Apostles may cause variety of style and other accidental excellencies in the parts of the holy Scriptures and yet all these parts be animated with one soul of Power Truth and Goodness But those men who think that these humane imperfections of the Writers do extend further and may appear in some by-passages of Chronologies or History which are no proper part of the Rule of Faith and Life do not hereby destroy the Christian cause For God might enable his Apostles to an infallible recording and preaching of the Gospel even all things necessary to salvation though he had not made them infallible in every by-passage and circumstance no more than they were indefectible in life As for them that say I can believe no man in any thing who is mistaken in one thing at least as infallible they speak against common sense and reason for a man may be infallibly acquainted with some things who is not so in all An Historian may infallibly acquaint me that there was a Fight at Lepanto at Edge-hill at York at Naseby or an Insurrection and Massacre in Ireland and Paris c. who cannot tell me all the circumstances of it or he may infallibly tell men of the late Fire which consumed London though he cannot tell just whose houses were burnt and may mistake about the Causers of it and the circumstances A Lawyer may infallibly tell you whether your cause be good or bad in the main who yet may misreport some circumstances in the opening of it A Physician in his Historical observations may partly erre as an Historian in some circumstances yet be infallible as a Physician in some plain cases which belong directly to his Art I do not believe that any man can prove the least error in the holy Scripture in any point according to its true intent and meaning but if he could the Gospel as a Rule of Faith and Life in things necessary to salvation might be nevertheless proved infallible by all the evidence before given Object XVIII The Physicks in Gen 1. are contrary to all true Philosophy and suited to the vulgars erroneous conceits Answ No such matter there is sounder doctrine of Physicks in Gen. 1. than any Philosopher hath who contradicteth it And as long as they are altogether by the ears among themselves and so little agreed in most of their Philosophy but leave it to this day either to the Scepticks to deride as utterly uncertain or to any Novelist to form anew into what principles and hypothesis he please the judgment of Philosophers is of no great value to prejudice any against the Scriptures The sum of Gen. 1. is but this That God having first made the Intellectual Superiour part of the world and the matter of the Elementary world in an unformed Mass or Chaos did the first day distinguish or form the active Element of Fire and caused it to give Light The second day he separated the attenuated or rarifi'd part of the passive Element which we call the Air expanding it from the earth upwards to separate the clouds from the lower waters and to be the medium of Light And whether in different degrees of purity it fill not all the space between all the Globes both fixed and planetary is a question which we may more probably affirm than deny unless there be any waters also upwards by condensation which we cannot disprove The third day he separated the rest of the passive Element Earth and Sea into their proper place and bounds and also made individual Plants in their specifick forms and virtue of generation or multiplication of individuals The fourth day he made the Sun Moon and Stars either then forming them or then making them Luminaries to the earth and appointing them their relative office but hath not told us of their other uses which are nothing to us The fifth day he made inferiour Sensitives Fishes and Birds the inhabitants of Water and Air with the power of generation or multiplication of individuals The sixth day he made first the terrestrial Animals and then Man with the power also of generation or multiplication And the seventh day having taken complacency in all the works of this glorious perfected frame of Nature he appointed to be observ'd by mankind as a day of rest from worldly labours for the worshipping of Him their Omnipotent Creator in commemoration of this work This is the sum and sense of the Physicks of Gen. 1. And here is no errour in all this what ever prejudice Philosophers may imagine Object XIX It is a suspicious sign that Believing is commanded us instead of knowing and that we must take all upon trust without any proof Answ This is a meer slander Know as much as you are able to know Christ came not to hinder but to help your knowledge Faith is but a mode or act of knowing How will you know matters of History which are past and matters of the unseen world but by believing If you could have an Angel come from heaven to tell you what is there would you quarrel because you are put upon believing him if you can know it without believing and testimony do God biddeth you believe nothing but what he giveth you sufficient reason to believe Evidence of credibility in Divine faith is evidence of certainty Believers in Scripture usually say We know that thou art the Christ c. You are not forbidden but encouraged to try the spirits and not to believe every spirit nor pretended prophet Let this Treatise testifie whether you have not Reason and evidence for Belief it is Mahomet's doctrine and not Christ's which forbiddeth examination Object XX. It imposeth upon us an incredible thing when it perswadeth us that our undoing and calamity and death are the way to our felicity and our gain and that sufferings work together for our good At least these are hard terms which we cannot undergoe nor think it wisdom to lose a certainty for uncertain hopes Answ Suppose but the truth of the Gospel proved yea or but the Immortality and Retribution for Souls hereafter which the light of Nature proveth and then we may well say that this Objection savoureth more of the Beast than of the Man A Heathen can answer it though not so well as a Christian Seneca and Plutarch Antonine and Epictetus have done it in part And what a dotage is it to call things present Certainties when they are certainly ready to pass away and you are uncertain to possess them another hour who can be ignorant what haste Time maketh and how like the Life of man is to a dream What sweetness is now left of all the pleasant cups and morsels and all the merry hours you have had and all the proud or lustfull fancies which have tickled your deluded fleshly mindes Are they not more terrible than comfortable to your most retired sober thoughts and what an inconsiderable moment is it till it will be so with all the rest
pars inteligibilis of a being as without the form But that is not the common acception of it nor is it then fit for the place assigned it in ordine praedicamentali From all this I am not about to injure any mans understanding by building my Conclusions upon any questionable grounds I do but right your understandings so far as to remove all uncertain foundations though they be such as seem to be most for the advantage of my Cause and are by most made the great reasons of the Souls Immortality And it is not my purpose to deny that as Angels are compounded ex genere differentiâ so the generical nature of Angels greatly differeth from the nature of Corporeal things As God can make multitudes of corporeal Creatures formally or specifically different of the matter of one simple Element only as Air or Fire without material mixture so he can either make an Element of Souls either existent of it self of which he will make Individuals yea species formally divers or else existent only in the species and individuals as he please But then we must say that as fire and air and water do differ formally as several Elements so the spiritual Element or general Nature hath a formal difference from the Corporeal called the Material But hence it will follow 1. That Angels and humane Souls have a double form as some use to call it that is Generical as Spirits which is presupposed as the aptitude of their Metaphysical matter by which they differ from bodies and specifical by which they are constituted what they are and differ among themselves unless you deny all such formal difference among them and difference them only by individuation and accidents as several drops or bottles of water taken out of the same Sea 2. And it will seem plain that our differencing characters or properties between Spirits and Bodies must be sought for in their different forms which must be found in the noble operations which flow from the forms and not from uncertain Accidents Therefore my design in all this is but to intimate to you how lubricous and uncertain and beyond the reach of mans understanding the ordinary characters from such Accidents are and that its better fetch the difference from the Operations Saith Georg. Ritschel Contempl. Metap c. 6. pag. 40 43. Difficile est rebus materialibus immersis substantiam immaterialem concipere Et licet pro certo non constet an Menti Angelicae omnis simpliciter Materialitas repugnet certum tamen est elementarem nostram ab illis abesse atque Divinam Essentiam ab omni esse materia secretam aeterna ejus immutabilis habitudo convincit nisi per materialitatem fortè substantiam intelligas § 15. Dubium quidem nullum est immaterialem Mundum essentiarum varietate Intelligibilium aequè admirabilem augustum esse atque Mundum corporeum videmus sed in quo illa consistat diversitas bonis indicio certo non percipitur Nimirum si praeter te lumbricum atque scarabaeum animal aliud nullum vidisses audires autem esse alia innumera genera diversitate naturae forma penitus discrepantia tum vagas quidem confusasque de diversitate volvere cogitationes posses non posses autem illas tot bestiarum piscium reptilium avium species suo vultu coloribus signare Ita quid spiritus sit immaterialis ex te capere qui Mentem immaterialem habes qualemcunque notitiam potes non potes autem in te perspicere in quo precise illa varietas consistat To come neerer to the application of what is said to the present Objection 1. The Souls of Men and Bruits we see do not differ in genere entis nor in genere substantiae nor in genere principii vitalis nor in genere sentientis 2. The matter of both whether it differ as Metaphysical and Physical or how is much beyond our knowledge 3. The great diversity of Operations doth shew the great diversity of their Powers and forms and inclinations 4. This sheweth the diversity of their uses and ends for which they were created 5. It is certain that no substantial Principle in either of them is annihilated at death The Souls of Bruits have the same nature after death as they had before and the Souls of men have the same nature as before They are not transformed into other things 6. Therefore about both of them there is nothing left of doubt or controversie but only 1. About the perpetuated Individuation 2. The future Operations and so the habits viz. 1. Whether the Souls of men or bruits or both do lose their individuation and fall into some Vniversal Element of their kinde 2. Whether they operate after death as now There is nothing else about their Immortality that common Reason can make a question of And for the Souls of Bruits whether they remain Individuate or return to a common Element of their kinde is a thing unknown to us because unrevealed and unrevealed because it is of no use and concernment to us Our own case concerneth us more and therefore is more made known to us by God As will further appear in that which followeth OBJECTION III. HVmane souls are but forms and forms are but the qualities or modes of substances and therefore accidents and therefore perish when separated from the bodies Answ The world of learned men do find themselves too much work and trouble others with controversies about names and words and especially by confounding words and things and not discerning when a controversie is only de nomine and when it is de re And they have done so about forms as much as any thing The word form is usually liable to this ambiguity In compounded beings it is sometime taken for the active predominant part or principle and sometimes for the state which resulteth from the contemperation of all the parts Which is the fittest to be called the form is but a question de nomine Gassendus himself confesseth this ambiguity of the word and having pleaded that all forms except man's intellectual soul are but modes or qualities of bodies and accidents He addeth § 1. l. 6. c. 1. Si formae nomine spiritum quendam quasi florem materiae intellexeris cujusmodifere concipimus animam in equo tum forma dici potest substantia immo corpus tenuissimum quod crassius pervadat perficiat regat At si formae nomine intelligatur dispositio ac modus quo tam substantia illa spirituosior quam crassior reliqua se habet ad quam facultates actionesque naturales consequuntur tum posse Qualitatem conseri ac dici Whether the souls of bruits be only the spirits or the flos materiae or not it is granted by him and by almost all men that in mixt bodies there is one part more subtil than the rest which is the most active powerful predominant part and which doth corpus
Light be not still the same till all the passive matter be consumed is more than you know So also if you argue from the Vegetative life of a Tree Whether the same Principle of Vegetation enlarging it self continue not to the end to individuate the Tree though all the passive Elements Earth Water and Air may be in fluxu and a transient state It is certain that some fixed Principle of Individuation there is from whence it must be denominated the same The water of the hasty River would not be called the same River if the Channel which it runs in were not the same Nor your Candle be called the same Candle if some of the first Wick or Oyl at least did not remain or the same fire continue it or the same Candlestick hold it And what is it in the Tree which is still the same or what in the Bird that flyeth about which is still the same when you have searched all you will finde nothing so likely as the vital Principle and yet that something there must be 2. But doth not the light of Nature and the concurrent sense and practice of all the World confute you and tell you that if you cannot understand what the Individuating Principle is yet that certainly some such there is and doth continue Why else will you love and provide for your own Children if they be not at all the same that you begat nor the same this year as you had the last Why will you be revenged on the Man that did beat you or hang the Thief that robbed you or do Justice on any Murderer or Male-factor seeing that it is not the same man that did the deed If he transpire as much as Sanctorius saith and his substance diminish as much in a day as Opicius saith certainly a few dayes leave him not the same as to those transitory parts Surely therefore there is something which is still the same Else you would deny the King his title and disoblige your selves from your subjection by saying that he is not at all the same man that you swore Allegiance to or that was born Heir of the Crown And you would by the same reason forfeit your own Inheritance Why should uncertain Philosophical whimsies befool men into those speculations which the light and practice of all the world doth condemn as madness But arguing ab ignotis will have no better success Of the individuation of Bodies in the Resurrection I spake before OBJECTION XVII IF the Soul be a substance we must confess it not annihilated But it is most like to proceed from some Element of Souls or Vniversal Soul either the Anima Mundi or rather the Anima Solis vel hujus systematis And so to be reduced to it again and lose its individuation and consequently to be uncapable of Retribution Answ 1. That the Soul which we speak of is a substance is past all controversie For though as I have shewed there is truely an order or temperament of the parts which he that listeth may call the form the life the soul or what he please yet no man denyeth but that there is also some one part which is more subtile pure active potent and regnant than the rest and this is it whatever it is which I call the Soul We are agreed of the Thing let them wrangle de nomine who have nothing else to doe 2. That this substance no substance else is not annihilated as I have said is past dispute 3. Therefore there is nothing indeed in all this business which is liable to Controversie but this point of Individuation which this Objection mentioneth and that of action and operation following And I must confess that this is the only particular in which hereabouts I have found the temptation to error to be much considerable They that see how all waters come from the Sea and how Earth Water Air and Fire have a potent inclination of union and when the parts are separated have a motus aggregativus may be tempted to think it a probable thing that all Souls come from and return unto a Universal Soul or Element of which they are but particles But concerning this I recommend to the sober Reader these following Considerations 1. There is in Nature more than a probability that the Vniverse hath no Vniversal Soul whatever particular Systems or Globes may have For we finde that Perfection lyeth so much in Vnity and as all things are from One so as they go out from One they go into Multiplicity that we have great cause to think that it is the Divine Prerogative to be Vnicus Vniversalis He is the Vnicus Vniversalis in Entity Life Intelligence c. As he hath made no one Monarch of all the Universe no nor of all the Earth nor no one Head of all the Church that is not God whatever the Roman Vice-god say nor hath given any one a sufficiency hereto whatever a self-Idolizer may imagine of himself so he hath not given away or communicated that Prerogative which seemeth proper to the Deity to be an Vniversal Minde and consequently an Vniversal Parent and King yea more to be Omnia in Vno Having no sort of proof that there is any such thing finding it so high and Divine a Prerogative we have little reason to believe that there is any such thing at all in being 2. If you mean therefore no more than an Vniversal Soul to a particular Systeme or Vortex in the World that Vniversal will be it self a particular Soul Individuated and distinct from other Individuals And indeed those very Elements that tempt you might do much to undeceive you There is of Fire a specifical Unity by which it differeth from other Elements but there is no universal aggregation of all the parts of Fire The Sun which seemeth most likely to contend for it will yet acknowledge individual Starrs and other parts of Fire which shew that it is not the whole The Water is not all in the Sea we know that there is much in the Clouds whatever there is elsewhere above the Clouds We have no great cause to think that this Earth is Terra Vniversalis I confess since I have looked upon the Moon through a Tube and since I have read what Galilaeus saith of it and of Venus and other Planets I finde little reason to think that other Globes are not some of them like our Earth And if you can believe an Individuation of Greater Souls why not of Lesser The same reasons that tempt you to think that the Individuation of our Souls will cease by returning into the Anima Systematis vel Solis may tempt you to think that the animae systematum may all cease their Individuation by returning into God and their existence too 3. If this were left as an unrevealed thing you might take some liberty for your Conjectures But when all the Twenty Arguments which I have given do prove a continued Individuation
before disproved In point of efficiency we grant that he is as the Soul of Souls effecting more than Souls do for their Bodies but not in point of Constitution He is much more than the Soul of the world but is not formally its Soul But 2. Those men that will think so must acknowledge that as they take the Horse and the Rider to be both parts of God and the Child and the Father and the Subject and the Prince and the Malefactor and the Judge and the flagitious wretch and the best of men so it is no other membership than what consisteth with the difference of moral good and evil of wise and foolish of Governours and Subjects of Rewards and Punishments of Happiness and Misery which are the things that I am seeking after But so few lay this claim to Deity that I need no further mind them § 3. My Parents were not the first cause of my being what I am As each Individual cannot be the first Cause of it self so neither can their Parents for they do not so much as know my frame and nature nor the order and temperature of my parts nor how or when they were set together nor their use or the reason of their location And certainly he that made me knew what he did and why he did it in each particular My Parents could not choose my sex nor shape nor strength nor qualifications § 4. The world which I see and live in did not make it self As Men and Beasts and Trees and Stones did not make themselves so neither did they joyn as concauses or assistants in the making of the whole nor did any one of them make the rest nor did any of the more simple substances called Elements make themselves neither the passive Elements or the active the Earth the Water the Air or the Fire For we know past doubt that nothing hath no power or action and before they were they were not and therefore could not make themselves Nor can they be the first cause of mixt bodies because there is that exceeding wisdom most apparent in the generation production nature and operations of these Bodies which these Elements have not § 5. The visible world is not an uncaused independent Being For all the generated parts we see do oriri interire they have a beginning progress decay and end And the inanimate parts having less of natural excellency than the living cannot infinitely exceed them in the excellency of Deity as uncaused and independent And we see that they are all dependent in their operations They shew in the order of their beings and action that incomprehensible wisdom which is not in themselves the Earth the Sea the Air and Winds are all ordered exactly by a Wisdom and a Will which they themselves are void of Besides they are many and various but their order and agreement sheweth that it is some One universal Wisdom and Will which ruleth them all and if they are dependent in operation they are certainly dependent in being And had they that excellency to be uncaused and independent they would have had therewith all other perfections which we see they want and they would not have been many but one in that perfection § 6. The first universal Matter is not an uncaused independent being If such there be its inactivity and passiveness sheweth it to want the excellency of independency and the ordination of it into its several beings and the disposals of it there is done by a principle of infinite power activity and wisdom on which having this dependence in its ordination and use it must be dependent also in its being § 7. If it were doubtful whether the world were eternal and whether it were the Body of God as the informing Soul yet it would be past doubt that it is not uncaused or independent but caused by God That the world is not eternal we want not natural evidence for saith Lullius then there would be two Eternals the Cause and its Effects and then all things would be caused by natural necessity and not by free will and consequently always alike and then there hath been Evil eternally and both the caused Good and the Evil would in all other aggravations be answerable to Eternity and the Evil would be as soon as great as durable as the good The same world which is finite in good and evil and other respects would be infinite in Eternity and the evil would have an infiniteness in point of Eternity and this necessitated by the eternity of the world And seeing no individuals are eternal the supposed eternity of the world must be but of some common matter or only intentional and not real The corporeal part having quantity is finite as to extension and therefore cannot be infinite in duration In Eternity then there is no time no prius posterius but in the world there is Much more is said by many but this is not my present task I shall say more of it afterward But if it were doubtful whether the world were not eternally the Body of God yet would it be undoubted still that he caused it And that there were the difference of a cause and an effect in order of nature though not in duration As if a Tree or a mans body were supposed eternal yet the root and spirits of the Tree and the principal parts and spirits in mans body would be the causal parts on which the rest depend § 8. It remaineth therefore most certain that something is a first Cause to all things else and that he is the Creator of all things For if the world be not uncaused and independent it hath a Cause and if it have a Cause it hath a Creator For when there was nothing but himself he must make all things of Himself or of Nothing not of Himself for He is not Material and they are not parts of God who is indivisible He that thinks otherwise should not kill a Flea or a Toad nor blame any man that beateth or robbeth or wrongeth him nor eat any creature because he doth kill and blame and eat a part of God who is unblameable and can injure none and is to be more reverenced § 9. If there were any doubt whether the Sun or Fire or passive matter had a first Cause there can be no doubt at all concerning MAN which is the thing which I am enquiring into at the present For every one seeth that Man hath his beginning and confesseth that it is but as yesterday since he was not and therefore hath a Cause which must be uncaused or have a Cause it self if the latter then that Cause again is uncaused or hath a Cause it self And so we must needs come at last to some uncaused cause § 10. If any second Cause had made Man or the World yet if it did it but as a caused Cause it self would lead us up to an uncaused Cause which is the first Cause of
what each part should be according to the office and order of its place And 3. doth not your own experience reprehend your own complaint as guilty of contradiction You would have all things fitted to your particular interest or else you think God is not good enough to you and may not every other creature say the same as justly as you And then how would you have a Horse to carry you an Ox to plow for you a Dog to hunt for you a Hare or Partridge to be hunted yea a bit of flesh to nourish you yea or the fruit of trees and plants yea or the earth to bear you or the air to breath in or the water to refresh you For every one of these might expect to be advanced to be as high in sensual pleasure as you He that compareth as aforesaid the Elements and Orbs which have no sense with a Worm that hath it will think that sense hath blinded reason when it is so overvalued as to be thought the most excellent thing or a meet measure of the goodness of the Creator 4. Most of the calamities of the Rational creature which you mention are sin and the fruits of sin and when Man bringeth in sin it is good that God should bring in punishment It is an act of Justice and declareth his Holiness and warneth others Therefore all your complaints against these penal evils should be turned only against the sinner and all should be turned to the praise of the righteous Governour of the world 5. And as for the sin it self which hath depraved the world as fouly as you describe it it is none of the work of God at all If you say that he might have prevented it if he had pleased I answer He hath declared his detestation of it as our Ruler he hath forbidden it he deterreth men from it by his sorest threatnings he allureth them from it by his richest promises of reward he appointeth Kings and Magistrates to suppress it by corporal penalties This and much more he doth against it and more he could do which should prove effectual but his wisdom saw it not meet nor conducible to the glory of the Universe to make all Moral Agents of one size any more than all Natural Agents and therefore he made not man indefectible Do you think that a Rational creature with free-will being the Lord of its own acts and a self-determining Principle to act without force is not a thing which God may make and take delight in as well as a Watch-maker taketh delight to make a Clock that shall go of it self without his continued motion and the longer he can make it go without him and so the liker to himself the more excellent he thinks his work If God may make such a free-agent then is it no impeachment to his goodness if it abuse its freedom unto sin especially when he will over-rule even that sin so far as to bring good out of it by accident And lastly as for all the objections from sin and misery against God's goodness I answer you with those Questions Do you know what number the holy and glorious Angels are in comparison both of wicked men and Devils Whether they may not be ten thousand to one Do you know how many thousand fixed Stars there are besides Planets Do you know whether they are all Suns and how much bigger they are than the Earth and how much more glorious Do you know whether they are all inhabited or not when you see almost no place on Earth uninhabited not so much as Water and Air Do you know whether those thousands of more glorious Orbs have not inhabitants answerable to their greatness and glory beyond the inhabitants of this darker Orb Do you know whether sin and sorrow be not kept out there and confined to this and some few such obscurer receptacles Do you know the degrees of holiness and Glory which those superiour Inhabitants possess And do you know that all these things set together the demonstration of Gods goodness by the way of Beneficence is not ten thousand times beyond the demonstrations of it in the way of Justice and all the other sorrows that you complain of Till you know all these do not think your selves meet from your sensible troubles to argue against that Infinite goodness which demonstrateth it self so unquestionably to all by all the Goodness of the whole Creation I may boldly then conclude that GOD is OUR FATHER our CHIEF GOOD our CHIEF BENEFACTOR and ULTIMATE END And so that in sensu plenissimo THERE IS A GOD that word comprehending both the foresaid Trinity of Principles in the Unity of his Essence and the Trinity of Relations in the Unity of the Relation of our CREATOR CHAP. XII III. Of Man's Relation to GOD as he is our FATHER or our Chief Good and of our Duty in that Relation § 1. GOD being to Man Efficiently and finally his Chief yea his Total Good as is declared it must needs follow that Man is by immediate resultancy related to Him as his Total Beneficiary and Recipient of his benefits and oweth him all that which Goodness conjunct with Soveraignty and Dominion can oblige him to Whether all Obligation which is truly Moral to a Duty do arise from Soveraignty and Rule and belong to us as Subjects only in the neerest formal sense Or whether Benefits simply without any respect to Government and Subjection may be said to oblige to Moral Duty as such is a Question that I am not concerned to determine as long as God is both Governour and Benefactor and his Government may give the formal moral obligation as his Benefits provide the greatest Materials of the Duty Though this much I may say to it that I cannot see but the Duty of a Beneficiary as such may be called moral as well as the Duty of a Subject as such And if it were supposed that two men were absolutely equals as to any subjection and that one of them should by kindness exceedingly oblige the other all will acknowledge ingratitude to be an unnatural thing and why that vice may not be called properly morall in a rational free agent I am not yet convinced You will say It 's true but that is because that both those men are Subjects to God whose Law obligeth them both to Gratitude and therefore Ingratitude is a sin only as against the Law of God in Nature To which I reply that I grant Gods Law of Nature maketh Ingratitude a sin and I grant that a Law is properly the instrument of a Governour as such and so as Ingratitude is the violation of a Law it is only a sin against Government as such But I question whether as Love is somewhat different from Wisdom and Power and as a Benefactor and an attractive good hath the highest and a peculiar kinde of obligation so there be not something put by God into our Nature which though it be not formally a Law
Exaltation whereupon the woman seeing the beauty of the Fruit and desiring Knowledge believed the Devil and did eat of that which God forbad The sin being so hainous for a new-made Rational Creature to believe that God was false and bad a lyar and envious which is indeed the nature of the Devil and to depart from his Love and Obedience for so small a matter God did in Justice presently sentence the Offenders to punishment yet would not so lose his new-made Creature nor cast off Mankind by the full execution of his deserved punishment but he resolved to commit the Recovery and Conduct of Mankind to a Redeemer who should better perform the work of salvation than the first Man Adam had done the work of adhaesion and obedience This Saviour is the Eternal Wisdom and Word of God who was in due time to assume the Nature of Man and in the mean time to stay the stroke of Justice and to be the invisible Law-giver and Guide of Souls communicating such measures of mercy light and spirit for their recovery as he saw fit Of whom more anon so that henceforward God did no longer Govern man as a spotless innocent Creature by the meer Law of entire-Nature but as a lapsed guilty depraved Creature who must be pardoned reconciled and renewed and have Laws and Means made suitable to his corrupted miserable state Hereupon God published the Promise of a Saviour to be sent in due time who should confound the Devil that had accused God of falshood and of envying the good of man and had by lying murdered mankind and should overcome all his deceits and power and rescue God's injur'd Honour and the Souls of sinners and bring them safe to the everlasting blessedness which they were made for Thus God as man's Redeemer and not only as his Creator governeth him He taught Adam first to worship him now by Sacrifice both in acknowledgment of the Creator and to teach him to believe in and expect the Redeemer who in his assumed humanity was to become a Sacrifice for sin This Worship by Sacrifice Adam taught his two sons Cain and Abel who were the early instances types and beginnings of the two sorts of persons which thence-forward would be in the world viz. The holy Seed of Christ and the wicked Seed of Satan Cain the elder as corruption now is before Regeneration offering the fruits of his land only to his Creator and Abel the younger sacrificing the firstlings of his flock of sheep to his Redeemer with a purified mind God rejected the offering of Cain and accepted the sacrifice of Abel Whereupon Cain in imitation of the Devil envied his Brother and in envy slew him to foretell the world what the corrupted nature of man would prove and how malignant it would be against the sanctified and what the holy Seed that are accepted of God must look for in this world for the hope of an everlasting blessedness with God After this God's patience waited on mankind not executing the threatned death upon their bodies till they had lived seven or eight or nine hundred years a piece which mercy was abused to their greater sin the length of their lives occasioning their excessive sensuality worldliness and contempt of God and life eternal so that the number of the holy Seed was at last so small and the wickedness of mankind so great that God resolved to drown the world Only righteous Noah and his family eight persons he saved in an Ark which he directed him to make for the preservation of himself and the species of Aereal and Terrestrial Animals After which Floud the earth was peopled in time from Noah to whom God gave Precepts of Piety and Justice which by tradition came down to his posterity through the world But still the greater part did corrupt their ways and followed Satan and the holy Seed was the smaller part of whom Abraham being exemplary in holiness and righteousness with his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob God did in special approbation of their righteousness renew his gracious covenant with them and enlarge it with the addition of many temporal blessings and special priviledges to their posterity after them promising that they should possess the Land of Canaan and be to him a peculiar people above all the people of the earth The children of Jacob being afterward by a famine removed into Egypt there multiplied to a great people The King of Egypt therefore oppressed them and used them as slaves to make his brick by cruel impositions Till at last God raised them up Moses for a deliverer to whom God committed his message to the King and to whom he gave power to work miracles for their deliverance and whom he made their Captain to lead them out of Egypt towards the promised Land Ten times did Moses with Aaron his Brother go to Pharaoh the King in vain though each time they wrought publick miracles to convince him till at last when God had in a night destroyed all the first-born in the land of Egypt Pharaoh did unwillingly let the Seed of Jacob or Israel go But repenting quickly he pursued after them with his Host and overtook them just at the Red-sea where God wrought a miracle opening the Sea which the Israelites past through on dry ground but the King with his Host who were hardned to pursue them were all drowned by the return of the waters when the Israelites were over Then Moses led them on in the Wilderness towards the promised Land but the great difficulties of the Wilderness tempted them to murmuring against him that had brought them thither and to unbelief against God as if he could not have provided for them This provoked God to kill many thousands of them by Plagues and Serpents and to delay them forty years in that Wilderness before he gave them the Land of Promise so that only two which came out of Egypt Caleb and Joshua did live to enter it But to confute their unbelief God wrought many miracles for them in this Wilderness He caused the Rocks to give them water He fed them with Manna from above Their shooes and cloaths did not wear in forty years In this Wilderness Moses received from God a Law by which they were to be governed In mount Sinai in flames of fire with terrible thunder God appeared so far to Moses as to speak to him and instruct him in all that he would have him do He gave him the chief part of his Law in two Tables of Stone containing Ten Commandments engraven thereon by God himself or by Angelical ministration The rest he instructed him in by word of voice Moses was made their Captain and Aaron their High Priest and all the Forms of God's Worship setled with abundance of Laws for Sacrifices and Ceremonies to typifie the Sacrifice and Reign of Christ When Moses and Aaron were dead in the Wilderness God chose Joshua Moses his Servant
necessitating force than a man moveth as a stone because it is irresistibly moved and hath no power to forbear any act which it performeth or to do it otherwise than it doth For if there be no power habits or dispositions antecedent to motion but motion it self is all then there is one and the same account to be given of all actions good and bad I did it because I was irresistibly moved to it and could no more do otherwise than my pen can choose to write There is then no virtue or vice no place for Laws and moral Government further than they may be tacklings in the engine which necessitateth whatsoever is done amiss is as much imputable to God the first mover as that which is done-well If you shoot an arrow which killeth your friend the arrow could not hinder it if you make or set your watch amiss though one motion causeth another yet the errour of all is resolved into the defect of the first cause They that killed Henry the 3. and Henry the 4. Kings of France may say that as the knife could not resist the motion of their hand so neither could they the motion of the superiour cause that moved them and so on to the first No Traitors or Rebels can resist the power which acteth them therein any more than the dust can resist the wind which stirreth it up And so you see what cometh of all the Government of God and Man and of all Laws and Judgments Justice and Injustice Right and Wrong And how little cause you have to be angry with the Thief that robbeth you or the man that cudgelleth you any more than with the staff But of this I refer you to the foresaid writing of Bishop Bromhal against Mr. Hobs allowing you to make the most you can of his Reply We are certain by the operations of things that there is a difference in their natural powers and virtues and not only in their quantity figure and motion God hath not made only homogeneal undifferenced matter there are plainly now exceeding diversities of natural excellencies virtues and qualities in the things we see And he that will say that by motion only God made this difference at first doth but presumptuously speak without book without all proof to make it credible and taketh on him to know that which he knoweth that he knoweth not Is not the virtue and goodness of things as laudable as their quantity and motion Why then should we imagine so vast a disproportion in the image of God upon his works as to acknowledge the magnitude and motion incomprehensible and to think that in virtue and goodness of nature they are all alike and none is more noble or more like himself than a clod of earth We see that the natures of all things are suited to their several uses Operari sequitur esse Things act as they are There is somewhat in the nature of a bird or beast or plant which is their fitness to their various motions If only motion made that fire to day which yesterday was but a stone why doth not the strongest wind so much as warm us or why doth it so much cool us Why doth not the snow make us as warm as a fleece of wool the wool doth move no more than the snow and the matter of it appeareth to be no more subtil Indeed man can give to none of his works a nature a life or virtue for the operation which he desireth He can but alter the magnitude and figure and motion of things and compound and mix them and conjoyn them and these Epicureans seem to judge of the works of God by mans But he who is Being Life and Intelligence doth accordingly animate his noble Engines and give them natures and vertues for their operations and not only make use of matter and weight where he findeth it as our Mechanicks themselves can do Debasing all the noblest of Gods works is unbeseeming a true Philosopher who should search out the virtues and goodness as well as the greatness of them But I have been longer in answering this first Objection than I can afford to be about the rest unless I would make a Book of this which I call but the Conclusion I will adde but this one thing more That in case it were granted the Epicureans that the soul is material it will be no disproving of its immortality nor invalidate any of my former arguments for a life of retribution after this To which purpose consider these things 1. That where matter is simple and not compounded it hath no tendency to corruption Object Matter is divisible and therefore corruptible how simple soever Answ It is such as may be divided if God please and so the soul is such as God can destroy But we see that all parts of matter have a wonderful tendency to unity and have a tendency to a motus aggregativus if you separate them Earth inclineth to earth and water to water and air to air and fire to fire 2. All Philosophers agree to what I say who hold that matter is eternal either à parte ante or à parte post For if matter be eternal the soul's materiality may consist with its eternity 3. Yea all without exception do agree that there is no annihilation of matter when there is a dissolution Therefore if the soul be a simple uncompounded being though material it will remain the same This therefore is to be set down as granted us by all the Infidels and Atheists in the world that man's soul what ever it is is not annihilated when he dieth if it be any kind of substance material or immaterial And they that call his temperament his soul do all acknowledge that there is in the composition some one predominant principle more active or noble than the rest and of the duration of this it is that we enquire which no man doth deny though some deny it to be immaterial But this will be further opened under the rest of the Objections The reasons of my many words in answering this Objection I give you in the words of a late learned Conciliator Philosophiae Platonicae explicationi diutius immorati sumus quod res maximas cognitione dignissimas complectatur Habet i◠quoque prae coeteris quod ad aeternas primitivas rationes mentem erigat eamque à fluxis perituris rebus advocatam ad eas quae sola intelligentia percipiuntur convertat Qua quidem in re infinitum prope momentum est Nam obruimur turbâ Philosophorum qui nimis fidunt sensibus nihil praeter corpora intelligi posse contendunt Atque ut mihi videtur nulla perniciosior pestis in vitam humanam potest invadere nihil quod magis religioni adversetur Joh. Bapt. du Hamel in Conscens veteris novae Philos Praefat. OBJECTION II. BY Sense Imagination Cogitation Reason you cannot prove the Soul to be incorporeal because the Bruits partake of
therefore if Rarity be only by the multitude and greatness of interspersed Vacuities and the rarity and subtilty of matter be but the scantness or smallness of its quantity in that space then it would be but next kin to annihilation and the rarest and most subtile matter would be coeteris paribus the basest as being next to nothing For instance Sir Kenelme Digby telleth Gassendus from two accurate Computers that Gold in the same space is seven thousand six hundred times heavier than Air so that Air is in the same space seven thousand six hundred times neerer to nothing than Gold is and the whole Air betwixt us and the Heavens hath interspaces that are vacuous to the same proportion of 7600 to one And then we may well say that datur inane Nay quaere whether it be more proper to say that all between us and Heaven is a Vacuum or not when it is to be denominated from the space which so far exceedeth all the rest as 7600 to one And then if the aether be something more subtile it must be still more neer to nothing and consequently be most vile But I am satisfied that dung is not so much more excellent than Light as it is more gross And that these terrestrial bodies are not the most noble nor have most of Entity or Substance because they are more gross Therefore though Gassendus put off Sir K. Digby by saying only that the said disproportion is no inconvenience I see not how these inconveniences will be answered I am satisfied that nothing is not so good as Entity and yet that the most subtile and invisible substances are the life of the World and of greatest excellency and force But what will hence follow about penetrability I know not But I know that it 's little about these things which men understand of what they say The fiery nature seemeth as Patricius saith to be some middle thing between corporal and incorporeal And I much doubt whether Materia be a summum genus and whether the lowest degree of things incorporeal and the highest degree of things corporeal suppose fire or that which is the matter of the Sun do differ so much more than Graduals as that mortals can say that one of them is penetrable and indivisible and the other not There have been some Philosophers that have thought that sensibility was as fit an attribute to characterize Matter or Bodies by as any other But then they meant not by sensible that which Man can perceive by sense But that which is a fit object for senses of the same kinde as mans supposing them elevated to the greatest perfection that they are capable of in their kinde And so aire and atomes being of the same kinde as other matter may be visible to a sight of the same kinde as ours if it received but the addition of enow degrees And for ought I know this is as wise Philosophy as that which is more common I am sure it is more intelligible And for Divisibility they have Demonstrations on both sides that a Punctum is divisible and that it is not One thinketh that if three be set together it 's possible at least for God to divide just in the midst Another with Gassendus thinketh that it 's unlike to be true that every part should be as much or more than the whole and a point as much as all the Universe And that if a point may be divided into infinite parts it is infinite in magnitude and therefore bigger than the World And is it any marvell if Indivisibility then be an unfit property to know a Spirit by when they are not agreed about it as to Bodies Certain it is that there is a true Individuation of Souls and so a numeral division of them That which is your Soul is not your Neighbours And it is certain that created Spirits are not infinite as to extent And what Division God can make upon them is more than I can tell Scotus thinketh that the subject of Physicks is not Corpus naturale but substantia naturalis and so that Angels are moved motu physico Scaliger Schibler c. say that Angels have extension and figure that is extension entitativè distinct from extension quantitativè vid. Scalig. Exercit. 359. § 4. The termini essendi saith Schibler being no other than are signified per inceptionem seu dependentiam ab alio desitionem and that no Creature is immense but hath finitas adessendi according to which it is determinate to a certain space He saith that Angels are finite 1. Essentia 2. Numero 3. Potestate 4. Quantitate h. e. non esse immensos And that they are in spatio intelligibili He saith also Exerc. 307. Vnum primum est alia dependent igitur Ergo sua natura omnia praeter unum sunt corruptibilia Tametsi sunt Entia absoluta à subjecto termino non sunt absoluta à Causa Damascene saith de Orthod fid l. 2. That God only is a Spirit by nature but other things may be Spirits by indulgence and grace The doctrine of Psellus is too gross and largely delivered by himself Eugubinus Niphus and Vorstius were of the same minde that Angels were Corporeal Augustine himself saith that Anima respectu incorporei Dei corporea est de Spir. anim c. 8. Caesarius in Dialog 1. p. 573. B.P. saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And he applyeth to them the Apostles words There are Bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial Arnobius is a little too gross herein and almost all the Ancients especially the Greeks that speak of that subject take Angels for more subtile purer Bodies I know not what Athenagoras meaneth to call the Devil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Materiae ejusque formarum Princeps alii ex iliis qui circa primum mundi fundamentum erant peccarunt c. pag. 71. And hence he and others talk of their falling in love with Virgins c. And when Faustus Rhegiensis wrote a Book to prove that Angels and Souls were but a purer subtile sort of bodies or matter Claudianus Mammertus largely and learnedly confuteth him who pretended that all the Ancients were on his side Yet doth the same Mammertus think that though Angels quoad sormam be incorporeal they had Bodies also which were Fire or of the nature of the Starrs Which Caesarius also seemeth to mean when he saith that Not only that which is here with us below is Fire but also those higher Powers seem to be Fire and kin to that which is with us as our Souls are kin to Angels Dialog 1. Q. 58 59. pag. 584. And Qu. 60. he saith That the Shepherds when they will boil flesh in the Fields where they have no Fire do use to fill a glass Vessel with water and hold it directly opposite to the Sun and then touch dryed dung with it and it will kindle Fire And having thus proved the Sun to be Fire he saith Dial. 2. Qu.
same thing as many others do that call them forms when they speak of vegetatives And what if by substances Telesius mean the same that Pemble doth by accidents Is not the world then troubled with ambiguitie of words He that will consider them well may suspect that they mean as I conjecture An active power or principle being the chief cause of operations alterations and discrimination is the thing that they all mean by all these names And the followers of Democritus especially Gassendus and Cartesius do not improbably argue that it is some substantial being which maketh that change or effect upon our senses which as there received is a quality So that unless Mr. Pemble can better tell us what lux calor are than by calling them Qualities he hath given the understanding no satisfaction at all Much less when he nakedly asserteth without any proof that sensation doth not superare naturam primarum qualitatum that are none of them sensible themselves And when he hath no other answer to this argument but that non minus miranda sunt in inanimatis which he giveth not one instance or word to prove When Aristotle c. Scaliger Sennertus and abundance more have said much to the contrary I conclude that for all that is here said and whether you call them our forms or not as you may or may not in several senses humane souls are those parts of man which are simple pure invisible active powerful substances and therefore being not annihilated must needs subsist in their separated state OBJECTION IV. THe Soul is material and consequently mortal because it dependeth upon matter in its operations and consequently in its essence Answ 1. I have proved already that if you did prove the soul material you had not thereby at all proved it mortal unless you mean only that it hath a posse mori vel annihilari which may be said of every creature for simple matter which hath no repugnant parts or principles hath not only a posse nen mori but an aptitude in its nature ad non moriendum Remember your friends that make the world or matter at least to be eternal They thought not that materiality was a proof of either annihilation or corruption Object If it be material it must be compounded of matter and form and therefore is corruptible Answ True if that matter and form were two several substances and were one repugnant to the other The soul and body are different substances but the metaphysical matter and form of the soul being but the genus differentia are not two substances much less repugnant and therefore have never the more a tendency to corruption 2. The soul useth matter and dependeth no otherwise on it than its instrument It doth not follow that a man is a horse because he dependeth on his horse in the manner of his riding and his pace nor that I am inanimate because in writing I depend on my pen which is inanimate If you put spirits of wine into water or whey as its vehicle to temper it for a medicine it doth not follow that the spirits are meer water because they operate not without the water but conjunct and as tempered by it If the fire in your Lamp do not shine or burn without the oil but in manner and duration dependeth on it it doth not follow that fire is annihilated when the candle is out or that it was but oil before no nor that it ceaseth to be fire afterwards as Gassendus must needs confess who holdeth that the Elements are not turned into one another § 1. l. 3. c. 2. Fire ceaseth not to be fire when it goeth out of our observation The noblest natures use and rule the inferiour God himself moveth and useth things material and yet is not therefore material himself Yea if motus be in patiente recipitur ad modum recipientis you may conjecture how far God's own operations upon the creatures may be called dependent as to the effect as being ad captum modum creaturae And the Sun doth move and quicken all passive matter here below ad modum recipientis with great variety through the variety of the matter and yet it followeth not that the Sun is it self such passive matter 3. The soul hath operations which are not upon matter at all though matter may possibly be an antecedent occasion or prerequisite Such is the apprehension of its own intellection and volitions and all that it thence gathereth of God and other intellectual natures and operations of which I must say more anon OBJECTION V. NO immaterial substance moveth that which is material as a principle of its operations but the soul moveth the body as the principle of its operations Ergo. Answ 1. I have already said that if you proved the soul material it would not prove it mortal 2. As the body hath various operations so it is moved by various principles or powers As to locomotion and perhaps vegetation the materia subtilii or finest atoms as you will call it or the fiery matter in the spirits as I would call it is an active being which hath a natural power to move it self and the rest But whether that motion do suffice to sensation is undecided But certainly there is another inward principle of motion which guideth much of the locomotive and over-ruleth some of the natural motion by a peculiar action of its own which is called Intellection and Volition as I have proved before When I go to the Church when I write or talk the spirits are the nearest sufficient principle of the motion as motion but as it is done in this manner to this end at this time with these reasons it is from the intellectual principle 3 And thus I deny the major Proposition And I prove the contrary 1. God is the first principle of all motion in the world and the first cause of material motion and yet is not material 2. What the lower and baser nature can do that the higher and nobler hath power to do suppositis supponendis therefore if a body can move a body a soul can do it much more But saith Gassendus Causis secundis primum agendi principium est Atomorum varia mobilitas ingenita non incorporea aliqua substantia Answ Angels are causae secundae souls are causae secundae animated bodies of men are causae secundae prove it now of any of these in your exclusion if you can But he saith Capere non licet quomodo si incorporeum sit ita applicari corpori valeat ut illi impulsum imprimat quando noque ipsum contingere carens ipsa tactu seu mole quae tangat non potest Physicae actiones corporeae cum sint nisi à principio physico corporeoque elici non possiut Quod anima autem humana incorporea cum sit in ipsum tamen corpus suum agat motumque ipsi imprimat dicimus animam humanam qua est
to assure us that he will never create any thing hereafter Cannot a workman look on his house and see that it is well done and say I have finished it without obliging him never to build another nor to make any reparations of that as there is cause May not God create a new Heaven and Earth may he not create a new Star or a new Plant or Animal if he please without the breaking of any word that he hath spoken For my part I never saw a word which I could discern to have any such signification or importance The argument from Genes 1. is no better than theirs who from Christ's consummatum est do gather that his death and burial which followed that word were no part of his satisfactory meritorious humiliation On the contrary there have been both Philosophers and Divines who have thought that God doth in omni instanti properly create all things which he is said to conserve of whom the one part do mean only that the being of the creatures is as dependant on his continual causation as the life of the branches is on the tree but that the same substance is continued and not another daily made But there are others who think that all creatures who are in fluxu continuo not per locomotum but ab entitate ad nihilum and that they are all but a continual emanation from God which as it passeth from him tendeth to nothing and new emanations do still make such a supply as that the things may be called the same as a River whose waters pass in the same Channel As they think the beams or light of the Sun doth in omni instanti oriri festinare ad nihilum the stream being still supplied with new emanations Were it not for the overthrow throw of individuation personality rewards and punishments that hence seemeth to follow this opinion would seem more plausible than theirs who groundlesly prohibit God from causing any more new beings But though no doubt there is unto all beings a continual emanation or influx from God which is a continued causation it may be either conservative of the being first caused or else restorative of a being continually in decay as he please for both ways are possible to him as implying no contradiction though both cannot be about one and the same being in the same respect and at the same time And our sense and reason tell us that the conservative influx is his usual way 2. But it is commonly and not without reason supposed that generation produceth things de novo in another sense not absolutely as creation doth but secundum quid by exalting the seminal virtue into act and into perfection New individuals are not made of new matter now created but the corporeal part is only pre-existent matter ordered compounded and contempered and the incorporeal part is both quoad materiam suam metaphysicam formam vel naturam specificam the exaltation and expurgency of that into full and perfect existence which did before exist in semine virtuoso When God had newly created the first man and woman he created in them a propagating virtue and fecundity this was as it were semen seminis by this they do first generare semen separabile which suppositis supponendis hath a fecundity fit to produce a new suppositum vel personam and may be called a person seminally or virtually but not actually formally and properly and so this person hath power to produce another and that another in the same way And note that the same creating word which said Let there be light and Let us make man did say also to man as well as to other creatures Increase and multiply not create new souls or bodies but by generation Increase and multiply which is the bringing of many persons out of two and so on as out of a seminal pre-existence or virtual into actual formal existence He knoweth not the mysteriousness of this wonderful work of God nor the ignorance of mankind who knoweth not that all generation of man bruits or plants hath much that is to us unsearchable And they that think it a dishonour to a Philosopher not to undertake or pretend to render the just causes of this and all other the Phaenomena in nature do but say I will hide the dishonour of my ignorance by denying it that is by telling men that I am ignorant of my ignorance and by aggravating it by this increase and the addition of pride presumption and falsity This much is certain 1. That whatsoever distinct parts do constitute individuals which are themselves of several natures so many several natures in the world we may confidently assert though we understand not whether they all exist separatedly or are found only in conjunction with others 2. We certainly find in the world 1. An intelligent nature 2. A sensitive nature 3. A fiery active vegetative nature 4. A passive matter which receiveth the influx of active natures which is distributed into air and water and earth 3. The most active nature is most communicative of it self in the way of its proper operations 4. We certainly perceive that the Sun and fiery nature are active upon the air water and earth which are the passive Elements And by this activity in a threefold influx Motion Light and Heat do cause the sensible alterations which are made below and so that it is as a kind of life or general form or soul to the passive matter 5. We also find that Motion Light and Heat as such are all different totâ specie from sensation and therefore as such are not the adequate causes of it And also that there is a sensitive nature in every animal besides the vegetative 6. Whether the vegetative nature be any other than the fiery or solar is to man uncertain But it is most probable that it is the same nature though it always work not to actual vegetation for want of prepared matter But that the Sun and fiery nature is eminenter vegetativè and therefore that vegetation is not above the nature of fire or the Sun and so may be an effect of it 7. In the production of vegetatives by generation it is evident that as the fiery active nature is the nearest cause efficient and the passive is the matter and recipient So that this igneous nature generateth as in three distinguished subjects three several ways 1. As in Parentibus semine into which God ab origine in the creation hath put not only a spark of the active virtucus fiery nature in general but also a certain special nature differencing one creature from another 2. The Sun and superiour globes of the fiery nature which cast a paternal though but universal influx upon the foresaid semen 3. The calor naturalis telluris which may be called as Dr. Gilbert and others do its soul or form which is to the seed as the anima matris is to the infant And all these three the
and Retribution it is deceitful and absurd to come in with an unproved dream against it and to argue ab ignoto against so many cogent arguments 4. And we have proved supernatural revelation to second this which is evidence more than sufficient to bear down your unproved conjectures 5. If it had been doubtful whether the souls individuation cease and nothing of all the rest is doubtful yet this would not make so great a difference in the case as some imagine for it would confess the perpetuity of souls and it would not overthrow the proof of a Retribution if you consider these four things 1. That the parts are the same in union with the whole as when they are all separated Their nature is the same and as Epicurus and Democritus say of their atoms they are still distinguishable and are truly parts and may be intellectually separated the same individual water which you cast out of your bottle into the sea is somewhere in the sea still and though contiguous to other parts is discernable from them all by God The Haecceity as they say remaineth 2. That the love of individuation and the fear of the ceasing of our individuation is partly but put into the creature from God pro tempore for the preservation of individuals in this present life And partly it is inordinate and is in man the fruit of his fall which consisteth in turning to SELFISHNESS from GOD. And we know not how much of our recovery consisteth in the cure of this selfishness and how much of our perfection in the cessation of our individuate affections cares and labours Nature teacheth many men by Societies to unite as much as possible as the means of their common safety benefit and comfort and earth water air and all things would be aggregate Birds of a feather will flock together And love which is the uniting affection especially to a friend who is fit for union with us in other respects is the delight of life And if our souls were swallowed up of one common soul as water cast into the sea is still moist and cold and hath all its former properties so we should be still the same and no man can give a just reason why our sorrows or joys should be altered ever the more by this 3. And God can either keep the ungodly from this union for a punishment or let them unite with the infernal spirits which they have contracted a connaturality with or let them where ever they are retain the venom of their sin and misery 4. And he can make the Resurrection to be a return of all these souls from the Ocean of the universal nature into a more separated individuation again I only say that if it had been true that departing souls had fallen into a common element yet on all these reasons it would not have overthrown our arguments for a life of full retribution God that can say at any time This drop of water in the Ocean is the same that was once in such a bottle can say This particle of the universal soul was once in such a body and thither can again return it But the truth is no man can shew any proof of such a future aggregation And to conclude the Scripture here cleareth up all the matter to us and assureth us of a continued Individuation yet more than Nature doth though the natural evidences before produced are unanswerable And as for the similitude of Light returning to the Sun it is still an arguing à minus noto we know not well what it is we know not how it returneth and we know not how the particles are distinguishable there They that confess souls to be indivisible though the individuals are all numerically distinct must on the same ground think that two or many cannot by union be turned into one as they hold that one cannot be turned into two or into several parts of that one divided OBJECTION XVIII THe Platonists and some Platonick Divines have so many dreams and fopperies about the soul 's future state in aerial and aethereal vehicles and their durations as maketh that doctrine the more to be suspected Answ 1. Whether all souls hereafter be incorporate in some kind of bodies which they call vehicles is a point which is not without difficulty A sober Christian may possibly doubt whether there be any incorporeal simple essence in a separated existence besides God alone Those that doubt of it do it on these grounds 1. They think that absolute simplicity is a divine incommunicable perfection 2. They think that Christ is the noblest of all creatures and that seeing he shall be compound of a humane Soul and Body though glorified and spiritual to eternity therefore no Angel shall excell him in natural simplicity and perfection 3. Because it is said that we shall be equal with the Angels and yet we shall at the Resurrection be compounded of a soul and body 4. Because it is said that He made his Angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire 5. Because the ancient Fathers who first thought Angels to be subtil bodies were confuted by those as Mammertus forementioned who asserted them to be fiery bodies animated with incorporeal souls 6. Because they read of the Devils dwelling in the air as one cast down therefore they think that he hath an aery body instead of an ethereal or fiery 7. Because they see the Sun so glorious a creature in comparison of a body of flesh therefore they think that the symmetry and proportion among God's works requireth that bodies and forms or souls be suitable 8. Because they know not what else becometh of the sensitive soul of man when he dieth which they take to be but a subtil body and therefore think it goeth as a body or vehicle with the rational soul 9. Because they mistake that difficult Text 2 Cor. 5.1 2 8. think by the 7 and 8 verses that it speaketh of the instant after death and thinking by the first and second verses that as Beza and most think it speaketh of a celestial body as our cloathing and not of a meer state of glory to the soul I name their reasons that you may be charitable in your censures but the truth is they talk of unrevealed or uncertain things which do but trouble the heads of Christians to no purpose who may live better and speed better by following the naked precepts of Christianity and hoping for such a glory as Christ hath plainly described without prying into that which doth less concern them to be acquainted with 2. And Satan knoweth that over-doing is one way of undoing Thus men on all extremes do harden one another As in these times among us it is notorious that the men of one extreme in Church affairs do harden the other and the other harden them And as Fanaticism riseth from the disliking of sensuality and prophaneness incautelous and sensual and prophane men run into hell to avoid fanaticism
4. l. 7. c. 2. p. 457. Vid. Priscian in Theophrast Proving that light is neither a Body nor a Quality c. 19. But I find no satisfaction when he cometh to tell us what it is Nor will I subscribe to Ficinus who with other Platonists saith Coeleste corpus primum luminis susceptaculum incorporea vita intelligentia regi à qua Lumen habeat caeterisque tradat Si Lumen esse dicamus Radios visuales coelestium oculorum in se viventium perque ejusmodi radios cuncta videntium agentiumque videndo non errabimus * Leg. Le Grand Dissert in Epicur Philos ad Gassend de communi rerum vivendi ratione ad Campanel de nominibus Dei soli attributis In which he taketh Atoms or indivisible particles for the first real passive matter antecedent to the distinction of Elements but Fire called also Spiritus Aethereus Natura to be of a higher elevation the Active informer disposer and moderator of all matter and animated Fire that is the Sun and its emanations to be the life and Ruler of the material world And that this was the sense of almost all the old Philosophers And that by their numerous names of God they meant the same thing as diversly operating that is the Sun Fire or Aether which they took to be animated intellectuals as considered in its various respects to mortals Ut docet Hermes Mens generalis habet pro corpore Ignem quasi Igne stipatur circum vestitur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 semper enim necessario Ignis Aethereus Mens Universalis sihi invicem comites assident amboque ita affinos nihil constituunt aliud quà m spiritum Igneum Aethereum lucidum coelestem divinum tenâ—brosam hanc informem immanis materiei abyssum complentem illustrantem animantem Idem ad Campanel pag. â—0 Vide quae ex Mercur. Pimand citat pag. 79. Saith a novel Philosopher himself Ex speculis ustoriis certum est calorem a sole creari intensissimum non acceleratione motus sed coalitione radiorum Lumen species est inter omnes species sensibiles prae caeteris intellectualem speciem repraesentans in Intellectu est per causam in coelo per formae plenitudinem in igne per plenitudinem participationis hinc derivatur in portiones Ficin in Theophrast de Anim. c. 44. Non ergo levitas gravitas causae primi â— orus sunt sed qualitates sunt elementorum sed tamen ut etiam hoc detur quomodo ratiocinari opinari judicare gravitatis levitatis opera esse possunt si ron sunt gravitatis levitatis opera neque elementorum sunt si non elementorum neque certe corporum Nemesius de An. c. 2. p. 484. * So Lipstorpius in his Specim Philos Cartes Deus in principio mundi materiam simul cum motu quiete creavit Unde communissima naturae lex c. vid. pag. 37 38. So that Nature with the Cartesians is nothing at all but God's first moving act at the creation as if he caused motion without any moving created principle and as if spirits and fire had no more moving a nature or principle than clay but only that their matter was either in the creation more moved by God or since by a knock from some other mover put into motion by which accidental motion clay or water may be made fire Leg. Petr. Mousnerii lib. de Impetu lib. 2. de motu naturali Where the nature of Motion is more exactly handled than by the Epicureans or Cartesians though too little is said de vi moventis in comparison of what is said de impetu mobilis Leg. l. 2. pag. 76 77 c. de causa intrinseca motus localis naturalis Et pag. 78. his seven Reasons against Gassendus his doctrine of Gravitation by the traction of Atoms and his confutation of all extrinsick causes viz. Causa prima sola aër terrae vis magnetica vel per qualitatem diffusam vel per vim sympathicam vel tractionem filamentorum virtus coeli pellens detrusio per lucem generans And as easily may the Cartesian reason be confuted which Lipstorpius so magnifieth and the Impetus innatus is the reason which he assigneth pag. 80 81 c. Vid. exceptiones Jo. Bap. du Hamel contra Cartes in conciliat pag. 148 151 170 209 210. See Sir W. Rawleigh Hist l. 1. of Fire making it certainly a thing unknown and probably quiddam medium between things corporeal and incorporeal †Hence it is that the wisest Philosophers differ in this point whether any proper matter be found in the Soul of man Micraelius Ethnoph l. 1. c. 13. p. 23 24. hath instanced in many that are for some materiality Eam sententiam inter veteres probavit apud Macrobium Heraclitus Phyficus cui anima est essentiae Stellaris scintilla Hip parchus apud Plinium cui est coeli pars Et Africanus apud Ciceronem qui detrahit animum ex illis sompiternis ignibus quae sydera vocamus quaeque globosâ—e rotundae divinis animatae mentibus circulos fuos orbesque conficiunt celeritate mirabili Seneca qui descendisse eam ex illo coelesti Spiritu ait Plato ipse qui alicubi animam vocat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 radians splendidum vehiculum Et Epicterus qui astra vocat nobis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 amica cognata Elementa ipseque cum Peripateticis Aristoteles qui eam quinta essentia constare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in animabus inesse dicit Inter nostrates Scaliger quoque vocat animam naturam coelestem quintam essentiam alia quidem a quatuor Elementis natura praeditum sâ—d non sine omni materia Eadem opinio arridet Roberto de Fluctibus c. Lege rationes Carpentarii in Dec. 1. Exerc. 7. contra porositatem diaphanorum Dicit Plato universae naturae animam porrectam esse a centro orbis terrae usque ad extremas oras coeli Non ut locum ista notet poâ—ectio sed extensionis quendam modum quem Mens Ratio assequatur Nemes de Anim. c. 2. pag. 487. †I hope we shall not have Philosophiam staticam and judge of Essences and Excellencies by the ballance †In Ficinus his collections lib. de daemonib Poâ—phyry de Occasion per Ficin holds that Anima quidam Medium quiddam est inter Essentiam individuam atque essentiam vera corpora divisibilem Intellectus autem essentia est individua solum sed qualitates materialesque formae secundum corpora sunt divisibiles Lege Plotinum de Anim. En. 4. l. 3. c. 391. sect 26. Against the soul's dependance upon matter the Platonists write excellently Plato himself and Plotâ—nus and Jamblicus Proclus c. Anima per essentiam est mobilis ex seâ—psa sed conjuncta corpori quodammodo evasit etiam mobilis aâ—unde sicut anim ipsa sua
doth make all such arguings to sound like dreams 2. I have shewed that spiritual powers receive not impressions as dull matter doth by a meer passive power but by an activity and outgoing it worketh indeed upon that which it receiveth much more than any such matter can be said to work on it nay matter doth not properly work upon it at all but only afford it matter to work upon and occasion to exercise its active power As the stone or tree doth not work upon the sight but the sight by the help of light doth work upon it As the eye can see a dung-hill and yet be of a nobler kind and God and Angels can know beasts and worms and yet be incorporeal So man can know things inanimate and yet be animate and things insensible and yet be sensible and things irrational and yet be rational and things corporeal and yet be incorporeal And this by the activity and extent of its power and not by any passive debasing defectiveness at all OBJECTION Xâ— THat is not incorporeal which neither knoweth it self to be incorporeal nor hath any notion but negative of an incorporeal being But such is man's soul Answ 1. If the soul know not it self to be an immortal spirit what maketh almost all the world to judge so of themselves insomuch that those men that under pretence of Philosophy deny it are fain to study very hard and take many years pains to blot out this light of nature from their minds because they cannot be ignorant of it at easie rates The understanding will not lose its natural light nor suffer such verities to be obliterated but by a great deal of industry and by the engines of abundance of false notions which are sought after to that use As Cicero saith of the Epicureans They learn those things quae cum praeclare didicerunt nihil sciant Piso de fin 5. p. 204. They learn diligently to unlearn the truth that when they have learn'd much they may know little 2. Hath man no notion but Negative of an incorporeal being I shewed you before why the notion of materiality should not be here used for a cheat or blind But look back on what I said even now and you will see that as Cartes truly saith we have not only positive conceptions of a mind but the first the clearest and the surest conceptions of it in the measure that is fit for our present state Quest 1. Have you not a positive conception of Intellection and Volition If not you are unfit for any controversies about them and cannot own your own humanity Quest 2. Have you not a clearer perception that you think and know or reason either right or wrong than you have what that thing is that you think or reason about Quest 3. Have you not a sure and positive conception that omnis actus est alicujus actus quod nihil nihil agit and therefore that you are an intelligent volitive being Quest 4. Have you not a positive sure conception that quicquid agit agere potest and that nothing doth that which it cannot do and therefore that your souls are beings potentiated for Intellection Volition and Execution Quest 5. Have you not a positive sure conception that you have a natural inclination to these acts and a pleasure in them and that they are natural and perfective to you and consequently that your souls are beings that have not only a power but a vis inclinatio naturalis or a power that is natural and active and inclined to these particular actings Quest 6. Have you not a positive sure conception that the end and highest objects of these acts and inclinations are things above sense viz. your selves or minds in the first place and then the things above you the first Being Cause and Mover of all the infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness who is your Maker and your End If you find no such thing The Lord have mercy on you for every honest man may find it Quest 7. Have you not a positive sure conception that such as the Operations are which flow from the essential powers or faculties such in nobility and excellency and nature is the substance thus potentiated and acting All these are clear undeniable positive conceptions of the soul which set together are thus much that The Mind or Soul of man is a noble Essence above the reach and nature of sense naturally potentiated and inclined as an active being to intellection volition and seeking after things celestial and everlasting especially God himself his ultimate end All this is positive clear and sure And you would think this enough 1. If you did consider what Lud. Vives saith that God hath given man a soul to use rather than accurately to know or to know so far as is necessary to use As your child may have the use of his knife or clock or watch or cloaths without knowing what metall they are made of or how to compose and make the like as long as he can but do that with them which is necessary to their use Often saith Seneca Necessaria ignoramus quia superflua didicimus 2. If your minds were not by sense deluded and captivated to such fixed idea's of things corporeal and gross as to over-look all other beings and measure all substance by such gross idea's 3. If you well considered that you know in any respect little more of things corporeal and in some respects much less Let us see wherein it is that you know more either as to the sensible or insensible parts of such beings As for the substances as such you confess they are but per accidens the objects of sense and that as stripped of their accidents you have no positive true conception of them And as for the accidents you are no whit agreed either what they are or how many Of all things you are most unanimous in that of Quantity moles or extensions but what a poor kind of knowledge is it to know that this or that is quantum and not to know what it is that is quantum What light colour sapor odor are and what all the senses that perceive them you are as much disagreed as if this age had been the first that had debated it The same I may say both of Qualities in general and of all other in particular except figure which properly belongeth not to the predicament Of all the rest there is the like disagreement even time and place which truly are nothing but entia rationis are debased by you in the first place and are two of Gassendus his four predicaments About the number either of principles or elements there is no agreement no nor what any one of the elements are Who hath told us what is the form of earth or water or air or described them otherwise than by their qualities And then differ you as much about those qualities Who hath told us any thing of the naked matter or
form of fire such as the Sun and Luminaries are any otherwise than by its acts and powers or vertues of Motion Light and Heat as we describe to you the soul of man And if you go to the invisible part of matter it would make a man rather sick than wise to read men provincias dare atomis as Cicero speaketh and to think with what bold unreasonable fiction they number them as shaped and figured and figure and shape them to the uses which they have feigned for them and then use them and conduct them and vary their motions as confidently and seriously as if they had given us any proof of any of this and indeed expected to be believed Nay we must know how the corners of atoms pardon the contradiction came to be filed or worn off by motion and so reduced to greater subtilty And Gassendus after all the fabrick which he buildeth upon atoms saith That atoms have not of themselves a moving force but from God's first motion § 1. c. 8. p. 280. Non quod Deo necesse fuerit creare seorsim atomos quas deinceps in partes grandiores grandioresque ex his mundus constaret compingerit sed quod creans materiae massam in corpuscula exolubilem atque adeo ex corpusculis tanquam minimis extremisque particulis compositam concreasse illi ipsa corpuscula censentur ib. So that they know not indeed whether God created matter first in atoms disjunct or in more large and bulky parts and so whether motion did divide grosser and greater parts into atoms or whether it coagulated atoms into greater bodies But the sum is that they only affirm that what ever bodies God made they are divisible into atoms that is into parts by man indivisible A great mystery sure that the whole is divisible into smaller parts And what the nearer is any man by this for the discerning of any of their wild hypotheses In a word God hath given man knowledge for his benefit and use to the ends of his being and life and so far as we have use for it we may know all things about us but to humour our wanton fancies he is not obliged And because we have more use for the faculties of our souls than for fire and water or any outward thing he hath given us the first and surest knowledge of them whatsoever self-contradicting Somatists say to depress this knowledge and advance that knowledge of Bodies which their own disagreements do confute Sure I am if that be a probable opinion which hath divers learned men for it almost all things are probable in Philosophy and if that be improbable which hath multitudes of learned men against it almost all things are improbable OBJECTION XII THat which is generated is corruptible but the soul is generated Ergo c. Answ 1. If by corruptible you mean that which hath à posse perire or a certainty of perishing if God uphold it not I grant it of the whole Creation But if you mean that which in its nature is so fitted to dissolution perishing or decay as that God seemeth to intend it to such an end or must miraculously preserve it or else it will perish or that which eventually will perish then we must not so easily dismiss you 2. The word generated is of so great ambiguity and generation it self a thing so little understood by mortals that this reason doth but carry the controversie into the dark and argue ab obscuriore minùs noto which is the way of a wrangler and not of one that would reveal the truth Either generation is the production of some new substance not existent before so much as in its matter or it is only the composition of pre-existent substances If it be the later then you may prove the possibility and probability of the dissolution of the frame and separation of those several substances But you will confess your selves that each part retaineth its proper nature still and that if one were a more noble and active element than the rest it is not annihilated but remaineth so still without debasement Therefore if their opinion were true who hold the pre-existence of that purest part of man which we call his soul either in a common element or individuate no reason can think that the dissolution doth any more than separate the parts of man and return that soul to its pre-existent state where still it will be as noble a creature as it was here But if Generation do produce a substance de novo which did no way pre-exist then it is either a corporeal substance or a spiritual or incorporeal which soever it be can you give any reason why this should perish at the dissolution any more than if it had pre-existed If the nature of it be the same why should not the duration be the same one of the two you will confess it either a corporeal substance or an incorporeal if it be at all a substance and you confess that no substance is annihilated or perisheth otherwise than by dissolution of parts If the reason of your major be because the thing generated hath a beginning and did oriri de novo so did all matter and substances that be created Or if you suppose them all from eternity yet do but suppose them to be created and have had a beginning and yet to be the same as if they had been eternal and you will see that there will be the same reason to prove their continuance as long as their nature and their dependance on God are both the same But it may be you will form your objection better and say that Generation produceth no new substance but only a composition order and temperament of pre-existent substances But souls are generated Ergo They are no substances but the order or temperament of pre-existent substances Answ I never saw any thing like a cogent proof of the major and most Christians think you can never prove the minor A substance may be called new either because it is made of nothing as in creation or because it ariseth to its natural state of perfection ex semine vel natura foecunda where it was only virtually and seminally before Before you can prove your major even in the first sense you must be better acquainted with the nature of God and of Spirits and of Generation than you are I cannot imagine what shew of proof you can bring to prove that universally no generation causeth a substance totally new unless you will go to Scripture which you believe not and plead from Genes 1. that God then ended all his works and therefore doth create no more But 1. He may cause them totally de novo without such a creation as is there spoken of for he may by a stablished Law of Nature adjoyn his producing influx to the act of a creature ordinarily and so difference it from that proper creation 2. No man can prove that God hath there said one word