and the rest of their Judgment were call'd by God to reform the World and to make all the Earthly Power which they called Babylon subservient to the Kingdom of King Jesus and in order thereunto they resolv'd never to sheath their Swords till the Carnal Powers of the World became a Hissing and a Curse and by a mis-guided Zeal they were so confident in their Undertaking that they were taught and believed One should subdue Ten thousand making account when they had led Captive Captivity in England to go into France Spain Germany and other parts of the World there to prosecute their Holy Design They fought indeed with Courage to admiration and if they had not been hindred by the Care of the Lord Mayor from increasing their Numbers a Thousand Men so resolved might have caused such a Disturbance in the City as wou'd have had an Influence much farther Venner himself was very much wounded before he was taken and about five or six killed that refused Quarter of which some of them were so obscure as not to have their Names known About eight or ten days after Venner with about sixteen or seventeen of the most notorious were Arraigned at the Old Baily found Guilty and Executed in several parts of London Thus ended saith the Historian this desperate Enterprise of a formidable Army of sixty Men who were insensated to that height of Enthusiastic Valour that they thought themselves strong enough to Encounter the whole armed Force of one of the greatest and most populous Cities in the World The Prince's Guards the General 's Troops the City Train'd Bands were all swallow'd up in Conceipt by these Men of Might and little Wit and it is reported that they were so infatuated with their golden Dreams and so certain of Success that they had promis'd to themselves the Partage of the whole Empire of the World among them Thirty being design'd for the subduing of the Eastern Parts and Thirty of the Western but see the Disaster which they met with by the way In Dr. Featly's History of the Anabaptists we have several wonderful Accounts of Enthusiasm of their strange Phrensies their wild Preachings and Practises particularly those of Muncer John of Leyden Knipperdoling with the rest of their Followers So that altho' at this time the Q rs alone are lookt upon to be the chief Enthâ—siasts there being no other Sect besides so particularly pretending to Inspiration and Divine Illumination yet within the Compass of the two last Centuries we have had the Apostolians Augustinians The Silents Adamites Melchiorites Georgians Menonists Catharists Separatists Bucheldians Hutites c. who put in for a share of the same Priviledges and indeed it is to be fear'd if not unquestionable that the present Countenancing the pious Whims and Dotages of some Modern Sectaries who have made such a Noise in the World with their Special Illuminations Visions and Revelations has been none of the most inconsiderable Occasions of Scandal and Contempt amongst unprincipled Men to the Sacred Writings of the Divine Penmen on which account it was certainly well worth the pains of the Learned B p of C r to consider and state the Difference between really Divine Communications Natural Impressions and Diabolical Illusions whether by Inspiration Illapse Vision Dream or Voice and this I think he has admirably done by shewing that there is no proof of any other Revelation than that in the Holy Scriptures
2. That there is no need of any farther Revelation And lâ—stly That the said Book shuts up all Revelation with it self so that none other is to be expected beyond it I grant saith he that it is as possible in it self for God to reveal himself at some time hereafter as it was for him to have revealed himself heretofore but he that will assert the Futurity of this must have more to prove it than a Possibility It is certain that God has revealed himself and that the Gospel was by Revelation from him but there is nothing of the like Certainty for a Revelation after the Gospel or in after times of the Gospel as there is that the Gospel it self was of Divine Revelation so that altho' I am not positive but that there may be some particular Revelation or Inspiration with respect to some especial Case yet it may arise for ought we know from bare Imagination and if not attended with the greatest Caution and Circumspection may end in the Whims and Frensies of a Bridget a Catharina or a Mother Juliana and what not nay it may proceed to the disanulling the Gospel it self and to the preferring their own private Inspirations as they will have it above it If we consider the Evidence which was given to the Gospel Revelation we shall find there needs on other Evidence to be given to that Revelation for want of Evidence in this Our Saviourâ—s Life was a Life of Miracles as well as Innocence and wherever he wâ—â—â— the Divine Power went along with him which he extended â—herever he came and as occasion served to the Confusion if not the Conviction or Conversion of his Adversaries and all which at last concluded in his own Resurrection his Ascension into Heaven and the Effusion of the Holy Ghost which began on Pentecost but like a Torrent ran through the Apostolical Age and bore down all manner of Competition and what then can any Revelation pretend to beyond it or where can there be any that can be supposed to produce the like Evidence for its Veracity But again The Scriptures conclude all with this Revelation and because we have none other besides that written Revelation we cannot suppose any Revelation beyond it and much less derogatory to it or that shall direct us to any other way by which we are to be saved then that we have already received and is therein recorded As to the Case of Personal and Occasional Revelation which may be conceived only to serve to a more spiritual Manifestation of the Revelation already made I wou'd not altogether deny this because I know not how far some Persons may in some Cases be inlightened by a Spirit of Prophecy nor what particular directions they may receive in an extraordinary way in some special Cases with respect to themselves to others and to the Church of God which may be like a special Providence to some particular Persons but now as a Man must govern himself by the general Rules of Divine Providence and not by particular and because he has sometimes met with Deliverances Supplies and Directions beyond all his own foresight and reasoning must not forsake his own Reasonings and Care and wholly rely upon the Extraordinary so it is to be here 'T is not impossible but a Person may have some occasional Revelation some Divine Inspiration at an especial Season or in some special case but if he forsakes the ordinary to depend upon the extraordinary expects a Revelation in every case because he has had it in some Particulars he will as much be subject to Errour and err no less dangerously than if he wholly rely'd upon Divine Providence and forsook all other means whatever and truly this is a way much liable to be abus'd to mislead Persons and is very suspicious as also dangerous It is a Case liable to Imposture and Abuse forasmuch as those that are under the Influence of such a conception are not always if at all capable of making a certain Judgment of it for it is all transacted within and the Imagination may be so much influenc'd by the Body and by an Agitation of the Blood and Spirits from an Enthusiastical and even Devout Temper by prepossessions and fore-conceived Principles and by the Circumstances of Life that it may be wholly Natural as natural as Dreams or the Deliriums of a Fever which proceed from an Ebullition of the Humours and such like ordinary Causes It is very certain that abundance of Persons have been imposed on and taken the Effect of Imagination for Inspiration and Divine Illumination I am far from condemning all the Instances of this kind of Hypocrisie and a Design to Deceive like Maria Vesitationis in Portugal I will rather think more charitably that very often they have thought themselves thus moved and acted by the Spirit of God and yet notwithstanding all their pretences and the opinion others have had of them it has been afterwards evident that all has been far short of Divine Infusion or Illumination What shall we think of Teresa whose Life is full of her Visions and Revelations and indeed if we did but alter the place and for the Nunnery conceive her to be in an Hospital we might take it to be what the Author in a transport sometimes calls it a Frenzy What a Legend of Dreams wou'd the World be furnisht with if the Visions and Revelations of these kind of People were bundled up together as the Miracles of reputed Saints have sometimes been But they are truly much to be suspected also of Imposture and that because we read so little of this way in Scripture even in the Apostles times and nothing to encourage us in the expectation of it afterwards We read nothing there of the Union of the Soul to the Divine Essence of its being absorpt and drown'd over head and ears and ingulphed in the depth of Divinity so that it became one and the same with God by a true Deification We read there sparingly of some Extasies as one of St. Peter one or two of St. Paul but with how much reserve doth the holy Apostle speak and with how much modesty when he comes to Visions and Revelations of the Lord when he heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a Man to utter 2 Cor. 12.1 c. Now what can be greater if these of Teresa be true and where might we expect to be more entertained with the Relation of such Rapâ—s than in the Gospel so that when they are there so unusual and here so frequent that even Societies are embody'd from them and formed it is very much to be suspected and the rather seeing that which is the proper means of judging and of distinguishing Imagination from Revelation is laid aside which is Reason and when all is resolved into the Persons single Testimony We are required in all Cases to search and try which doth suppose the free Exercise of our Reason and where this
is rejected 't is a sign there is no truth in the Thing pretended but farther 't is very suspicious when Men exalt their own private Revelations to the same Authority with the Revelations of holy Writ and seek to justifie the one by the other when they esteem the way of Religion as described in Scripture to be mean in comparison of this that they are in and prefer this way of Contemplation and Inspiration above the plain Precepts of Christianity when it is a condescention in them to joyn in External Worship A state indeed of Perfection that is above what the Gospel hath described and is another Gospel than what we have in Scripture received and which there needs an uncontroulable Evidence for the want of which increaseth the suspicion 'T is certain that there is no Evidence for all this beyond their own simple Affirmation and who is there that without good Evidence can believe that those Rapturous Ladies such as Santa Teresa and Donna Marina d'Escobar did in Molinos ' s Phrase hear and talk with God hand in hand when he reads the Interlocutory Matters that are said to have passed between them The desire of Revelations has so wonderful an Influence over the Souls especially of such Women that there is not an ordinary Dream but they will Christen with the Name of Vision and I must needs say the credulous World has been much imposed on this way The Pretence abovesaid of Maria Visitationis is an Instance beyond all Exception who impos'd upon her Confessor no less a Man than Lewis Granada the Inquisition and even the Pope himself and yet notwithstanding she pretended to somewhat more than Internal for her Converse with our Saviour c. was at last detected of notorious Imposture But most of the Visionaries we are speaking of pretended not to so much and therefore where there is no External Evidence attempted by them nor that we have the Gift of Intuition to see into their inward and Self-evidence we have no reason to think otherwise of such Illuminations Introversions and Interlocutions than at best the Effects of a distemper'd Brain and so much the rather are we to be careful of these Matters and not to be too easie of belief because it may be very dangerous in the Consequence of it for if instead of a Star it should prove an Igâ—is fatuus whether may not Persons be led under the Delusion of it and what will not be concluded to be lawful nay a duty which Revelation shall warrant and where will this end if once it be credited and that we commit our selves implicitly and blindly to such an uncertain Guide Now if a Person comes under pretence of a Revelation with a Message to others and requires them as they tender their Salvation to receive it and to submit to it without such Certificates as may give Authority to it it is like one that shall take on him the Stile and Character of an Ambassador without any Credentials to give him Authority and deserves no better Acceptance It is by means of Predictions and Miracles that a Prophet must be known to be a Prophet an Inspiration to be an Inspiration and by these Characters may we be able to judge of both as to the Authority of the Mission and the Truth of the Inspiration where the Evidence was nâ—câ—ssary there was never wanting one or both of these and tho' John did no Miracle yet he had the Spirit of Prophecy the People acknowledg'd for say they all things John spake of this Man Jesus were true There may 't is likely be Inspiration where there is neither of these or the like Evidences but there is no Obligation on others to believe it without the Evidence be sufficient for such as the Evidence is such is the Obligation now the Evidence is not sufficient which rests solely on Humane Authority and has nothing but the bare word or affirmation of the Pretender to prove it It is to this purpose that our Saviour speaks If I bear witness of my self my witness is not true the Works I do bear witness of me So that Inspiration is as to others no Inspiration till it be proved it may for ought appears to the contrary be no other than Delusion or Imposture Let therefore the Imagination be never so strong the Confidence never so great the Intent never so good the Question is whence is this what Evidence doth the Person bring of his Mission from God upon what doth it rest into what is it resolved what doth he produce more than what may be the fruit of Imagination it may all be a fit of Enthusiasm And if a Person will pretend to immediate Inspiration were it an Age for it much more if he pretends to it after Inspiration hâ—s ceased he must be able to fortifie it by such Evidence as can come from none but him from whom the Inspiration came if it be Divine The Case then is to be put upon this Issue and to be decided by the Measures here laid down and we may safely venture the whole Cause of Revelation upon it when there is nothing wanting that can reasonably be desir'd towards the Justification of its Veracity and that there is no manner of Pretence for applying the same Terms of Evidence and Sincerity to Imagination as to Inspiration or to Imposture whether Enthusiastic or Diabolical as is to Revelation For when was it known that Imagination or Nature vulgarly so called did ever impower Persons to speak all Languages and to discourse readily at once with the Parthians Medes and Elamites c. in their several Tongues when did Nature or Imagination enable Persons without any skill to cure Diseases naturally incurable and such as had no Humane Learning to talk like Philosophers of the sublimest Arguments and with as much freedom as they used the Speech of the Foreign Nations they instructed Farther What Imagination Nature or Art cou'd inspirit Moses with such a Supernatural Power as to turn his Rod into a Serpent and to devour those of the Magicians or by a stroke of it to fetch Water out of a Rock and to stop the mighty Current of the Sea What Imagination cou'd form such Idea's in the Minds of a Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar or inspire a Joseph or a Daniel to give such an Interpretation as justify'd it self to be true by the corresponding Event When did Imagination give Life to a Fly or do the least act out of it self when did that or Nature or Imposture really and truly raise the Dead with Elisha call for Fire from Heaven with Elijah or foretell what shall happen an hundred or a thousand years after or so much as what a Person shall think to morrow Here we may challenge all the Magicians all the Men of Art and Science all the Enthusiastâ— and Impostors in the World to talk as the Persons really inspired did talk to do as they did and to produce those Testimonies as they
a profound Judgment and substantial Knowledge must undoubtedly lead us to very great Devotion and the more exquisitely curious the Anatomist is the greater Reason will he have if he abuse not his Understanding to adore and admire the Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness of his great Creator and consequently to worship to love and to obey him If you believe Reveal'd Religion which was never so question'd or refuted as to deserve the Answer of any soberly learned Man you must believe the Truth of God's particular Providence altho' you cannot reconcile every particular Phaenomenon either to your own Reason or the Corpuscular Philosophy The holy Scriptures are a System of Divine Philosophy and I should think that the Assertions of the Almighty ought to be received by Rational Men before the seeming clearness of any meer Humane Hypothesis Alas how little is it that we know and granting the Supream Being to have made our World in the Nature of a Clock is this an Argument that its first Fabrication or the Motions bestowed upon its several Parts can result from any thing short of an Almighty and Divine Power but our Philosophy is unable to inform us of all the Wheels the Pius and several Motions of this stupendious Frame 't is true we set it move according to Mechanick Laws but there may be many thousand Motions in it of which we are ignorant Let us bless our God for the Revelation which he has given us and let us as most certainly it behoves us rely upon his special Providence whoever does so will in the event find Comfort and Satisfaction nor do I see how a good Man can have any real Happiness or Consolation without it As for Mr. B s Divinity I must own there are many things in it both Rational and Solid but when he comes to spiritualize the Divine Ordinances and Institutions of Christ and his Apostles he not only sets himself up in opposition to the Churches of Christ to the Sense and Practise of the Primitive Christians as I am able to prove but exposes a want of knowledge in Scripture Interpretation The Novelty of the Sect and the dangerous tendency of their pretended Inspiration is argument enough to â—â—e of their Inconsistency with themselves and true Religion and surely we ought to be extreamly cautious how we side with such whimsical upstart Opinions till we can reconcile the Possibility for Divine Goodness and Mercy to suffer Christendom to lye in Ignorance for Sixteen hundred years and that the Churches immediately planted by the Apostles shou'd make Mistakes of that vile Consequence even when their Founders were present to set them to rights if they had done so as we must believe they did if Q sm be true A well-grounded knowledge in the Primitive Christianity which may be truly fetcht out of Ecclesiastick History and the Fathers of the Church will give you this Satisfaction that the holy Ordinances from the first promulgation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ such I mean as Water-Baptism and the Eucharist have been practis'd even to this day by all good Christians by the use of the outward Elements in their Administration I deny not but there have been both great Abuses Misapprehensions and Mistakes in the performance of them or in the manner of their Reception and I think I may say there are 〈◊〉 more egregiously absurd than some of those derived from the Chair of supposed Infallibility but this will by no means extenuate our Crimes of neglecting their use or making light of putting them at all in practise I desire you at your leisure to consider well Mr. B s Comment upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on which he lays a very great stress and if you compare it with some of those Places in Holy Writ which clearly justifie this manner of Baptismal initiation into Christ's Church you will find it so gross a Metaphor that neither Grammar Rhetorick nor the Rules of Logick neither which I prefer to them all the Reason of an understanding Man will ever be able to countenance We may set into what Absurdities even Learned Men are betray'd when they too much rely upon their own Judgments when they set up for new Discoveries and impose their own Phantâ—sies for Divine Revelations If you please to send me what you think the sufficient Proofs which this Learned Man has excogitated for the support of his new Religion I will if God enable me give you my impartial Thoughts for I must seriously profess to you I see nothing in his Works which ought to sway any true Christian to leave any Protestant Church for the sake of Q sm I have formerly been in Mr. B s Company but cou'd never discover any thing like fair Argumentation I must own him to have been a Man of very considerable parts yet his Scripture Quotations were for the most part manifestly wrested and his general Discourse a pure Invective or down-right Railery against the Church of England at which I must confess I was very much surprised having framed to my self other Notions of the Man before I left him with this undoubted satisfaction in my self that the Spirit of Self-conceit of Pride and Bitterness must needs be very reâ—â—te from the true Spirit of Christianity I thank you for your Discourse concerning the Natural Power of Spasms or the Disorders of the Nervous System but as to what you say about Daemoniacs Fascination and the Operation of Evil Spirits I must refer my Opinion to a time of greater leisure or till you please to visit me in the mean time I pray God more and more to inlighten your Understanding c. I am your real Friend A. H. Some little time after this I receiv'd a Second Letter from that sincerely Religious and most excellent Divine by way of Answer to one that I had sent him which as I find it amongst my Papers begins thus SIR I Rejoyce with you that it hath pleased our good God to confirm in you such a Belief of his Existence and your own Creation after the Divine Image as may secure to you a Remembrance of the Duty incumbent on you and put you both upon a constant and fervent Prayer for the supply of Divine Grace together with a steddy and devout Submission to and Dependence upon his especial Providence I do look upon your last Letter to be the Picture of your Mind and bating the Ceremony I find no other fault than this that how lamentably true soever your Remarks may be upon the present Age for the most part yet I am free to acquaint you with my Thoughts that there are a much greater number of good People amongst us than you imagine I may say blessed be our God for it I have the personal knowledge of many whom I can call truly pious and sincere Christians Some of them such who as they by no means value themselves upon their Humane Acquirements are yet able to silence the Calumnies of the Profane
Flesh can hinder Men from the performance of what God in subserviency to his communicating of Grace at least in his ordinary dispensing of it doth require so the being in the Exercise of those Means and in the Discharge of those Duties which God prescribes and enjoyns doth not only take us from and prevent those Sins which would render our Conversion difficult if not impossible but they are further useful as Means appointed and blessed of God unto such an end Tho' our Obedience hath neither any Physical Efficiency upon our Regeneration nor is Grace bestow'd in the Consideration of any previous Merit that is in our Performances yet it is neither superfluous nor vain much less doth it lye in any repugnancy to our Conversion being only perfected by an effectual subjective Work of the Spirit of God This Doctrine is not only opposed by Pelagius and Socinus but of late by Mr. Hobbs whom we may very well allow to combate the Grace of God having before-hand listed himself in opposition to the Divine Being Now having lost the Divine Image and our Integrity by the Fall we not only contend that there is the Efficacy of an External Agent necessary for the recovering it and that he who imprinted the Image of God upon Humane Nature in the first Creation of Man must again restore it in his Regeneration but we affirm withal that till the Sanctifying Spirit effectually infallibly and by an unresisted Operation transforms us into the Divine Nature and communicates to us a Vital Seed we remain polluted unholy and uncapable of doing any thing with all that duness of Circumstances as may commend us or our Performances to God's Acceptance Not but that antecedently to the Holy Ghost's renewing us by a Communication of Grace to us we may both dogmatically believe the Doctrines of the Scripture and be found in the discharge of the Material Parts not only of Natural Duties but of the Acts of Instituted Religion but to say that we ought thereupon to be denominated Holy is to remonstrate to the Scriptures in a thousand places and to overthrow the very Tenor and design of the Gospel While we remain thus unholy we are so far from being actually united unto Christ or capable Subjects of Justification or Forgiveness that till we are actually made Partakers of the Washing of Regeneration and the Renewing of the Holy Ghost we cannot possibly have any Union with Him or a Right to Pardon of Sin or any thing that ensues or depends thereupon by him There is nothing hath at least ought to have the true denomination of Holiness but what proceeds from the Spirit of Christ in us and Principles of Grace by Infusion communicated to us which are the Foundation Matter and Bond of our Union with Him and under whatever Gloss or Varnish we or our Works appear to the World yet without such a Relation to Christ we are none of his nor are our Duties as to the Principles and Circumstances of them acceptable to God The Obligation upon Men to Obedience in what state soever we suppose them the consistency of God's right to command them with our contracted inability to the yielding of due Obedience the Capacity that all Men remain in notwithstanding any congenite Impotency for the performing many External Duties good in themselves and in the Matter of them with the Subservience of these Performances to Conversion as they are Means appointed of God in order thereunto all these I in some measure understand and can reconcile with the Oeconomy of the Gospel But that our Lives can be holy till our Hearts be so through the Renewing of the Holy Ghost or that our Works can be adequately good antecedently to our Reception of Supernatural Grace I do in no wise understand nor can I conceive the same can be made intelligible without imposing Paelagianism upon us But farther The Gospel acknowledgeth no Acts of true Holiness performed by any where there is not antecedently at least in order of Nature a Principle of true Holiness in the Persons performing them no Acts Operations or Duties of ours are in the Esteem of the Gospel holy but what proceed from and are done in the Vertue Power and Efficacy of Grace previously derived from and communicated to us by Jesus Christ there is prae-required to all Acts of Gospel Obedience a new real Spiritual Principle by which our Nature is renewed and our Souls rendred habitually and subjectively holy Grace is not the Effect and Product of any previous good Action of ours whatever Subserviency through the appointment and dispose of God they may lye in as to his bestowing of it but all Acts and Operations truly good are the Fruits of Divine Grace to talk of sincere Obedience precluding our antecedaneous Adeption of a new Principle and the Communication of a Divine Vital Seed to us is to impose Paelagianism upon us and that in a more fulsome way and in ruder terms than many of his Followers used to declare themselves I deny not the things revealed and commanded in the Gospel being both good in themselves and suited to the Reason and Interest of Mankind and also inforced by the most attractive Motives which we can either desire or imagine but that Men in the alone strength of their Natural Faculties may perform many External Duties and in that manner also that we who judge only according to appearance are thereupon to account them holy yea that nothing but Supineness lustful Prejudice consuetude in Sin and a being immersed into the Animal Life can hinder them from so doing but I deny that any Act or Duty hath the proper Form or Nature of Holiness or is so denominated in the Scriptures but both what proceeds from an antecedent Habit or Principle of Holiness in the Persons by whom they are performed and an immediate Influence from Christ in the virtue of our Union with him as our quickning Head vital Root and living Spring in the actual performance of them so that tho' no Physical Efficiency is to be ascribed to the Gospel yet besides a Moral Efficacy which through its own frame and complexion it hath to reform Mankind beyond what any Declaration of God and our selves that ever the World was made acquainted with had there is a Physical efficacious Operation of the Spirit of God accompanies it on the score of God Almighty's having in infinite Wisdom ordained it as a means for the communicating of Grace but still it is not the Doctrine of the Gospel that we are united to 't is true that it is both by the Doctrine of the Gospel that we are brought to be united to Christ and it is also true that whosoever are united to Him have the Doctrine of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as an ingraffed and incorporated Word and are moulded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the form of its Doctrine but yet 't is not the terminus of the Relation of Union which intervenes betwixt Christ and
great footing in the World and that the Doctrine of the Divine Grace shou'd be redicul'd by them and esteemed little otherwise than as a sensless Notion the Opinions of these Men run so smooth to the sense of the Natural Understanding that so long as Men are careless and unwilling to look farther they are constrained to make their Reason the positive and adaequate Rule both of their Morality and Divinity But for my own part I shou'd not so much dispute with them this Mysterious Co-operation or Divine Concurrence provided they cou'd but show me any true Practical Christian one who is so in Deeds as well as Words who has espoused their Opinions I may be free to say I know nothing like one nor do I think it possible to meet with a sincerely devout Convert or Regenerate Person who is not ready to acknowlege that of himself he was able to do nothing as he ought and that the Renovation or happy Change of his Mind was purely owing to the Adeption of a new Principle or to a Union with the Divine Spirit of Jesus Christ. 'T is true amongst the Followers of Pelagius and Socinut there are those who understanding the Verity of their Opinions would be measur'd by their Practises have been more than ordinarily exemplary in their Conversation with the World and their Self-denial of some Temporal Enjoyments Men who have kept themselves to a constant attendance upon Religious Worship and set those about them an extraordinary Pattern for the practise of private Duties and all these we may readily grant the possibility of their attaining by the meer strength of their Natural Faculties or the Powers of their own Souls independent of the Divine Grace these however necessary were never lookt on by considerate Men for more than the Introduction or Outside of true Religion but altho' there are amongst them Persons so very circumspect in their Deportment or Behaviour yet the greatest part of them are such as wholly devote themselves to disputation in mixt Companies where they continually gain Proselytes among loose People such who as they never cou'd reconcile themselves to the practise of Religion are very glad to find the same resolv'd into Matter of Speculation by which means every Man may have an opportunity to raise a suitable Theory to his own Inclinationâ— Now I must confess that which has principally induc'd me to dissent from the Principles of these Men is a consciousness I have had that it is not only possible but certain that Men may have an Historical Faith and that they may believe or assent to the Truth of the Revelation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and yet at the same time to show themselves as if wholly unconcerned in their Lives and Practises whether the things deliver'd in that Gospel be true or not which I think is hardly reconcileable even to our own Reason nor can be otherwise ascribed than to the want of that Supernatural and Divine Aid I plead for Upon the other Extream as these we were just now speaking of many of them at least will not allow any such Doctrine as that of the Divine Grace so there have been those who have affirmed that a Person may by Philosophy and Contemplation attain such a Degree of Union with the Divine Being as to know and understand things by a Contactus or Conjunction of Substance with the Deity The Passages saith my Author which occur in Plotinus Porphirius Jamblicus and Proclus all great and famous Platonists of such a tendency are numerous and need not to be here transcribed This Imagination was espoused by the Arabian Philosophers and had it been entertained by the Contemplative Heathen only we might have taken the less notice of it but it was imbibed and that very timely by Origen himself and from him the Ferment or Leaven thereof was derived to the ancient Monks from all or some of these it spread amongst the Romish Monasticks such of them as are called Mystick Theologues nothing more frequent with that sort of Men than a Tattle of an intime Union with God whereby the Soul becomes Deify'd and from them the Weigelians and Familists borrowed their Magnificent Language of being Godded with God and Christed with Christ. The adventurous Determinations of the School-men concerning the beatifical Vision smell rank of the same blasphemous nonsensical Figment for by their contending that the Divince Essence is immediately united as an intelligible Species to the Intellect of the blessed and that this Species and the glorify'd Understanding do not remain distinct things but become identify'd they do in effect affirm the Soul to be transubstantiated into God and to be really deify'd and seeing it 's a Matter of easie Demonstration that the Knowledge which we shall enjoy of God in Heaven differeth only in degree from that which we possess here otherwise it is both altogether unintelligible and uncapable of Rational Explication it will follow by a short Harangue of Discourse either that Believers have no Knowledge of God at all in this Life or else that their Soul 's become Deify'd and Essentially united to God by knowing him I shall not name here the admired Nonsence and high-flown Cantings of some Modern Enthusiasts which carry a broad-fac'd Aspect this way 't is easie for us to instruct our selves from what Springs these with the like Visionaries have drawn the putrid Conceits which they propine to the World 'T is enough for us that we believe the Person of Christ and the Persons of Believers to remain distinct after all the Union that intercedes between them Let us be thankful for the Influences of his Grace and for the In-dwellings of his Holy Spirit but let us detest those swelling Words of Pride and Ignorance of being Christed and Deify'd for whatsoever be the nature and kind of the Union between Christ and Christians that the same shou'd by Hypostatical cannot without Blasphemy be imagined And thus my Friend I hope I have with no unpardonable Prolixity gone over these very weighty Subjects I pray God we may all of us have right Notions of them fixed on our Hearts and that they may be attended with the Fruits of a sincere Repentance and Amendment of our Lives I shall endeavour to conclude all with the most suitable Advice I can and in order to the same wou'd wish and desire you to think often and seriously upon the certainty of your Death for whatever you may think of an Immortality hereafter 't is manifest you can obtain none here consider what Thoughts will be most likely to intrude upon you what Business you will principally be employ'd about shou'd you have time allotted you for such a purpose the Conflicts and Consternation you must encounter the Confusion of your last Minutes the Agony of your Soul in the moment of its flight For let me tell you however you may please your self in this time of Health and Vigour that an approach of a privation of your