Annotations UPON THE Two foregoing TREATISES, LUX ORIENTALIS, OR, An Enquiry into the OPINION OF THE EASTERN SAGES Concerning the Preexistence of Souls; AND THE Discourse of TRUTH.  
Written for the more fully clearing and further confirming the main DOCTRINES in each TREATISE.  
By one not unexercized in these kinds of SPECULATION.  
LONDON: Printed for J. Collins, and S. Lounds, over against Exeter-Change in the Strand. 1682.   

Annotations UPON LUX ORIENTALIS.  
THese two Books, Lux Orientalis and the Discourse of Truth, are luckily put together by the Publisher, there being that suitableness between them, and mutual support of one another. And the Arguments they treat of being of the greatest importance that the Mind of man can entertain herself with, the consideration thereof has excited so sluggish a Genius as mine to bestow some few Annotations thereon, not very anxious or operose, but such as the places easily suggest; and may serve either to ●…ctifie what may seem any how oblique, or illustrate what may seem less clear, or make a supply or add strength where there may seem any further need. In which I would not be so understood as that I had such an anxiety and fondness for the Opinions they maintain, as if all were gone if they should fail; but that the Dogmata being more fully, clearly, and precisely propounded, men may more safely and considerately give their Judgements thereon; but with that modesty as to admit nothing that is contrary to the Judgement of the truly Catholic and Apostolic Church.  
Chap. 2. p. 4. That he made us pure and innocent, etc. This is plainly signified in the general Mosaic History of the Creation, that all that God made he saw it was good; and it is particularly declared of Adam and Eve, that they were created or made in a state of Innocency.  
Pag. 4. Matter can do nothing but by motion, and what relation hath that to a moral Contagion? We must either grant that the figures of the particles of Matter and their motion, have a power to affect the Soul united with the Body, (and I remember Josephus somewhere speaking of Wine, says, it does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, regenerate, as it were, the Soul into another life and sense of things) or else we must acknowledge that the parts of Matter are alterable into qualifications, that cannot be resolved into mere mechanical motion and figure; whether they be thus altered by the vital power of the Spirit of Nature, or however it comes to pass. But that Matter has a considerable influence upon a Soul united thereto, the Author himself does copiously acknowledge in his fourth Chapter of this Book; where he tells us, that according to the disposition of the Body, our Wits are either more quick, free, and sparkling, or more obtuse, weak, and sluggish; and our Mind more cheerful and contented, or else more morose, melancholic, or dogged, etc. Wherefore that he may appear the more consistent with himself, it is likely he understands by this Moral Contagion the very venom and malignity of vicious Inclinations, how that can be derived from Matter, especially its power consisting in mere motion and figuration of parts. The Psalmist's description is very apposite to this purpose, Psal. 58. The ungodly are froward even from their mother's womb; as soon as they are born they go astray and speak lies. They are as venomous as the poison of a serpent, even like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear. That there should be such a difference in the Nativity of some from that of others, and haply begot also of the same Parents, is no slight intimation that their difference is not from their Bo●… but their Souls; in which there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eruptions of vicious Inclinations w●… 〈◊〉 had contracted in their former stat●… 〈◊〉 pressed nor extinct in this, by reason o●… 〈◊〉 lapse, and his losing the Paradisiacal 〈◊〉 which he was created, and which should, 〈◊〉 had not been for his Fall, been transmitted to his Posterity; but that being lost, the several measures of the pristine Vitiosity of humane Souls discover themselves in this life, according to the just Laws of the Divine Nemesis essentially interwoven into the nature of things.  
Pag. 5. How is it that those that are under continual temptations to Vice, are yet kept within the bounds of Virtue, etc. That those that are continually under temptations to Vice from their Childhood, should keep within the bounds of Virtue, and those that have perpetual outward advantages from their Childhood to be virtuous, should prove vicious notwithstanding, is not rationally resolved into their free will; for in this they are both of them equal: and if they had been equal also in their external advantages or disadvantages, the different event might well be imputed to the freedom of their Will. But now that one, notwithstanding all the disadvantages to Virtue should prove virtuous, and the other, notwithstanding all the advantages to Virtue should prove vicious; the reason of this certainly to the considerate will seem to lie deeper than the mere liberty of Will in man. But it can be attributed to nothing, with a more due and tender regard to the Divine Attributes, than to the pre-existent state of humane Souls, according to the Scope of the Author.  
Pag. 9 For still it seems to be a diminutive and disparaging apprehension of the infinite and immense goodness of God, that he should detrude such excellent Creatures, etc. To enervate this reason, there is framed by an ingenious hand this Hypothesis, to vie with that of Pre-existence: That Mankind is an Order of Being's placed in a middle state between Angels and Brutes, made up of contrary Principles, viz. Matter and Spirit, endued with contrary faculties, viz. Animal and Rational, and encompassed with contrary Objects proportioned to their respective faculties, that so they may be in a capacity to exercise the Virtue's proper and peculiar to their compounded and heterogeneal nature. And therefore though humane Souls be capable of subsisting by themselves, yet God has placed them in Bodies full of brutish and unreasonable Propensions, that they may be capable of exercising many choice and excellent Virtues, which otherwise could never have been at all; such as Temperance, Sobriety, Chastity, Patience, Meekness, Equanimity, and all other Virtues that consist in the Empire of Reason over Passion and Appetite. And therefore he conceives that the creating of humane Souls, though pure and immaculate, and uniting them with such brutish Bodies, is but the constituting and continuing such a Species of Being, which is an Order betwixt Brutes and Angels; into which latter Order, if men use their faculties of the Spiritual Principle in them well, they may ascend: Forasmuch as God has given them in their Spiritual Principle (containing Free Will, and Reason to discern what is best) a power and faculty of overcoming all their inordinate Appetites.  
This is his Hypothesis, mostwhat in his own words, and all to his own sense, as near as I could with brevity express it: And it seems so reasonable to himself, that he professes himself apt to be positive and dogmatical therein. And it might very well seem so to him, if there were a sufficient faculty in the Souls of men in this World, to command and keep in order the Passions and Appetites of their Body, and to be and do what their Reason and Conscience tells them they should be and do, and blames them for not being and doing. So that they know more by far than they find an ability in themselves to perform. Extremely few there are, if any, but this is their condition: Whence all Philosophers (that had any sense of Virtue and Holiness) as well as Jews and Christians, have looked upon Man as in a lapsed state, not blaming God, but deploring the sad condition they found themselves in by some foregoing lapse or fault in Mankind. And it is strange that our own Consciences should she in our faces for what we could never have helped.  
It is witty indeed which is alleged in the behalf of this Hypothesis, viz. That the Rational part of man is able to command the lower Appetites; because if the superior part be not strong enough to govern the inferior, it destroys the very being of moral Good and Evil: Forasmuch as those acts that proceed out of necessity cannot be moral, nor can the superior Faculties be obliged to govern the inferior, if they are not able, because nothing is obliged to imposs●…bilities. But I answer, if inabilities come upon us by our own fault, the defects of action then are upon the former account moral, or rather immoral. And our Consciences rightly charge us with the Vitiosities of our Inclinations and Actions, even before we can mend them here, because they are the consequences of our former Gild.  
Wherefore it is no wonder that there is found a flaw in a subtlety that would conclude against the universal Experience of men, who all of them, more or less, that have any sense of Morality left in them, complain that the inferior powers of the Soul, at least for a time, were too hard for the superior. And the whole mass of Mankind is so generally corrupt and abominable, that it would argue the wise and just God a very unequal Matcher of innocent Souls with brutish Bodies, they being universally so hugely foiled or overcome in the conflict, if he indeed were the immediate Matcher of them. For how can that be the effect of an equilibrious or sufficient Free Will and Power, that is in a manner perpetual and constant? But there would be near as many Examples one way as the other, if the Souls of men in this state were not by some precedent lapse become unable to govern, as they ought, all in them or about them that is to be subjected to their Reason. No fine Fetches of Wit can demolish the steady and weighty structure of sound and general Experience.  
Pag. 9 Wherein he seeth it, ten thousand to one but that they will corrupt, etc. The Expression [ten thousand to one] is figurative, and signifies how hugely more like it is that the Souls would be corrupted by their Incorporation in these Animal or Brutish Bodies, than escape Corruption. And the effect makes good the Assertion: for David of old (to say nothing of the days of Noah) and Paul after him, declare of Mankind in general, that they are altogether become abominable; there is none that doth good, no not one. Wherefore we see what efficacy these Bodies have, if innocent Souls be put into them by the immediate hand of God, as also the force of Custom and corrupt Education to debauch them; and therefore how unlikely it is that God should create innocent Souls to thrust them into such ill circumstances.  
Pag. 10. To suppose him assistant to unlawful and unclean Coitions, by creating a Soul to animate the impure Foetus, etc. This seemed ever to those that had any sense of the Divine Purity and Sanctity, or were themselves endued with any due sensibleness and discernment of things, to be an Argument of no small weight. But how one of the more rude and unhewen Opposers of Pre-existence swaggers it out of countenance, I think it not amiss to set down for a pleasant Entertainment of the Reader.  
Admit, says he, that God's watchful Providence waits upon dissolute Voluptuaries in their unmeet Conjunctions, and sends down fresh created Spirits to actuate their obscene Emissions, what is here done which is not very high and becoming God, and most congruous and proportionable to his immense Grandeur and Majesty, viz. To bear a part amongst Pimps and Bawds, and pocky Whores and Woremasters, to rise out of his Seat for them, and by a free Act of Creation of a Soul, to set his Seal of Connivance to their Villainies; who yet is said to be of more pure Eyes than to endure to behold Wickedness. So that if he does (as his Phrase is) pop in a Soul in these unclean Coitions, certainly he does it winking. But he goes on: For in the first place, says he, his condescension is hereby made signal and eximious; he is gloriously humble beyond a parallel, and by his own Example lessons us to perform the meanest works, if fit and profitable, and to be content even to drudge for the common benefit of the World. Good God what a Rapture has this impure Scene of Venery put this young Theologer into, that it should thus drive him out of his little Wits and Senses, and make him speak inconsistences with such an affected Grace and lofty Eloquence! If the act of Gods freely creating Souls, and so of assisting wretched Sinners in their foul acts of Adultery and Whoredom, be a glorious action, how is it an Abasement of him, how is it his Humiliation? and if it be an humbling and debasing of him, how is it glorious? The joining of two such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, are indeed without parallel. The creating of an humane Soul immortal and immaculate, and such as bears the Image of God in it, as all immaculate Souls do, is one of the most glorious actions that God can perform; such a Creature is it, as the Schools have judged more of value than the frame of the whole visible World. But to join such a Creature as this to such impure corporeal matter, is furthermore a most transcendent Specimen of both his Skill and Sovereignty; so that this is an act of further Super-exaltation of himself, not of Humiliation. What remains then to be his Humiliation, but the condescending to assist and countenance the unclean endeavours of Adulterers and Adulteresses? Which therefore can be no Lesson to us for Humility, but a Cordial for the faint-hearted in Debauchery, and degeneracy of Life; wherein they may plead, so instructed by this rural Theolog, that they are content to drudge for the common profit of the World. But he proceeds.  
And secondly, says he, hereby he elicits Good out of Evil, causing famous and heroic persons to take their Origine from base occasions; and so converts the Lusts of sensual Varlets to nobler ends than they designed them. As if an heroic Offspring were the genuine effect of Adultery or Fornication, and the most likely way to People the World with worthy Personages. How this raw Philosopher will make this comply with his Profession of Divinity, I know not; whenas, it teaches us, that Marriage is honourable, but Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge; and that he punishes the Iniquities of the Parents on their Children. But this bold Sophist makes God adjudge the noblest Offspring to the defiled Bed, and not to punish, but reward the Adultery or Whoredom of debauched persons, by giving them the best and bravest Children: Which the more true it could be found in experience, it would be the stronger Argument for Pre-existence; it being incredible that God, if he created Souls on purpose, should crown Adultery and Whoredom with the choicest Offspring.  
And then thirdly and lastly, says he, hereby he often detects the lewdness of Sinners, which otherwise would be smothered, etc. As if the Alwise God could find no better nor juster means than this to discover this Villainy. If he be thus immediately and in an extraordinary way assistant in these Coitions, were it not as easy for him, and infinitely more decorous, to charge the Womb with some Mola or Ephemerous Monster, than to plunge an immaculate humane Soul into it? This would as effectually discover the Villainy committed, and besides prevent the charge Parishes are put to in maintaining Bastards. And now that we have thus seen what a mere nothing it is that this Strutter has pronounced with such sonorous Rhetoric, yet he is not ashamed to conclude with this Appeal to I know not what blind Judges: Now, says he, are not all these Actions and Concerns very graceful and agreeable to God? Which words in these circumstances no man could utter, were he not of a crass, insensible, and injudicious Constitution, or else made no Conscience of speaking against his Judgement. But if he speak according to his Conscience, it is manifest he puts Sophisms upon himself, in arguing so weakly.  
As he does a little before in the same place, where that he may make the coming of a Soul into a base begotten Body in such a series of time and order of things as the Pre-existentiaries suppose, and Gods putting it immediately upon his creating it into such a Body, to be equally passable, he uses this slight Illustration: Imagine, saith he, God should create one Soul, and so soon as he had done, instantly pop it into a base begotten Body; and then create another the matter of an hours space before its precipitation into such a Receptacle: which of these Actions would be the most diminutive of the Creator's honour? would not the difference be insensible, and the scandal, if any, the same in both? Yet thus lies the case just betwixt the Pre-existentiaries and us. Let the Reader consider how senseless this Author is in saying the case betwixt the Pre-existentiaries and him is just thus, when they are just nothing akin: for his two Souls are both unlapsed, but one of the Pre-existentiaries lapsed, and so subjected to the Laws of Nature. In his case God acts freely, raising himself, as it were, out of his Seat to create an immaculate Soul, and put into a foul Body; but in the other case God only is a looker on, there is only his Permission, not his Action. And the vast difference of time, he salves it with such a Quibble as this, as if it were nothing, because thousands of Ages ago, in respect of God and his Eternity, is not an hour before. He might as well say the difference betwixt the most glorious Angel and a Flea is nothing, because in comparison of God both are so indeed. Wherefore this Anti-Pre-existentiary is such a Trifler, that I am half ashamed that I have brought him upon the Stage.  
But yet I will commend his Craft, though not his Faithfulness, that he had the wit to omit the proposing of Buggery as well as of Adultery, and the endeavouring to show how graceful and agreeable to God, how congruous and proportionate it were to his immense Grandeur and Majesty, to create a Soul on purpose (immaculate and undefiled) to actuate the obscene Emissions of a Brute having to do with a Woman, or of a Man having to do with a Brute: For both Women and Brutes have been thus impregnated, and brought forth humane Births, as you may see abundantly testified in Fortunius Licetus; it would be too long to produce Instances.  
This Opinion of Gods creating Souls, and putting them into Bodies upon incestuous and adulterous Coitions, how exceeding absurd and unbecoming the Sanctity of the Divine Majesty it seemed to the Churches of Aethiopia, you may see in the History of Jobus Ludolphus. How intolerable therefore and execrable would this Doctrine have appeared unto them, if they had thought of the prodigious fruits of successful Buggery? The words of Ludolfus are these: Perabsurdum esse si quis Deum astrictum dicat pro adulterinis & incestuosis partubus animas quotidie novas creare. ●…st. Aethiop. lib. 3. cap. 5. What would they then say of creating a new Soul, for the Womb of a Beast buggered by a Man, or of a Woman buggered by a Beast!  
Pag. 12. Methinks that may be done at a cheaper rate, etc. How it may be done with more agreeableness to the Goodness, Wisdom, and Justice of God, has been even now hinted by me, nor need I repeat it.  
Pag. 13. It seems very incongruous and unhandsome, to suppose that God should create two Souls for the supply of one monstrous Body. And there is the same reason for several other Monstrosities, which you may take notice of in Fortunius Licetus, lib. 2. cap. 58. One with seven humane heads and arms, and Ox-feets; others with men's bodies, but with a head the one of a Goose, the other of an Elephant, etc. In which it is a strong presumption humane Souls lodged, but in several others certain. How does this consist with God's fresh creating humane Souls pure and innocent, and putting them into Bodies? This is by the aforesaid Anti-Pre-existentiary at first answered only by a wide gape or yawn of Admiration. And indeed it would make any one stare and wonder how this can consist with Gods immediately and freely intermeddling with the Generation of Men, as he did at first in the Creation. For out of his holy hands all things come clean and neat. Many little efforts he makes afterwards to salve this difficulty of Monsters, but yet in his own judgement the surest is the last; That God did purposely tie fresh created Souls to these monstrous shapes, that they whose Souls sped better, might humbly thank him. Which is as wisely argued, as if one should first with himself take it for granted that God determines some men to monstrous Debaucheries and Impieties, and then fancy this the use of it, that the Spectators of them may with better pretence than the Pharisee, cry out, Lord, we thank thee that we are not as these men are. There is nothing permitted by God, but it has its use some way or other; and therefore it cannot be concluded, because that an Event has this or that use, therefore God by his immediate and free Omnipotence effected it. A Pre-existentiary easily discerns that these Monstrosities plainly imply that God does not create Souls still for every humane Coition, but that having pre-existed, they are left to the great Laws of the Universe and Spirit of Nature; but yet dares not conclude that God by his free Omnipotence determines those monstrous Births, as serviceable as they seem for the evincing so noble a Theory.  
Pag. 15. That God on the seventh day rested from all his works. This one would think were an Argument clear enough that he creates nothing since the celebration of the first seventh days rest. For if all his works are rested from, than the creation of Souls (which is a work, nay a Masterpiece amongst his works scarce inferior to any) is rested from also. But the abovementioned Opposer of Pre-existence is not at a loss for an Answer; (for his Answers being slight, are cheap and easy to come by:) He says therefore, That this supposeth only that after that time he ceased from creating new Species. A witty Invention! As if God had got such an easy habit by once creating the things he created in the six days, that if he but contained himself within those kinds of things, though he did hold on still creating them, that it was not Work, but mere Play or Rest to him, in comparison of his former labour. What will not these men fancy, rather than abate of their prejudice against an opinion they have once taken a toy against! When the Author to the Hebrews says, He that has entered into his rest, has ceased from his own works, as God ceased from his; verily this is small comfort or instruction, if it were as this Anti-Pre-existentiary would have it: for if God ceased only from creating new Species, we may, notwithstanding our promised Rest, be tied to run through new instances of labours or sins, provided they be but of those kinds we experienced before. To any unprejudiced understanding, this sense must needs seem forced and unnatural, thus to restrain God's Rest to the Species of things, and to engage him to the daily task of creating Individuals. The whole Aethiopian Church is of another mind: Qui animam humanam quotidiè non creari hoc argumento asserunt, quòd Deus sexto die perfecerit totum opus Creationis. See Ludolfus in the place abovecited.  
Chap. 3. pag. 17. Since the Images of Objects are very small and inconsiderable in our brains, etc. I suppose he mainly relates to the Objects of Sight, whose chief, if not only Images, are in the fund of the Eye; and thence in virtue of the Spirituality of our Soul extended thither also, and of the due qualification of the Animal Spirits are transmitted to the Perceptive of the Soul within the brain. But how the bignesses and distances of Objects are conveyed to our cognoscence, it would be too tedious to signify here. See Dr. H. Moor's Enchiridion Metaphysicum, cap. 19  
Pag. 17. Were it not that our Souls use a kind of Geometry, etc. This alludes to that pretty conceit of Des Cartes in his Dioptrics, the solidity of which I must confess I never understood. For I understand not but that if my Soul should use any such Geometry, I should be conscious thereof, which I do not find myself. And therefore I think those things are better understood out of that Chapter of the Book even now mentioned.  
Pag. 17. And were the Soul quite void of all such implicit Notions, it would remain as senseless, etc. There is no sensitive Perception indeed, without Reflection; but the Reflection is an immediate attention of the Soul to that which affects her, without any circumstance of Notions intervening for enabling her for sensitive Operations. But these are witty and ingenious Conjectures, which the Author by reading Des Cartes, or otherhow, might be encouraged to entertain. To all sensitive Objects the Soul is an Abrasa Tabula, but for Moral and Intellectual Principles, their Ideas or Notions are essential to the Soul.  
Pag. 18: For Sense teacheth no general Propositions, etc. Nor need it do any thing else but exhibit some particular Object, which our Understanding being an Ectypon of the Divine Intellect necessarily, when it has throughly sisted it, concludes it to answer such a determinate Idea eternally and unalterably one and the same, as it stands in the Divine Intellect, which cannot change; and therefore that Idea must have the same properties and respects for ever. But of this, enough here. It will be better understood by reading the Discourse of Truth, and the Annotations thereon.  
Pag. 18. But from something more sublime and excellent. From the Divine or Archetypal Intellect, of which our Understanding is the Ectypon, as was said before.  
Pag. 21. And so can only transmit their natural qualities. They are so far from transmitting their Moral Pravities, that they transmit from themselves no qualities at all. For to create a Soul, is to concreate the qualities or properties of it, not out of the Creator, but out of nothing. So that the substance and all the properties of it are out of nothing.  
Pag. 22. Against the nature of an immaterial Being, a chief property of which is to be indiscerpible. The evasion to the force of this Argument by some Anti-Pre-existentiaries is, that it is to philosophise at too high a rate of confidence, to presume to know what the nature of a Soul or Spirit is. But for brevity's sake, I will refer such Answerers as these to Dr. H. Moor's brief Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit, printed lately with Saducismus Triumphatus; and I think he may be thence as sure that Indiscerpibility is an essential property of a Spirit, as that there are any Spirits in the Universe: and this methinks should suffice any ingenuous and modest Opposer. But to think there is no knowledge but what comes in at our Senses, is a poor, beggarly, and precarious Principle, and more becoming the dotage of Hobbianism, than men of clearer Parts and more serene Judgements.  
Pag. 22. By separable Emissions that pass from the flame, etc. And so set the Wick and Tallow on motion. But these separable Emissions that pass from the flame of the lighted Candle, pass quite away, and so are no part of the flame enkindled. So weak an Illustration is this of what these Traducters would have.  
Chap. 4. pag. 32. Which the Divine Piety and Compassion hath set up again, that so, so many of his excellent Creatures might not be lost and undone irrecoverably, but might act anew, etc. To this a more elegant Pen and refined Wit objects thus: Now is it not highly derogatory to the infinite and unbounded Wisdom of God, that he should detrude those Souls which he so seriously designs to make happy, into a state so hazardous, wherein he seeth it to be ten thousand to one but that they will corrupt and defile themselves, and so make them more miserable here and to eternity hereafter? A strange method of recovering this, to put them into such a fatal necessity of perishing: 'tis but an odd contrivance for their restauration to Happiness, to use such means to compass it which 'tis ten thousand to one but will make them infinitely more miserable. This he objects in reference to what the Author of Lux Orientalis writes, chap. 2. where he says, It is a thousand to one but Souls detruded into these bodies will corrupt and defile themselves, and so make themselves miserable here and to eternity hereafter.  
And much he quotes to the same purpose out of the Account of Origen. Where the Souls great disadvantages to Virtue and Holiness, what from the strong inclinations of the Body, and what from National Customs & Education in this Terrestrial State, are lively set out with a most moving and tragical Eloquence, to show how unlikely it is that God should put innocent and immaculate Souls of his own creation immediately, into such Bodies, and so hard and even almost fatal condition of miscarrying. Upon which this subtle Anti-Pre-existentiary: Thus you see, saith he, what strong Objections and Arguments the Pre-existentiaries urge with most noise and clamour, are against themselves. If therefore these Phaenomena be inexplicable, without the Origenian Hypothesis, they are so too with it; and if so, than the result of all is, that they are not so much Arguments of Pre-existence as Aspersions of Providence. This is smartly and surprisingly spoken. But let us consider more punctually the state of the matter.  
Here than we are first to observe, how cunningly this shrewd Antagonist conceals a main stroke of the Supposition, viz. That the Divine Pity and Compassion to lapsed Souls, that had otherwise fallen into an eternal state of Silence and Death, had set up Adam for their relief, and endued him with such a Paradisiacal body of so excellent a constitution to be transmitted to all his Posterity, and invesled him, in virtue of this, with so full power non peccandi, that if he and his Posterity were not in an happy flourishing condition as to their eternal interest of Holiness and Virtue, it would be long of himself. And what could God do more correspondently to his Wisdom and Goodness, dealing with free Agents, such as humane Souls are, than this? And the thing being thus stated, no Objections can be brought against the Hypothesis, but such as will invade the inviolable Truths of Faith and Orthodox Divinity.  
Secondly, We are to observe, how this cunning Objector has got these two Pre-existentiaries upon the hip for their youthful flowers of Rhetoric, when one says, it is hundreds to one; the other, ten thousand to one, that Souls will miscarry put into these disadvantages of the Terrestrial state, by which no candid Reader will understand any more, than that it is exceeding difficult for them to escape the pollutions of this lower World once incorporated into Terrestrial Bodies. But it being granted possible for them to emerge, this is a great grace and favour of the Divine Goodness to such peccant wretches, that they are brought out of the state of eternal Silence and Death, to try their Fortunes once more, though encumbered with so great difficulties which the Divine Nemesis suffers to return upon them. That therefore they are at all in a condition of recovery, is from the Goodness and Mercy of God; that their condition is so hard, from his Justice, they having been so foully peccant. And his wisdom being only to contrive what is most agreeable to his Mercy and Justice, it is not at all derogatory to the infinite and unbounded Wisdom of God thus to deal with lapsed Souls. For though he does seriously intend to make them happy, yet it must be in a way correspondent to his Justice as well as Mercy.  
Thirdly and Lastly, Besides that the Spirit of the Lord pervades the whole Earth ready to assist the sincere; there is moreover a mighty weight of mercy added in the Revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ to the world, so that the retriving of the Souls of men out of their Death and Silence into this Terrestrial state, in which there is these helps to the sincere, it is manifestly worthy the Divine Wisdom and Goodness. For those it takes no effect with, (they beginning the world again on this stage) they shall be judged only according to what they have done here, there being an eternal obliteration as well as oblivion of the acts of their Pre-existent state; but those that this merciful Dispensation of God has taken any effect upon here, their sincere desires may grow in●…o higher accomplishments in the future state. Which may something mitigate the honour of that seeming universal squalid estate of the Sons of men upon earth. Which in that it is so ill, is rightly imputed by both Jews and Christians and the divinest Philosophers to a Lapse, and to the Mercy and Grace of God that it is no worse. From whence it may appear, that that argument for Pre-existence, that God does not put newly created innocent Souls into such disadvantageous circumstances of a terrestrial Incorporation, though partly out of Mercy, partly out of Justice, he has thought fit lapsed Souls should be so disposed of, that this I say is no aspersion of Divine Providence.  
Pag. 36. And now I cannot think of any place in the sacred Volume more, that could make a tolerable plea against this Hypothesis, etc. It is much that the ingenious Author thought not of Rom. 9 11. [For the Children being not yet born, neither having done either good or evil, that the purpose of God according to Election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth.] This is urged by Anti-pre-existentiaries, as a notable place against Pre-existence. For, say they, how could Esau and Jacob be said neither to have done good nor evil, if they pre-existed before they came into this world? For if they pre-existed, they acted; and if they acted, they being rational Souls, they must have done either good or evil. This makes an handsome show at first sight; but if we consult Gen. 25. we shall plainly see that this is spoke of Jacob and Esau yet struggling in the Womb; as it is said in this Text, For the Children being not yet born; but struggling in the Womb, as you may see in the other. Which plainly therefore respects their actions in this life, upon which certainly the mind of St. Paul was fixed. As if he should have expressly said: For the Children being not yet born, but struggling in the Womb, neither having done either good or evil in this life as being still in the Womb, it was said of them to Rebeckah, The elder shall serve the younger. Which sufficiently illustrates the matter in hand with St. Paul; that as Jacob was preferred before Esau in the Womb, before either of them was born to act here on the Earth, and that therefore done without any respect to their actions; so the purpose of God touching his people should be of free Election, not of Works.  
That of Zachary also, Chap. 12. 1. I have heard alleged by some as a place on which no small stress may be laid. The Lord is there said to be the Former of the Spirit of Man within him. Wherefore they argue, If the Spirit of Man be form within him, it did never pre-exist without him. But we answer, That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is but the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. And then the sense is easy and natural, that the Spirit that is in man, God is the Former or Creator of it. But this Text defines nothing of the time of forming it. There are several other Texts alleged, but it is so easy to answer them, and would take up so much time and room, that I think fit to omit them, remembering my scope to be short Annotations, not a tedious Commentary.  
Pag. 41. Mr. Ben Israel in his Problems De Creatione assures us, that Pre-existence was the common belief, etc. That this was the common opinion of the wiser men amongst the Jews, R. Menasse Ben Israel himself told me at London with great freedom and assurance, and that there was a constant tradition thereof; which he said in some sense was also true concerning the Trinity, but that more obscure. But this of Pre-existence is manifest up and down in the Writings of that very ancient and learned Jew Philo Judaeus; as also something toward a Trinity, if I remember aright.  
Chap. 5. Pag. 46. We should doubtless have retained some remembrance of that condition. And the rather, as one ingeniously argues, because our state in this life is a state of punishment. Upon which he concludes, That if the calamities of this life were inflicted upon us only as a punishment of sins committed in another, Providence would have provided some effectual means to preserve them in our memories. And therefore, because we find no remainders of any such Records in our minds, 'tis, says he, sufficient evidence to all sober and impartial inquirers, that our living and sinning in a former state is as false as inevident.  
But to this it may be answered, That the state we are put in, is not a state only of punishment, but of a merciful trial; and it is sufficient that we find ourselves in a lapsed and sinful condition, our own Consciences telling us when we do amiss, and calling upon us to amend. So that it is needless particularly to remember our faults in the other world, but the time is better spent in faithfully endeavouring to amend ourselves in this, and to keep ourselves from all faults of what nature soever. Which is a needless thing our memory should discover to us to have been of old committed by us, when our Consciences urge to us that they are never to be committed; and the Laws of holy Lawgivers and divine Instructers, or wise Sages over all the world, assist also our Conscience in her office. So that the end of God's Justice by these inward and outward Monitors, and by the cross and afflicting Rencounters in this present state, is to be attained to, viz. the amendment of Delinquents if they be not refractory.  
And we were placed on this stage as it were to begin the world again, so as if we had not existed before. Whence it seems meet, that there should be an utter obliteration of all that is past, so as not to be able by memory to connect the former life and this together. The memory whereof, if we were capable of it, would be inconsistent with the orderly proceedings of this, and overdoze us and make us half moped to the present Scene of things. Whenas the Divine Purpose seems to be, that we should also experience the natural pleasures and satisfactions of this life, but in an orderly and obedient way, keeping to the prescribed rules of Virtue and Holiness. And thus our faithfulness being exercised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in those things which are more estranged from our nobler and diviner nature, God may at last restore us to what is more properly our own.  
But in the mean time, that saying which the Poet puts in the mouth of Jupiter, touching the inferior Deities, may not misbeseem the mercy and wisdom of the true God concerning lapsed Souls incorporate into terrestrial Bodies. 
Has quoniam coeli nondum dignamur honore,  
Quas dedimus certè terras habitare sinamus.  Let them not be distracted betwixt a sensible remembrance of the Joys and Glories of our exterior Heaven above, and the present fruition of things below, but let them live an holy and heavenly life upon Earth, exercising their Graces and Virtues in the use and enjoyment of these lower earthly Objects, till I call them up again to Heaven, where, after this long swoon they are fallen into, they will more seasonably remember their former Paradisiacal state upon its recovery, and reagnize their ancient home. Wherefore if the remembering or forgetting of the former state depend absolutely upon the free contrivance of the Divine Wisdom, Goodness, and Justice, as this ingenious Opposer seems to suppose, I should even upon that very point of fitness conceive that an utter oblivion of the former state is interwoven into the fate and nature of lapsed Souls by a Divine Nemesis, though we do not conceive explicitly the manner how. And yet the natural reasons the Author of Lux Orientalis produces in the sequel of his Discourse, seem highly probable.  
For first, As we had forgot some lively Dream we dreamt but last night, unless we had met with something in the day of a peculiar virtue to remind us of it, so we meeting with nothing in this lower stage of things that lively resembles those things in our former state, and has a peculiar fitness to rub up our Memory, we continue in an utter oblivion of them. As suppose a man was lively entertained in his sleep with the pleasure of dreaming of a fair Crystal River, whose Banks were adorned with Trees and Flags in the flower, and those large Flies with blue and golden-coloured Bodies, and broad thin Wings curiously wrought and transparent, hover over them, with Birds also singing on the Trees, Sun and Clouds above, and sweet breezes of Air, and Swans in the River with their wings sometimes lifted up like sails against the wind. Thus he passed the night, thinks of no such thing in the morning, but rising goes about his occasions. But towards evening a Servant of a Friend of his presents him with a couple of Swans from his Master. The sight of which Swans striking his Perceptive as sensibly as those in his Dream, and being one of the most extraordinary and eximious Objects of his Night-vision, presently reminds him of the whole scene of things represented in his sleep. But neither Sun, nor Clouds, nor Trees, nor any such ordinary thing could in any likelihood have reminded him of his Dream. And besides, it was the lively resemblance betwixt the Swans he saw in his sleep, and those he saw waking, that did so effectually rub up his memory. The want therefore of such occurrences in this life to remind us of the passages of the former, is a very reasonable account why we remember nothing of the former state.  
But here the Opposers of Pre-existence pretend that the joyous and glorious Objects in the other state do so pierce and transport the Soul, and that she was enured to them so long, that though there were nothing that resembled them here, the impression they make must be indelible, and that it is impossible she should forget them. And moreover, that there is a similitude betwixt the things of the upper World and the lower, which therefore must be an help to memory.  
But here, as touching the first, they do not consider what a Weapon they have given into my hand against themselves. For the long inuredness to those Celestial Objects abates the piercingness of their transport; and before they leave those Regions, according to the Platonic or Origenian Hypothesis, they grow cooler to such enjoyments: so that all the advantages of that piercing transport for memory, are lost. And besides, in virtue of that piercing Transport, no Soul can call into memory what she enjoyed formerly, but by recalling herself into such a Transport, which her Terrestrial Vehicle makes her uncapable of.  
For the memory of external Transactions is sealed upon us by some passionate corporeal impress in conjunction with them (which makes them whip Boys sometimes at the boundaries of their Parish, that they may better remember it when they are old men;) which Impress if it be lost, the memory of the thing itself is lost. And we may be sure it is lost in Souls incorporate in Terrestrial Vehicles, they having lost their Aereal and Celestial, and being fatally incapacitated so much as to conceit how they were affected by the External Objects of the other World, and so to remember how they felt them. And therefore all the descriptions that men of a more Aethereal and Entheous temper adventure on in this life, are but the Roaming of their Minds in virtue of their Constitution towards the nature of the heavenly things in general, not a recovery of the memory of past Experience; this State not affording so lively a representment of the Pathos that accompanied the actual sense of those things, as to make us think that we once really enjoyed them before. That is only to be collected by Reason; the noble exercise of which faculty, in the discovering of this Arcanum of our Pre-existence, had been lost, if it could have been detected by a compendious Memory. But if ever we recover the memory of our former State, it will be when we are reentered into it; we then being in a capacity of being really struck with the same Pathos we were before, in virtue whereof the Soul may remember this was her pristine condition.  
And therefore to answer to the second, Though there may be some faintness of resemblance betwixt the things of the other State and this, yet other peculiarities also being required, and the former sensible Pathos to be recovered, which is impossible in this State, it is likewise impossible for us to remember the other in this.  
The second Argument of the Author for the proving the unlikeliness of our remembering the other State is, the long intermission and discontinuance from thinking of those things. For 'tis plain that such discontinuance or desuetude bereaves us of the memory of such things as we were acquainted with in this World. Insomuch as if an ancient man should read the Verses or Themes he made when he was a Schoolboy, without his name subscribed to them, though he pumped and sweated for them when he made them, could not tell they were his own. How then should the Soul remember what she did or observed many hundreds, nay thousands of years ago?  
But yet our Author's Antagonist has the face to make nothing of this Argument neither: Because, forsooth, it is not so much the desuetude of thinking of one thing, but the thinking of others, that makes us forget that one thing. What a shuffle is this! For if the Soul thought on that one thing as well as on other things, it would remember it as well as them. Therefore it is not the thinking of other things, but the not thinking of that, that makes it forgotten. Usus prompt●…s facit, as in general, so in particular. And therefore disuse in any particular slackens at first, and after abolishes the readiness of the Mind to think thereof. Whence sleepiness and sluggishness is the Mother of Forgetfulness, because it disuses the Soul from thinking of things. And as for those seven Chronical Sleepers that slept in a Cave from Decius his time to the reign of Theodosius junior, I dare say it would have besotted them without a Miracle, and they would have rose out of their sleep no more wise than a Wisp; I am sure not altogether so wise as this awkward Arguer for memory of Souls in their Pre-existent state after so hugely long a discontinuance from it. But for their immediately coming out of an Aethereal Vehicle into a Terrestrial, and yet forgetting their former state, what Example can be imagined of such a thing, unless that of the Messias, who yet seems to remember his former glorious condition, and to pray that he may return to it again? Though for my part I think it was rather Divine Inspiration than Memory, that enabled him to know that matter, supposing his Soul did pre-exist.  
Our Author's third and last Argument to prove that lapsed Souls in their Terrestrial condition forget their former state, is from observation how deteriorating changes in this earthly Body spoils or quite destroys the Memory, the Soul still abiding therein; such as. Casualties, Diseases, and old Age, which changes the tenor of the Spirits, and makes them less useful for memory, as also 'tis likely the Brain itself. Wherefore there being a more deteriorating change to the Soul in coming into an earthly Body, instead of an aereal or aethereal, the more certainly will her memory of things which she experienced in that state, be washed out or obliterated in this.  
Here our Author's Antagonist answers, That though changes in body may often weaken, and sometimes utterly spoil the memory of things past, yet it is not necessary that the Souls changing of her body should therefore do so, because it is not so injurious to her faculties. Which if it were, not only our Memory, but Reason also should have been cashiered and loft by our migration out of those Vehicles we formerly actuated, into these we now enliven; but that still remaining sound and entire, it is a sign that our Memory would do so too, if we had pre-existed in other bodies before, and had any thing to remember. And besides, if the bare translocation of our Souls out of one body into another, would destroy the memory of things the Soul has experienced, it would follow, that when People by death are summoned hence into the other state, that they shall be quite bereft of their Memory, and so carry neither applause nor remorse of Conscience into the other World; which is monstrously absurd and impious. This is the main of his Answer, and most what in his own words. But of what small force it is, we shall now discover, and how little pertinent to the business.  
For first, we are to take notice that the deteriorating change in the Body, or deteriorating state by change of Bodies, is understood of a debilitative, diminutive, or privative, not depravative deterioration; the latter of which may be more injurious to the faculties of the Soul, though in the same Body, such a deteriorating change causing Frenzies and outrageous Madness. But as sor diminutive or privative deterioration by change, the Soul by changing her Aereal Vehicle for a Terrestrial, is (comparing her latter state with her former) much injured in her faculties or operations of them; all of them are more slow and stupid, and their aptitude to exert the same Phantasms of things that occurred to them in the other State, quite taken away, by reason of the heavy and dull, though orderly constitution of the Terrestrial Tenement; which weight and stupor utterly indisposes the Soul to recall into her mind the scene of her former state, this load perpetually swaying down her thoughts to the Objects of this.  
Nor does it at all follow, because Reason is not lost, therefore Memory, if there were any such thing as Pre-existence, would still abide. For the universal principles of Reason and Morality are essential to the Soul, and cannot be obliterated, no not by any death: but the knowledge of any particular external Objects is not at all essential to the Soul, nor consequently the memory of them; and th●…refore the Soul in the state of silence being stripped of them, cannot recover them in her incorporation into a Terrestrial Body. But her Reason, with the general principles thereof, being essential to her, she can, as well as this State will permit, ex●…rcise them upon the Objects of this Scene of the Earth and visible World, so far as it is discovered by her outward senses, she looking out at those windows of this her earthly Prison, to contemplate them. And she has the faculty and exercise of Memory still, in such a sense as she has of sensitive Perception, whose Objects she does remember, being yet to all former impresses in the other state a mere Abrasa Tabula.  
And lastly, it is a mere mistake of the Opposer, or worse, that he makes the Pre-existentiaries to impute the loss of memory in Souls of their former state, merely to their coming into other Bodies; when it is not bare change of Bodies, but their descent into worse Bodies more dull and obstupifying, to which they impute this loss of memory in lapsed Souls. This is a real death to them, according to that ancient Aenigm of that abstruse Sage, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We live their ●…eath, namely of separate Souls, but are dead to their life. But the changing of our Earthly Body for an Aereal or Aethereal, this is not Death, but Reviviscency, in which all the energies of the Soul are (not depressed, but) exalted, and our Memory with the rest quickened; as it was in Esdras after he had drunk down that Cup ofsered to him by the Angel, full of Liquor like Fire, which filled his Heart with Understanding, and strengthened his Memory, as the Text says.  
Thus we see how all Objections against the three Reasons of lapsed Souls losing the memory of the things of the other state, vanish into smoke. Wheresore they every one of them single being so sound, all three put together methinks should not fail of convincing the most refractory of this Truth, That though the Soul did pre-exist and act in another state, yet she may utterly forget all the Scenes thereof in this.  
Pag. 46. Now if the reasons why we lose the remembrance of our former life be greater, etc. And that they are so, does appear in our Answer to the Objections made against the said Reasons, if the Reader will consider them.  
Pag. 50. And thereby have removed all prejudices, etc. But there is yet one Reason against Pre-existence which the ingenious Author never thought of, urged by the Anti-Pre-existentiaries, namely, That it implies the rest of the Planets peopled with Mankind, it being unreasonable to think that all Souls descended in their lapse to this only Earth of Ours. And if there be lapsed Souls there, how shall they be recovered? shall Christ undergo another and another death for them? But I believe the ingenious Author would have looked upon this but as a mean and trifling Argument, there being no force in any part thereof. For why may not this Earth be the only Hospital, Nosocomium or Coemeterium, speaking Platonically, of sinfully lapsed Souls? And then suppose others lapsed in other Planets, what need Christ die again for them, when one drop of his Blood is sufficient to save myriads of Worlds? Whence it may seem a pity there is not more Worlds than this Earth to be redeemed by it. Nor is it necessary they should historically know it. And if it be, the Eclipse of the Sun at his Passion by some inspired Prophets might give them notice of it, and describe to them as orderly an account of the Redemption, as Moses does of the Creation, though he stood not by while the World was framed, but it was revealed to him by God. And lastly, it is but a rash and precarious Position, to say that the infinite Wisdom of God has no more ways than one to save lapsed Souls. It is sufficient that we are assured that this is the only way for the saving of the Sons of Adam; and these are the fixed bounds of revealed Truth in the Holy Scripture which appertains to us Inhabitants on Earth. But as for the Oeconomy of his infinite Wisdom in the other Planets, if we did but reflect upon our absolute ignorance thereof, we would have the discretion not to touch upon that Topick, unless we intended to make ourselves ridiculous, while we endeavour to make others so.  
Chap. 6. pag. 51. Now as the infinite goodness of the Deity obligeth him always to do good, so by the same to do that which is best, etc. To elude the force of this chief Argument of the Pre-existentiaries, an ingenious Opposer has devised a way which seems worth our considering, which is this; viz. By making the Idea of God to consist mainly in Dominion and Sovereignty, the Scriptures representing him under no other notion than as the Supreme Lord and Sovereign of the Universe. Wherefore nothing is to be attributed to him that enterferes with the uncontroulableness of his Dominion. And therefore, says he, they that assert Goodness to be a necessary Agent that cannot but do that which is best, directly supplant and destroy all the Rights of his Power and Dominion. Nay, he adds afterwards, That this notion of God's goodness is most apparently inconsistent, not only with his Power and Dominion, but with all his other moral Perfections. And for a further explication of his mind in this matter, he adds afterwards, That the Divine Will is endued with the highest kind of liberty, as it imports a freedom not only from foreign Violence, but also from inward Necessity: For spontaneity, or immunity from coaction, without indifferency, carries in it as great necessity as those motions that proceed from Violence or Mechanism. From whence he concludes, That the Divine Will cannot otherwise be determined than by its own intrinsic energy. And lastly, Forasmuch as no Courtesy can oblige, but what is received from one that had a power not to bestow them, if God necessarily acted according to his Goodness, and not out of mere choice and liberty of Will, there were no thanks nor praise due to him; which therefore would take away the duties of Religion. This is the main of his Hypothesis, whereby he would defeat the force of this Argument for the Pre-existence of Souls, taken from the Goodness of God. Which this Hypothesis certainly would do, if it were true; and therefore we will briefly examine it.  
First therefore I answer, That though the Scriptures do frequently represent God as the Lord and Sovereign of the Universe, yet it does not conceal his other Attributes of Goodness and Mercy, and the like. But that the former should be so much inculcated, is in reference to the begetting in the People Awe and Obedience to him. But it is an invalid consequence, to draw from hence that the Idea of God does mainly consist in Dominion and Sovereignty; which abstracted from his other Attributes of Wisdom and Goodness, would be a very black and dark representation of him, and such as this ingenious Writer could not himself contemplate without aversation and horror. How then can the Idea of God chiefly consist in this? It is the most terrifying indeed, but not the most noble and accomplishing part in the Idea of the Deity.  
This Sovereignty than is such as is either bounded or not bounded by any other Attributes of God. If bounded by none, than he may do as well unwisely as wisely, unjustly as justly. If bounded by Wisdom and Justice, why is it bounded by them, but that it is better so to be than otherwise? And Goodness being as essential to God as Wisdom and Justice, why may not his Sovereignty be bounded by that as well as by the other, and so he be bound from himself of himself to do as well what is best as what is better. This consists with his absolute Sovereignty, as well as the other. And indeed what can be absolute Sovereignty in an intelligent Being, if this be not? viz. fully and entirely to follow the will and inclinations of its own nature, without any check or control of any one touching those over whom he rules.  
Whence, in the second place, it appears that the asserting that God's goodness is a necessary Agent (in such a sense as God's Wisdom and Justice are, which can do nothing but what is wise and just) the asserting, I say, that it cannot but do that which is the best, does neither directly nor indirectly supplant or destroy any Rights of his Power or Dominion, forasmuch as he does fully and plenarily act according to his own inclinations and will touching those that are under his Dominion. But that his Will is always inclined or determined to what is best, it is the Prerogative of the Divine Nature to have no other Wills nor Inclinations but such.  
And as for that in the third place, That this notion of God's Goodness is inconsistent with all his other moral Perfections, I say, that it is so far from being inconsistent with them, that they cannot subsist without it, as they respect the dealings of God with his Creatures. For what a kind of Wisdom or Justice would that be that tended to no good? But I suspect his meaning is by moral Perfections, Perfections that imply such a power of doing or not doing, as is in humane actions; which if it be not allowed in God, his Perfections are not moral. And what great matter is it if they be not, provided they be as they are and aught to be, Divine? But to fancy moral actions in God, is to admit a second kind of Anthropomorphitism, and to have unworthy conceits of the Divine Nature. When it was just and wise for God to do so or so, and the contrary to do otherwise, had he a freedom to decline the doing so? Then he had a freedom to do unjustly and unwisely.  
And yet in the fourth place he contends for the highest kind of liberty in the Divine Will, such as imports a freedom not only from foreign Violence, but also from inward Necessity, as if the Divine Will could be no otherwise determined, than by its own intrinsic Energy, as if it willed so because it willed so; which is a sad principle. And yet I believe this learned Writer will not stick to say, that God cannot ●…ye, cannot condemn myriads of innocent Souls to eternal Torments. And what difference betwixt Impossibility and Necessity? For Impossibility itself is only a Necessity of not doing; which is here internal, arising from the excellency and absolute perfection of the Divine Nature. Which is nothing like Mechanism for all that; Forasmuch as it is from a clear understanding of what is best, and an unbiased Will, which will most certainly follow it, nor is determined by its own intrinsic Energy. That it is otherwise with us, is our imperfection.  
And lastly, That Beneficence does not oblige the Receiver of it to either Praise or Thanksgiving when it is received from one that is so essentially good, and constantly acts according to that principle, when due occasion is offered, as if it were as absurd as to give thanks to the Sun for shining when he can do no otherwise; I say, the case is not alike, because the Sun is an inanimate Being, and has neither Understanding nor Will to approve his own action in the exerting of it. And he being but a Creature, if his shining depended upon his Will, it is a greater perfection than we can be assured would belong to him, that he would unfailingly administer Light to the World with such a steadiness of Will, as God sustains the Creation.  
Undoubtedly all Thanks and Praise is due to God from us, although he be so necessarily good, that he could not but create us and provide for us; forasmuch as he has done this for our sakes merely (he wanting nothing) not for his own. Suppose a rich Christian so enured to the works of Charity, that the Poor were as certain of getting an Alms from him, as a Traveller is to quench his thirst at a public Spring near the Highway; would those that received Alms from him think themselves not obliged to Thanks? It may be you will say, they will thank him, that they may not forfeit his Favour another time. Which Answer discovers the spring of this Misconceit, which seems founded in self-love, as if all Duty were to be resolved into that, and as if there were nothing owing to another, but what implied our own profit. But though the Divine Goodness acts necessarily▪ yet it does not blindly, but according to the Laws of Decorum and Justice; which those that are unthankful to the Deity, may find the smart of. But I cannot believe the ingenious Writer much in earnest in these points, he so expressly declaring what methinks is not well consistent with them. For his very words are these: God can never act contrary to his necessary and essential properties, as because he is essentially wise, just and holy, he can do nothing that is foolish, unjust, and wicked. Here therefore I demand, Are we not to thank him and praise him for his actions of Wisdom, Justice, and Holiness, though they be necessary?  
And if Justice, Wisdom, and Holiness, be the essential properties of God, according to which he does necessarily act and abstain from acting, why is not his Goodness? when it is expressly said by the Wisdom of God incarnate, None is good save one, that is God. Which must needs be understood of his essential Goodness. Which therefore being an essential property as well as the rest, he must necessarily act according to it. And when he acts in the Scheme of Anger and Severity, it is in the behalf of Goodness; and when he imparts his Goodness in lesser measures as well as in greater, it is for the good of the Whole, or of the Universe. If all were Eye, where were the Hearing, etc. as the Apostle argues? So that his Wisdom moderates the prompt outflowing of his Goodness, that it may not outflow so, but that in the general it is for the best. And therefore it will follow, that if the Pre-existence of Souls comply with the Wisdom, Justice, and Holiness of God, that▪ none of these restrain his prompt and parturient Goodness, that it must have caused humane Souls to pre-exist or exist so soon as the Spirits of Angels did. And he must have a strange quicksightedness that can discern any clashing of that act of Goodness with any of the abovesaid Attributes.  
Chap. 7. pag. 56. God never acts by mere Will or groundless Humour, etc. We men have unaccountable inclinations in our irregular and depraved Composition, have blind lusts or desires to do this or that, and it is our present ease and pleasure to fulfil them; and therefore we fancy it a privilege to be able to execute these blind inclinations of which we can give no rational account, but that we are pleased by fulfilling them. But it is against the Purity, Sanctity, and Perfection of the Divine Nature, to conceive any such thing in Him; and therefore a weakness in our Judgements to fancy so of him, like that of the Anthropomorphites, that imagined God to be of Humane shape.  
Pag. 59 That God made all things for himself. It is ignorance and ill nature that has made some men abuse this Text to the proving that God acts out of either an humourous or selfish principle, as if he did things merely to please himself as self, not as he is that sovereign unself-inreressed Goodness, and perfect Rectitude, which ought to be the measure of all things. But the Text implies no such matter▪ For if you make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Compound of a Preposition and Pronoun, that so it may signify [for himself] which is no more than propter se, it then will import that he made all things to satisfy his own Will and Pleasure, whose Will and Pleasure results from the richness of his eternal Goodness and Benignity of Nature, which is infinite and ineffable, provided always that it be moderated by Wisdom, Justice, and Decorum. For from hence his Goodness is so stinted or modified, that though he has made all things for his own Will and Pleasure who is infinite Goodness and Benignity, yet there is a day of Evil for the Wicked, as it follows in the Text, because they have not walked answerably to the Goodness that God has offered them; and therefore their punishment is in behalf of abused Goodness. And Bayns expressly interprets this Text thus: Universa propter seipsum fecit Dominus; that is, says he, Propter bonitatem suam; juxta illud Augustini, DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA, Quia bonus est Deus, sumus & in quantum sumus boni sumus.  
But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be a Compound of a Participle and a Pronoun, and then it may signify [for them that answer him] that is, walk anserably to his Goodness which he affords them, or [for them that obey him] either way it is very good sense. And then in opposition to these, it is declared, that the Wicked, that is, the Disobedient or Despisers of his Goodness, he has (not made them wicked, but they having made themselves so) appointed them for the day of Evil. For some such Verb is to be supplied as is agreeable to the matter, as in that passage in the Psalms; The Sun shall not burn thee by day, neither the Moon by night. Where [burn] cannot be repeated, but some other more suitable Verb is to be supplied.  
Chap. 8. pag. 63. Since all other things are inferior to the good of Being. This I suppose is to be understood in such a sense as that saying in Job, Skin for skin, and all that a man has, will he give for his life. Otherwise the condition of Being may be such, as it were better not to be at all, whatever any dry-fancied Metaphysicians may dispute to the contrary.  
Pag. 67. Indeed they may be morally immutable and illapsable; but this is Grace, not Nature, etc. Not unless the Divine Wisdom has essentially interwoven it into the natural constitution of our Souls, that as after such a time of the exercise of their Plaistick on these Terrestrial Bodies, they, according to the course of Nature, emerge into a plain use of their Reason, when for a time they little differed from Brutes; so after certain periods of time well improved to the perfecting their Nature in the sense and adherence to Divine things, there may be awakened in them such a Divine Plastic faculty, as I may so speak, as may eternally fix them to their Celestial or Angelical Vehicles, that they shall never relapse again. Which Faculty may be also awakened by the free Grace of the Omnipotent more maturely: Which if it be, Grace and Nature conspire together to make a Soul everlastingly happy. Which actual Immutability does no more change the species of a Soul, than the actual exercise of Reason does after the time of her stupour in Infancy and in the Womb.  
Pag. 67. I doubt not but that it is much better for rational Creatures, etc. Namely, such as we experience our humane Souls to be. But for such kind of Intellectual Creatures as have nothing to do with matter, they best understand the privileges of their own state, and we can say nothing of them. But for us under the conduct of our faithful and victorious Captain, the Soul of the promised Messias, through many Conflicts and Trials to emerge out of this lapsed state, and regain again the possession of true Holiness and Virtue, and therewith the Kingdom of Heaven with all its Beauty and Glories, will be such a gratification to us, that we had never been capable of such an excess thereof, had we not experienced the evils of this life, and the vain pleasures of it, and had the remembrance of the endearing sufferings of our blessed Saviour, of his Aids and Supports, and of our sincere and conscientious adhering to him, of our Conflicts and Victories to be enroled in the eternal Records of the other World.  
Pag. 69. Wherefore as the Goodness of God obligeth him not to make every Planet a fixed Star, or every Star a Sun, etc. In all likelihood, as Galilaeus had first observed, every fixed Star is a Sun. But the comparison is framed according to the conceit of the Vulgar. A thing neither unusual with, nor misbecoming Philosophers.  
Pag. 69. For this were to tie him to Contradictions, viz. to turn one specifical form or essence into another. Matter indeed may receive several modifications, but is still real Matter, nor can be turned into a Spirit; and so Spirits specifically different, are untransmutable one into another, according to the distinct Ideas in the eternal Intellect of God. For else it would imply that their essential properties were not essential properties, but loose adventitious Accidents, and such as the essence and substance of such a Spirit, could subsist as well without as with them, or as well with any others as with these.  
Pag. 69. That we should have been made peccable and liable to defection. And this may the more easily be allowed, because this defection is rather the affecting of a less good, than any pursuing of what is really and absolutely evil. To cavil against Providence for creating a Creature of such a double capacity, seems as unreasonable as to blame her for making Zooph●…ton's, or rather Amphibion's. And they are both to be permitted to live according to the nature which is given them. For to make a Creature fit for either capacity, and to tie him up to one, is for God to do repugnantly to the Workmanship of his own hands. And how little hurt there is done by experiencing the things of either Element to Souls that are reclaimable, has been hinted above. But those that are wilfully obstinate, and do despite to the Divine Goodness, it is not at all inconsistent with this Goodness, that they bear the smart of their obstinacy, as the ingenious Author argues very well.  
Chap. 9 pag. 73. Have asserted it to be impossible in the nature of the thing, etc. And this is the most solid and unexceptionable Answer to this Objection, That it is a Repugnancy in Nature, that this visible World that consists in the motion and succession of things, should be either ab aeterno, or insnite in extension. This is made ou●… clearly and amply in Dr. H. moor's Enchiridion Metaphysicum, cap. 10. which is also more briefly touched upon in his Advertisements upon Mr. Jos Glanvil's Letter written to him upon the occasion of the Stirs at Tedworth, and is printed with the second Edition of his Saducismus Triumphatus. We have now seen the most considerable Objections against this Argument from the Goodness of God for proving the Pre-existence of Souls, produced and answered by our learned Author.  
But because I find some others in an Impugner of the Opinion of Pre-existence urged with great confidence and clamour, I think it not amiss to bring them into view also, after I have taken notice of his acknowledgement of the peculiar strength of this Topick, which he does not only profess to be in truth the strongest that is made use of, but seems not at all to envy it its strength, while he writes thus.  
That God is infinitely good, is a Position as true as himself; nor can he that is furnished with the Reason of a man, offer to dispute it. Goodness constitutes his very Deity, making him to be himself: for could he be arrayed with all his other Attributes separate and abstract from this, they would be so f●…r from denominating him a God, that he would be but a prodigious Fiend, and plenipotentiary Devil This is something a rude and uncourtly Ass●…veration, and unluck●…y div●…on of the Godhead into two parts, and calling one part a Devil. But it is not to be imputed to any impiety in the Author of No-Pre-existence, but to the roughness and boarishness of his style, the texture whereof is not only Fustian, but over-often hard and stiff Buckram. He is not content to deny his assent to an Opinion, but he must give it disgraceful Names. As in his Epistle to the Reader, this darling Opinion of the greatest and divinest Sages of the World visiting of late the Studies of some of more than ordinary Wit and learning, he compares it to a Bug and sturdy Mendicant, that pretends to be some Person of Quality; but he like a skilful Beadle of Beggars, lifting up the skirts of her Veil, as his Phrase is, shows her to be a Counterfeit. How this busy Beadle would have behaved himself, if he had had the opportunity of lifting up the skirts of Moses' Veil when he had descended the Mount, I know not. I dare not undertake for him, but that according to the coarsness of his fancy he would have mistaken that lucid Spirit shining through the skin of Moses' face, for some fiery Fiend, as he has somewhere the Spirit of Nature for an Hobgoblin. But there is no pleasure in insisting upon the rudenesses of his style; he is best where he is most unlike himself, as he is here in the residue of his Description of the Divine Goodness.  
'Tis Goodness, says he, that is the Head and Glory of God's perfect Essence; and therefore when Moses importuned him for a Vision of his Glory, he engaged to display his Goodness to him. Could a man think that one that had engaged thus far for the infiniteness of God's Goodness, for its Headship over the other Attributes, for its Glory above the rest, nay for its Constitutiveness of the very Deity, as if this were the only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or God himself, the rest of Him divided from this, a prodigious Fiend, or plenipotentiary Devil, should prove the Author of No-Pre-existence a very contradiction to this Declaration? For to be able to hold No-Pre-existence, he must desert the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God, and betake himself to the Devil-part of him, as he has rudely called it, to avoid this pregnant proof for Pre-existence taken from the infinite Goodness of God. And indeed he has picked out the very worst of that black part of God to serve his turn, and that is Self will in the worst sense. Otherwise Goodness making God to be himself, if it were his true and genuine Self-will, it were the Will of his infinite Goodness, and so would necessarily imply Pre-existence.  
But to avoid the dint of this Argument, he declares in the very same Section for the Supremacy of the Will over the Goodness of the Divine Nature. Which is manifestly to contradict what he said before, That Goodness is the Head and Glory of God's perfect Essence. For thus Will must have a Supremacy over the Head of the Deity. So that there will be an Head over an Head, to make the Godhead a Monster. And what is most insufferable of all, That he has chosen an Head out of the Devil-part of the Deity, to use his own rude expression, to control and lord it over what is the only God himself, the rest a Fiend separate from this, according to his own acknowledgement. These things are so infinitely absurd, that one would think that he could have no heart to go about to prove them; and yet he adventures on it, and we shall briefly propose and answer what he produceth.  
And this Supremacy of the Will, saith he, over the Goodness of the Divine Nature, may be made out both by Scripture and other forcible Evidences. The Scriptures are three; the first, Psal. 135. 6. Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and in the earth, and in the seas, and in all deep places. Now if we remember but who this Lord is, viz. he whom Goodness makes to be himself, we may easily be assured what pleased him, namely, that which his Wisdom discerned to be the best to be done; and therefore it is very right, that whatsoever he pleased he should do throughout the whole Universe. The second place is Mat. 20. 15. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Yes I trow, every one must acknowledge that God has an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (for the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Original) to dispose of what is his own; and indeed all is his. No one has either a right or power to control him. But this does not prove that he ever disposes of any thing otherwise than according to his Wisdom and Goodness. If his Goodness be ever limited, it is limited by his Wisdom, but so then as discerning such a limitation to be for the best. So that the measure of Wisdoms determination is still Goodness, the only Head in the Divine Nature, to which all the rest is subordinate. For that there are different degrees of the Communication of the Divine Goodness in the Universe, is for the good of the Whole. It is sufficient to hint these things; it would require a Volume to enlarge upon them. And then for the last place, Exod. 33. 19 I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. This only implies that he does pro suo jure, and without any motive from any one but himself, communicate more of his Goodness to some Men or Nations than others. But that his Wisdom has not discovered this to be best for the whole constitution of things, I challenge any one to prove. But of this we shall have occasion to speak more afterward. These are the Scriptures.  
The other forcible Evidences are these: The first, The late Production of the World. The second, The patefaction of the Law but to one single People, namely, the Jews. The third, The timing the Messias' Nativity, and bringing it to pass, not in the World's Infancy or Adolescence, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Heb. 1. 2. in its declining Age. The fourth, The perpetuity of Hell, and interminableness of those Tortures which after this life shall incessantly vex the impious. The fifth and last, God's not perpetuating the Station of Pre-existent Souls, and hindering them from lapsing into these Regions of Sin and Death. These he pretends to be forcible Evidences of the Sovereignty of Gods Will over his Goodness, forasmuch as if the contrary to all these had been, it had been much more agreeable to the Goodness of God.  
As for the first of these forcible Arguments, we have disarmed the strength thereof already, by intimating that the World could not be ab aeterno. And if it could not be ab aeterno, but must commence on this side of Eternity, and be of finite years, I leave to the Opposer to prove that it has not been created as soon as it could be; and that is sufficient to prove that its late Production is not inconsistent with that principle, that God's Goodness always is the measure of his Actions. For suppose the World of as little continuance as you will, if it was not ab aeterno, it was once of as little; and how can we discern but that this is that very time which seems so little to us?  
As for the second, which seems to have such force in it, that he appeals to any competent Judge, if it had not been infinitely better that God should have apertly dispensed his Ordinances to all Mankind, than have committed them only to Israel in so private and clancular a manner; I say, it is impossible for any one to be assured that it is at all better. For first, If this Privilege which was peculiar, had been a Favour common to all, it had lost its enforcement that it had upon that lesser number. Secondly, It had had also the less surprising power with it upon others that were not Jews, who might after converse with that Nation, and set a more high price upon the Truths they had traveled for, and were communicated to them from that People. Thirdly, The nature of the thing was not fitted for the universality of Mankind, who could not be congregated together to see the Wonders wrought by Moses, and receive the Law with those awful circumstances from Mount Sinai or any Mount else. Fourthly, All things happened to them in Types, and themselves were a Type of the true Israel of God to be redeemed out of their Captivity under Sin and Satan, which was worse than any Egyptian Servitude: Wherefore it must be some peculiar People which must be made such a Type, not the whole World. Fifthly, Considering the great load of the Ceremonial Law which came along with other more proper Privileges of the Jews, setting one against another, and considering the freedom of other Nations from it, unless they brought any thing like it upon themselves, the difference of their Conditions will rather seem several Modifications of the communicated Goodness of God to his Creatures, than the neglecting of any: Forasmuch as, sixthly and lastly, though all Nations be in a lapsed condition, yet there are the Relics of the Eternal Law of Life in them. And that things are no better with any of them than they are, that is a thousand times more rationally resolved into their demerits in their pre-existent state than into the bare Will of God, that he will have things for many Ages thus squalid and forlorn, merely because he will. Which is a Woman's Reason, and which to conceive to belong to God, the Author of No-Pre-existence has no reason, unless he will allege that he was styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Ancients for this very cause.  
Wherefore the Divine Nemesis lying upon the lapsed Souls of men in this Terrestrial State, whose several Delinquencies in the other World and the degrees thereof God alone knows, and according to his Wisdom and Justice disposes of them in this: It is impossible for any one that is not half crazed in his Intellectuals, to pretend that any Acts of Providence that have been since this Stage of the Earth was erected, might have been infinitely better otherwise than they have been, or indeed better at all. 
Power, Wisdom, Goodness, sure did frame  
This Universe, and still guide the same;  
But thoughts from Passion sprung, deceive  
Vain Mortals: No man can contrive  
A better course than what's been run  
Since the first circuit of the Sun.  This Poetical Rapture has more solid truth in it than the dry Dreams and distorted Fancies, or Chimerical Metamorphoses of earthly either Philosophers or Theologs, that prescinding the rest of the Godhead from his Goodness, make that remaining part a foul Fiend or Devil; and yet almost with the same breath pronounce the Will of this Devil of their own making, which is the most poisonous part of him, to have a Supremacy o●…er the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, over the Divine Goodness; which makes God to be Himself, that is, to be God, and not a plenipotentiary Devil. Wherefore we see from these few small hints, (for it were an infinite Argument fully to prosecute) how feeble or nothing forcible this second Evidence is.  
Now for the third Evidence, The timing of the Messiah's Nativity, That it was not in the Infancy of the World, but rather in its declining Age, or in the latter times. In which times the Ancient of Days, according to his counsel and purpose, (which the Eternal Wisdom that was to be incarnate assented and subscribed to) sent his Son into the World, the promised Messiah. This did the Ancient of Days and the Eternal Wisdom agree upon. But oh the immense Privilege of Tou●…h and Confidence! The Author of No-Pre existence says, it had been better by far, if they had agreed upon the Infancy of the World. As if this young Divine were wiser than the Ancient of Days, or the Eternal Wisdom itself. ay, but he will modestly reply. That he acknowledges that the Ancient of Days and the Eternal Wisdom are wiser than he, but that they would not make use of their Wisdom. They saw as clearly as could be, that it was far better that the Messiah should come in the Infancy of the World; but the Father would not send him then, merely because he would not send him: That his Will might act freely as mere Will prescinded from Wisdom and Goodness. This is the plain state of the business, and yet admitted by him, who with that open freeness and fullness professes, that 〈◊〉 the Divine Goodness from the Godhead, what remains is a prodigious Fiend or Devil. What is then mere Will and Power left alone, but a blind Hurricane of Hell? which yet must have the Supremacy, and overpower the Divine Wisdom and Goodness itself. His Zeal against. Pre-existence has thus infatuated and blinded this young Writers Intellectuals, otherwise he had not been driven to these Absurdities, if he had been pleased to admit that Hypothesis.  
As also that Wisdom and Justice, and Fitness and Decorum attend the Dispensation of Divine Goodness; so that it is not to be communicated to every Subject after the most ample manner, nor at every time, but at such times, and to such Subjects, and in such measures as, respecting the whole compages of things, is for the best. So that Goodness ●…ears the Sovereignty, and according to that Rule, perpetually all things are administered, though there be a different Scene of things and particulars in themselves vastly varying in Goodness and Perfection one from another as the parts of the Body do. And so for Times and Ages, every season of the year yield different Commodities: nor are we to expect Roses in Winter, nor Apples and Apricocks in Spring. Now the infinite and incomprehensible Wisdom of God comprehending the whole entire Scene of his Providence, and what references there are of one thing to another, that this must be thus and thus, because such and such things preceded: and because such things are, such and such must be consequent; which things past and to come lie not under our eye: I say, if this hasty Writer had considered this, he need not have been driven to such a rude solution of this present Problem, why the Messiah came no sooner into the World, viz. Merely because God willed it should be so, though it had been far better if it had been otherwise; but he would have roundly confessed, that undoubtedly this was the best time and the fittest, though it was past his reach to discover the reasons of the fitness thereof.  
This as it had been the more modest, so it had been the more solid solution of this hard Problem. I but then it had not put a bar to this irrefragable Argument from the Goodness of God, for proving Pre-existence: Which he is persuaded in his own Conscience is no less than a demonstration, unless it be acknowledged that the Will of God has a Supremacy over his Goodness; and therefore in spite to that abhorred Dogma of Pre-existence, he had rather broach such wild stuff against the glory of God, than not to purchase to himself the sweet conceit of a glorious victory over such an Opinion that he has taken a groundless toy against, and had rather adventure upon gross Blasphemies than entertain it.  
The devout Psalmist, Psal. 36. speaking of the Decrees of God and his Providence over the Creation, Thy righteousness, says he, is as the great mountains, thy judgements are a great deep. And St. Paul, Rom. 11. after he has treated of intricate and amazing points, cries out, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God How unsearchable are his judgements, and his ways past finding out! Now according to the rudeness of our young Writer, there is no such depth of Wisdom, or unsearchablen●…ss in the Judgements and Decrees of God and his Providences in the World that most amaze us, but the reasons of them lie very obvious and shallow. Where we fancy that things might have been better otherwise, (though of never so grand import, as the coming of the Messiah is) it is easily resolved into the Supremacy of the Will of God, which it has over his Wisdom and Goodness. He willed it should be so, because he would it should be so, though it had been sar better if the Messiah had come sooner. But see the difference betwixt an inspired Apostle, and a young hotheaded Theologist: This latter resolves these unsearchable and unintelligible Decrees of God and passag●…s of Providence, into the mere Will of God, lording it over the Divine Wisdom and Goodness: But the Apostle, by how much more unsearchable his Judgements and Decrees are, and the ways of his Providence past finding our, the greater he declares the depth of the richness of his Wisdom, which is so ample, that it reaches into ways and methods of doing for the best beyond the Understandings of men. For most assuredly, while the depth of the Wisdom of God is acknowledged to carry on the ways of Providence, it must be also acknowledged that it acts like itself, and chooseth such ways as are best, and most comporting with the Divine Goodness; or else it is not an act of Wisdom, but of Humour or Oversight.  
But it may be the Reader may have the curiosity to hear briesly what those g●…at Arguments are, that should induce this young Writer so confidently to pronounce, that it had been far better that the Messiah should have come in the Infancy of the World, than in the times he came. The very quintessence of the force of his arguing extracted out of the verbosity of his affected style, is neither more nor less than this: That the World before the coming of Christ, who was to be the Light of the World, was in very great Darkness; and therefore the sooner he came, the better. But to break the assurance of this Arguer for the more early coming of Christ,  
First, we may take notice out of himself, chap. 3. That the Light of Nature is near akin not only to the Mosaic Law, but ●…o the Gospel itself; and that even then there were the assistances of the Holy Ghost to carry men on to such virtuous Accomplishments as might avail them to eternal Salvation. This he acknowledges probable, and I have set it down in his own words. Whence considering what a various Scene of things there was to be from the Fall of Adam to the end of the World, it became the great and wise Dramatist not to bring upon the Stage the best things in the first Act, but to carry on things pompously and by degrees; something like that Saying of Elias, Two thousand years under the Light of Nature, two thousand under the Law, and then comes the Nativity of the Messiah, and after a due space the happy Millennium, and then the Final Judgement, the completed Happiness of the Righteous in Heaven, and the Punishment of the Wicked in Hell-fire. But to hasten too suddenly to the best, is to expect Autumn in Spring, and Virility or Old Age in Infancy or Childhood, or the Catastrophe of a Comedy in the first Act.  
Secondly, we may observe what a weak Disprover he is of Pre-existence, which like a Giant would break in upon him, were it not that he kept him out by this false Sconce of the Supremacy of the Divine Will over his Wisdom and Goodness; which Conceit, how odious and impious it is, has been often enough hinted already. But letting Pre-existence take place, and admitting that there is, according to Divine Providence, an orderly insemination of lapsed Souls into humane Bodies, through the several Ages of the World, whose lapses had several circumstantial differences, and that men therefore become differently sitted Objects of Grace and Favour; how easy is it to conceive God according to the fitnesses of the generality of Souls in such or such periods of times, as it was more just, agreeable, or needful for them, so and in such measures to have dispensed the Gifts of his ever-watchful and all-comprehending Providence to them, for both time and place. This one would think were more tolerable than to say, That God wills merely because he wills; which is the Character of a frail Woman, rather than of a God, or else, as this Writer himself acknowledges, of a Fiend or Devil. For such, says he, is God in the rest of his Attributes, if you seclude his Goodness. What then is that action which proceeds only from that part from which Goodness is secluded? So that himself has dug down the Sconce he would entrench himself in, and lets Pre-existence come in upon him, whether he will or no, like an armed Giant; whom let him abhor as much as he will, he is utterly unable to resist.  
And thirdly and lastly, Suppose there were no particular probable account to be given by us, by reason of the shortness of our Understandings▪ and the vast fetches of the all-comprehensive Providence of God, why the coming of the Messiah was no earlier than it was; yet according to that excellent Aphorism in Morality and Politics, Optimè praesum●…ndum est de Magistratu, we should hope, nay ●…e assured it was the best that he came when he did, it being by the appointment of the infinite good and alwise God▪ and cry out wi●…h St. Paul, Oh the depth of the riches of both the wisdom and knowledge of God How unsearchable are his judgements, and his ways past finding out! And in the Psalmist, Thy judgements are like a great deep, O Lord, thou preservest man and beast. And so acknowledge his Wisdom and Goodness in the ordering his Creatures, even there where his ways are to our weak and scant Understandings most inexplicable and unsearchable. Which Wisdom and Goodness as we have all reason to acknowledge in all matters, so most of all in matters of the greatest concernment, that there most assuredly God wills not thus or thus merely because he wills, but because his Wisdom discerns that it is for the best. And this is sufficient to show the weakness of this third Evidence for proving the Supremacy of the Divine Will over his Wisdom an●… Goodness.  
His fourth Evidence is, The Perpetuity of Hell, and interminableness of those Tortures which after this life vex the Wicked. For, says he, had the penalties of men's sins here been rated by pure Goodness, free and 〈◊〉 by any other principle, it is not pro●…able that th●…y should have been punished by an eternal Calamity, the pleasures of them being 〈◊〉 and sugitive. Thu●… he argues, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the very same ●…ords; and there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that the ●…thority of God's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and ●…ro suo 〈◊〉, having the Supremacy over his Goodness, over-swayed the more benign Decree; and Will, because it would have it so, doomed sinners to these eternal Torments. But I would ask this Sophister, Did the Will of God in good earnest sentence sinners thus in Decree, merely because he willed it, not because it was either good or just? What a black and dismal Reproach is here cast upon the Divine Majesty! That he sentences sinners thus because he will, not because it is just. The sense whereof is, So he will do, right or wrong. But the Patriarch Abraham was of another mind, Shall not the Judge of the whole Earth do right? This he said even to God's face, as I may so speak. Wherefore God doing nothing but what is just, does nothing but what is also good. For Justice is nothing but Goodness modified.  
Not is it asserted by those that make Goodness the measure of God's Providence, that the modification and moderation thereof is not by his Wisdom and Justice. So that this Sophister pu●…s [pure] to Goodness, merely to obscure the s●…nce, and put a Fallacy upon his Reader. The sins of men here are not rated by pure Goodness, but by that modification of Goodness which is termed Justice; which is not a distinct principle from Goodness, but a branch thereof, or Goodness itself under such a modification, not mere Will acting because it will, right or wrong, good or evil. Wherefore the state of the Question is not, whether the eternal Torments of Hell are consistent with the pure Goodness of God, but with his Justice. But if they are eternal merely from his Will, without any respect to Justice, his Will does will what is infinitely beyond the bounds of what is just, because endless is infinitely beyond that which has an end. Such gross Absurdities does this Opposer of Pre-existence run into, to fetch an Argument from the supposititious Supremacy of the Will of God over his Wisdom and Goodness.  
But as touching the Question rightly proposed, whether the Perpetuity of Hell to sinners consists with the Justice of God, a man ought to be chary and wary how he pronounces in this point, that he slip not into what may prove disadvantageous to the Hearer. For there are that will be scandalised, and make it serve to an ill end, whether one declare for eternal Torments of Hell, or against them. Some being ready to conclude from their Eternity, that Religion itself is a mere Scarecrow that frights us with such an incredible Mormo; others to indulge to their Pleasures, because the Comm●…tion is not frightful enough to deter them from extravagant Enjoyments, if Hell Torments be not eternal. But yet I cannot but deem it a piece of great levity in him that decided the Controversy, as the complesant Parson did that about the Maypole; they of his Parish that were for a Maypole, let them have a Maypole; but they that were not for a Maypole, let them have no Maypole. But this in sobriety one may say, that the use of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Scripture is indifferent to signify either that which is properly everlasting, or that which lasts a long time. So that by any immediate infallible Oracle, we are not able to pronounce for the Eternity or Perpetuity of Hell-torments. And the Creeds use the phrase of Scripture, and so some may think that they have the same latitude of interpretation. But it is the safest to adhere to the sense of the Catholic Church, for those that be bewildered in such Speculations.  
But what the Writer of No-Pre-existence argues from his own private Spirit, though it be not inept, yet it is not over-firm and solid. But that the Penancies of Reprobates are endless, I shall ever thus persuade myself, saith he, either the Torments of Hell are eternal, or the Felicities of Heaven are but temporary (which I am sure they shall never be:) for the very same word that is used to express the permanence of the one, measures out the continuance of the other; and if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denotes everlasting life, a blessedness that shall never end, (Mat. 25. ult.) what can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same verse signify, but perpetual punishment, a misery that shall never cease? This is pretty handsomely put together, but as I said, does not conclude firmly what is driven at. For it being undeniably true that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies as well that which only is of a long continuance, as what is properly everlasting; and it being altogether rational, that when words have more significations than one, that signification is to be applied that is most agreeable to the subject it is predicated of, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that higher sense of property and absolutely everlasting, not being applicable to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but upon this Writers monstrous supposition that the Will of God has a Supremacy over his Wisdom, Goodness, and Justice (as if the righteous God could act against his own Conscience, which no honest man can do) it is plain, that though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signify properly everlasting, that there is no necessity that it should signify so in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but have that other signification of long continuance, though not of everlastingness, and that continuance so long, as if considered, would effectually rouse any man out of his sins; and Eternity not considered, will not move him. This one would think were enough to repress the confidence of this young Writer.  
But I will add something more out of his fellow Anti-Pre-existentiary. That Comminations are not, though Promises be obligatory. Forasmuch as in Comminations the Comminator is the Creditor, and he that is menaced the Debtor that owes the punishment (with which that Latin Phrase well agrees, dare poena●…) but in Promises, he that promiseth becomes Debtor, and he to whom the Promise is made, Creditor. Whence the Promiser is plainly obliged to make good his Promise, as being the Debtor: But the Comminator, as being the Creditor, is not obliged to exact the punishment, it being in the power of any Creditor to remit the Debt owing him if he will. Wherefore in this Commination of eternal fire, or everlasting punishment, though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signify here properly everlasting, as well as in everlasting life, yet because this latter is a Promise, the other only a Commination, it does not follow, that as surely as the Righteous shall be rewarded with everlasting life, so surely shall the Wicked be punished with everlasting fire, in the most proper and highest extent of the signification of the word. Because God in his Comminations to the Wicked is only a Creditor, and has still a right and power to remit either part or the whole Debt; but to the Righteous, by virtue of his Promise, he becomes a Debtor, and cannot recede, but must punctually keep his word.  
To all which I add this Challenge: Let this Writer, or any else if they can, demonstrate that a Soul may not behave herself so perversely, obstinately, and despitefully against the Spirit of Grace, that she may deserve to be made an everlasting Hackstock of the Divine Nemesis, even for ever and ever. And if she deserve it, it is but just that she have it; and if it be just, it is likewise good. For Justice is nothing else but Goodness modified in such fort, as Wisdom and sense of Decorum sees fittest. But the Election of Wisdom being always for the best, all things considered, it is plain that Justice and the execution thereof, is for the best; and that so Goodness, not mere Will upon pretence of having a Supremacy over Goodness, would be the measure of this sentencing such obdurate sinners to eternal punishment. And this eternal punishment as it is a piece of vindicative Justice upon these obdurate sinners, so it naturally contributes to the establishment of the Righteous in their Celestial Happiness. Which, this Opposer of Pre-existence objects somewhere, if Souls ever fell from, they may fall from it again. But these eternal Torments of Hell, if they needed it, would put a sure bar thereto. So that the Wisdom and Goodness also of God is upon this account concerned in the eternal punishments of Hell, as well as his Justice. That it be to the unreclaimable, as that Orphick Hemistichium calls it, 
— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.   
The fifth and last forcible Argument, as he calls them, for the proving the Sovereignty of Gods Will over his Goodness, is this. If God's Goodness, saith he, be not under the command of his Will, but does always what is best, why did it not perpetuate the Station of Pre-existent Souls, and hinder us (if ever we were happy in a sublimer state) from lapsing into these Regions of Sin and Death? But who does not at first sight discern the weakness of this Allegation? For it is plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an absurd thing, and contrary to Reason, to create such a species of Being, whose nature is free and mutable, and at the first dash to damn up or stop the exercise of that freedom and capacity of change, by confining it to a fixed Station. As ridiculous as to suppose a living Creature made with wings and feet, and yet that the Maker thereof should take special care it should never fly nor go. And so likewise, that the mere making of such an Order of Being's as have a freedom of Will, and choice of their Actions, that this is misbecoming the Goodness of God, is as dull and idiotical a conceit, and such as implies that God should have made but one kind of Creature, and that the most absolutely and immutably happy that can be, or else did not act according to his Goodness, or for the best: Which is so obvious a Falsehood, that I will not confute it. But it is not hard to conceive that he making such a free-willed Creature as the Souls of men, simul cum mundo condito, and that in an happy condition, and yet not fixing them in that Station, may excellently well accord with the Sovereignty of his Goodness, nor any one be constrained to have recourse to the Supremacy of his Will over his Goodness, as if he did it because he would do it, and not because it was best.  
For what can this freedom of Will consist in so much as in a temptableness by other Objects that are of an inseriour nature, not so divine and holy as the other, to which it were the security of the Soul to adhere with all due constancy, and therefore her duty. But in that she is temptable by other Objects, it is a sign that her present enjoyment of the more Divine and Heavenly Objects, are not received of her according to their excellency, but according to the measure and capacity of her present state, which though very happy, may be improved at the long run, and in an orderly series of times and things, whether the Soul lapse into sin or no. For accession of new improvements increaseth Happiness and Joy. Now therefore, I say, suppose several, and that great numbers, even innumerable myriads of pre-existent Souls, to lapse into the Regions of Sin and Death, provided that they do not sin perversely and obstinately, nor do despite to the Spirit of Grace, nor refuse the advantageous offers that Divine Providence makes them even in these sad Regions, why may not their once having descended hither tend to their greater enjoyment, when they shall have returned to their pristine S●…tion? And why may not the specifical nature of the Soul be such, that it be essentially interwoven into our Being, that after a certain period of times or ages, whether she sin or no, she may arrive to a fixedness at last in her heavenly Station with greater advantage to such a Creature, than if she had been fixed in that state at first.  
The thing may seem least probable in those that descend into these Regions of Sin and Mortality. But in those that are not obstinate and refractory, but close with the gracious means that is offered them for their recovery, their having been here in this lower State, and retaining the memory (as doubtless they do) of the transactions of this Terrestrial Stage, it naturally enhances all the enjoyments of the pristine felicity they had lost, and makes them for ever have a more deep and vivid resentment of them. So that through the richness of the Wisdom and Goodness of God, and through the Merits and conduct of the Captain of their Salvation, our Saviour Jesus Christ, they are, after the strong conslicts here with sin and the corruptions of this lower Region, made more than Conquerors, and greater gainers upon the losses they sustained before from their own folly. And in this most advantageous state of things, they become Pillars in the Temple of God, there to remain for ever and ever. So that unless straying Souls be exceedingly perverse and obstinate, the exitus of things will be but as in a Tragic Comedy, and their perverseness and obstinacy lies at their own doors for those that finally miscarry, whose number this confident Writer is to prove to be so considerable that the enhanced happiness of the standing part of pre-existent Souls and the recovered does not far preponderate the infelicity of the others condition. Which if he cannot do, as I am confident he cannot, he must acknowledge, That God in not forcibly fixing pre-existent Souls in the state they were first created, but leaving them to themselves, acted not from the Supremacy of his Will over his Goodness, but did what was best, and according to that Sovereign Principle of Goodness in the Deity.  
And now for that snitling Dilemma of this eager Opposer of Pre-existence, touching the freedom of acting and mutability in humane Souls, whether this mutability be a Specific property and essential to them, or a separable Accident. For if it were essential, says he, then how was Christ a persect man, his humane nature being ever void of that lapsabilitie which is essential to humanity? and how come men to retain their specific nature still, that are translated to Celestial happiness, and made unalterable in the condition they then are? To this I answer, That the Pre-existentiaries will admit, that the Soul of the Messiah was created as the rest, though in an happy condition, yet in a lapsable; and that it was his peculiar merit, in that he so faithfully, constantly, and entirely adhered to the Divine Principle, incomparably above what was done by others of his Classis, not withstanding that he might have done otherwise; and therefore they will be forward to extend that of the Author to the Hebrews. chap. 1. v. 8. (Thy Throne, O God, is for ever and ever, the Sceptre of Righteousness is the Sceptre of thy Kingdom. Thou hast loved Righteousness, and hated Iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the Oil of Gladness above thy Fellows) to his behaviour in his pre-existent state, as well as in this. And whenever the Soul of Christ did exist, if he was like us in all things, sin only excepted, he must have a capacity of sinning, though he would not sin; that capacity not put into act being no sin, but an Argument of his Virtue, and such as if he was always devoid of, he could not be like us in all things, sin only excepted. For posse peccare non est peccatum.  
And as ●…or humane Souls changing their Species in their unalterable heavenly happiness, the Species is not then changed, but perfected and completed; namely, that faculty or measure of it in their Plastic, essentially latitant there, is by the Divine Grace so awakened, after such a series of time and things, which they have experienced, that now they are sirmly united to an heavenly Body or ethereal Vehicle for ever. And now we need say little to the other member of the Dilemma, but to declare, that free will, or mutability in humane Souls, is no separable Accident, but of the essential contexture of them; so as it might have its turn in the series of things. And how consistent it was with the Goodness of God and his Wisdom, not to suppress it in the beginning, has been sufficiently intimated above. Wherefore now forasmuch as there is no pretext that either the Wisdom or Justice of God should straighten the time of the creation of humane Souls, so that their existence may not commence with that of Angels, or of the Universe, and that this figment of the Supremacy of God's mere Will over his other Attributes is blown away, it is manifest that the Argument for the Pre-existence of Souls drawn from the Divine Goodness, holds firm and irrefragable against whatever Opposers.  
We have been the more copious on this Argument, because the Opposer and others look upon it as the strongest proof the Pre-existentiaries produce for their Opinion. And the other Party have nothing to set against it but a fictitious Supremacy of the Will of God over his Goodness and other Attributes. Which being their only Bulwark, and they taking Sanctuary nowhere but here, in my apprehension they plainly herein give up the cause, and establish the Opinion which they seem to have such an antipathy against. But it is high time now to pass to the next Chapter.  
Chap. 10. p. 75. To have contracted strong and inveterate habits to Vice and Lewdness, and that in various manners and degrees, etc. To the unbiased this must needs seem a considerable Argument, especially when the Parties thus irreclaimably profligate from their Youth, some as to one Vice, others to another, are found such in equal circumstances with others, and advantages, to be good; born of the same Parents, educated in the same Family, and the like. Wherefore having the same bodily Extraction, and the same advantages of Education, what must make this great difference as they grow up in the Body, but that their Souls were different before they came into it? And how should they have such a vast difference in the proclivity to Vice, but that they lived before in the state of Pre-existence, and that some were much deeper in rebellion against God and the Divine Reason, than others were, and so brought their different conditions with them into these Terrestrial Bodies?  
Pag. 75. Then how a Swallow should return to her old trade of living after her Winter sleep, etc. Indeed the Swallow has the advantages of Memory, which the incorporate Soul has not in her incorporation into a Terrestrial Body after her state of Silence. But the vital inclinations, which are mainly if not only ●…ted in the Plastic, being not only revived, but (signally vicious of themselves) revived with advantage, by reason of the corruption of this corpse earthly Body into which the Soul is incorporate, they cannot fail of discovering themselves in a most signal manner, without any help of memory, but from the mere pregnancy of a corrupt Body, and formerly more than ordinarily debauched Plastic in the state of Pre-existence.  
Pag. 76. Whenas others are as fatally set against the Opinions, etc. And this is done, as the ingenious Author takes notice, even where neither Education nor Custom have interposed to sophisticate their Judgements or Sentiments. Nay, it is most certain, that they sometime have Sentiments and entertain Opinions quite contrary to their Education. So that that is but a slight account, to restore this Phaenomenon into Education and Custom, whenas Opinions are entertained and stiffly maintained in despite of them. This I must confess implies that the aerial Inhabitants philosophise, but conjecturally only, as well as the Inhabitants of the Earth. And it is no wonder that such Spirits as are lapsed in their Morals, should be at a loss also in their Intellectuals; and though they have a desire to know the truth in Speculations, it suiting so well with their pride, that yet they should be subject to various errors and hallucinations as well as we, and that there should be different, yea opposite Schools of Philosophy among them. And if there be any credit to be given to Cardan's story of his Father Facius Cardanus, things are thus the facto in the aereal Regions. And two of the Spirits which Facius Cardanus saw in that Vision (left upon Record by him, and of which he often told his Son Hieronymus while he was living) were two Professors of Philosophy in different Academies; and were of different Opinions; one of them apertly professing himself to be an Aven-Roist. The story is too long to insert here. See Dr. H. Moor his Immortality of the Soul, book 3. chap. 17.  
So that lapsed Souls philosophising in their Aerial State, and being divided into Sects, and consequently maintaining their disserent or opposite Opinions with heat and affection which reaches the Plastic, this may leave a great propension in them to the same Opinions here, and make them almost as prone to such and such Errors, as to such and such Vices. This, I suppose, the ingenious Author propounds as an Argument credible and plausible, though he does not esteem it of like force with those he produced before. Nor does his Opposer urge any thing to any purpose against it. The main thing is, That these Propensities to some one Opinion are not universal, and blended with the constitution of every person, but are thin sown, and grow up sparingly. Where there are five, says he, naturally bend to any one Opinion, there are many millions that are free to all. If some, says he, descend into this life big with aptnesses and proclivities to peculiar Theories, why then should not all, supposing they pre-existed together, do the like? As if all in the other Aereal State were Professors of Philosophy, or zealous Followers of them that were. The solution of this difficulty is so easy, that I need not insist on it.  
Pag. 78. Were this difference about sensibles, the influence of the body might then be suspected for a cause, etc. This is very rationally alleged by our Author, and yet his Antagonist has the face from the observation of the diversity of men's Palates and Appetites, of their being differently affected by such and such strains of Music, some being pleased with one kind of Melody, and others with another, some pleased with Aromatic Odours, others offended with them, to reason thus: If the Body can thus cause us to love and dislike Sensibles, why not as well to approve and dislike Opinions and Theories? But the reason is obvious why not; because the liking or disliking of these Sensibles depends upon the grateful or ungrateful motion of the Nerves of the Body, which may be otherwise constituted or qualified in some complexions than in other some. But for Philosophical Opinions and Theories what have they to do with the motion of the Nerves? It is the Soul herself that judges of those abstractedly from the Senses, or any use of the Nerves or corporeal Organ. If the difference of our Judgement in Philosophical Theories be resolvible into the mere constitution of our Body, our Understanding itself will hazard to be resolved into the same Principle also: And Body will prove the only difference betwixt Men and Brutes. We have more intellectual Souls because we have better Bodies, which I hope our Author's Antagonist will not allow.  
Pag. 78. For the Soul in her first and pure nature has no Idiosyncrasies', &c. Whether there may not be certain different Characters proper to such and such Classes of Souls, but all of them natural and without blemish, and this for the better order of things in the Universe, I will not rashly decide in the Negative. But as the Author himself seems to insinuate, if there be any such, they are not such as fatally determine Souls to false and erroneous apprehensions. For that would be a corruption and a blemish in the very natural Character. Wherefore if the Soul in Philosophical Speculations is fatally determined to falsehood in this life, it is credible it is the effect of its being enured thereto in the other.  
Pag. 79. Now to say that all this variety proceeds primarily from the mere temper of our Bodies, etc. This Argument is the less valid for Pre-existence, I mean that which is drawn from the wonderful variety of our Genius's, or natural inclinations to the employments of life, because we cannot be assured but that the Divine Providence may have essentially, as it were, impressed such Classical Characters on humane Souls, as I noted before. And besides, if that be true which Menander says, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  That every man, as soon as he is born, has a Genius appointed him to be his Instructor and Guide of his Life: That some are carried with such an impetus to some things rather than others, may be from the instigations of his assisting Genius. And for that Objection of the Author's Antagonist against his Opinion touching those inclinations to Trades, (which may equally concern this Hypothesis of Menander) that it would then be more universal, every one having such a Genius; this truth may be smothered by the putting young people promiscuously to any Trade, without observing their Genius. But the Chineses suppose this truth, they commonly showing a Child all the Employs of the City, that he may make his own choice before they put him to any.  
But if the Opinion of Menander be true, that every man has his guardian Genius, under whose conduct he lives; the Merchant, the Musician, the Ploughman, and the rest; it is manifest that these Genii cannot but receive considerable impressions of such things as they guide their Clients in. And pre-existent Souls in their aereal estate being of the same nature with these Daemons or Genii, they are capable of the same Employment, and so tincture themselves deep enough with the affairs of those parties they preside over. And therefore when they themselves, after the state of Silence, ar●… incorporated into earthly Bodies, they may have a proneness from their former tincture to such methods of life as they lived over whom they did preside. Which quite spoils the best Argument our Author's Antagonist has against this Topick; which is, That there are several things here below which the Geniusses of men pursue and follow with the hottest chase, which have no similitude with the things in the other state, as Planting, Building, Husbandry, the working of Manufactures, etc. This best Argument of his, by Menander's Hypothesis, which is hard to confute, is quite defeated.  
And to deny nothing to this Opposer of Pre-existence which is his due, himself seems unsatisfied, in resolving these odd Phaenomena into the temper of Body. And therefore at last hath recourse to a secret Causality, that is, to he knows not what. But at last he pitches upon some such Principle as that whereby the Birds build their Nest, the Spider weaves her Webs, the Bees make their Combs, etc. Some such thing he says (though he cannot think it that prodigious Hobgoblin the Spirit of Nature) may produce these strange effects, may bias also the fancies of men in making choice of their Employments and Occupations. If it be not the Spirit of Nature, than it must be that Classical Character I spoke of above. But if not this, nor the preponderancies of the Pre-existent state, nor Menander's Hypothesis, the Spirit of Nature will bid the fairest for it of any besides, for determining the inclinations of all living Creatures in these Regions of Generation, as having in itself vitally, though not intellectually, all the Laws of the Divine Providence implanted into its essence by God the Creator of it. And speaking in the Ethnic Dialect, the same description may belong to it that Varro gives to their God Genius. Genius est Deus qui praepositus est, ac vim habet omnium rerum gignendarum, and that is the Genius of every Creature that is congenit to it in virtue of its generation. And that there is such a Spirit of Nature (not a God, as Varro vainly makes it, but an unintelligent Creature) to which belongs the Nascency or Generation of things, and has the management of the whole matter of the Universe, is copiously proved to be the Opinion of the Noblest and Ancientest Philosophers, by the learned Dr. R. Cudworth in his System of the Intellectual World, and is demonstrated to be a true Theorem in Philosophy by Dr. H. Moor in his Euchiridion Metaphysicum, by many, and those irrefutable Arguments; and yet I dare say both can easily pardon the mistake and bluntness of this rude Writer, nor are at all surprised at it as a Novelty, that any ignorant rural Hobthurst should call the Spirit of Nature (a thing so much beyond his capacity to judge of) a prodigious Hobgoblin.  
But to conclude, be it so that there may be other causes besides the pristine inurements of the Pre-existent Soul, that may something forcibly determine her to one course of life here, yet when she is most forcibly determined, if there be such a thing as Pre-existence, this may be rationally supposed to concur in the efficiency. But that it is not so strong an Argument as others to prove Pre-existence, I have hinted already.  
Pag. 79. For those that are most like in the Temper, Air, Complexion of their Bodies, etc. If this prove true, and I know nothing to the contrary, this vast difference of Genius's, were it not for the Hypothesis of their Classical Character imprinted on Souls at their very creation, would be a considerably tied Argument. But certainly it is more honest than for the avoiding Pre-existence to resolve the Phaenomenon into a secret Causality, that is to say, into one knows not what.  
Pag. 82. There being now no other way left but Pre-existence, etc. This is a just excuse for his bringing in any Argument by way of overplus that is not so apodictically concluding. If it be but such as will look like a plausible solution of a Phaenomenon (as this of such a vast difference of Genius's) Pre-existence once admitted, or otherwise undeniably demonstrated, the proposing thereof should be accepted with favour.  
Chap. 11. pag. 85. And we know our Saviour and his Apostles have given credit to that Translation, etc. And it was the authentic Text with the Fathers of the Primitive Church. And besides this, if we read according to the Hebrew Text, there being no object of Job's knowledge expressed, this is the most easy and natural sense: Knowest thou that thou wast then, and that the number of thy days are many? This therefore was reckoned amongst the rest of his ignorances', that though he was created so early, he now knew nothing of it. And this easy sense of the Hebrew Text, as well as that Version of the Septuagint, made the Jews draw it in to the countenancing of the Tradition of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, the Pre-existence of Souls, as Grotius has noted of them.  
Pag. 85. As reads a very credible Version. R. Menasse Ben Israel reads it so: [I gave thee Wisdom,] which Version, if it were sure and authentic, this place would be fit for the defence of the Opinion it is produced for. But no Interpreters besides, that I can find, following him, nor any going before him, whom he might follow, I ingenuously confess the place seems not of force enough to me to infer the conclusion. 
He read, I suppose, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Piel, whence he translated it,  
Indidi ●…ibi Sapientiam; but the rest read it in Cal.   
Pag. 86. And methinks that passage of our Saviour's Prayer, Father, glorify me with the glory I had before the World began, etc. This Text, without exceeding great violence, cannot be evaded. As for that of Grotius interpreting [that I had] that which was intended for me to have, though it make good sense, yet it is such Grammar as that there is no Schoolboy but would be ashamed of it; nor is there, for all his pretences, any place in Scripture to countenance such an extravagant Exposition by way of Parallelism, as it may appear to any one that will compare the places which he alleadges, with this; which I leave the Reader to do at his leisure. Let us consider the Context, Joh. 17. 4. I have glorified thee upon earth, during this my Pilgrimage and absence from thee, being ●…ent hither by thee. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do, and for the doing of which I was sent, and am thus long absent. And now, O Father, glorify me, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, apud teipsum, in thine own presence, with the glory which I had before the world was, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, apud te, or in thy presence. What can be more expressive of a Glory which Christ had apud Patrem, or at his Father's home, or in his presence before the world was, and from which for such a time he had been absent?  
Now for others that would salve the business by communication of Idioms, I will set down the words of an ingenious Writer that goes that way: Those Predicates, says he, that in a strict and ●…igorous acception agreed only to his Divine Nature, might by a communication of Idioms (as they phrase it) be attributed to his Humane, or at least to the whole Person compounded of them both, than which nothing is more ordinary in things of a mixed and heterogeneous nature, as the whole man is styled immortal from the deathlessness of his Soul: thus he. And there is the same reason if he had said that man was styled mortal (which certainly is far the more ordinary) from the real death of his Body, though his Soul be immortal. This is wittily excogitated. But now let us apply it to the Text, expounding it according to his communication of Idioms, affording to the Humane Nature what is only proper to the Divine, thus.  
Father, glorify me [my Humane Nature] with the glory that I [my Divine Nature] had before the world was. Which indeed was to be the Eternal, Infinite, and Omnipotent brightness of the Glory of the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. This is the Glory which his Divine Nature had before the World was. But how can his Humane Nature be glorified with that Glory his Divine Nature had before the world was, unless it should become the Divine Nature, that it might be said to have pre-existed? (But that it cannot be. For there is no confusion of the Humane and Divine Nature in the Hypostasis of Christ:) Or else because it is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature; but if that be the Glory, that he then had already, and had it not (according to the Opposers of Pre-existence) before the world was. So we see there is no sense to be made of this Text by communication of Idioms, and therefore no sense to be made of it without the Pre-existence of the Humane Nature of Christ. And if you paraphrase [me] thus, My Hypostasis consisting of my Humane and Divine Nature, it will be as untoward sense. For if the Divine Nature be included in [me] then Christ prays for what he has already, as I noted above. For the Glory of the eternal Logos from everlasting to everlasting, is the same, as sure as he is the same with himself.  
Pag. 86. By his expressions of coming from the Father, descending from Heaven, and returning thither again, etc. I suppose these Scriptures are alluded to, John 3. 13. 6. 38. 16. 28. I came down from Heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again I leave the world, and go to the Father. Whereupon his Disciples said unto him Lo now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no Parable. But it were a very great Parable, or Aenigm, that one should say truly of himself, that he came from Heaven, when he never was there. And as impossible a thing is it to conceive how God can properly be said to come down from Heaven, who is always present every where. Wherefore that in Christ which was not God, namely his Soul, or Humane Nature, was in Heaven before he appeared on Earth, and consequently his Soul did pre-exist. Nor is there any refuge here in the communication of Idioms. For that cannot be attributed to the whole Hypostasis, which is competent to neither part that constitutes it. For it was neither true of the Humane Nature of Christ, if you take away Pre-existence, nor of the Divine, that they descended from Heaven, etc. And yet John 3. 13, 14. where Christ prophesying of his Crucifixion and Ascension, saith, No man hath ascended up to Heaven, but he that came down from Heaven, even the Son of man, [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] who was in Heaven. So Erasmus saith, it may be rendered a Participle of the present tense, having a capacity to signify the time past, if the sense require it, as it seems to do here. Qui erat in Coelo, viz. antequam descenderat. So Erasmus upon the place.  
Wherefore these places of Scripture touching Christ being such inexpugnable Arguments of the Pre-existence of the Soul of the Messiah; the Writer of No Pre-existence, methinks, is no where so civil or discreet as in this point. Where, he says, he will not squabble about this, but readily yield that the Soul of Christ was long extant before it was incarnate. But then he presently flings dirt upon the Pre-existentiaries, as guilty of a shameful presumption and inconsequence, to conclude the Pre-existence of all other Humane Souls from the Pre-existence of his. Because he was a peculiar favourite of God was to undergo bitter sufferings for Mankind; and therefore should enjoy an happy Pre-existence for an Anti-praemium. And since he was to purchase a Church with his own most precious Blood, it was fit he should pre-exist from the beginning of the world, that he might preside over his Church as Guide and Governor thereof; which is a thing that cannot be said of any other soul beside.  
This is a device which, I believe, the Pre-existentiaries, good men, never dreamt of, but they took it for granted, that the creation of all Humane Souls was alike, and that the Soul of Christ was like ours in all things, sin only excepted; as the Emperor Justinian, in his Discourse to Menas Patriarch of Constantinople, argues from this very Topick to prove the Non-pre-existence of our Souls, from the Non-pre-existence of Christ's, he being like us in all things, sin only excepted. And therefore as to Existence and Essence there was no difference. Thus one would have verily thought to have been most safe and most natural to conclude, as being so punctual according to the declaration of Scripture, and order of things. For it seems almost as harsh and repugnant to give Angelical Existence to a Species not Angelical, as Angelical Essence. For according to them, it belongs to Angels only to exist a mundo condito, not to Humane souls. Let us therefore see what great and urgent occasions there are, that the Almighty should break this order.  
The first is, That he may remonstrate the Soul of the Messiah to be his most special Favourite. Why? That is sufficiently done, and more opportunely, if other souls pre-existed to be his corrivals. But his faithful adhesion above the rest to the Law of his Maker, as it might make him so great a Favourite: so that transcendent privilege of being hypostatically united with the Godhead, or Eternal Logos, would, I trow, be a sufficient Testimony of God's special Favour to him above all his fellow Pre-existent Souls.  
And then, which is the second thing for his Anti-praemial Happiness (though it is but an Hysteron Proteron, and preposterous conceit, to fancy wages before the work) had he less of this by the coexistence of other souls with him, or was it not rather the more highly increased by their coexistencie? And how oddly does it look, that one solitary Individual of a Species should exist for God knows how many ages alone? But suppose the soul of the Messiah, and all other souls created together, and several of them fallen, and the Soul of the Messiah to undertake their recovery by his sufferings, and this declared amongst them; surely this must hugely enhance his Happiness and Glory through all the whole order of Humane souls, being thus constituted or designed Head and Prince over them all. An●… thus, though he was rejected by the Jews and despised, he could not but be caressed and adored by his fellowsouls above, before his descent to this state of humiliation. And who knows but this might be part at least of that Glory which, he says, he had before the world was? And which this ungrateful world denied him, while he was in it, who crucified the Lord of life.  
And as for the third and last, That the Soul of the Messiah was to pre-exist, that he might preside over the Church all along from the beginning of it: What necessity is there of that? Could not the Eternal Logos and the Ministry of Angels sufficiently discharge that Province? But you conceive a congruity therein; and so may another conceive a congruity that he should not enter upon his Office till there were a considerable lapse of Humane Souls which should be his care to recover; which implies their Pre-existence before this stage of the Earth: And if the Soul of the Messiah, united with the Logos, presided so early over the Church; that it was meet that other unlapsed souls, they being of his own tribe, should be his Satellitium, and be part of those ministering Spirits that watch for the Churches good, and zealously endeavour the recovery of their sister-souls, under the conduct of the great Soul of the Messiah, out of their captivity of sin and death.  
So that every w●…y Pre-existence of other souls will handsomely fall in with the Pre-existence of the soul of the Messiah, that there may be no breach of order, whenas there is no occasion for it, nor violence done to the Holy Writ, which expressly declares Christ to have been like to us in all things (as well in Existence as Essence) sin only excepted; as the Emperor earnestly urges to the Patriarch Menas. Wherefore we finding no necessity of his particular pre-existing, nor convenience, but what will be doubled if other Souls pre-exist with him; it is plain, if he pre-exist, it is as he is an Humane soul, not as such a particular soul; and therefore what proves his soul to pre-exist, proves others to pre-exist also.  
Pag. 87. Since these places have been more diffusely urged in a late discourse to this purpose. I suppose he means in the Letter of Resolution concerning Origen, Where the Author opens the sense of Philip. 2. 6. learnedly and judiciously, especially when he acknowledges Christ's being in the form of God, to be understood of his Physical Union with the Divine Logos. Which is the Ancient Orthodox Exposition of the Primitive Fathers, they taking this for one notable Testimony of Scripture, for the Divinity of Christ. Whenas they that understand it Politically of Christ's Power and Authority only, take an excellent weapon out of the hands of the Church wherewith she used to oppose the Impugners of Christ's Divinity. But how can Christ being God (verus Deus, as Vatablus expounds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,) empty himself, or any way deteriorate himself as to his Divinity, by being incarnate, and taking upon him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the form of the terrestrial Adam? For every earthly man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Apostle seems to intimate, Rom. 8. 21. as this ingenious Writer has noted; and the Apostle likewise seems so to expound it in the Text, by adding presently by way of Exegesis, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and was made in the likeness of men; like that Gen. 5. 3. Adam begot a son in his own likeness, a terrestrial man as himself was. Wherefore the Incarnation of Christ being no exinanition to his Divinity, there was an Humanity of Christ, viz. his Soul, in a glorious state of Pre-existence, to which this voluntary exinanition belonged.  
Pag. 87. Was it for this man's sin, or his fathers, that he was born blind? For the avoiding the force of this Argument for proving that Pre-existence was the Opinion of the Jews; and that Christ when it was so plainly implied in the Question, by his silence, or not reproving it, seemed to admit it, or at least to esteem it no hurtful Opinion: They allege these two things: First, That these Enquirers having some notions of the Divine Prescience, might suppose that God foreknowing what kind of person this blind man would prove, had antedated his punishment. The other is, That the Enquirers may be conceived to understand the blind man's original sin. So that when they enquired whether the man was born blind for his own or his Parent's sin, they might only ask whether that particular Judgement was the effect of his Parents, or of his own original pravity. This is cameron's.  
But see what forced conceits Learned men will entertain, rather than not to say something on a Text. What a distorted and preposterous account is that found, that God should punish men before they sin, because he foresees they will sin? And he only produces this example, and a slight one too, That Jeroboams hand was dried up as he stretched it forth to give a sign to apprehend the Prophet. And the other is as fond an account, That God should send such severe Judgements on men for their original Pravity, which they cannot help. And original Pravity being so common to all, it could be no reason why this particular man should be born blind, more than others. Wherefore Grotius far more ingenuously writes thus upon the place: Quaerunt ergo an ipse peccaverit, quia multi Judaeorum credebant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 animarum. And as our Saviour Christ passed it for an innocent Opinion, so did the Primitive Church, the Book of Wisdom being an allowable book with them, and read in public, though it plainly declare for Pre-existence, Chap. 8. 20.  
Chap. 12. p. 93. Therefore let the Reader, if he please, call it a Romantic Scheme, or imaginary Hypothesis, etc. This is very discreetly and judiciously done of the Author, to propose such things as are not necessary members or branches of Pre-existence, and are but at the best conjectura●…, as no part of that otherwise-useful Theory. For by tacking too fast these unnecessary tufts or tassels to the main Truth, it will but give occasion to wanton or wrathful whelps to worry her, and tug her into the dirt by them. And we may easily observe how greedily they catch at such occasions, though it be not much that they can make out of them, as we may observe in the next Chapter.  
Chap. 13. pag. 96. Pill. 1. To conceive him as an immense and all-glorious Sun, that is continually communicating, etc. And this as certainly as the Sun does his light, and as restrainedly. For the Sun's light is not equally imparted to all subjects, but according to the measure of their capacity. And as Nature limits here in natural things, so does the Wisdom and Justice of God in free Creatures. He imparts to them as they capacitate themselves by improving or abusing their Freedom.  
Pag. 100 Pill. 3. Be resolved into a Principle that is not merely corporeal. He suspects that the descent of heavy bodies, when all is said and done, must be resolved into such a Principle. But I think he that without prejudice peruses the Eleventh and Thirteenth Chapters (with their Scholia) of Dr. Mores Enchiridion Metaphysicum, will find it beyond suspicion, that the Descent of heavy bodies is to be resolved into some corporeal Principle; and that the Spirit of Nature, though you should call it with the Cabalists by that astartling name of Sandalphon, is no such prodigious Hobgoblin, as rudeness and presumptuous ignorance has made that Buckram Writer in contempt and derision to call it.  
Pag. 101. As naturally as the fire mounts, and a stone descends. And as these do not so (though naturally) merely from their own intrinsic nature, but in virtue of the Spirit of the Universe; so the same reason there is in the disposal of Spirits. The Spirit of Nature will range their plastics as certainly and orderly in the Regions of the World, as it does the matter itself in all places. Whence that of Plotinus may fitly be understood, That a Soul enveigled in viciousness, both here and after death, according to her nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is thrust into the state and place she is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as if she were drawn thither by certain invisible or Magical strings of Natures own pulling. Thus is he pleased to express this power or virtue of the Spirit of Nature in the Universe. But I think that transposition she makes of them is rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, than either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a transvection of them, rather than pulsion or traction. But these are overnice Curiosities.  
Pag. 101. As likely some things relating to the state of Spirits, etc. That is to say, Spirits by the ministry of other Spirits may be carried into such regions as the Spirit of Nature would not have transmitted them to, from the place where they were before, whether for good or evil. Of the latter kind whereof, I shall have occasion to speak more particularly in my Notes on the next Chapter.  
Pag. 102. Pill. 4. The souls of men are capable of living in other bodies besides terrestrial; etc. For the Pre-existentiaries allow her successively to have lived, first, in an Ethereal body, then in an Aereal; and lastly, after the state of Silence, to live in a Terrestrial. And here I think, though it be something early, it will not be amiss to take notice what the Anti-pre-existentiaries allege against this Hypothesis; for we shall have the less trouble afterwards.  
First, therefore, they say, That it does not become the Goodness of God to make Man's Soul with a triple Vital Congruity, that will fit as well an Aereal and Terrestrial condition, as an Aethereal. For from hence it appears, that their Will was not so much in fault that they sinned, as the constitution of their Essence: And they have the face to quote the account of Origen, pag. 49. for to strengthen this their first Argument. The words are these: They being originally made with a capacity to join with this terrestrial matter, it seems necessary according to the course of nature that they should sink into it, & so appear terrestrialmen. And therefore, say they, there being no descending into these earthly bodies without a lapse or previous sin, their very constitution necessitated them to sin.  
The second Argument is, That this Hypothesis is inconsistent with the body's Resurrection. For the Aereal body immediately succeeding the Terrestrial, and the Aethereal the Aereal, the business is done, there needs no resuscitation of the Terrestrial body to be glorified. Nor is it the same numerical body or flesh still, as it ought to be, if the Resurrection-body be Aethereal.  
The third is touching the Aereal Body; That if the soul after death be tied to an Aereal body (and few or none attain to the Aethereal immediately after death) the souls of very good men will be forced to have their abode amongst the very Devils. For their Prince is the Prince of the Air, as the Apostle calls him; and where can his subjects be, but where he is? So that they will be enforced to endure the company of these foul Fiends; besides all the incommodious changes in the Air, of Clouds, of Vapours, of Rain, Hail, Thunder, tearing Tempests and Storms; and what is an Image of Hell itself, the darkness of Night will overwhelm them every four and twenty hours.  
The fourth Argument is touching the Aethereal state of Pre-existence. For if souls when they were in so Heavenly and happy an estate could lapse from it, what assurance can we have, when we are returned thither, that we shall abide in it? it being but the same Happiness we were in before: and we having the same Plastic with its triple Vital Congruity, as we had before. Why therefore may we not lapse as before?  
The fifth and last Argument is taken from the state of Silence. Wherein the Soul is supposed devoid of perception. And therefore their number being many, and their attraction to the place of conception in the Womb being merely Magical, and reaching many at a time, there would be many attracted at once; so that scarce a Foetus could be form which would not be a multiform Monster, or a cluster of Humane Foetus', not one single Foetus. And these are thought such weighty Arguments, that Pre-existence must sink and perish under their pressure. But, I believe, when we have weighed them in the balance of unprejudiced Reason, we shall find them light enough.  
And truly, for the first; It is not only weak and slight, but wretchedly disingenuous. The strength of it is nothing but a maimed and fraudulent Quotation, which makes ashew as if the Author of the Account of Origen, bluntly affirmed, without any thing more to do, that souls being originally made with a capacity to join with this terrestrial matter, it seems necessary, according to the course of nature, that they should sink into it, and so appear terrestrial men: Whenas if we take the whole Paragraph as it lies, before th●…y cast themselves into this fatal necessity, they are declared to have a freedom of will, whereby they might have so managed their happy Estate they were created in, that they need never have fallen. His words are these: What then remains, but that through the faulty and negligent use of themselves, whilst they were in some better condition of life, they rendered themselves less pure in the whole extent of their powers, both Intellectual and Animal; and so by degrees became disposed for the susception of such a degree of corporeal life, as was less pure, indeed, than the former; but exactly answerable to their present disposition of Spirit. So that after certain Periods of time they might become far less fit to actuate any sort of body, than the terrestrial; and being originally made with a capacity to join with this too, and in it to exercise the Powers and functions of life, it seems necessary, etc.  
These are the very words of the Author of the Account of Origen, wherein he plainly affirms, that it was the fault of the Souls themselves, that they did not order themselves then right when they might have done so, that cast them into this terrestrial condition. But what an Opposer of Pre-existence is this, that will thus shamelessly falsify and corrupt a Quotation of an ingenious Author, rather than he will seem to want an Argument against his Opinion! Wherefore briefly to answer to this Argument, It does as much become the Goodness of God to create souls with a triple Vital Congruity, as to have created Adam in Paradise with free Will, and a capacity of sinning.  
To the Second, the Pre-existentiaries will answer, That it is no more absurd to conceive (nor so much) that the soul after death hath an Airy body, or it may be some an Ethereal one, than to imagine them so highly happy after death without any body at all. For if they can act so fully and beatifically without any body, what need there be any Resurrection of the body at all? And if it be most natural to the soul to act in some body, in what a long unnatural estate has Adam's soul been, that so many thousand years has been without a body? But for the soul to have a body, of which she may be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, certainly is most natural, or else she will be in an unnatural state after the Resurrection to all Eternity. Whence it is manifest, that it is most natural for the soul, if she act at all, to have a body to act in. And therefore, unless we will be so dull as to fall into the drowsy dream of the Pyschopannychites, we are to allow the soul to have some kind of body or other till the very Resurrection.  
But those now that are not Psychopannychites, but allow good Souls the joys and glories of Paradise before the Resurrection of the Body, let them be demanded to what end the soul should have a Resurrection-body; and what they would answer for themselves, the Pre-existentiaries will answer for their position that holds the Soul has an Aethereal body already, or an Aereal one which may be changed into an Aethereal body. If they will allege any Concinnity in the business, or the firm promise of more highly completing our Happiness at the union of our terrestrial bodies with our souls at the Resurrection; This, I say, may be done as well supposing them to have bodies in the mean time as if they had none. For those bodies they have made use of in the interval betwixt their Death and Resurrection, may be so thin and dilute, that they may be no more considerable than an Interula is to a Royal Robe lined with rich Furs, and embroidered with Gold. For suppose every man's body at the Resurrection framed again out of its own dust, bones, sinews and flesh, by the miraculous Power of God, were it not as easy for these subtle Spirits, as it is in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to enter these bodies, and by the Divine Power assisting, so to inactuate them, that that little of their Vehicle they brought in with them, shall no more destroy the individuation of the Body, than a draught of wine drunk in, does the individuation of our body now, though it were, immediately upon the drinking, actuated by the Soul. And the soul at the same instant actuating the whole Aggregate, it is tightly the same numerical body, even to the utmost curiosity of the Schoolmen. But the Divine Assistance working in this, it is not to be thought that the soul will lose by resuming this Resurrection-body, but that all will be turned into a more full and saturate Brightness and Glory, and that the whole will become an heavenly, spiritual, and truly glorified Body, immortal and incorruptible.  
Nor does the being thus turned into an heavenly or spiritual Body, hinder it from being still the same Numerical body, forasmuch as one and the same Numerical matter, let it be under what modifications it will, is still the same numerical matter or body; and it is gross ignorance in Philosophy that makes any conceive otherwise.  
But a rude and illnatured Opposer of Pre-existence is not content that it be the same numerical body, but that this same numerical body be still flesh, peevishly and invidiously thereby to expose the Author of the Account of Origen, who, pag. 120. writes thus: That the body we now have, is therefore corruptible and mortal, because it is flesh; and therefore if it put on incorruption and immortality, it must put off itself first, and cease to be flesh. But questionless that ingenious Writer understood this of natural flesh and blood, of which the Apostle declares, That flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. But as he says, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body: So if he had made application of the several kinds of Flesh he mentions, of Men, of Beasts, of Fishes, and Birds, he would have presently subjoined, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, There is a natural flesh and there is a spiritual flesh. And 'tis this spiritual Flesh to which belongs incorruption and immortality, and which is capable of the Kingdom of Heaven. But for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the natural flesh, it must put off itself, and cease to be natural flesh, before it can put on immortality and incorruption.  
So little inconsistency is there of this Hypothesis (as touching the souls acting in either an Aereal of Aethereal Vehicle, during the interval betwixt the Resurrection and her departure hence) with the Resurrection of the body. But in the mean time, there is a strong bar thereby put to the dull dream of the Psychopanychites, and other harshnesses also eased or smoothed by it.  
Now as for the third Argument, which must needs seem a great Scarecrow to the illiterate, there is very little weight or none at all in it. For if we take but notice of the whole Atmosphere, what is the dimension thereof, and of the three Regions into which it is distributed, all these Bugbears will vanish. As for the Dimension of the whole Atmosphere, it is by the skilful reputed about fifty to Italic miles high, the Convex of the middle Region thereof about four such miles, the Concave about half a mile. Now this distribution of the Air into these three Regions being thus made, and the Hebrew tongue having no other name to call the Expansum about us, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heaven, here is according to them a distribution of Heaven into three, and the highest Region will be part of the third Heaven.  
This therefore premised, I answer, That though the souls of good men after death be detained within the Atmosphere of the Air, (and the Air itself haply may reach much higher than this Atmosphere that is bounded by the mere ascent of exhalations and vapours) yet there is no necessity at all that they should be put to those inconveniencies, which this Argument pretends, from the company of Devils, or incommodious changes and disturbances of the Air. For suppose such inconveniencies in the middle and lowest Region, yet the upper Region, which is also part of the third Heaven, those parts are ever calm and serene. And the Devil's Principality reaching no further than through the middle and lowest Region next the earth, (not to advertise that his quarters may be restrained there also) the souls of the departed that are good, are not liable to be pestered and haunted with the ungrateful Presence or Occursions of the deformed and grim Retinue, or of the vagrant vassals of that foul Fiend, that is Prince of the Air, he being only so of these lower parts thereof, and the good souls having room enough to consociate together in the upper Region of it.  
Nor does that promise of our Saviour to the thief on the Cross, that that very day he should be with him in Paradise, at all clash with this Hypothesis of Aereal Bodies, both because Christ by his miraculous power might confer that upon the penitent thief his fellow-sufferer, which would not fall to the share of other penitents in a natural course of things; and also because this third Region of the Air may be part of Paradise itself: (In my Father's house there are many Mansions) and some learned men have declared Paradise to be in the Air, but such a part of the Air as is free from gross Vapours and Clouds; and such is the third Region thereof. In the mean time we see the souls of good men departed, freed from those Panic fears of being infested either by the unwelcome company of Fiends and Devils, or incommodated by any dull cloudy obscurations, or violent and tempestuous motions of the Air.  
Only the shadowy Vale of the Night will be cast over them once in a Nycthemeron. But what incommodation is that, after the brisk active heat of the Sun in the daytime, to have the variety of the more mild beams of the Moon, or gentle, though more quick and cheerful, scintillations of the twinkling Stars? This variety may well seem an addition to the felicity of their state. And the shadowyness of the Night may help them in the more composing Introversions of their contemplative mind, and cast the soul into ineffably pleasing slumbers and Divine ecstasies; so that the transactions of the Night may prove more solacing and beatific sometimes, than those of the day. Such things we may guests at afar off, but in the mean time be sure, that these good and serious Souls know how to turn all that God sends to them to the improvement of their Happiness.  
To the fourth Argument we answer, That there are not a few reasons from the nature of the thing that may beget in us a strong presumption that souls recovered into their Celestial Happiness will never again relapse, though they did once.  
For first, it may be a mistake that the Happiness is altogether the same that it was before. For our first Paradisiacal Bodies from which we lapsed, might be of a more crude and dilute Aether, not so full and saturate with Heavenly glory and perfection as our Resurrection-body is.  
Secondly, The soul was then unexperienced, and lightly coming by that Happiness she was in, did the more heedlessly forgo it, before she was well aware; and her mind roved after new adventures, though she knew not what.  
Thirdly, It is to be considered, whether Regeneration be not a stronger tenor for enduring Happiness, than the being created happy. For this being wrought so by degrees upon the Plastic, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with ineffable groans and piercing desires after that Divine Life, that the Spirit of God co-operating exciteth in us; when Regeneration is perfected and wrought to the full by these strong Agonies, this may rationally be deemed a deeper tincture in the soul than that she had by mere Creation, whereby the soul did indeed become Holy, innocent and happy, but not coming to it with any such strong previous conflicts and eager workings and thirstings after that state, it might not be so firmly rooted by far as in Regeneration begun and accomplished by the operation of God's Spirit, gradually but more deeply renewing the Divine Image in us.  
Fourthly, It being a renovation of our Nature into a pristine state of ours, the strength and depth of impression seems increased upon that account also.  
Fifthly, The remembrance of all the hardships we underwent in our lapsed condition, whether of Mortification or cross Rencounters, this must likewise help us to persevere when once returned to our former Happiness.  
Sixthly, The comparing of the evanid pleasures of our lapsed or terrestrial life, with the fullness of those Joys that we find still in our heavenly, will keep us from ever having any hankering after them any more.  
Seventhly, The certain knowledge of everlasting punishment, which if not true, they could not know, must be also another sure bar to any such negligencies as would hazard their settled felicity. Which may be one reason why the irreclaimable are eternally punished, namely, that it may the better secure eternal Happiness to others.  
Eighthly, Though we have our triple Vital Congruity still, yet the Plastic life is so throughly satisfied with the Resurrection-body, which is so considerably more full and saturate with all the heavenly richness and Glory than the former, that the Plastic of the soul is as entirely taken up with this one Body, as if she enjoyed the pleasures of all three bodies at once, Aethereal, Aereal, and Terrestrial.  
And lastly, Which will strike all sure, He that is able to save to the utmost, and has promised us eternal life, is as true as able, and therefore cannot fail to perform it. And who can deny but that we in this State I have described, are as capable of being fixed there, and confirmed therein, as the Angels were after Lucifer and others had fallen?  
And now to the fifth and last Argument against the state of Silence, I say it is raised out of mere ignorance of the most rational as well as most Platonical way of the souls immediate descent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. For the first Mover or stirrer in this matter, I mean in the formation of the Foetus, is the Spirit of Nature, the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Universe, to whom Plotinus somewhere attributes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first Predelineations and prodrome Irradiations into the matter, before the particular soul, it is preparing for, come into it. Now the Spirit of Nature being such a spirit as contains Spermatically or Vitally all the Laws contrived by the Divine Intellect, for the management of the Matter of the World, and of all Essences else unperceptive, or quatenus unperceptive, for the good of the Universe; we have all the reason in the world to suppose this Vital or Spermatical Law is amongst the rest, viz. That it transmit but one soul to one prepared conception. Which will therefore be as certainly done, unless some rare and odd casualty intervene, as if the Divine Intellect itself did do it. Wherefore one and the same Spirit of Nature which prepares the matter by some general Predelineation, does at the due time transmit some one soul in the state of Silence by some particularising Laws (that fetch in such a soul rather than such, but most sure but one, unless as I said some special casualty happen) into the prepared Matter, acting at two places at once according to its Synenergetical virtue or power.  
Hence therefore it is plain, that there will be no such clusters of Foetus' and monstrous deformities from this Hypothesis of the souls being in a state of Silence. But for one to shuffle off so fair a satisfaction to this difficulty, by a precarious supposing there is no such Being as the Spirit of Nature, when it is demonstrable by so many irrefragable Arguments that there is, is a Symptom of one that philosophizes at random, not as Reason guides. For that is no reason against the existence of the Spirit of Nature, because some define it A Substance incorporeal, but without sense and animadversion, etc. as if a spirit without sense and animadversion were a contradiction. For that there is a Spirit of Nature is demonstrable, though whether it have no sense at all is more dubitable. But through it have no sense or perception, it is no contradiction to its being a Spirit, as may appear from Dr. H. Moor's Brief Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit. To which I direct the Reader for satisfaction, I having already been more prolix in answering these Arguments than I intended. But I hope I have made my presage true, that they would be found to have no force in them to overthrow the Hypothesis of a threefold Vital Congruity in the Plastic of the soul. So that this fourth Pillar, for any execution they can do, will stand unshaken.  
Pag. 103. For in all sensation there is corporeal motion, etc. And besides, there seems an essential relation of the Soul to Body, according to Aristotle's definition thereof, he defining it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that which actuates the body. Which therefore must be idle when it has nothing to actuate, as a Piper must be silent, as to piping, if he have no Pipe to play on.  
Chap. 14. pag. 113. The ignobler and lower properties or the life of the body were languid and remiss, v●… as to their proper exercises or acting for themselves, or as to their being regarded much by the Soul that is taken up with greater matters, or as to their being much relished, but in subserviency to the enjoyment of those more Divine and sublime Objects; as the Author intimates towards the end of his last Pillar.  
Pag. 114. And the Plastic had nothing to do but to move this passive and easy body, etc. It may be added, and keep it in its due form and shape. And it is well added [accordingly as the concerns of the higher faculties required] For the Plastic by reason of its Vital Union with the vehicle, is indeed the main instrument of the motion thereof. But it is the Imperium of the Perceptive that both excites and guides its motion. Which is no wonder it can do, they being both but one soul.  
Pag. 114. To pronounce the place to be the Sun, etc. Which is as rationally guessed by them, as if one should fancy all the Fellows and Students Chambers in a College to be contained within the area of the Hearth in the Hall, and the rest of the College uninhabited. For the Sun is but a common Focus of a Vortex, and is less by far to the Vortex, than the Hearth to the ichnography of the whole College, that I may not say little more than a Tennis-ball to the bigness of the earth.  
Pag. 115. Yet were we not immuta●…ly so, etc. But this mutability we were placed in, was not without a prospect of a more full confirmation and greater accumulation of Happiness at the long run, as I intimated above.  
Pag. 116. We were made on set purpose defatigable, that so all degrees of life, etc. We being such Creatures as we are and finite, and taking in the enjoyment of those infinitely perfect and glorious Objects only pro modulo nostro, according to the scantness of our capacity, diversion to other Objects may be an ease and relief. From whence the promise of a glorified body in the Christian Religion, as it is most grateful, so appears most rational. But in the mean time it would appear most irrational to believe we shall have eyes and ears and other organs of external sense, and have no suitable Objects to entertain them.  
Pag. 117. Yea, methinks 'tis but a reasonable reward to the body, etc. This is spoken something popularly and to the sense of the vulgar, that imagine the body to feel pleasure and pain, whenas it is the soul only that is perceptive and capable of feeling either. But 'tis fit the body should be kept in due plight for the lawful and allowable corporeal enjoyments the soul may reap therefrom for seasonable diversion.  
Pag. 117, That that is executed which he hath so determined, etc. Some fancy this may be extended to the enjoying of the fruits of the Invigouration of all the three Vital Congruities of the Plastic, and that for a soul orderly and in due time and course to pass through all these dispensations, provided she keep herself sincere towards her Maker, is not properly any lapse or sin, but an harmless experiencing all the capacities of enjoying themselves that God has bestowed upon them. Which will open a door to a further Answer touching the rest of the Planets being inhabited, namely, That they may be inhabited by such kind of souls as these, who therefore want not the Knowledge and assistance of a Redeemer. And so the earth may be the only Nosocomium of sinfully lapsed souls. This may be an answer to such farfetched Objections till they can prove the contrary.  
Pag. 118. Adam cannot withstand the inordinate appetite, etc. Namely, after his own remissness and heedlessness in ordering himself, he had brought himself to such a wretched weakness.  
Pag. 121. The Plastic faculties begin now fully to awaken, etc. There are three Vital Congruities belonging to the Plastic of the Soul, and they are to awake orderly, that is, to operate one after another downward and upward, that is to say, In the lapse, the Aereal follows the Aethereal, the Terrestrial the Aereal. But in their Recovery or Emergency out of the lapse, The Aereal follows the Terrestrial, and the Aethereal the Aereal. But however, a more gross turgency to Plastic operation may haply arise at the latter end of the Aereal Period, which may be as it were the disease of the soul in that state, and which may help to turn her out of it into the state of Silence, and is itself for the present silenced therewith. For where there is no union with body, there is no operation of the Soul.  
Pag. 121. For it hath an aptness and propensity to act in a Terrestrial body, etc. This aptness and fitness it has in the state of Silence, according to that essential order of things interwoven into its own nature and into the nature of the Spirit of the World, or great Archaeus of the Universe, according to the eternal counsel of the Divine Wisdom. By which Law and appointment the soul will as certainly have a fitness and propensity at its leaving the Terrestrial body to actuate an Aereal o●…e.  
Pag. 122. Either by mere natural Congruity, the disposition of the soul of the world, or some more spontaneous agent, etc. Natural Congruity and the disposal of the Plastic soul of the world (which others call the Spirit of Nature) may be joined well together in this Feat, the Spirit of Nature attracting such a soul as is most congruous to the predelineated Matter which it has prepared for her. But as for the spontaneous Agent, I suppose, he may understand his ministry in some supernatural Birth. Unless he thinks that some Angels or Genii may be employed in putting souls into bodies, as gardiner's are in setting Pease and Beans in the beds of Gardens. But certainly they must be no good Genii then that have any hand in assisting or setting souls in such wombs as have had to do with Adultery, Incest, and Buggery.  
Pag. 123. But some apish shows and imitations of Reason, Virtue and Religion, etc. The Reason of the unregenerate in Divine things is little better than thus, and Virtue and Religion which is not from that Principle which revives in us in real Regeneration, are, though much better than scandalous vice and profaneness, mere pictures and shadows of what they pretend to.  
Pag. 123. To its old celestial abode, etc. For we are Pilgrims and strangers here on the earth, as the holy Patriarches of old declared. And they that speak such things, saith the Apostle, plainly show 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that they seek their native country, for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies. And truly if they had been mindful of that earthly country out of which they came, they might, saith he, have had opportunity of returning. But now they desire a better, to wit, an heavenly, Hebr. 11.  
Pag. 124. But that they step forth again into Airy Vehicles. This is their natural course, as I noted above. But the examples of Enoch and Elias, and much more of our ever Blessed Saviour, are extraordinary and supernatural.  
Pag. 125. Those therefore that pass out of these bodies before their Terrestrial Congruity be spoilt, weakened, or orderly unwound, according to the tenor of this Hypothesis, etc. By the favour of this ingenious Writer, this Hypothesis does not need any such obnoxious Appendage as this, viz. That souls that are outed these Terrestrial bodies before their Terrestrial Congruity be spoiled, weakened, or orderly unwound, return into the state of Inactivity. But this is far more consonant both to Reason and Experience or Story, that though the Terrestrial Congruity be still vigorous, as not having run out it may be the half part, no not the tenth part of its Period, the soul immediately upon the quitting of this body is invested with a body of Air, and is in the state of Activity not of Silence in no sense. For some being murdered have in all likelihood in their own persons complained of their murderers, as it is in that story of Anne Walker; and there are many others of the same nature.  
And besides, it is far more reasonable, there being such numerous multitudes of silent souls, that their least continuance in these Terrestrial bodies should at their departure be as it were a Magical Cue or Tessera forthwith to the Aereal Congruity of life to begin to act its part upon the ceasing of the other, that more souls may be rid out of the state of Silence. Which makes it more probable that every soul that is once besmeared with the unctuous moisture of the Womb, should as it were by a Magic Ointment be carried into the Air (though it be of a stillborn Infant) than that any should return into the state of Silence or Inactivity upon the pretence of the remaining vigour of the Terrestrial Congruity of life. For these Laws are not by any consequential necessity, but by the free counsel of the Eternal Wisdom of God consulting for the best.  
And therefore this being so apparently for the best, this Law is interwoven into the Spirit of the World and every particular soul, that upon the ceasing of her Terrestrial Union, her Aereal Congruity of life should immediately operate, and the Spirit of Nature assisting, she should be dressed in Aereal robes, and be found among the Inhabitants of those Regions. If souls should be remanded back into the state of Silence that depart before the Terrestrial Period of Vital Congruity be orderly unwound, so very few reach the end of that Period, that they must in a manner all be turned into the state of Inactivity. Which would be to wove Penelope's Web, to do and undo because the day is long enough, as the Proverb is, whenas it rather seems too short, by reason of the numerosity of Silent souls that expect their turn of Recovery into Life.  
Pag. 125. But only follow the clew of this Hypothesis. The Hypothesis requires no such thing, but it rather clashes with the first and chietest Pillar thereof, viz. That all the Divine designs and actions are laid and carried on by Infinite Goodness. And I have already intimated how much better it is to be this way that I am pleading for, than that of this otherwise-ingenious Writer.  
Pag. 125. Since by long and hard exercise in this body, the Plastic Life is well ta●…ned and debilitated, etc. But this is not at all necessary, no not in those souls whose Plastic may be deemed the most rampant. Dis-union from this Terrestrial body immediately tames it, I mean, the Terrestrial Congruity of Life; and its operation is stopped, as surely as a string of a Lute never so smartly vibrated is streightways silenced by a gentle touch of the finger, and another single string may be immediately made to sound alone, while the other is mute and silent. For, I say, these are the free Laws of the Eternal Wisdom, but fatally and vitally, not intellectually implanted in the Spirit of Nature, and in all Humane Souls or Spirits. The whole Universe is as it were the Automatal Harp of that great and true Apollo; and as for the general striking of the strings and stopping their vibrations, they are done with as exquisite art as if a free intellectual Agent played upon them. But the Plastic powers in the world are not such, but only Vital and Fatal, as I said before.  
Pag. 126. That an Aereal body was not enough for it to display its force upon, etc. It is far more safe and rational to say, that the soul deserts her Aereal Estate by reason that the Period of the Vital Congruity is expired, which according to those fatal Laws I spoke of before is determined by the Divine Wisdom. But whether a soul may do any thing to abbreviate this Period, and excite such symptoms in the Plastic as may shorten her continuance in that state, let it be left to the more inquisitive to define.  
Pag. 128. Where is then the difference betwixt the just and the wicked, in state, place, and body? Their difference in place I have sufficiently shown, in my Answer to the third Argument against the triple Congruity of Life in the Plastic of Humane Souls, how fitly they may be disposed of in the Air. But to the rude Buffonery of that crude Opposer of the Opinion of Pre-existence, I made no Answer. It being methinks sufficiently answered in the Scholia upon Sect. 12. Cap. 3. Lib. 3. of Dr. H. Mores Immortalitas Animae, if the Reader think it worth his while to consult the place. Now for State and Body the difference is obvious. The Vehicle is of more pure Air, and the Conscience more pure of the one than of the other.  
Pag. 130. For according to this Hypothesis, the gravity of those bodies is less, because the quantity of the earth that draws them is so, etc. This is an ingenious invention both to salve that Phaenomenon, why Bodies in Mines and other deep subterraneous places should seem not so heavy nor hard to lift there, as they are in the superior Air above the earth; and also to prove that the crust of the earth is not of so considerable a thickness as men usually conceive it is. I say, it is ingenious, but not so firm and sure. The Quicksilver in a Torricellian Tube will sink deeper in an higher or clearer Air, though there be the same Magnetism of the earth under it that was before. But this is not altogether so fit an illustration, there being another cause than I drive at conjoined thereto.  
But that which I drive at is sufficient of it self to salve this Phaenomenon. A Bucket of water, while it is in the water comes up with ease to him that draws it at the Well; but so soon as it comes into the Air, though there be the same earth under it that there was before, it feels now exceeding more weighty. Of which I conceive the genuine reason is, because the Spirit of Nature, which ranges all things in their due order, acts proportionately strongly to reduce them thereto, as they are more heterogeniously and disproportionately placed as to their consistencies. And therefore by how much more crass and solid a body is above that in which it is placed, by so much the stronger effort the Spirit of Nature uses to reduce it to its right place; but the less it exceeds the crassness of the Element it is in, the effort is the less or weaker.  
Hence therefore it is, that a stone or such like body in those subterraneous depths seems less heavy, because the air there is so gross and thick, and is not so much disproportionate to the grossness of the stone as our air above the earth here is; nor do I make any doubt, but if the earth were all cut away to the very bottom of any of these Mines, so that the Air might be of the same consistency with ours, the stone would then be as heavy as it is usually to us in this superioor surface of the earth. So that this is no certain Argument for the proving that the crust of the earth is of such thinness as this Author would have it, though I do not question but that it is thin enough.  
Pag. 131. And the mention of the Fountains of the great Deep in the Sacred History, etc. This is a more considerable Argument for the thinness of the crust of the earth; and I must confess I think it not improbable but that there is an Aqueous hollow Sphaericum, which is the Basis of this habitable earth, according to that of Psalm 24. 2. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.  
Pag. 131. Now I intent not that after a certain distance all is fluid matter to the Centre; That is to say, After a certain distance of earthly Matter, that the rest should be fluid Matter, namely, Water and Air, to the Centre, etc. But here his intention is directed by that veneration he has for Des Cartes. Otherwise I believe if he had freely examined the thing to the bottom, he would have found it more reasonable to conclude all fluid betwixt the Concave of the Terrestrial Crust and the Centre of the Earth, as we usually phrase it, though nothing be properly Earth but that Crust.  
Pag. 131. Which for the most part very likely is a gross and foetid kind of air, etc. On this side of the Concave of the Terrestrial Crust there may be several Hollows of foetid air and stagnant water, which may be so many particular lodgings for lapsed and unruly Spirits. But there is moreover a considerable Aqueous Sphaericum upon which the earth is founded, and is most properly the Abyss; but in a more comprehensive notion, all from the Convex thereof to the Centre may be termed the Abyss, or the Deepest place that touches our imagination.  
Pag. 131. The lowest and central Regions may be filled with flame and aether, etc. That there was the Relics of a Sun after the Incrustation of the Earth and Aqueous Orb, is according to this Hypothesis reasonable enough. And a kind of Air and Aether betwixt this diminished Sun and the Concave of this Aqueous Orb, but no crass and opake concamerations of hard Matter interposed betwixt.  
Which is an Hypothesis the most kind to the ingenious Author of Telluris Theoria Sacra, that he could wish. For he holding that there was for almost two thousand years an opake earthy Crust over this Aqueous Orb unbroke till the Deluge, which he ascribes to the breaking thereof, it was necessary there should be no opake Orb betwixt the Central Fire and this Aqueous Orb; for else the Fishes for so long a time had lived in utter darkness, having eyes to no purpose, nor ability to guide their way or hunt their prey. Only it is supposed, which is easy to do, that they then swum with their backs toward the Centre, whenas as now they swim with their bellies thitherward; they then plying near the Concave, as now near the Convex of this watery Abyss. Which being admitted, the difference of their posture will necessarilly follow according to the Laws of Nature, as were easy to make out, but that I intent brevity in these Annotations.  
Only I cannot forbear by the way to advertise how probable it is that this Central Fire which shone clear enough to give light to the Fishes swimming near the Concave of this Watery Orb, might in process of time grow dimmer and dimmer, and exceeding much abate of its light, by that time the Crust of the Earth broke and let in the light of the Sun of this great Vortex into this Watery Region, within which, viz. in the Air or Aether there, there has been still a decay of light, the Air or Aether growing more thick as well as that little Central Fire or Sun, being more and more enveloped with fuliginous stuff about it. So that the whole Concavity may seem most like a vast duskish Vault, and this dwindling overclouded Sun a Sepulchral Lamp, such as, if I remember right, was found in the Monuments of Olybius and Tulliola. An hideous dismal forlorn Place, and sit Receptacle for the Methim and Rephaim.  
And the Latin Translation, Job 26. 5. excellently well accords with this sad Phaenomenon. Ecce Gigantes gemunt sub Aquis, & qui habitant cum eyes. Here is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Symmachus translates the word. And it follows in the verse, Nudus est Infernus coram eo, Hell is naked before God. And Symmachus in other places of the Proverbs puts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together, which therefore is the most proper and the nethermost Hell. And it will be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the highest sense, whenever this lurid Light (as it seems probable to me it sometime will be) is quite extinct, and this Central Fire turned into a Terrella, as it may seem to have already happened in Saturn. But we must remember, as the Author sometimes reminds us, that we are embellishing but a Romantic Hypothesis, and be sure we admit no more than Reason, Scripture, and the Apostolic Faith will allow.  
Pag. 132. Are after death committed to those squalid subterraneous Habitations, etc. He seems to suppose that all the wicked and degerate souls are committed hither, that they may be less troublesome to better souls in this air above the earth. But considering the Devil is called the Prince of the Air, & that he has his Clients and Subjects in the same place with him; we may well allow the lower Regions of the Air to him, and to some wicked or unregenerate souls promiscuously with him, though there be subterraneous Receptacles for the worst and most rebellious of them, and not send them all packing thither.  
Pag. 132. That they are driven into those Dungeons by the invisible Ministers of Justice, etc. He speaks of such Dungeons as are in the broken Caverns of the Forth, which may be so many vexatious Receptacles for rebellious Spirits which these invisible Ministers of Justice may drive them into, and see them committed; and being confined there upon far severer penalties if they submit not to that present punishment which they are sentenced to, they will out of fear of greater Calamity be in as safe custody as if they were under lock and key. But the most dismal penalty is to be carried into the Abyss, the place of the Rephaim I above described. This is a most astonishing commination to them, and they extremely dread that sentence. Which makes the Devils, Luke 8. 31. so earnestly beseech Christ that he would not command them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to pack away into the Abyss.  
This punishment therefore of the Abyss where the Rephaim or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 groan, is door and lock that makes them, whether they will or no, submit to all other punishments and confinements on this side of it. Michael Psellus takes special notice how the Daemons are frighted with the menaces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with the menaces of the sending them away packing into the Abyss and subterraneous places. But these may signify no more than Cavities that are in the ruptues of the earth, and they may steal out again if they will adventure, unless they were perpetually watched, which is not so probable. Wherefore they are imprisoned through fear of that great horrid Abyss above described, and which as I said is an iron lock and door of brass upon them.  
But than you will say, What is the door and lock to this terrible place? I answer, The inviolable Adamantine Laws of the great Sandalphon or Spirit of the Universe. When once a rebellious Spirit is carried down by a Minister of Justice into this Abyss, he can no more return of himself, than a man put into a Well forty fathoms deep is able of himself to ascend out of it.  
The unlapsed Spirits, it is their privilege that their Vehicles are wholly obedient to the will of the Spirit that inactuates them, and therefore they have free ingress and egress every where; and being so little passive as they are, and so quick and swift in their motions, can perform any Ministries with little or no incommodation to themselves. But the Vehicles of lapsed Spirits are more passive, and they are the very chains whereby they are tied to certain Regions by the iron Laws of the Spirit of the Universe, or Hylarchick Principle, that unfailingly ranges the Matter every where according to certain orders. Wherefore this Sergeant of Justice having once deposited his Prisoner within the Concave of the Aqueous Orb, he will be as certainly kept there, and never of himself get out again, as the man in the bottom of the Well abovementioned. For the Laws of the same Spirit of Nature that keeps the man at the bottom of the Well (that every thing may be placed according to the measure of its consistency) will inhibit this Captive from ever returning to this Superior Air again, because his Vehicle is, though foul enough, yet much thinner than the Water; and there will be the the same ranging of things on the Concave side of the Aqueous Orb, as there is on the Convex.  
So that if we could suppose the Ring about Saturn inhabited with any living creatures, they would be born toward the Concave of the Ring as well as toward the Convex, and walk as steadily as we and our Antipodes do with our feet on this and that side of the earth one against another. This may serve for a brief intimation of the reason of the thing, and the intelligent will easily make out the rest themselves, and understand what an ineluctable fate and calamity it is to be carried into that duskish place of dread and horror, when once the Angel that has the Keys of the Abyss or bottomless pit has shut a rebellious Spirit up there, & chained him in that hideous Dungeon.  
Pag. 133. Others to the Dungeon, and some to the most intolerable Hell the Abyss of fire. The Dungeon here, if it were understood with an Emphasis, would most properly denote the Dungeon of the Rephaim, of which those parts nearest the Centre may be called the Abyss of Fire more properly than any Vulcano's in the Crust of the earth. Those souls therefore that have been of a more fierce and fiery nature, and the Causers of Violence and Bloodshed, and of furious Wars and cruel Persecutions of innocent and harmless men, when they are committed to this Dungeon of the Rephaim, by those inevitable Laws of the subteraqueous Sandalphon, or Demogorgon if you will, they will be ranged nearest the Central Fire of this Hellish Vault. For the Vehicles of souls symbolising with the temper of the mind, those who are most haughty, ambitious, fierce, and fiery, and therefore, out of Pride and contempt of others in respect of themselves and their own Interest, make nothing of shedding innocent blood, or cruelly handling those that are not for their turn, but are faithful adherers to their Maker, the Vehicles of these being more thin and fiery than theirs who have transgressed in the Concupiscible, they must needs surmount such in order of place, and be most remote from the Concave of the Aqueous Orb under which the Rephaim groan, and so be placed at least the nearest to that Abyss of Fire, which our Author terms the most intolerable Hell.  
Pag. 133. Have a strict and careful eye upon them, to keep them within the confines of their Goal, etc. That this, as it is a more tedious Province, so a needless one, I have intimated above, by reason that the fear of being carried into the Abyss will effectually detain them in their confinements. From whence if they be not released in time, the very place they are in may so change their Vehicles, that it may in a manner grow natural to them, and make them as uncapable of the Superior Air as Bats and Owls are, as the ingenious Author notes, to bear the Sun's Noon-day-Beams, or the Fish to live in these thinner Regions.  
Pag. 134. Under severe penalties prohibit all unlicensed excursions into the upper World, though I confess this seems not so probable, etc. The Author seems to reserve all the Air above the earth to good souls only, and that if any bad ones appear, it must be by either stealth or licence. But why bad souls may not be in this lower Region of the Air as well as Devils, I understand not. Nor do I conceive but that the Kingdom of Darkness may make such Laws amongst themselves, as may tend to the ease and safety of those of the Kingdom of Light. Not out of any goodwill to them, but that themselves may not further smart for it if they give licence to such and such exorbitancies. For they are capable of pain and punishment, and though they are permitted in the world, yet they are absolutely under the power of the Almighty, and of the Grand Minister of his Kingdom, the glorious Soul of the Messiah.  
Pag. 137. The internal Central Fire should have got such strength and irresistible vigour, etc. But how or from whence, is very hard to conceive: I should rather suspect, as I noted above, that the Fire will more and more decay till it turn at last to a kind of Terrella, like that observed within the Ring of Saturn, and the Dungeon become utter Darkness, where there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, as well as in the furnace of Fire.  
Pag. 141. And so following the Laws of its proper motion shall fly away out of this Vortex, etc. This looks like an heedless mistake of this ingenious Writer, who though he speak the language of Cartesius, seems here not to have recalled to mind his Principles. For the Earth according to his Principles is never like to become a Sun again. Nor if it had so become, would it then become a Comet. Forasmuch as Comets according to his Philosophy are incrustated Suns, and Planets or Earth's in a manner, and so to be deemed so soon as they settle in any Vortex, and take their course about the Centre thereof. Nor if the Earth become a Sun again, is it like to leave our Vortex according to the Cartesian Principles, but rather be swallowed down into the Sun of our Vortex, and increase his magnitude; the ranging of the Planets according to Des Cartes Mechanical Laws being from the difference of their solidities, and the least solid next to the Sun. Whither then can this Sol redivivus or the Earth turned wholly into the Materia subtilissima again be carried, but into the Sun itself? This seems most likely, especially if we consider this Sol Redivivus or the Earth turned all into the Materia subtilissima, in itself. But if we take into our consideration its particular Vortex which carries about the Moon, the business may bear a further debate which will require more time than to be entered upon here. But it seems plain at first sight, that though this Sol Redivivus should by virtue of its particular Vortex be kept from being swallowed down into the Sun and Centre of the great Vortex, yet it will never be able to get out of this great Vortex, according to the frame of Des Cartes Philosophy. So that there will be two Suns in one Vortex, a Planetary one and a fixed one. Which unexpected monstrosity in Nature will make any cautious Cartesian more wary how he admits of the Earth's ever being turned into a Sun again; but rather to be content to let its Central Fire to incrustrate itself into a Terrella, there seeming to be an example of this in that little Globe in the midst of the Ring of Saturn; but of an Earth turned into a Sun no example at all that I know of.  
Pag. 142. So that the Central Fire remains unconcerned, etc. And so it well may, it being so considerable a distance from the Concave of the Aqueous Orb, and the Aqueous Orb itself betwixt the Crust of the Earth and it. But the Prisoners of this Gaol of the Rephaim will not be a little concerned. This Hell of a sudden growing so smothering hot to them all, though the Central Fire no more than it was. And whatever becomes of those Spirits that suffer in the very Conflagration itself, yet Ab hoc Inferno nulla est redemptio.  
Pag. 147. Those immediate births of unassisted nature will not be so tender, etc. Besides, the Air being replenished with benign Daemons or Genii, to whom it cannot but be a pleasant Spectacle to behold the inchoations and progresses of reviving Nature, they having the Curiosity to contemplate these births, may also in all likelihood exercise their kindness in helping them in their wants; and when they are grown up, assist them also in the methods of Life, and impart as they shall find fit the Arcana of Arts and Sciences and Religion unto them, nor suffer them to symbolise overmuch in their way of living with the rest of their fellow terrestrial Creatures. If it be true that some hold, that even now when there is no such need, every one has his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his Genius or Guardian Angel, it is much more likely that at such a season as this, every tender Foetus of their common Mother the Earth, would be taken into the care of some good Daemon or other, even at their very first budding out into life.  
Pag. 148. But all this is but the frolic exercise of my Pen choosing a Paradox. And let the same be said of the Pen of the Annotator, who has bestowed these pains not to gain Proselytes to the Opinions treated of in this Discourse, but to entertain the Readers Intellectuals with what may something enlarge his thoughts; and if he be curious and anxious, help him at a pinch to some ease of mind touching the ways of God and his wonderful Providence in the World.  
Pag. 149. Those other expressions of Death, Destruction, Perdition of the ungodly, etc. How the entering into the state of Silence may well be deemed a real Death, Destruction and Perdition, that passage in Lucretius does marvellously well set out. 
Nam si tantopere est animi mutata potestas,  
Omnis ut actarum exciderit retinentia rerum,  
Non, ut opinor, ea ab letho jam longiter errat  
Quapropter fateare necesse est, quae fuit ante  
Interiisse, etc. De Rerum Natura, Lib. 3.  And again in the same book he says, though we were again just as we were before, yet we having no memory thereof, it is all one as if we were perfectly lost. And yet this is the condition of the soul which the Divine Nemesis sends into the state of Silence, because afterwards she remembers nothing of her former life. His words are these: 
Nec, si materiam nostram collegerit aetas  
Post obitum, rursúmque redegerit ut sita nunc est,  
Atque iterum nobis fuerint data lumina vitae,  
Pertineat quicquam tamen ad nos id quoque factum  
Interrupta semel quom sit retinentia nostri.   
Pag. 150. In those passages which predict new Heavens and a new Earth, etc. I suppose he alludes especially to that place in the Apocalypse, Chap. 21. where presently upon the Description of the Lake of Fire in the precedent Chapter which answers to the Conflagration, it is said, And I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth. But questionless that passage, as in other places, is Politically to be understood, not Physically, unless this may be the ingenious Author's meaning, That the Writer of the Apocalypse adorning his style with allusions to the most rousing and most notable real or Physical Objects (which is observable all along the Apocalypse) it may be a sign that a new Heaven and a new Earth succeeding the Conflagration, is one of those noble Phaenomena true and real amongst the rest, which he thought fit to adorn his style with by alluding thereto. So that though the chief intended sense of the Apocalypse be Political, yet by its allusions it may countenance many noble and weighty Truths whether Physical or Metaphysical. As, The existence of Angels, which is so perpertually inculcated all along the Book from the beginning to the ending: The Divine Shechina in the celestial Regions: The Dreadsul Abyss in which rebellious Spirits are chained, and at the commination whereof they so much tremble: The Conflagration of the Earth; and lastly, The renewing and restoring this Earth and Heaven after the Conflagration.  
Pag. 150. The main Opinion of Pre-existence is not at all concerned, etc. This is very judiciously and soberly noted by him. And therefore it is by no means fairly done by the Opposers of Pre-existence, while they make such a pother to confute any passages in this Hypothesis, which is acknowledged by the Pre-existentiaries themselves to be no necessary or essential part of that Dogma. But this they do, that they may seem by their Cavils (for most of them are no better) against some parts of this unnecessary Appendage of Pre-existence, to have done some execution upon the Opinion itself; which how far it extends, may be in some measure discovered by these Notes we have made upon it. Which stated as they direct, the Hypothesis is at least possible; but that it is absolutely the true one, or should be thought so, is not intended. But as the ingenious Author suggests, it is either this way or some better, as the infinite Wisdom of God may have ordered. But this possible way shows Pre-existence to be neither impossible nor improbable.  
Pag. 151. But submit all that I have written to the Authority of the Church of England, etc. And this I am persuaded he heartily did, as it is the duty of every one, in things that they cannot confirm by either a plain demonstration, clear authority of Scripture, Manifestation of their outward Senses, or some rousing Miracle, to compromise with the Decisions of the National Church where Providence has cast them, for common peace and settlement, and for the ease and security of Governors. But because a fancy has taken a man in the head, that he knows greater Arcana than others, or has a more orthodox belief in things not necessary to Salvation than others have, for him to affect to make others Proselytes to his Opinion, and to wear his badge of Wisdom, as of an extraordinary Master in matters of Theory, is a mere vanity of Spirit, a ridiculous piece of pride and levity, and unbeseeming either a sober and staunched man or a good Christian. But upon such pretences to gather a Sect, or set up a Church or Independent Congregation, is intolerable Faction and Schism, nor can ever bear a free and strict examination according to the measures of the truest Morals and Politics.  
But because it is the fate of some men to believe Opinions, to others but probable, nor it may be so much (as the motion of the Earth suppose, and Des Cartes his Vortices, and the like) to be certain Science, it is the interest of every National Church to define the truth of no more Theories than are plainly necessary for Faith and good manners; because if they either be really, or seem to be mistaken in their unnecessary Decisions or Definitions, this with those that are more knowing than ingenuous will certainly lessen the Authority and Reverence due to the Church, and hazard a secret enmity of such against her. But to adventure upon no Decisions but what have the Authority of Scripture (which they have that were the Decisions of General Councils before the Apostasy) and plain usefulness as well as Reason of their side, this is the greatest Conservative of the Honour and Authority of a Church (especially joined with an exemplary life) that the greatest Prudence or Politics can ever excogitate. Which true Politics the Church of Rome having a long time ago deserted, has been fain, an horrid thing to think of it! to support her Authority and extort Reverence by mere Violence and Blood. Whenas, if she had followed these more true and Christian Politics, she would never have made herself so obnoxious, but for aught one knows, she might have stood and retained her Authority for ever.  
In the mean time, this is suitable enough, and very well worth our noting, That forasmuch as there is no assurance of the Holy Ghost's assisting unnecessary Decisions, though it were of the Universal Church, much less of any National one, so that if such a point be determined, it is uncertainly determined, and that there may be several ways of holding a necessary Point, some more accommodate to one kind of men, others to another, and that the Decisions of the Church are for the Edification of the people, that either their Faith may be more firm, or their Lives more irreprehensible: these things, I say, being premised, it seems most prudent and Christian in a Church to decline the Decision of the circumstances of any necessary point, forasmuch as by deciding and determining the thing one way, those other handles by which others might take more fast hold on it are thereby cut off, and so their assent made less firm thereto.  
We need not go far for an example, if we but remember what we have been about all this 〈◊〉 It is necessary to believe that we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Immortal Spirit capable of Salvation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ording as we shall behave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 revealed to us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. But though this Opinion or rather Article of Faith be but one, yet there are several ways of holding it. And it lies more easy in some men's minds, if they suppose it created by God at every conception in the Womb; in othersome, if they conceive it to be ex Traduce; and lastly in others, if it pre-exist. But the ways of holding this Article signify nothing but as they are subservient to the making us the more firmly hold the same. For the more firmly we believe it, the greater influence will it have upon our lives, to cause us to live in the fear of God, and in the ways of Righteousness like good Christians.  
Wherefore now it being supposed that it will stick more firm and fixed in some men's minds by some one of these three ways, rather than by either of the other two, and thus of any one of the three; It is manifest, it is much more prudently done of the Church not to cut off two of these three handles by a needless, nay, a harmful Decision, but let every one choose that handle that he can hold the Article fastest by, for his own support and Edification. For thus every one laying firm hold on that handle that is best sitted for his own grasp, the Article will carry all these three sorts of believers safe up to Heaven, they living accordingly; whenas two sorts of them would have more slippery or uncertain hold, if they had no handle ossered to them but those which are less suitable to their grasp and Genius.  
Which shows the Prudence, Care, and Accuracy of Judgement in the Church of England, that as in other things, so in this, she has made no such needless and indeed hurtful Decisions, but left the modes of conceiving things of the greatest moment, to every one's self, to take it that way that he can lay the fastest hold of it, and it will lie the most easily in his mind without doubt and wavering. And therefore there being no one of these handles but what may be useful to some or other for the more easy and undoubted holding that there is in us an Immaterial and Immortal Soul or Spirit, my having taken this small pains to wipe off the soil, and further the usefulness of one of them by these Annotations, if it may not merit thanks, it must, I hope, at least deserve excuse with all those that are not of too sour and tetrick a Genius, and prefer their own humours and sentiments before the real benefit of others.  
But now if any one shall invidiously object, that I prefer the Christian Discretion of my own Church the Church of England, before the Judgement and Wisdom of a General Council, namely, the fisth Ecumenical Council held at Constantinople in Justinians time under the Patriarch Eutychius, who succeeded Menas lately deceased, to whom Justinian sent that Discourse of his against Origen and his errors, amongst which Pre-existence is reckoned one: In answer to this, several things are to be considered, that right may be done our Mother.  
First, What number of Bishops make a general Council, so that from their Numerosity we may rely upon their Authority and infallibility that they will not conclude what is false.  
Secondly, Whether in whatsoever matters of debate, though nothing to the Salvation of men's souls, but of curious Speculation, fitter for the Schools of Philosophers than Articles of Faith for the edification of the people (whose memory and conscience ought to be charged with no notions that are not subservient to the rightly and duly honouring God and his only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the faithful discharging their duty to man) the assistance of the Spirit of God can rationally be expected; or only in such things as are necessary to be professed by the people, and very useful for the promoting of Life and Godliness. And as Moses has circumscribed his Narrative of the Creation within the limits of Mundus Plebeiorum, and also the Chronology of time according to Scripture is bounded from the first Adam to the coming again of the second to Judgement, and Sentencing the wicked to everlasting punishment, and the righteous to life everlasting: so whether the Decisions of the Church are not the most safely contained within these bounds, and they faithfully discharge themselves in the conduct of Souls, if they do but instruct them in such truths only as are within this compass revealed in sacred Scripture. And whether it does not make for the Interest and Dignity of the Church to decline the meddling with other things, as unprofitable and unnecessary to be decided.  
Thirdly, Whether if a General Council meet not together in via Spiritus Sancti, but some stickling imbittered Grandees of the Church out of a pique that they have taken against some persons get through their interest a General Council called, whether is the assistance of the Holy Ghost to be expected in such a meeting, so that they shall conclude nothing against truth.  
Fourthly, Whether the Authority of such General Councils as Providence by some notable prodigy may seem to have intimated a dislike of, be not thereby justly suspected, and not easily to be admitted as infallible deciders.  
Fifthly, Whether a General Council that is found mistaken in one point, anathematising that for an Heresy which is a truth, forfeits not its Authority in other points, which than whether falsehoods or truths, are not to be deemed so from the Authority of that Council, but from other Topics.  
Sixthly, Since there can be no commerce betwixt God and man, nor he communicate his mind and will to us but by supposition, That our senses rightly circumstantiated are true, That there is skill in us to understand words and Grammar, and schemes of speech, as also common notions and clear inferences of Reason, whether if a General Council conclude any thing plainly repugnant to these, is the Conclusion of such a Council true and valid; and whether the indelible Notices of truth in our mind that all Mankind is possessed of, whether Logical, Moral, or Metaphysical, be not more the dictates of God, than those of any Council that are against them.  
Seventhly, If a Council, as general as any has been called, had in the very midnight of the Church's Apostasy and ignorance met, and concluded all those Corruptions that now are obtruded by the Church of Rome, as Transubstantiation, Invocation of Saints, Worshipping of Images, and the like, whether the Decisions of such a Council could be held infallible or valid. What our own excellently well Reformed Church holds in this case, is evident out of her Articles. For,  
Eighthly, The Church of England plainly declares, That General Councils when they be gathered together, forasmuch as they be an Assembly of men whereof all are not governed with the Spirit and Word of God, they may err, and sometimes have erred even in things pertaining to God. Wherefore, saith she, things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor Authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture. Artic. 21.  
Ninthly, And again, Artic. 20. where she allows the Church to have power to decree Rites and Ceremonies, and Authority in Controversies of Faith, but with this restriction, That it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another; she concludes: Wherefore although the Church be a Witness and Keeper of Holy Writ, yet as it ought not to decree any thing against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation. What then, does she null the Authority of all the General Councils, and have no deference for any thing but the mere Word of God to convince men of Heresy? No such matter. What her sense of these things is, you will find in 1 Eliz. cap. 1. Wherefore,  
Tenthly and lastly, What General Councils the Church of England allows of for the conviction of Heretics you may understand out of these words of the Statute: They shall not adjudge any matter or cause to be Heresies, but only such as heretofore have been adjudged to be Heresy by the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures, or by the first four General Councils or any of them, or by any other General Council wherein the same was declared Heresy by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures,  
By brief reflections upon some of these ten Heads, I shall endeavour to lessen the Invidiousness of my seeming to prefer the Discretion of the Church of England before the Judgement of a General Council, I mean of such a General Council as is so unexceptionable that we may rely on the Authority of their Decisions, that they will not fail to be true. Of which sort whether the fifth reputed General Council be, we will briefly first consider.  
For reflecting on the first head, It seems scarcely numerous enough for a General Council. The first General Council of Nice had above three hundred Bishops; That of Chalcedon above six hundred: This fifth Council held at Constantinople had but an hundred sixty odd. And which still makes it more unlike a General Council, in the very same year, viz. 553, the Western Bishops held a Council at Aquileia, and condemned this fifth Council held at Constantinople.  
Secondly, The Pre-existence of Souls being a mere Philosophical Speculation, and indeed held by all Philosophers in the affirmative that held the Soul incorporeal; we are to consider whether we may not justly deem this case referrible to the second Head, and to look something like Pope Zacharies appointing a Council to condemn Virgilius as an Heretic, for holding Antipodes.  
Thirdly, We may very well doubt whether this Council proceeded in via Spiritus Sancti, this not being the first time that the lovers and admirers of Origen for his great Piety and Knowledge, and singular good service he had done to the Church of Christ in his time, had foul play played them. Witness the story of Theophilus Bishop of Antioch, who to revenge himself on Dioscorus and two others that were lovers of Origen and Anti-Anthropomorphites, stickled so, that he caused Epiphanius in his See, as he did in his own, to condemn the Books of Origen in a Synod. To which condemnation Epiphanius an Anthropomorphite, and one of more Zeal than Knowledge, would have got the subscription of chrysostom the Patriarch of Constantinople; but he had more Wisdom and Honesty than to listen to such an injurious demand.  
And as it was with those Synods called by Theophilus and Epiphanius, so it seems to be with the fifth Council. Piques and Heart-burnings amongst the Grandees of the Church seemed to be at the bottom of the business. Binius in his History of this fifth Council takes notice of the enmity betwixt Pelagius, Pope Vigilius' Apocrisiarie, and Theodorus Bishop of Caesarea Cappadociae an Origenist. And Spondanus likewise mentions the same, who says, touching the business of Origen, that Pelagius the Pope's Apocrisiarie, eam quaestionem in ipsius Theodori odium movisse existimabatur. And truly it seems to me altogether incredible, unless there were some hellish spite at the bottom, that they should not have contented themselves to condemn the errors supposed to be origen's (but after so long a time after his death, there being in his writings such chopings and change and interpolations, hard to prove to be his) but have spared his name, for that unspeakable good service he did the Church in his life-time. See Dr. H. Moor's Preface to his Collectio Philosophica, Sect. 18. where origen's true Character is described out of Eusebius. Wherefore whether this be to begin or carry on things in via Spiritus Sancti, so that we may rely on the Authority of such a Council, I leave to the impartial and judicious to consider.  
Fourthly, In reference to the fourth Head, That true wisdom and moderation, and the holy assistance of God's Spirit did not guide the affairs of this Council, seems to be indicated by the Divine Providence, who to show the effect of their unwise proceedings in the selfsame year the Council sat, sent a most terrible Earthquake for forty days together upon the City of Constantinople where the Council was held, and upon other Regions of the East, even upon Alexandria itself and other places, so that many Cities were leveled to the ground. Upon which Spondanus writes thus: Haea verò praesagia fuisse malorum quae sunt praedictam Synodum consecuta, nemo negare poterit quicunque ab eventis facta noverit judicare.  
This also reminds me of a Prodigy as it was thought that happened at the sixth reputed General Council, where nigh three hundred Fathers were gathered together to decide this nice and subtle Point, namely, whether an operation or volition of Christ were to be deemed, Una operatio sive volitio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, according to that Axiom of some Metaphysicians, that Actio est suppositi, and so the Humane and Divine Nature of Christ being coalescent into one person, his volition and operation be accounted one as his person is but one; or because of the two Natures, though but one person, there are to be conceived two operations or two volitions. This latter Dogma obtained, and the other was condemned by this third Constantinopolitan Council: whereupon, as Paulus Diaconus writes, abundance of Cobwebs or Spiders webs fell or reigned, as it were, down upon the heads of the people, to their very great astonishment. Some interpret the Cobwebs of Heresies: others haply more rightfully of troubling the Church of Christ with overgreat niceties and curiosities of subtle Speculation, which tend nothing to the corroborating her Faith, and promoting a good Life; and are so obscure, subtle, and lubricous, that look on them one way they seem thus, and another way thus.  
To this sixth General Council there seemed two Operations and two Wills in Chri●…, because of his two Natures. To a Council called after by Philippicus the Emperor, and John Patriarch o●… Constantinople, considering Christ as one person ●…ere appeared Numerosissimo Orientalium Episcoporum collecto Conven●…ui▪ as Spondanus ●…as 〈◊〉 but as Binius, Innumerle Orientalium Episcoporum multitudini congregat●…e, but one will and one operation. And ce●…tainly this numerous or innumerable company of Bishops must put as fair sore a General Council as that of less than three hundred▪ But that the Authority of both these Councils are lessened upon the account of the second Head, in that the matter they consulted about tended nothing to the corroboration of our Faith, or the promotion of a good Life, I have already intimat●…d.  
These things I was tempted to note, in reference to the tenth Head. For it seems to me an undeniable Argument, that our First Reformers, which are the Risen Witnesses, were either tightly well seen in Ecclesiastic History, or the good Hand of God was upon them that they absolutely admitted only the four first General Councils; but after them, they knew not where to be, or what to call a General Council, and therefore would not adventure of any so called for the adjudging any matters Heresy. But if any pretended to be such, their Authority should no further prevail, than as they made out things by express and plain words of Canonical Scripture. And for other Synods, whether the Seventh, which is the second of Nice, or any other that the Church of Rome would have to be General in defence of their own exorbitant points of Faith or Practice, they will be found of no validity, if we have recourse to the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth Heads.  
Fifthly, In reference to the fifth Head. This fifth Council loseth its Authority in anathematising what in Origen seems to be true according to that express Text of Scripture, John 16. 28. (especially compared with others. See Notes on Chap. II.) I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again I leave the world, and go to the Father. He came forth from his Father which is in Heaven, accordingly as he taught us to pray to him (the Divine Shechina being in a peculiar manner there) He leaves the world and goes to the Father, which all understand of his Ascension into Heaven, whence his coming from the Father must have the same sense, or else the Antithesis will plainly fail. Wherefore it is plain he came down from Heaven (as he signifies also in other places) as well as returns thither. But he can neither be truly said to come from heaven, nor return thither, according to his Divine Nature. For it never lest Heaven, nor removes from one place to another; and therefore this Scripture does plainly imply the Pre existence of the Soul of the Messiah, according to the Doctrine of the Jews, before it was incarnate. And this stricture of the old Cabala may give light to more places of St. John's Writings than is fit to recite in this haste; I will only name one by the by, 1 John 4. 2. Every Spirit that confesseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh, that is to say, is the Christ incarnate, is of God. For the Messiah did exist, viz. his Soul, before he came into the flesh, according to the Doctrine of the Jews. Which was so well known, that upon the abovecited saying (John 16. 28.) of our Saviour, they presently answered, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no Parable; because he clearly discovers himself by this Character to be the expected Messias incarnate. Nor is there any possible evasion out of the clearness of this Text from the communication of Idioms, because Christ cannot be said to come down from Heaven according to his Humane Nature before it was there, therefore his Humane Nature was there before it was incarnate.  
And lastly, The Authority of the Decision of this Council (if it did so decide) is lessened, in that contrary to the second Head (as was hinted above) it decides a point that Faith and Godliness is not at all concerned in. For the Divinity of Christ, which is the great point of Faith, is as firmly held supposing the Soul of the Messias united with the Logos before his incarnation, as in it. So that the spite only of Pelagius against Theodorus to multiply Anathematisms against Origen, no use or necessity of the Church required any such thing. Whence again their Authority is lessened upon the account of the third Head.  
These things may very well suspend a careful mind, and loath to be imposed upon, from relying much upon the Authority of this fifth Council. But suppose its Authority entire, yet the Acts against Origen are not to be found in the Council. And the sixth Council in its Anathematisms, though it mention Theodoret's Writings, the Epistle of Ibas and Theodorus Mopsuestenus who were concerned in the fifth Council; yet I find not there a syllable touching Origen. And therefore those that talk of his being condemned by that fifth Co●…ncil, have an eye, I suppose, to the Anathematisms at the end of that Discourse which Justinian the Emperor sent to Menas Patriarch of Constantinople, according to which form they suppose the errors of Origen condemned. Which if it were true, yet simple Pre-existence will escape well enough.  
Nor do I think that learned and intelligent Patriarch Photius would have called the simple Opinion of Pre-existence of souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but ●…or those Appendages that the injudiciousness and rashness of some had affixed 〈◊〉 it. Partly therefore re●…lecting upon that first Anathematism in the Emperor's Discou●…se that makes the pre-existent souls of men first to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if their highest felicity consisted in having no body to inactuate (which plainly clashes with both sound Philosophy and Christianity, as if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Rephaim were all one, and they were not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, grown cold to the Divine Love, and only gathered body as they gathered corruption, and were alienated from the Life of God; which is point-blank against the Christian Faith, which has promised us, as the highest prize, a glorified body:) And partly what himself adds, that one soul goes into several bodies; Which are impertinent Appendages of the Pre-existence of the soul, false, useless and unnecessary; and therefore those that add these Appendages thereto, violate the sincerity of the Divine Tradition to no good purpose.  
But this simple Doctrine of Pre existence is so unexceptionable and harmless, that the third collection of Councils in Justellus, which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, though it reckon the other errors of Origen condemned in the fifth Council, omits this of Pre-existence. Certainly that Ecclesiastic that framed that Discourse for the Emperor, if he did it not himself, had not fully, deliberately and impartially considered the Dogma of Pre-existence taken in its self, nor does once offer to answer any Reasons out of Scripture or Philosophy that are produced for it. Which if it had been done, and this had been the only error to be alleged against Origen. I cannot think it credible, nay scarce possible, though their spite had been never so much against some lo●…ers of Origen, that they could have got any General Council to have condemned so holy, so able, so victorious a Champion for the Christian Church in his life-time for an H●…retick, upon so tolerable a punctilio, about three hundred years after his death. What Father that wrote before the first four General Councils, but might by the Malevolent, for some odd passage or other, be doomed an Heretic, if such severity were admittable amongst Christians?  
But I have gone out further than I was aware; and it is time for me to be think me what I intended. Which was the justif●…ing of myself in my seeming to prefer the Discretion of our own Church in leaving us free to hold the Incorporeity and Immortality of the soul by any of the three handles that best fitted every man's Genius, before the Judgement of the fifth General Council, that would abridge us of this liberty. From which Charge I have endeavoured to free myself, briefly by these two ways: First, by showing how hard it is to prove the fifth Ecumenical Council so called, to be a legitimate General or Ecumenical Council, and such as whose Authority we may rely on. And secondly, if it was such, by showing that it did not condemn simply the Pre-existence of souls, but Pre-existence with such and such Appendages. So that there is no real clashing betwixt our Church and that Council in this.  
But however this is, from the eighth and ninth Heads its plain enough that the Church of England is no favourer of the Conclusions of any General Council that are enjoined as necessary to Salvation, that be either repugnant to Holy Scripture, or are not clearly to be made out from the same; which Non-pre-existence of Souls certainly is not, but rather the contrary. But being the point is not sufficiently clear from Scripture either way to all, and the Immortality of the Soul and subsistence after death is the main useful point; that way which men can hold it with most firmness and ease, her Candour and Prudence has left it free to them to make use of.  
And as for General Councils, though she does not in a fit of Zeal, which Theodosius a Prior in Palestine is said to have done, anathematise from the Pulpit all people that do not give as much belief to the four first General Councils as to the four Gospels themselves; yet, as you may see in the tenth Head, she makes the Authority of the first four General Councils so great, that nothing is to be adjudged Heresy but what may be proved to be so either from the Scripture or from these four Councils. Which Encomium might be made with less skill and more confidence by that Prior, there having been no more than four General Councils in his time. But it was singular Learning and Judgement, or else a kind of Divine Sagacity in our first Reformers, that they laid so great stress on the first four General Councils, and so little on any others pretended so to be.  
But in all likelihood they being persuaded of the truth of the prediction of the Apostasi●… of the Church under Antichrist how universal in a manner it would be, they had the most confidence in those General Councils which were the earliest, and that were held within those times of the Church which some call Symmetral. And without all question, the two first General Councils, that of Nice, and that other of Constantinople, were within those times, viz. within four hundred years after Christ; and the third and fourth within the time that the ten-horned Beast had his horns growing up, according to Mr. Mede's computation. But the Definitions of the third and fourth Councils, that of Ephesus, and that other of Chalcedon (which are to establish the Divinity of Christ, which is not to be conceived without the Union of both Natures into one person; as also his Theanthropy, which cannot consist with the confusion of both Natures into one) were virtually contained in the Definitions of the first and second Councils. So that in this regard they are all of equal Authority, and that unexceptionable. First, because their Decisions were concerning points necessary to be decided one way or other, for the settlement of the Church in the objects of their Divine Worship. And therefore they might be the better assured that t●…e assistance of the Holy Ghost would not be wa●…ing upon so weighty an occasion. And secondly, in that those two first Councils were called while the Church was Symmetral, and before the Apostasy came in, according to the testimony of the Spirit in the Visions of the Apocalypse.  
Which Visions plainly demonstrate, that the Definitions of those Councils touching the Triunity of the Godhead and Divinity of Christ are not Idolatrous, else the Apostasy had begun before the time these Oracles declare it did; and if not Idolatrous, than they are most certainly true. And all these four Councils driving at nothing else but these necessary points to be decided, and their decision being thus plainly approved by the suffrage of the Holy Ghost in the Apocalypse, I appeal to any man of sense and judgement if they have not a peculiar prerogative to be believed above what other pretended General Council soever; and consequently with what special or rather Divine sagacity our first Reformers have laid so peculiar a stress on these four, and how consistent our Mother the Church of England is to herself, that the decisions of General Councils have neither strength nor Authority further than the matter may be cleared out of the Holy Scriptures. For here we see, that out of the Holy Scriptures there is a most ample testimony given to the Decisions of these four General Councils. So that if one should with Theodosius the Prior of Palestine in a fit of Zeal anathematise all those that did not believe them as true as the four Evangelists, he would not want a fair Plea for his religious fury.  
But for men after the Symmetral times of the Church, upon Piques and private quarrels of Parties, to get General Councils called as they fancy them, to conclude matters that tend neither to the confirmation of the real Articles of the Christian Faith, or of such a sense of them as are truly useful to life and godliness, and herein to expect the infallible assistances of the Holy Spirit, either upon such terms as these, or for rank worldly interest, is such a presumption as to a free Judgement will look little better than Simony, as if they could hire the assistance of the Holy Ghost for money.  
Thus have I run further into the consideration of General Councils, and the measure of their Authority, than was requisite upon so small an occasion; and yet I think there is nothing said, but if seriously weighed may be useful to the intelligent Reader, whether he favour Pre-existence or not. Which is no further to be favoured than is consistent with the known and approved Doctrines of the Christian Faith, nor clashes any thing with the soundest Systemes of Divinity, as Dr. H. More shows his way of exhibiting the Theory does not, in his General Preface to his Collectio Philosophica, Sect. 19 whose cautious and castigate method I have imitated as near as I could in these my Annotations. And he has indeed been so careful of admitting any thing in the Hypothesis that may justly be suspected or excepted against, that his Friend Mr. Glanvil might have enlarged his Dedication by one word more, and called him Repurgatorem Sapientioe Orientalis, as well as Restauratorem, unless Restaurator imply both: It being a piece of Restauration, to free an Hypothesis from the errors some may have corrupted it with, and to recover it to its primeval purity and sincerity.  
And yet when the business is reduced to this harmless and unexceptionable state, such is the modesty of that Writer, that he declares that if he were as certain of the Opinion as of any demonstration in Mathematics, yet he holds not himself bound in conscience to profess it any further than is with the goodliking or permission of his Superiors. Of which temper if all men were, it would infinitely contribute to the peace of the Church. And as for myself, I do freely profess that I am altogether of the selfsame Opinion and Judgement with him.   

Annotations UPON THE Discourse of TRUTH.  
Into which is inserted By way of DIGRESSION, A brief Return To Mr. BAXTER's Reply, Which he calls A Placid COLLATION With the Learned Dr. HENRY MORE, Occasioned by the Doctors ANSWER to a LETTER of the Learned Psychopyrist.  
Whereunto is annexed A DEVOTIONAL HYMN, Translated for the use of the sincere Lovers of true PIETY.  
LONDON: Printed for J. Collins, and S. Lownds, over against Exeter-Change in the Strand. 1683.   

THE Annotatour TO THE READER.  
ABout a fortnight or three weeks ago, while my Annotations upon the two foregoing Treatises were a printing, there came to my hands Mr. Baxter's Reply to Dr. Moor's Answer to a Letter of the learned Psychopyrist, printed in the second Edition of Saducismus Triumphatus: Which Reply he styles a Placid Collation with the Learned Dr. Henry More. I being fully at leisure, presently fell upon reading this Placid Collation; which I must confess is so writ, that I was much surprised in the reading of it, I expecting by the Title thereof nothing but fairness and freeness of Judgement, and calmness of Spirit, and love and desire of Truth, and the prosperous success thereof in the World, whether ourselves have the luck to light on it, or where ever it is found.  
But instead of this, I found a Magisterial loftiness of Spirit, and a study of obscuring and suppressing of the Truth by petty crooked Artifices, strange distortions of the sense of the Doctor's Arguments, and Falsifications of Passages in his Answer to the Letter of the Psychopyrist. Which surprise moved me, I confess, to a competent measure of Indignation in the behalf of the injured Doctor, and of the Truth he contends for: And that Indignation, according to the idiosyncrasy of my Genius, stirred up the merry Humour in me, I being more prone to laugh than to be severely angry or surly at those that do things unhandsomely; And this merry humour stirred up, prevailing so much upon my Judgement as to make me think that this Placid Collation was not to be answered, but by one in a pleasant and jocular humour; And I finding myself something so disposed, and judging the matter not of that moment as to be buzzed upon long, and that this more light some, brisk and jocular way of answering the Placid Collation might better besit an unknown Annotatour, than the known Pen and Person of the Doctor, I presently betook myself to this little Province, thinking at first only to take notice of Mr. Baxters' Disingenuities towards the Doctor; but one thing drawing on another, and that which followed being carefully managed and apparently useful, I mean the Answering all Mr. baxter's pretended Objections against the Penetrability or Indiscerpibility of a Spirit, and all his smaller Criticisms upon the Doctor's Definition thereof, in finishing these three Parts, I quickly completed the whole little Work of what I call the Digression, (inserted into my Annotations upon Bishop Rusts ingenious Discourse of Truth) which, with my Annotations, and the serious Hymn annexed at the end (to recompose thy Spirits, if any thing over-ludicrous may chance to have discomposed them) I offer, courteous Reader, to thy candid perusal; and so in some haste take leave, and rest  
Your humble Servant, The ANNOTATOUR.   

Annotations UPON THE Discourse of TRUTH.  
Sect. 1. pag. 165. AND that there are necessary mutual respects, etc. Here was a gross mistake in the former Impression. For this clause there ran thus: By the first I mean nothing else, but that things necessarily are what they are. By the second, that there are necessary mutual Respects and Relations of things one unto another. As if these mutual Respects and Relations of Things one to another were Truth in the Subject, and not Truth in the Object; the latter of which he handles from the fourth Section to the eighteenth, in which last Section alone he treats of Truth in the Subject or Understanding. The former part of the Discourse is spent in treating of Truth in the Object; that is to say, of Truth in the nature of things, and their necessary Respects and mutual Relations one to another. Both which are antecedent in the order of nature to all Understandings, and therefore both put together make up the first branch of the Division of Truth. So grossly had the Authors MS. been depraved by passing through the hands of unskilful Transcribers, as Mr. J. Glanvil complains at the end of his Letter prefixed to this Discourse. And so far as I see, that MS. by which he corrected that according to which the former Impression was made, was corrupt itself in this place. And it running glibly, and they expecting so suddenly the proposal of the other member of the Division, the error, though so great, was overseen. But it being now so seasonably corrected, it gives great light to the Discourse, and makes things more easy and intelligible.  
Sect. 2. pag. 166. That any thing may be a suitable means to any end, etc. It may seem a monstrous thing to the sober, that any man's Understanding should be so depraved as to think so. And yet I have met with one that took himself to be no small Philosopher, but to be wiser than both the Universities, and the Royal Society to boot, that did earnestly affirm to me, that there is no natural adaptation of means to ends, but that one means would be as good as another for any end if God would have it so, in whose power alone every thing has that effect it has upon another. Whereupon I asked him, whether if God wo●…ld a Football might not be as good an Instrument to make or mend a Pen withal, as a Penknife. He was surprised; but whether he was convinced of his madness and folly, I do not well remember.  
Pag. 167. Is it possible there should be such a kind of Geometry, wherein any Problem should be demonstrated by any Principles? Some of the Cartesians bid fair towards this Freakishness, whenas they do not stick to assert, that, If God would, he could have made that the whole should be lesser than the part, and the part bigger than the whole. Which I suppose they were animated to, by a piece of raillery of Des Cartes, in answering a certain Objection; where, that he may not seem to violate the absolute Power of God for making what Laws he pleased for the ordering of the matter of the Universe (though himself seems to have framed the world out of certain inevitable and necessary Mechanical Laws) does affirm, that those Laws that seem so necessary, are by the arbitrarious appointment of God, who, if he would, could have appointed other Laws, and indeed framed another Geometry than we have, and made the power of the Hypotenusa of a Right-angled Triangle unequal to the powers of the Basis and Cathetus. This piece of Drollery of Des Cartes some of his followers have very gravely improved to what I said above of the Whole and Part. As if some superstitious Fop, upon the hearing one being demanded, whether he did believe the real and corporeal presence of Christ in the Sacrament, to answer roundly that he believed him there booted and spurred as he road in triumph to Jerusalem, should become of the same Faith that the other seemed to profess, and glory in the improvement thereof by adding that the Ass was also in the Sacrament, which he spurred and rid upon. But in the mean time, while there is this Frenzy amongst them that are no small pretenders to Philosophy, this does not a little set off the value and usefulness of this present Discourse of Truth, to undeceiv●… them if they be not wilfully blind.  
Pag. 167. Therefore the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones; namely, Because a Quadrangle is that which is comprehended of four right lines. It is at least a more operose and ambagious Inference, if any at all. The more immediate and expedite is this, That the two internal alternate Angles made by a right line cutting two parallels, are equal to one another: Therefore the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones, P. Ram. Geom. Lib. 6. Prop. 9 Is the reasoning had been thus: A Quadrangle is that which is comprehended of ●…our right lines, Therefore the three Angles of a Triangle are not equal to two right ones; as the Conclusion is grossly false, so the proof had been egregiously ali●…n and impertinent. And the intention of the Author seems to be carried to Instances that are most extravagant and surprising; which makes me doubt whether [equal] was read in the true MS. or [not equal] but the sense is well enough either way.  
Sect. 4. pag. 168. The Divine Understanding cannot be the fountain of the Truth of things, etc. This seems at first sight to be a very harsh Paradox, and against the current Doctrine of Metaphysicians, who define Transcendental or Metaphysical Truth to be nothing else but the relation of the Conformity of things to the Theoretical (not Practical) Intellect of God; His Practical Intellect being that by which he knows things as produced or to be produced by him, but his Theoretical that, by which he knows things as they are; but yet in an Objective manner, as existent objectively, not really. And hence they make Transcendental Truth to depend upon the Intellectual Truth of God, which alone is most properly Truth, and indeed the fountain and origine of all Truth. This in brief is the sense of the Metaphysical Schools. With which this passage of our Author seems to clash, in denying the Divine Intellect to be the fountain of the Truth of things, and in driving rather at this, That the things themselves in their Objective Existence, such as they appear there unalterably and unchangeably to the Divine Intellect, and not at pleasure contrived by it (for as he says, it is against the nature of all understanding to make its Object) are the measure and fountain of Truth. That in these, I say, consists the Truth in the Object, and that the Truth in the Subject is a conception conformable to these, or to the Truth of them whether in the uncreated or created Understanding.  
So that the niceness of the point is this: Whether the Transcendental Truth of things exhibited in their Objective Existence to the Theoretical Intellect of God consists in their Conformity to that Intellect, or the Truth of that Intellect in its Conformity with the immutable natures and Relations or Respects of things exhibited in their Objective Existence, which the Divine Intellect finds to be unalterably such, not contrives them at its own pleasure. This though it be no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or strife about mere words, yet it seems to be such a contest, that there is no harm done whethersoever side carries the Cause, the two seeming sides being but one and the same Intellect of God necessarily and immutably representing to itself the natures, Respects, and Aptitudes of all things such as they appear in their Objective Existence, and such as they will prove whenever produced into act.  
As for example, The Divine Understanding quatenns exhibitive of Ideas (which a Platonist would call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) does of its infinite pregnancy and fecundity necessarily exhibit certain and unalterable Ideas of such and such determinate things, as suppose of a Cylinder, a Globe and a Pyramid, which have a settled and unalterable nature, as also immutable properties, references and aptitudes immediately consequential thereto, and not arbitrariously added unto them, which are thus necessarily extant in the Divine Intellect, as exhibitive of such Ideas. So likewise a Fish, a Fowl, and a fourfooted beast, an Ox, Bear, Horse, or the like, they have a settled nature exhibited in their Ideas, and the properties and aptitudes immediately flowing therefrom. As also have all the Elements, Earth, Water and Air, determinate natures, with properties and aptitudes immediately issuing from them. Nor is a Whale fitted to fly in the Air, nor an Eagle to live under the Water, nor an Ox or Bear to do either, nor any of them to live in the Fire. But the Ideas of those things which we call by those names being unchangeable (for there are differences indeed of Ideas, but no changing of one Idea into another state, but their natures are distinctly settled; and to add or take away any thing from an Idea, is not to make an alteration in the same Idea, but to constitute a new one; As Aristotle somewhere in his Metaphysics speaks of Numbers, where he says, that the adding or taking away of an Unite quite varies the species. And therefore as every number, suppose, Binary, Quinary, Ternary, Denary, is such a settled number and no other, and has such properties in itself, and references immediately accrueing to it, and aptitudes which no other number besides itself has; so it is with Ideas) the Ideas I say therefore of those things which we call by those name's above-recited being unchangeable, the aptitudes and references immediately issuing from their nature represented in the Idea, must be also unalterable and necessary. Thus it is with Mathematical and Physical Ideas; and there is the same reason concerning such Ideas as may be called Moral. Forasmuch as they respect the rectitude of Will in whatever Mind, created or uncreated:  
And thus, lastly, it is with Metaphysical Ideas, as for example; As the Physical Idea of Body, Matter or Substance Material contains in it immediately of its own nature or intimate specific Essence real Divisibility or Discerpibility, Impenetrability and mere Passivity or Actuability, as the proper fruit of the Essential Difference and intimate Form thereof, unalterably and immutably as in its Idea in the Divine Intellect, so in any Body or Material Substance that does exist: So the Idea of a Spirit, or of a Substance Immaterial, the opposite Idea to the other, contains in it immediately of its own nature Indiscerpibility, Penetrability, and Self-Activity, as the inseparable fruit of the essential difference or intimate form thereof unalterably and immutably, as in its Idea in the Divine Intellect, so in any Immaterial Substance properly so called that doth exist. So that as it is a contradiction in the Idea that it should be the Idea of Substance Immaterial, and yet not include in it Indiscerpibility, etc. so it is in the being really existent, that it should be Substance Immaterial, and yet not be Indiscerpible, etc. For were it so, it would not answer to the Truth of its Idea, nor be what it pretendeth to be, and is indeed, an existent Being Indiscerpible; which existent Being would not be Indiscerpible, if any could discerp it.  
And so likewise it is with the Idea of Ens summè & absolutè perfectum, which is a settled determinate and immutable Idea in the Divine Intellect, whereby, were not God himself that Ens summè & absolutè perfectum, he would discern there were something better than Himself, and consequently that he were not God. But he discerns Himself to be this Ens summè & absolutè perfectum, and we cannot but discern that to such a Being belongs Spirituality, which implies Indiscerpibility, (and who but a mad man can imagine the Divine Essence discerpible into parts?) Infinity of Essence, or Essential Omnipresence, Self-Causality, or necessary Existence immediately of itself or from itself, resulting from the absolute and peculiar perfection of its own nature, whereby we understand that nothing can exist ab aeterno of itself but Herald And lastly, Omniscience and Omnipotence, whereby it can do any thing that implies no contradiction to be done. Whence it necessarily follows, that all things were Created by Him, and that he were not God, or Ens summè perfectum, if it were not so: And that amongst other things he created Spirits (as sure as there are any Spirits in the world) indiscerpible as himself is, though of finite Essences and Metaphysical Amplitudes; and that it is no derogation to his Omnipotence that he cannot discerp a Spirit once created, it being a contradiction that he should: Nor therefore any argument that he cannot create a Spirit, because he would then puzzle his own Omnipotence to discerp it. For it would then follow, that he cannot create any thing, no not Metaphysical Monads, nor Matter, unless it be Physically divisible in infinitum; and God Himself could never divide it into parts Physically indivisible; whereby yet his Omnipotence would be puzzled: And if he can divide matter into Physical Monads no further divisible, there his Omnipotence is puzzled again; And by such sophistical Reasoning, God shall be able to create nothing, neither Matter nor Spirit, nor consequently be God, or Ens summè & absolutè perfectum, the Creator and Essentiator of all things.  
This is so Mathematically clear and true, that I wonder that Mr. Rich. Baxter should not rather exult, (in his Placid Collation) at the discovery of so plain and useful a truth, than put himself, p. 79. into an Histrionical (as the Latin) or (as the Greek would express it) Hypocritical fit of trembling, to amuse the populacy, as if the Doctor in his serious and solid reasoning had verged towards something hugely exorbitant or profane. The ignorant fear where no fear is, but God is in the generation of the knowing and upright. It's plain, this Reasoning brings not the existence of God into any doubt, (For it is no repugnance to either his nature or existence, not to be able to do what is a contradiction to be done) but it puts the Indiscerpibility of Spirits (which is a Notion mainly useful) out of all doubt. And yet Mr. Baxter his fancy stalking upon wooden stilts, and getting more than a spit and a stride before his Reason, very magisterially pronounces, It's a thing so high, as required some show of proof to intimate that God cannot be God if he be Almighty, and cannot conquer his own Omnipotency. Ans. This is an expression so high and in the Clouds, that no sense thereof is to be seen, unless this be it: That God cannot be God, unless he be not Almighty; as he would discover himself not to be, if he could not discerp a Spirit of a Metaphysical amplitude when he has created it. But it plainly appears from what has been said above, that this discerping of a Spirit, which is immediately and essentially of its own nature indiscerpible, as well as a Physical Monad is, implying a contradiction, it is no derogation to the Almightiness of God that he cannot do it; all Philosophers and Theologers being agreed on that Maxim, That what implies a contradiction to be done, is no Object of God's Almightiness. Nor is he less Almighty for not being able to do it. So that the prick-eared Acuteness of that trim and smug saying, that seemed before to shoot up into the Sky, flags now like the slaccid lugs of the over-laden Animal old Silenus rid on when he had a Plot upon the Nymph●… by Moonshine. Pardon the tediousness of the Periphrasis: For though the Poet was pleased to put old Silenus on the Ass, yet I thought it not so civil to put the Ass upon old Mr. Baxter.  
But he proceeds, pag. 80. Your words, says he, like an intended Reason, are [For that cannot be God from whom all other things are not produced and created] to which he answers, (1.) Relatively, says he, (as a God to us) it's true, though quoad existentiam Essentiae, he was God before the Creation. But, I say, if he had not had the power of creating, he had been so defective a Being, that he had not been God. But he says (2.) But did you take this for any show of a proof? The sense employed is this [All things are not produced and created by God, if a spiritual ample substance be divisible by his Omnipotency that made it: Yea; Then he is not God. Negatur consequentia. Ans. Very scholastically disputed! Would one think that Reverend Mr. Baxter, whom Dr. More for his Function and Grandevity sake handles so respectfully, and forbears all such Juvenilities as he had used toward Eugenius Philalethes, should play the Doctor such horseplay, having been used so civilly by him before? What Buffoon or Antic Mime could have distorted their bodies more ill-favouredly and ridiculously, than he has the Doctor's solid and well-composed Argument? And then as if he had done it in pure innocency and simplicity, he adds a Quaker-like [Yea] thereunto. And after all, like a bold Scholastic Champion, or Polemic Divine, courageously cries out, Negatur consequentia. What a fardel of freaks is there here, and illiberal Artifices to hide the Doctors sound Reasoning in the 28th Section of his Answer to the Psychopyrists Letter? Where having plainly proved that God can create an Indiscerpible Being though of a large Metaphysical amplitude, and that there is nothing objected against it, nor indeed can be, but that then he would seem to puzzle his own Omnipotency, which could not discerp such a Being; the Doctor shows the vanity of that Objection in these very words: The same, says he, may be said of the Metaphysical Monads (namely, that God cannot discerp them) and at that rate he shall be allowed to create nothing, no not so much as Matter (which consists of Physical Monads) nor himself indeed to be. For that cannot be God, from whom all other things are not produced and created. What reason can be more clear or more convincing, That God can create a Spirit in the proper sense thereof, which includes Indiscerpibility? there being no reason against it but what is false, it plainly implying that he can create nothing, and consequently that he cannot be God. Wherefore that Objection being thus clearly removed, God, as sure as himself is, can create a Spirit, penetrable and indiscerpible, as himself is, and is expressly acknowledged to be so by Mr. Baxter himself, pag. 51. And he having created Spirits or Immaterial Substances of an opposite Species to Material, which are impenetrable and discerpible of their immediate nature, how can these Immaterial substances be any other than Penetrable and Indiscerpible? Which is a very useful Dogma for assuring the souls personal subsistence after Death. And therefore it is a piece of grand Disingenuity in Mr. Baxter, to endeavour thus to slur and obscure so plain and edifying a Truth, by mére Antic Distortions of words and sense, by alterations and mutilations, and by a kind of sophistick Buffonery. This is one specimen of his Disingenuity towards the Doctor, who in his Answer has been so civil to him. And now I have got into this Digression, I shall not stick to exemplify it in several others.  
As secondly, pag. 4. in those words: And when I presume most, I do but most lose myself, and misuse my understanding. Nothing is good for that which it was not made for. Our Understandings, as our Eyes, are made only for things revealed. In many of your Books I take this for an excess. So Mr. Baxter. Let me now interpose a word or two in the behalf of the Doctor. Is not this a plain piece of Disingenuity against the Doctor, who has spent so great a part of his time in Philosophy (which the mere Letter of the Scripture very rarely reveals any thing of) to reproach him for his having used his understanding so much about things not revealed in Scripture? Where should he use his Understanding and Reason, if not in things unrevealed in Scripture; that is, in Philosophical things? Things revealed in Scripture are Objects rather of Faith than of Science and Understanding. And what a Paradox is this, that our Understandings, as our Eyes, are made only for things revealed? When our Eyes are shut, all the whole visible world, by the closing of the palpebroe is vailed from us, but it is revealed to us again by the opening of our eyes; and so it is with the eye of the Understanding. If it be shut through Pride, Prejudice, or Sensuality, the mysteries of Philosophy are thereby vailed from it; but if by true virtue and unfeigned sanctity of mind that eye be opened, the Mysteries of Philosophy are the more clearly discovered to it, especially if points be studied with singular industry, which Mr. Baxter himself acknowledges of the Doctor, pag. 21. only he would there pin upon his back an Humble Ignoramus in some things, which the Doctor, I dare say, will easily admit in many things, yea in most; and yet, I believe, this he will stand upon, that in those things which he professes to know, he will challenge all the world to disprove if they can. And for probable Opinions, especially if they be useless, which many Books are too much stuffed withal, he casts them out as the lumber of the mind, and would willingly give them no room in his thoughts. Firmness and soundness of Life is much better than the multiplicity of uncertain Conceits.  
And lastly, whereas Mr. Baxter speaking of himself, says, And when I presume most, I do but most loaf myself; He has so bewildered and lo●… him●…elf in the multifarious, and most-what needless points in Philosophy or Scholastic Divinity, that if we can collect the measures of the Cause from the amplitude of the Effect, he must certainly have been very presumptuous. He had better have set up his Staff in his Saints everlasting Rest, and such other edifying and useful Books as those, than to have set up for either a Philosopher or Polemic Divine. But it is the infelicity of too many, that they are ignorant— Quid valeant humeri, quid ferre recusent, as the Poet speaks, or as the Pythagoreans— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. And so taking upon them a part in a Play which they are unfit for, they both neglect that which they are fit for, and miscarry, by reason of their unfitness, in their acting that Part they have rashly undertaken; as Epictetus somewhere judiciously observes.  
But if that passage, And when I presume most, I do but most lose myself, was intended by him as an oblique Socratical reproof to the Doctor; let him instance if he can, where the Doctor has presumed above his strength. He has meddled but with a few things, and therefore he need not envy his success therein, especially they being of manifest use to the serious world, so many as God has fitted for the reception of them. Certainly there was some grand occasion for so grave a preliminary monition as he has given the Doctor. You have it in the following Page, p. 5. This premised, says he, I say, undoubtedly it is utterly unrevealed either as to any certainty or probability, That all Spirits are Souls, and actuate Matter. See what Heat and Hast, or some worse Principle has engaged Mr. Baxter to do; to father a downright falsehood upon the Doctor, that he may thence take occasion to bestow a grave admonition on him, and so place himself on the higher ground. I am certain it is neither the Doctor's opinion, That all Spirits are Souls, and actuate Matter, nor has he writ so any where. He only says in his Preface to the Reader, That all created Spirits are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 [Souls] in all probability, and actuate some matter. And his expression herein is both modest and true. For though it is not certain or necessary, yet it is very probable. For if there were of the highest Orders of the Angels that fell, it is very probable that they had corporeal Vehicles, without which it is hard to conceive they could run into disorder. And our Saviour Christ's Soul, which actuates a glorified spiritual Body, being set above all the Orders of Angels, it is likely that there is none of them is so refined above his Humane Nature, as to have no bodies at all. Not to add, that at the Resurrection we become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, though we have bodies then; which is a shrewd intimation that the Angels have so too, and that there are no created Spirits but have so.  
Thirdly, Mr. Baxter, pag. 6. wrongfully blames the Doctor for being so defective in his studies as not to have read over Dr. Glisson De Vita Naturae; and says he has talked with divers high pretenders to Philosophy, and asked their judgement of that Book, and found that none of them understood it, but neglected it, as too hard for them; and yet contemned it. His words to Dr. More are these: I marvel that when you have dealt with so many sorts of Dissenters, you meddle not with so subtle a piece as that of old Dr. Glissons, De Vita Naturae. He thinks the subtlety of the Book has deterred the Doctor from reading it, as something above his Capacity, as also of other high Pretenders to Philosophy.  
This is a Book it seems calculated only for the elevation of Mr. baxter's subtle and sublime wit. And indeed by the benefit of reading this Book he is most dreadfully armed with the affrightful terms of Quoddities and Quiddities, of Conceptus formalis and fundamentalis, of Conceptus adaequatus and inadaequatus, and the like. In virtue of which thwacking expressions he has fancied himself able to play at Scholastic or Philosophic Quarterstaff with the most doughty and best appointed Wits that dare enter the Lists with him; and as over-neglectful of his flock, like some conceited Shepherds, that think themselves no small fools at the use of the Staff or Cudgil-play, take Vagaries to Fairs or Wakes to give a specimen of their skill; so he ever and anon makes his Polemic sallies in Philosophy or Divinity to entertain the Spectators, though very oft he is so rapt upon the knuckles, that he is forced to let fall his wooden Instrument, and blow his fingers. Which is but a just Nemesis upon him, and he would do well to interpret it as a seasonable reproof from the great Pastor of Souls, to whom we are all accountable.  
But to return to his speech to the Doctor; I will adventure to answer in his behalf, That I marvel that whenas Mr. Baxter has had the cur●…osity to read so many Writers, and some of them sure but of small concern, that he has not read that sound and solid piece of Dr. More, viz. his Epistola altera ad V. C. with the Scholia thereon, where Spinozius is confuted. Which if he had read he might have seen Volume. Philosoph. Tom. 1. pag. 604, 605, etc. that the Doctor has not only read that subtle Piece of Doctor Glissons, but understands so throughly his Hypothesis, that he has solidly and substantially confuted it. Which he did in a faithful regard to Religion. For that Hypothesis, if it were true, were as safe, if not a sa●…er Refuge for Atheists, than the mere Mechanic Philosophy is: And therefore you may see there, how Cuperus, brought up amongst the Atheists from his very childhood, does confess, how the Atheists nowadays explode the Mechanic Philosophy as not being for their turn, and betake themselves wholly to such an Hypothesis as Dr. Glissons Vita Naturae. But, God be thanked, Dr. H. More in the forecited place has perfectly routed that fond and foul Hypothesis of Dr. Glisson, and I dare say is sorry that so good and old a Knight errand in Theologie and Philosophy as Mr Richard Baxter seems to be, should become benighted, as in a wood, at the Close of his days, in this most horrid dark Harbour and dismal Receptacle or Rendezvous of wretched Atheists. But I dare say for him, it is his ignorance▪ not choice, that has lodged him there.  
The fourth Disingenuity of Mr. Baxter towards the Doctor is, in complaining of him as if he had wronged him by the Title of his Answer to his Letter, in calling it an Answer to a Psychopyrist, pag. 2. 82. As if he had asserted that materiality of Spirits which belongs to bodies, pag. 94. In complaining also of his inconsistency with himself, pag. 10. as if he one while said that Mr. Baxter made Spirits to be Fire or material, and another while said he made them not Fire or material. But to the first part of this Accusation it may be answered, That if it is Mr. Baxter that is called the Learned Psychopyrist, how is the thing known to the world but by himself? It looks as if he were ambitious of the Title, and proud of the civil treating he has had at the hands of the Doctor, though he has but ill repaid his civility in his Reply. And besides this, there is no more harshness in calling him Psychopyrist, than if he had called him Psycho-Hylist, there being nothing absurd in Psychopyrism but so far forth as it includes Psycho-Hylism, and makes the Soul material.  
Which Psycho-Hylism that Mr. Baxter does admit, it is made evident in the Doctor's Answer, Sect. 16. And Mr. Baxter in his Placid Collation (as he mis-calls it, for assuredly his mind was turbid when he wrote it) pag. 2. allows that Spirits may be called Fire Analogicè and Eminenter, and the Doctor in his Preface intimates that the sense is to be no further stretched, than the Psychopyrist himself will allow.  
But now that Mr. Baxter does assert that Materiality in created Spirits that belongs to bodies in the common sense of all Philosophers, appears Sect. 16. where his words are these: But custom having made MATERIA, but especially CORPUS to signify only such grosser Substance as the three passive Elements are (he means Earth, Water, Air) I yield, says he, so to say, that Spirits are not Corporeal or Material. Which plainly implies that Spirits are in no other sense Immaterial, than Fire and Aether are, viz. than in this, that they are thinner matter.  
And therefore to the last point it may be answered in the Doctor's behalf, that he assuredly does nowhere say, That Mr. Baxter does not say that Spirits are Material, as Material is taken in the common sense of all Philosophers for what is impenetrable and discerpible. Which is Materia Physica, and in opposition to which, a Spirit is said to be Immaterial. And which briefly and distinctly states the Question. Which if Mr. Baxter would have taken notice of, he might have saved himself the labour of a great deal of needless verbosity in his Placid Collation, where he does over-frequently, under the pretence of more distinctness, in the multitude of words obscure knowledge.  
Fifthly, Upon Sect. 10. pag. 21. where Mr. baxter's Question is, How a man may tell how that God that can make many out of one, cannot make many into one, etc. To which the Doctor there answers: If the meaning be of substantial Spirits, it has been already noted, that God acting in Nature does not make many substances out of one, the substance remaining still entire; for then Generation would be Creation. And no sober man believes that God assists any creature so in a natural course, as to enable it to create: And then I suppose that he that believes not this, is not bound to puzzle himself why God may not as well make many substances into one, as many out of one, whenas he holds he does not the latter, etc. These are the Doctors own words in that Section. In reply to which, Mr. Baxter: But to my Question, says he, why God cannot make two of one, or one of two, you put me off with this lean Answer, that we be not bound to puzzle ourselves about it. I think, says he, that Answer might serve to much of your Philosophical disputes. Here Mr. Baxter plainly deals very disingenuously with the Doctor in perverting his words, which affirm only, That he that denies that God can make two substances of one in the sense above-declared need not puzzle himself how he may make one of those two again. Which is no lean, but full and apposite Answer to the Question there propounded.  
And yet in this his Placid Collation, as if he were wroth, he gives ill language, and insinuates, That much of the Doctor's Philosophical Disputes are such as are not worth a man's puzzling himself about them; whenas it is well known to all that know him or his Writings, that he concerns himself in no Theories but such as are weighty and useful, as this of the Indiscerpibility of Spirits is, touching which he further slanders the Doctor, as if it were his mere Assertion without any Proof. As if Mr. Baxter had never read, or forgot the Doctor's Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit, or what he has writ in the further Defence thereof. See Sect. 26, 28, 30, 31. Thus to say any thing in an angry mood, verily does not become the Title of a Placid Collation.  
Sixthly, The Doctor in Sect. 11. of his Defence of his Notion of a Spirit, writes thus: I desire you to consider the nature of Light throughly, and you shall find it nothing but a certain motion of a Medium, whose parts or particles are so or so qualified, some such way as Cartesianism drives at. To this Mr. Baxter replies against the Doctor, pag. 59 Really, sa●…es he, when I read how far you have escaped the delusions of Cartesianism, I am sorry you yet stick in so gross a part of it as this is; when he that knoweth no more than motion in the nature of Fire, which is the Active Principle by which Mental and Sensitive Nature operateth on Man and Brutes and Vegetables, and all the Passive Elements; and all the visible actions in this lower world are performed, what can that man's Philosophy be worth? I therefore return your Counsel, study more throughly the nature of Ethereal Fire  
Satis pro imperio! very Magisterially spoken! and in such an igneous Rapture, that it is not continuedly sense. Does Mental and Sensitive Nature act on Brutes and Vegetables and all the Passive Elements? But to let go that: Is all the Doctor's Philosophy worth nothing if he hold with Des Cartes touching the Phaenomenon of Light as to the Material part thereof? It is the ignorance of Mr. Baxter, that he rejects all in Des Cartes, and Judiciousness in the Doctor, that he retains some things, and supplies where his Philosophy is deficient. He names here only the Mechanical Cause of Light, viz. Motion, and duly modified Particles. But in his Enchiridium he intimates an higher principle than either Fire or Aether, or any thing that is Material, be it as fine and pure as you please to fancy it. See his Enchirid. Metaphys. Cap. 19 where he shows plainly, that Light would not be Light, were there not a Spiritus Mundanus, or Spirit of Nature, which pervades the whole Universe; Mr. Baxters ignorance whereof has cast him into so deep a dotage upon Fire and Light, and fine discerpible Corporeities, which he would by his Magisterial Prerogative dubb Spirits, when to nothing that Title is due, but what is Penetrable and Indiscerpible by reason of the immediate Oneness of its Essence, even as God the Father and Creator of all Spirits is one Indiscerpible Substance or Being. And therefore I would advise Mr. Baxter to study more throughly the true nature of a Spirit, and to let go these Ignes Fatui that would seduce him into thick mists and bogs. For that universal Spirit of Nature is most certainly the Mover of the matter of the world, and the Modifier thereof, and thence exhibits to us not only the Phaenomena of Light and Fire, but of Earth and Water, and frames all Vegetables into shape and growth; and Fire of itself is but a dead Instrument in its hand, as all is in the hand of God, who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Synesius, if I well remember, somewhere calls him in his Hymns.  
Seventhly, That is also less ingenuously done of Mr. Baxter, when the Doctor so friendly and faithfully puts him in a way of undeceiving himself, Sect. 17. touching the Doctrine of Atoms, that he puts it off so slightly. And so Sect. 18. where he earnestly exhorts him to study the nature of Water, as Mr. Baxter does others to study the nature of Fire; he, as if he had been bitten, and thence taken with that disease the Physicians call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and which signifies the fear of Water, has slunk away and quite neglected the Doctor's friendly monition; and is so small a Proficient in hydrostatics, that pag. 68 he understands not what greater wonder there is in the rising of the Dr.'s Rundle, than in the rising of a piece of Timber from the bottom of the Sea. Which is a sign he never read the 13th Chapter of the Dr.'s Enchiridion Metaphysicum, much less the Scholia thereon. For if he had, he would discern the difference, and the vast usefulness of the one above that of the other to prove a Principium Hylarchicum distinct from the matter of the Universe, against all evasions and tergiversations whatsoever. But these things cannot be insisted on here.  
Eighthly, Mr. Baxter, pag. 76. charges the Doctor with such a strange Paradox as to half of it, that I cannot imagine from whence he should fetch it. Tou seem, says he, to make all substance Atoms, Spiritual Atoms and Material Atoms. The latter part of the charge the Doctor I doubt not but will acknowledge to be true: But may easily prove out of Mr. Baxter, pag. 65. that he must hold so too. For his words there are these: That God is able to divide all matter into Atoms or indivisible parts I doubt not. And can they be Phy●…ically divided into parts of which they don't consist? But Mr. Baxter by the same reason making Spirits divisible by God, though not by any Creature, makes them consist of Spiritual Atoms, for they cannot but consist of such parts as they are divisible into. And if they be divisible by God into larger shreds only but not into Atoms, than every created Spirit, especially particular ones, are so many subtle living Puppets made up of spiritual rags and clouts. But if God can divide them neither into spiritual Atoms nor larger spiritual parcels, he can't divide them at all. And so according to what the Doctor contends for, they will be, as they ought to be, absolutely indiscerpible.  
I omit here to take notice of another absurdity of Mr. Baxters, That though the substance of a Spirit he will have to be divisible, yet he will have the form indivisible, pag. 50, 99 and yet both parts to be Spirit still; which implies a contradiction. For than one of the parts will be without the form of a Spirit, and consequently be no Spirit, and yet be a Spirit according to Mr. Baxter, who makes Spirits divisible into parts of the same denomination, as when water is divided into two parts, each part is still water, pag. 53.  
Ninthly. That which occurrs pag. 48. is a gross Disingenuity against the Doctor, where Mr. Baxter says, And when you make all Spirits to be Souls and to animate some matter, you seem to make God to be but Anima Mundi. How unfair and harsh is this for you Mr. Baxter, who has been so tenderly and civilly handled by the Doctor in his Answer to your Letter, he constantly hiding or mollifying any thing that occurred therein that might overmuch expose you, to represent him as a savourer of so gross a Paradox as this, That there is no God but an Anima Mundi, which is the Position of the Vaninian Atheists, which himself has expressly confuted in his Mystery of Godliness, and declared against lately in his Advertisements on Jos. glanvil's Letter to himself, in the second Edition of Saducismus Triumphatus? This looks like the breaking out of unchristian rancour, in a Reply which bears the Specious Title of a Placid Collation. Which is yet exceedingly more aggravable, for that this odious Collection is not made from any words of the Doctor, but from a siction of Mr. Baxter. For the Doctor has nowhere Written, nor ever thought that all Spirits, but only all Created Spirits, might probably be Souls, that is to say, actuate some matter or other. And those words are in his Preface to his Answer to the Letter of the Psychopyrist, as I noted before. I might reckon up several other Disingenuities of Mr. baxter's towards the Doctor in this his Placid Collation; but I have enumerated enough already to weary the Reader, and I must remember I am but in a Digression.  
I shall only name one Disingenuity more, which was antecedent to them all, and gave occasion both to Mr. Baxters' Letter, and to the Doctors Answer thereto, and to this Reply of Mr. Baxter. And that was, That Mr. Baxter in his Methodus Theologiae (as he has done also in a little Pamphlet touching Judge Hales) without giving any reasons, which is the worst way of traducing any man or his sentiments, slighted and slurred those two essential Attributes of a Spirit, Penetrability and Indiscerpibility, which for their certain Truth and usefulness the Doctor thought fit to communicate to the World.  
But forasmuch as Mr. Baxter has in this his Reply produced his Reasons against them, I doubt not but the Doctor will accept it for an amends. And I, as I must disallow of the Disingenuity of the omission before, yet to be just to Mr. Baxter, I must commend his discretion and judgement in being willing to omit them; they appearing to me now they are produced, so weak and invalid. But such as they are, I shall gather them out of his Reply, and bring them into view.  
First then, pag. 13. It is alleged, That nothing hath two forms univocally so called. But if penetrability and indiscerpibility be added to the Virtus Vitalis, to the Vital Power of a Spirit, it will have two forms. Therefore penetrability and indiscerpibility are to be omitted in the notion of a Spirit. See also p. 22.  
Secondly, pag. 14. Penetrable and Indiscerpible can be no otherwise a form to Spirits, than Impenetrable and Discerpible are a form to Matter. But Impenetrable is only a modal Conceptus of Matter, and Discerpible a Relative notion thereof, and neither one nor both contrary to Virtus vitalis in a Spirit.  
Thirdly, pag. 14. He sees no reason why Quantity, and the Trina Dimensio, may not as well be part of the form of Matter as Discerpibilitie and Impenetrabilitie.  
Fourthly, pag. 15, 16. Nothing is to be known without the mediation of Sense, except the immediate sensation itself, and the acts of intellection and volition or nolition, and what the Intellect inferreth of the like, by the perception of these. Wherefore as to the modification of the substance of Spirits, which is contrary to Impenetrabilitie and divisibility, I may grope, says he, but I cannot know it positively for want of sensation.  
Fifthly, pag. 16, 17. If indiscerpibility be the essential character of a Spirit, than an Atom of matter is a Spirit, it being acknowledged to be Indiscerpible. Wherefore indiscerpibility is a false character of a Spirit.  
Sixthly, pag. 17, 18. [Penetrable] whether actively or passively understood, can be no proper Character of a Spirit, forasmuch as Matter can penetrate a Spirit, as well as a Spirit Matter, it possessing the same place. See pag. 23.  
Seventhly, pag. 40, 41. immateriality, says he, penetrability and indiscerpibility, in your own judgement I think are none of them proper to Spirit. For they are common to divers Accidents in your account, viz. to Light, Heat, Cold. And again in his own words,  
Eighthly, pag. 77. If your penetrability, says he, imply not that all the singular Spirits can contract themselves into a Punctum, yea that all the Spirits of the world may be so contracted, I find it not yet sufficiently explained. See also pag. 52, 78, 89, 90.  
Ninthly, pag. 50. Seeing, says he, you ascribe Amplitude, Q●…antitie, and Dimensions and Logical materiality to the Substantialitie of Spirits, I see not but that you make them Intellectually divisible, that is, that one may think of one part as here, and another there. And if so, though man cannot separate and divide them, if it be no contradiction, God can.  
Tenthly, and lastly, pag. 90. The putting of Penetrability and Indiscerpibility into the notion of a Spirit, is needless, and hazardous, it being sufficient to hold that God hath made Spirits of no kind of parts but what do Naturally abhor Separation, and so are inseparable unless God will separate them, and so there is no fear of losing our Personality in the other State. But Penetrability and Indiscerpibility being hard and doubtful words, they are better left out, lest they tempt all to believe that the very Being of Spirits is as doubtful as those words are.  
Thus have I faithfully though briefly brought into view all Mr. baxter's Arguments against the Penetrability and Indiscerpibility of Spirits, which I shall answer in order as they have been recited.  
To the first therefore I say, that the Doctor's Definition of a Spirit, which is [A Substance immaterial intrinsically endued with life and a faculty of motion] where Substance is the Genus, and the rest of the terms comprise the Differentia (which Mr. Baxter calls Conceptus formalis and Forma) I say, that this Difference or Form though it consist of many terms, yet these terms are not Heterogeneal, as he would insinuate, pag. 22. but Congenerous, and one in order to another, and essentially and inseparably united in that one substance which is rightly and properly called Spirit, and in virtue of that one substance, though their Notions and Operations differ, they are really one inseparable specific Disserence or Form, as much as Mr. baxter's Virtus vitalis una-trina is; that is to say, they are specific knowable terms, succedaneous to the true intimate specific Form that is utterly unknowable; and therefore I say, in this sense these knowable terms are one inseparable specific Difference or Form whereby Spirit is distinguished from Body or Matter in a Physical acception. Which the Universality of Philosophers hold to consist in Impenetrability, and Discerpibilitie, and Self-inactivitie. Which if Mr. Baxter would have been pleased to take notice of, viz. that a Spirit is said to be a Substance Immaterial in opposition to Matter Physical, he might have saved himself the labour of a deal of tedious trifling in explication of words to no purpose.  
But to show that this Pretence of more Forms than one in one Substance is but a Cavil, I will offer really the same Definition in a more succinct way, and more to Mr. Baxters' tooth, and say, As Corpus is Substantia Materialis (where Materialis is the specific Difference of Corpus comprised in one term:) so Spiritus is Substantia Immaterialis (where Immaterialis the specific Difference of Spiritus is likewise comprised in one term, to please the humour of Mr. Baxter.) But now as under that one term [Materialis] are comprised Impenetrabilitie, Discerpibilitie, and Self-Inactivity; so also under that one term [Immaterialis] are comprised, as under one head, Penetrability, Indiscerpibility, and Intrinsccal life and motion, that is, an essential faculty of life and motion, which in one word may be called Self-Activity. Whence Penetrability, Indiscerpibility, and Self-Activity are as much one Form of a Spirit, as Mr. baxter's Vita,. Perceptio, and Appetitus, is one Form thereof. For though in both places they are three distinct notions, at least as Mr. Baxter would have it, yet they are the essential and inseparable Attributes of one substance, and the immediate fruit and result of the Specific nature thereof. They are inseparably one in their Source and Subject.  
And this I think is more than enough to take off this first little Cavil of Mr. baxter's against the Doctors including Penetrability and Inseparability in the Form or Specific difference of a Spirit. For all that same is to be called Form, by which a thing is that which it is, as far as our Cognitive faculties will reach, and by which it is essentially distinguished from other things. And if it were not for penetrability and indiscerpibility, Spirit would be confounded with Body and Matter. And Body or Physical Matter might be Self-Active, Sentient, and Intelligent.  
To the Second I answer, That whosoever searches things to the bottom, he will sinned this a sound Principle in Philosophy, That there is nothing in the whole Universe but what is either Substantia or Modus. And when a Mode or several Modes put together are immediately and essentially inseparable from a Substance, they are looked upon as the Form, or the only knowable Specific difference of that Substance. So that Impenetrability and Discerpibility, which are immediately essential to, and inseparable from Body or Matter, and Self-Inactivitie, (as Irrational is made the specific difference of a Brute) may be added also: These, I say, are as truly the Form or Specific difference of Body or Matter, as any thing knowable is of any thing in the world. And Self-Inactivity at least, is contrary to the Virtus vitalis of a Spirit, though Impenetrability and Discerpibility were not. So that according to this oeconomy, you see how plainly and tightly Body and Spirit are made opposite Species one to another. And 'tis these Modal differences of Substances which we only know, but the Specific Substance of any thing is utterly unknown to us, however Mr. Baxter is pleased to swagger to the contrary, p. 44, 62. Where he seems to mis-understand the Doctor, as if by Essence he did not understand Substance, as both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Essentia usually signify (especially with the Ancients) but any Being at large.  
But of Substance it is most true, we know it only by its essential Modes, but the Modes are not the Substance itself of which they are Modes; otherwise the Substance would want Modes, or every Substance would be more substances than one. And Mr. Baxter himself saith, pag. 62. To know an essential Attribute, and to know ipsam essentiam scientiâ inadaequatâ, is all one. Which inadequate or partial knowledge, say I, is this, the knowing of the Essential Mode of the Substance, and not knowing the Substance itself; Otherwise if both the Essential Modes were known, and also the Specific Substance to which the Modes belong (more than that those Modes belong to that Substance) the knowledge would be full and adequate, and stretched through the whole Object. So that Mr. Baxters Scientia inadoequata, and the Doctors denying the bare Substance itself to be known, may very well consist together, and be judged a mere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Which is an exercise more grateful it's likely to Mr. Baxter, than to the Doctor.  
To the third I say, Any one that considers may find a necessary reason why Quantity or Trina Dimensio should be left out in the Form of Body or Matter, especially why the Doctor should leave it out, because he does professedly hold, That whatever is, has Metaphysical Quantity or Metaphysical Trina Dimensio; Which no man can deny that holds God is Essentially present everywhere. And no man, I think, that does not dote can deny that. Wherefore allowing Matter to be Substance; in that Generical nature, Trina Dimensio is comprised, and need not be again repeated in the Form. But when in the Forma or Differentia, Discerpible and Impenetrable is added, this is that which makes the Trina Dimensio (included in the Genus, Substantia) of a Corporeal kind, and does constitute that Species of things, which we call Corpora. This is so plain a business, that we need insist no longer upon it.  
Now to the fourth, I answer briefly, That from what knowledge we have by the mediation of the Senses and inference of the Intellect, we arrive not only to the knowledge of like things, but of unlike, or rather contrary: As in this very example, we being competently well instructed, indeed assured by our Senses, that there is such a kind of thing as Body, whose nature is to be Impenetrable and Discerpible, and our Reason certainly informing us, as was noted even now, that whatever is, has a kind of Amplitude more or less, or else it would be nothing; hence we are confirmed, that not Extension or Trina Dimensio, but Impenetrabilitie and Discerpibilitie is the determinate and adequate nature of what we call Body; and if there be any opposite species to Body, our Reason tells us it must have opposite Modes or Attributes, which are Penetrability and Indiscerpibility. This is a plain truth not to be groped after with our fingers in the dark, but clearly to be discerned by the eye of our understanding in the light of Reason. And thus we see (and many examples more we might accumulate) That by the help of our Senses and Inference of our Understanding, we are able to conclude not only concerning like things, but their contraries or opposites. I must confess I look upon this allegation of Mr. Baxter as very weak and faint.  
And as for his fifth, I do a little marvel that so grave and grandaevous a person as he should please himself in such little flirts of Wit and Sophistry as this of the Indiscerpibility of an Atom or Physical Monad. As if Indiscerpibility could be none of the essential or specifical Modes or Attributes of a Spirit, because a Physical Monad or Atom is Indiscerpible also, which is no Spirit. But those very Indiscerpibilities are Specifically different. For that of a Spirit is an Indiscerpibility that arises from the positive perfection and Oneness of the Essence, be it never so ample; that of an Atom or Physical Monad, from imperfection and privativeness, from the mere littleness or smallness thereof, so small that it is impossible to be smaller, and thence only is Indiscerpible.  
The sixth also is a pretty juvenile Ferk of Wit for a grave ancient Divine to use, That Penetrability can be no proper Character of a Spirit, because Matter can penetrate Spirit as well as Spirit Matter, they both possessing the same space. Suppose the body A. of the same amplitude with the body B. and thrust the body A. against the body B. the body A. will not nor can penetrate into the same space that the body B. actually occupies. But suppose the body A. a Spirit of that amplitude, and according to its nature piercing into the same space which the body B. occupies, how plain is it that that active piercing into the same space that the body B. occupies, is to be attributed to the Spirit A. & not to the body B? For the body A. could not get in. These are pretty forced distortions of Wit, but no solid methods of due Reason. And besides, it is to be noted, that the main Character of a Spirit is, as to Penetrability, that Spirit can penetrate Spirit, but not Matter Matter.  
And now the Seventh is as slight as the Fifth. Divers Accidents, saith he, penetrate their Subjects, as Heat, Cold, etc. Therefore penetrability is no proper Character of a Spirit. But what a vast difference is there here! The one pierce the matter, (or rather are in the matter merely as continued Modes thereof) the other enters into the matter as a distinct Substance therefrom. Penetration therefore is here understood in this Character of a Spirit, of Penetratio Substantialis, when a substance penetrates substance, as a Spirit does Spirit and matter, which Matter cannot do. This is a certain Character of a Spirit. And his instancing in Light as Indiscerpible, is as little to the purpose. For the substance of Light, viz. the Materia sub●…ilissima and Globuli, are discerpible. And the motion of them is but a Modus, but the point in hand is indiscerpibility of Substance.  
To the Eighth I Answer, That Mr. Baxter here is hugely unreasonable in his demands, as if penetrability of Spirits were not sufficiently explained, unless it can be made out, that all the Spirits in the world, Universal and particular, may be contracted into one Punctum: But this is a Theme that he loves to enlarge upon, and to declaim on very Tragically, as pag. 52. If Spirits have parts which may be extended and contracted, you will hardly so easily prove as say, that God cannot divide them. And when in your Writings shall I find satisfaction into how much space one Spirit may be extended, and into how little it may be contracted, and whether the whole Spirit of the World may be contracted into a Nutshell or a Box, and the Spirit of a Flea may be extended to the Convex of all the world? And again, pag. 78. You never tell into how little parts only it may be contracted; And if you put any limits, I will suppose that one Spirit hath contracted itself into the least compass possible; and then I ask, Cannot another and another Spirit be in the same compass by their Penetration? If not; Spirits may have a contracted Spissitude which is not Penetrable, and Spirits cannot penetrate contracted Spirits, but only dilated ones. If yea; then quoero, whether all created Spirits may not be so contracted. And I should hope that the Definition of a Spirit excludeth not God, and yet that you do not think that his Essence may be contracted and dilated. O that we knew how little we know!  
This grave moral Epiphonema with a sorrowful shaking of the Head is not in good truth much misbecoming the sly insinuating cunning of Mr. Richard Baxter, who here makes a show, speaking in the first person [We] of lamenting and bewailing the ignorance of his own ignorance, but friendly hooks in, by expressing himself in the plural number, the Doctor also into the same condemnation. Solamen miseris— as if He neither did understand his own ignorance in the things he Writes of, but will be strangely surprised at the hard Riddles Mr. Baxter has propounded, as if no Oedipus were able to solve them. And I believe the Doctor if he be called to an account will freely confess of himself, That in the things he positively pronounces of, so far as he pronounces, that he is indeed altogether ignorant of any ignorance of his own therein; But that this is by reason that he according to the cautiousness of his Genius does not adventure further than he clearly sees ground, and the notion appears useful for the Public. As it is indeed useful to understand that Spirits can both Penetrate matter and Penetrate one another, else God could not be Essentially present in all the parts of the Corporeal Universe, nor the Spirits of Men and Angels be in God. Both which notwithstanding are most certainly true, to say nothing of the Spirit of Nature, which particular Spirits also Penetrate, and are Penetrated by it.  
But now for the Contraction and Dilatation of Spirits, that is not a property of Spirits in general as the other are, but of particular created Spirits, as the Doctor has declared in his Treatise of the Immortality of the Soul. So that that hard Question is easily answered concerning God's contracting and dilating himself; That he does neither, he being no created Spirit, and being more absolutely perfect than that any such properties should be compatible to him. And it is reasonable to conceive that there is little actually of that property in the Spirit of Nature, it being no particular Spirit, though created, but an Universal one, and having no need thereof. For the corporeal world did not grow from a small Embryo into that vast amplitude it is now of, but was produced of the same largeness it now has, though there was a successive delineation and orderly polishing and perfecting the vast distended parts thereof. And to speak compendiously and at once, That God that has Created all things in number, weight & measure, has given such measures of Spiritual Essence and of the faculty of contracting and dilating the same, as also of Spiritual Subtlety of substance, as serves the ends of his Wisdom and Goodness in creating such a species of Spirit. So that it is fond, unskilful, and ridiculous, to ask if the whole Spirit of the world can be contracted into a Nutshell, and the Spirit of a Flea extended to the Convex of the Universe. They that talk at this rate err, as Aliens from the Wisdom of God, and ignorant of the Laws of Nature, and indeed of the voice of Scripture itself. Why should God make the Spirit of a Flea, which was intended for the constituting of such a small Animal, large enough to fill the whole world? Or what need of such a contraction in the Spirit of Nature or Plastic Soul of the corporeal Universe, that it may be contrived into a Nutshell?  
That it has such Spiritual subtlety as that particular Spirits may contract themselves in it so close together, as to be commensurate to the first Inchoations of a Foetus, which is but very small, stands to good reason, and Effects prove it to be so. As also this smallness of a Foetus or Embryo that particular Spirits are so far contracted at first, and expand themselves leisurely afterwards with the growth of the body which they regulate. But into how much lesser space they can or do contract themselves at any time, is needless to know or inquire. And there is no Repugnancy at all, but the Spirit of Nature might be contracted to the like Essential Spissitude that some particular Spirits are; but there is no reason to conceit that it ever was or ever will be so contracted, while the World stands.  
Nor last is there any Inconvenience in putting indefinite limits of Contraction in a Spirit, and to allow that after such a measure of Contraction, though we cannot say just what that is, it naturally contracts no further, nor does another so contracted naturally penetrate this thus contracted Spirit. For as the usefulness of that measure of Self-Penetrability and Contraction is plain, so it is as plain, that the admitting of it is no incongruity nor incommodity to the Universe, nor any confusion to the Specific modes of Spirit and Body. For these two Spirits, suppose, contracted to the utmost of their natural limits, may naturally avoid the entering one another, not by a dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in Bodies or Matter, but by a vital saturity, or natural Uneasiness in so doing. Besides that, though at such a contracted pitch they are naturally impenetrable to one another, yet they demonstrate still their Spirituality, by Self-Penetration, haply a thousand and a thousand times repeated. And though by a Law of life (not by a dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉), they are kept from penetrating one another, yet they both in the mean time necessarily penetrate Matter, as undergoing the divers measures of essential Spissitude in the same. So that by the increase of that essential Spissitude, they may approach near to a kind of Hylopathick disposition of Impenetrability, and thence, by the Matter of the Universe (out of which they never are) be curbed from contracting themselves any further, than to such a degree; and I noted at first, that spiritual Subtlety, as well as Amplitude, is given in measure to created Spirits. So that penetrability is still a steady Character of a Spiritual Essence or Substance, to the utmost sense thereof. And to argue against Impenetrability its being the property of Matter from this kind of Impenetrability of contracted Spirits, is like that quibbling Sophistry against Indiscerpibility being the property of a Spirit, because a Physical Monad is also indiscerpible.  
The ninth Objection is against. the Indiscerpibility of Spirits, and would infer, that because the Doctor makes them intellectually divisible, therefore by Divine Power, if it imply no contradiction, a Spirit is Discerpible into Physical parts. But this is so fully satisfied already by the Doctor in his Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit, and its Defence, to say nothing of what I have said already above to prove it does imply a contradiction, that I will let it go, and proceed.  
To the tenth and last Allegation, which pretends, That these two terms Penetrable and Indiscerpible are needless and hazardous in the Notion of a Spirit. But how useful or needful Pene●…rability is, is manifest from what we have said to the eighth Objection. And the needfulness of Indiscerpibility is also susficiently shown by the Doctor in his Defence of the true Notion of a Spirit, Sect. 30. But now for the Hazardousness of these terms, as if they were so hard, that it would discourage men from the admitting of the Existence of Spirits; It appears from what has been said to the eighth Objection, That Penetrability is not only intelligible and admittable, but necessarily to be admitted, in the Notion of a Spirit, as sure as God is a Spirit, and that there are Spirits of men and Angels, and that the Souls of men are not made of Shreds, but actuate their whole grown body, though at first they were contracted into the compass of a very small Foetus. And that there is no Repugnancy that an Essence may be ample, and yet indiscerpible, Mr. Baxter himself must allow, who, pag. 51. plainly declares, That it is the vilest contradiction to say that God is capable of division. So that I wonder that he will call [Penetrable] and [Indiscerpible] hard and doubtful words, and such as might stumble men's belief of the Existence of Spirits, when they are terms so plain and necessary. Nor can that Unity that belongs to a Spirit be conceived or understood without them, especially without indiscerpibility. And indeed if we do not allow Penetrability, the Soul of a man will be far from being one, but a thing discontinued, and scattered in the pores of his corpcreal consistency.  
We will conclude with Mr. Baxters' Conceit of the Indivisibleness of a Spirit, and see how that will corroborate men's faith of their Existence, and put all out of hazard. Various Elements, saith he, pag. 50. vary in Divisibility; Earth is most divisible; Water more hardly, the parts more inclining to the closest contact; Air yet more hardly; and in Fire, no doubt the Discerpibility is yet harder: And if God have made a Creature so stongly inclined to the unity of all the parts, that no Creature can separate them but God only, as if a Soul were such, it is plain that such a Being need not fear a dissolution by Separation of parts. Ans. This is well said for an heedless and credulous multitude; but this is not to Philosophise, but to tell us that God works a perpetual Miracle in holding the small tenuious parts of the Soul together, more pure and fine than those of Fire or Aether; but here is no natural cause from the thing itself offered, unless it be, that in every Substance, or rather Matter, the parts according to the tenuity and purity of the Substance, incline to a closer Contact and inseparable Union one with another; which is a conceit repugnant to experience, and easily confuted by that ordinary accident of a Spinner hanging by its weak thread from the brim of ones Hat; which seeble line yet is of force enough to divide the Air, and for that very reason, because it consists of thinner parts than Water or Earth. As also, we can more easily run in the Air than wade in the Water, for the very same reason. These things are so plain, that they are not to be dwelled upon.  
But Mr. Baxter is thus pleased to show his Wit in maintaining a weak Cause, which I am persuaded he has not so little judgement as that he can have any great confidence in. And therefore in sundry places he intimates that he does allow or at least not deny but that penetrability and indiscerpibility is contained in the Notion of a Spirit; but not as part of the Conceptus formalis, but as Dispositio or Modus substantiae, but yet withal such a Dispositio as is essential to the substance that with the Conceptus formalis added, makes up the true Notion of a Spirit. See pag. 30, 32, 61, 85. And truly if Mr. Baxter be in good earnest and sincere in this agreement without all equivocation, that penetrability and indiscerpibility is Essential to the true Notion of a Spirit, only they are to be admitted as Dispositio Substantiae, not as Pars Formae, I confess, as he declares pag. 94. That the difference betwixt him and the Doctor lieth in a much smaller matter than was thought; and the Doctor I believe will easily allow him to please his own fancy in that. But then he must understand the terms of penetrability and indiscerpibility in the Doctor's sense, viz, of a Spirits penetrating not inter parts, but per partes materiae, and possessing the same space with them. And of an Indiscerpibleness not arising from thinner and thinner parts of matter, as he imagines Air to be more hardly discerpible than Earth or Water, forasmuch as by reason of its thinness its parts lie closer together, as was above noted; but from the immediate essential Oneness of substance in a Spirit, according to the true Idea of an Indiscerpible Being in the Divine Intellect, which, whether in Idea or in Actual Existence, it would cease to be, or rather never was such, if it were discerpible, and therefore implies a contradiction it should be so. But if a Spirit be not Penetrable in the Doctor's sense, it is really Impenetrable; and if not Indiscerpible in his sense, it is really Discerpible, and consequently divisible into Physical Monads or Atoms, and therefore constituted of them, and the last Inference will be that of the Epigrammatist: 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 
To this sense: 
All a vain Jest, All Dust, All Nothing deem,  
For of mere Atoms all composed been.     
And thus the fairest and firmest structures of Philosophical Theorems in the behalf of the Providence of God, the Existence of Spirits, and the Immortality of the Soul, will become a Castle of Come-Down, and fall quite to the ground. Whence it was rightfully done of the Doctor to lay such stress upon these two terms penetrability and indiscerpibility, they being the essential Characteristics of what is truly a Spirit, and which if they were taken out of the world, all would necessarily be Matter, I mean Physical Matter (to prevent all quibblings and fiddle about words and phrases) and this Physical Matter would be the Subject and Source of all Life whatever, Intellective, Sensitive and Vegetative. And Mr. Baxter did ill in not only omitting these terms himself in his Notion of a Spirit, but in publicly slighting and disgracing of the Doctors using of them, and afterwards in so stomaching his vindication of the same in public, whenas we see that without them there can be nothing but Physical Matter in the world, and God and Angels and the Souls of men must be such Matter, if they be any thing at all: and therefore in such an error as this, Mr. Baxter with Christian patience might well have born with the Doctors calling it, not only a Mistake, but a Mischief. And I hope by this time he is such a proficient in that Virtue, that he will cheerfully bear the publication of this my Answer in the behalf of the Doctor to all his Objections against these two essential and necessary Characters of a Spirit; and not be offended if I briefly run over his smaller Criticisms upon the Doctor's Definition of the same, which do occur, pag. 80, 81. and elsewhere, as I shall advertise.  
The Doctor's Definition of a Spirit in his Discourse of that Subject, Sect. 29. is this [A Spirit is a Substance immaterial intrinsically endued with life and the faculty of motion] where he notes that Immaterial contains virtually in it Penetrability and Indiscerpibility. Now let us hear how Mr. Baxter criticizes on this Definition.  
First, says he, pag. 80. Your Definition is common, good and true, allowing for its little imperfections, and the common imperfection of man's knowledge of Spirits. If by [Immaterial] you mean not [without Substance] it signifieth truth, but a negation speaketh not a formal Essence. Ans. How very little these imperfections are, I shall note by passing through them all; and for the common imperfection of man's knowledge of Spirits, what an unskilful or hypocritical pretence that is, the Doctor hath so clearly shown in his Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit, Sect. 16, 17, 18, 19 that it is enough to send the Reader thither for satisfaction. But as for [Immaterial] how can any one think that thereby is meant [without Substance] but those that think there is nothing but Matter in the Physical sense of the word, in the world? As if [Substance Immaterial] was intended to signify [Substance without Substance]! And lastly, the Doctor will deny that [In] in Immaterial signifies negatively hear more than in Immortal, Incorruptible, or Infinite, but that it is the indication of opposite properties to those of Physical Matter, viz. Impenetrability and Discerpibility, and that therefore Immaterial here includes Indiscerpibility and Penetrability.  
Secondly, pag. 81. Spirit itself, says he, is but a metaphor. Ans. Though the word first signified other things before it was used in the sense it is here defined, yet use has made it as good as if it were originally proper. With your Logicians, in those Definitions, Materia est Causa ex qua res est, Forma est Causa per quam res est id quod est; Materia and Forma are Metaphorical words, but use has made them in those Definitions as good as proper; nor does any sober and knowing man move the least scruple touching those Definitions on this account. To which you may add, that Aristotle's caution against Metaphors in defining things, is to be understood of the Definition itself, not the Definitum; but Spirit is the Definitum here, not the Definition.  
Thirdly, [Intrinsically endued with life] tells us not that it is the Form. Qualities, and proper Accidents are intrinsecal. Ans. Mr. Baxter, I suppose, for clearness sake, would have had Form written over the head of this part of the Definition, as the old bungling painters were wont to write, This is a Cock, and this a Bull; or as one wittily perstringed a young Preacher that would name the Logical Topics he took his Arguments from, saying he was like a Shoemaker that offered his Shoes to sale with the Lasts in them. I thought Mr. Baxter had been a more nimble Logician than to need such helps to discern what is the Genus in the Definition, what the Differentia or Forma. And for [intrinsically endued] I perceive he is ignorant of the proper force and sense of the word Intrinsecùs, which signifies as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only, which implies that this life is from the intimate Essence of a Spirit quatenus a Spirit, and therefore can be no common quality nor a faculty clarted on, as Mr. Baxter fancies God may clart on Life the specific Form of Spirit, as he himself acknowledges, on Matter, though Materia quatenus Materia implies no such thing; but, I say, Spiritus quatenus Spiritus does, which is both the Source and proper Subject of life. But it is the effect of an ill perturbed sight, to fancy flaws where there are really none. And to fancy that a Vis Vitalis, or Power of living can belong to Materia Physica immediately, which power must necessarily be the Result of an Essence specifically distinct from Physical Matter, I think may justly be called clarting of this Power on a Subject it belongs not to, nor is intrinsecal to it, there being no new specific Essence from whence it should spring.  
Fourthly, The [Faculty of motion] says he, is either a Tautology included in Life, or else if explicatory of Life, it is defective. Ans. It is neither Tautological nor Exegetical, no more than if a man should define Homo, Animal rationale risibile. [Risibile] there, is neither Tautological, though included in Animal rationale; nor Exegetical, it signifying not the same with Rationale. And the Definition is as true with Risibile added to it, as if omitted. But the addition of Risibile being needless, is indeed ridiculous. But it is not Ridiculous to add the faculty of motion in this Definition of a Spirit, because it is not needless, but is added on purpose to instruct such as Mr. Baxter, that an intrinsical faculty of motion belongs to Spirit quatenus Spirit, and endued with Life; whenas yet he, pag. 35. will not admit that self-motion is an indication of Life in the subject that moves itself, although it is the very prime argument that his beloved and admired Dr. Glisson useth to prove, that there is universally life in Matter. But it is the symptom of an over- Polemical Fencer, to deny a thing merely because he finds it not for his turn. In the mean time it is plain the Doctor has not added [the faculty of motion] rashly out of oversight, but for the instructing the ignorant in so important a truth, That there is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but there is Life and Spirit. This is so great a truth, that the Platonists make it to be the main Character of Soul or Spirit, to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as you may see in Proclus.  
Fifthly, No man, saith he, can understand that the Negative [Immaterial], by the terms, includeth penetrability and indiscerpibility. Ans. No man that rightly understands himself but must conceive that [Immaterial] signifies an opposite or contrary condition to [Material]: and he knowing (as who is ignorant of it?) that the proper and essential characters of [Material] in substantia materialis, is to be Impenetrable and Discerpible, he will necessarily, even whether he will or no, discover that [Immaterial] which signifies the opposite to these in substantia immaterialis, must denote Penetrability and Indiscerpibility.  
Sixthly, You do not say here, saith he, that they are the Form, but elsewhere you do; and the Form should be expressed, and not only virtually contained, as you speak. Ans. What would you have him in the very Definition itself, which is so clear an one, say, This is the Genus, this the Form, as those bunglers I mentioned above writ the names of the Animals they had so badly drawn? And that the Form should be expressed is true, but it is sufficient it be expressed in such a comprehensive term as contains under it all that belongs to such a Species. As when we have divided Vivens into Planta and Animal, if we then define Animal to be Vivens sensu praeditum, that one word sensus, is sufficient, because it reaches any Species of Animal, and none but Animals. And yet here the Doctor is not so niggardly as to pinch the expression of all the Form or Difference, into that one word Immaterial, whereby he here only intimates Penetrability and Indiscerpibility; but for fuller explication addeth, Intrinsically induced with Life and the faculty of motion. But lastly, For his elsewhere calling Penetrability and Indiscerpibility the Form of a Spirit, he nowhere makes them the whole Form of a Spirit, but makes the Logical Form or Differentia of a Spirit, to be all that which he has expressed in this Definition, viz. [Immaterial] which denotes Penetrability and Indiscerpibility, and [intrinsical life and motion]. And it is evident that when he calls this Differentia in his Definition, Form, that he does not mean the very specific Substance or Essence, whereby a Spirit is a Spirit, but only essential or inseparable Attributes, which only are known to us, and which are only in an improper sense said to be the Form itself, or specific Nature. They are only the Result of the Form and Notes of an Essence or Substance Specifically distinct from some other Substance.  
It is not so in substantial Forms as in Geometrical Forms or Figures, as to visibility or Perceptibilitie. Dic tu formam hujus lapidis, says Scaliger to Cardan, & Phyllida solus habeto. But there are inseparable and essential Properties of a substantial Form, necessarily resulting from the Form itself, as there are in external Forms or Figures. As for example, from the form of a Globe, which is a round Form, defined from the equality of all lines from one point drawn thence to the Superficies. From this form does necessarily and inseparably result the Character of an easy rolling mobility. That a body of this Form is the most easily moved upon a Plain, of any body in the world. And so from the Form of a piece of Iron made into what we call a Sword; Fitness for striking, for cutting, for stabbing, and for defending of the hand, is the necessary result from this Form thereof. And so I say that from the intimate and essential Form of a Spirit, suppose, essentially and inseparably result such and such properties by which we know that a Spirit is a distinct Species from other things, though we do not know the very specific essence thereof. And therefore here I note by the by, that when the Doctor says any such or such Attributes are the Form of a Spirit, he does datâ operâ balbutire cum balbutientibus, and expresses himself in the language of the Vulgar, and speaks to Mr. Baxter in his own Dialect. For it is the declared opinion of the Doctor, that the intimate Form of no Essence or Substance is knowable, but only the inseparable Fruits or Results thereof. Which is a Principle wants no proof, but an appeal to every man's faculties that has ordinary wit and sincerity.  
Seventhly, They are not the Form, saith he, but the Dispositio vel Conditio ad formam. Ans. You may understand out of what was said even now, that penetrability and indiscerpibility are so far from being Dispositio ad formam, that they are the Fruits. and Results of the intimate and Specific Form of a Spirit, and that they suppose this Specific Form in order of nature to precede them, as the Form of a Globe precedes the rolling mobility thereof. In virtue of a Spirits being such a Specific substance, it has such inseparable attributes resulting from it, as a Globe has mobility. And as the Globe is conceived first, and mobility inseparably resulting from it; so the Specific Nature of a Spirit, which is its true and intimate Form, and made such according to the eternal Idea thereof in the Intellect of God, being one simple Specific substance or Essence, has resulting from it those essential or inseparable properties which we attribute to a Spirit, itself in the mean time remaining but one simple self-subsistent Actus Entitativus, whose penetrability and Indivisibility Mr. Baxter himself, pag. 99 says is easily defendible. And the Doctor, who understands himself, I dare say for him, defends the penetrability and Indivisibility of no Essences but such.  
Eighthly, If such Modalities, says he, or Consistence were the Form, more such should be added which are left out. Ans. He should have nominated those which are left out. He means, I suppose, Quantity and Trina Dimensio, which it was his discretion to omit, they being so impertinent as I have shown above, in my Answer to his third Objection against the penetrability and indiscerpibility of a Spirit.  
Ninthly, penetrability and indiscerpibility are two Notions, and you should not give us, says he, a compound Form. Ans. This implies that Penetrability and Indiscerpibility are the Form of a Spirit; but I have said again and again, they are but the Fruits and Result of the Form. A Spirit is one simple Specific Essence or substance, and that true Specifickness in its Essence, is the real and intimate Form, or Conceptus formalis thereof, but that which we know not (as I noted above out of Julius Scaliger) though we know the essential and inseparable Attributes thereof, which may be many, though in one simple specific Substance, as there are many Attributes in God immediately and inseparably resulting from his most simple specific Nature.  
Tenthly, Yea you compound, saith he, penetrability and indiscerpibility with a quite disserent notion [life and the faculty of motion], which is truly the Form, and is one thing, and not compounded of notions so difse●…ent as Consistence and Virtue or Power. Ans. I say ag●…in as I said before, that nei●…her Penetrability nor Indiscerpibility, nor Life nor Motion, are the specific Form it sel●… of a Spirit, which is a simple Substance, but the Fruits and Results of this specific Form; and all these have a proper Cognation with one another, as agreeing in Immateriality or Spirituality: and how the common sagacity of mankind has presaged, that the most noble functions of life are performed by that which is most subtle and most one, as Penetrability and Indiscerpibility makes the consistence of a Spirit to be, the Doctor has noted in his Discourse of the true notion of a Spirit. Mr. Baxter in reading Theological Systems may observe, That Attributes as much dissering among themselves as these, are given to the most simple Essence of God.  
Eleventhly, You say, says he, pag. 82. Life intrin●…ecally issues from this Immaterial Substance: But the Form is concreated with it, and issues not from it. Ans. I grant that the Form is concreated with the Spirit. For a Spirit is nothing else but such a specific simple Substance or Essence, the Specifickness of whose nature only is its real intimate Form. And if we could reach by our Conception that very Form itself, it would be but the Conceptus inadaequatus of one simple Substance, and be the true Conceptus formalis thereof; and the Conceptus fundamentalis, to speak in Mr. Baxters or Dr. Glissons language, would be Substance in general, which is contracted into this Species by this real intimate Form; which both considered together, being but one simple Essence, they must needs be created together, according to that Idea of a Spirit which God has conceived in his eternal mind. And life will as naturally and necessarily issue from such a Species or Specific Essence, or from Substance contracted into such a Species by the abovesaid Form, as Mobility does issue from the form of a Globe. From whence it is plainly understood how Life does intrinsically issue from immaterial Substance, nor is the Form itself but the Fruit thereof. And as it were but trifling to say that the power of easy rolling every way on a Plain were the very Form of a Globe, the word Power or Virtue being but a dark, loose, general, dilute term, and which belongs to every thing, and is restrained only by its Operation and Object; but it is the Form or Figure of the Globe that is the immediate cause that that Virtue or Power in general is so restrained to this easy rolling: so it is in Mr. B●…xters pretended Form of a Spirit, which he makes Virtus vitalis, a power of living: Power there, is such a dark dilute term, loose and general. But that it is determined to life, it is by that intimate specific Form, which we know not; but only this we know, That it is to the Power of living as the Figure of a Globe is to the Power of easy rolling, and that in neither, one can be without the other. There must be a Specific Essence, which is the root of those Powers, Properties, or Operations from whence we conclude distinct Species of things: For 'tis too corpse and slovenly to conceit, that these are clarted on them, but the Specific Powers arise immediately, and inseparably from the Specific Nature of the thing; else why might they not be other powers as well as these?  
Twelfthly and lastly, pag. 32. But do you verily believe, saith he, that Penetrability or Subtlety is a sufficient Efficient or Formal cause of Vitality, Perception and Appetite, and so of Intellection and Volition? I hope you do not. Ans. I hope so of the Doctor too; and before this, I hoped that Mr. Baxter had more insight into the nature of a Formal cause and into the Laws of Logic, than once to imagine that any one in his Wits could take Penetrability to be the Formal cause of Intellection and Volition. For then every Spirit being Penetrable, every Spirit even of a plant, at least of the vilest Animalculum, would have Intellection and Volition. Nor, for the same reason, can any body think that Penetrability is a sussicient Esficient cause of Intellection and Volition. Nor is it so much as the Essicient cause of Vitality, Perception, Appetite, much less the Formal. So infinitely is Mr. Baxter out in these things. But the case stands thus: The Substance of that species of things which we call a Spirit, and is so by that intimate specific Form which I named before, this substance is the cause of Vitality in such a sense as the round Form of a Globe, or any matter of that Form is, quatenus of that Form, the cause of its own rolling mobility. I say therefore, that Vitality is as immediate and necessary a Fruit or Effect of the real and intimate Form of a Spirit, as that easy mobility is of the Form of a Sphere or Globe; And such a kind of Vitality, Vegetative, Sensitive, Intellective of such a Species of Spirit: These kinds of Vitalities are the Fruits or Effects necessary and immediate of the abovesaid so specificated Substances; that is to say, they are immediately Self-living, and all of them Penetrable and Indiscerpible of themselves, quatenus Spirits, all these essential attributes arising from the simple essence or specificated substance of every Spirit, of what Classis soever, created according to its own Idea eternally shining in the Divine Intellect.  
As for example; In the Idea of a Plastic Spirit only; Penetrability, Indiscerpibility, and Plastic Vitality, whereby it is able to organize Matter thus and thus, are not three Essences clarted upon some sourth Essence, or glued together one to another, to make up such an Idea: But the Divine Intellect conceives in itself one simple specific Ess●…nce immediately and intrinsically of itself, endued with these essential Properties or Attributes. So that when any thing does exist according to this Idea, those three properties are as immediately Consequential to it, and as e●…ectually, as Mobility to the Form o●… a Globe. It is the specific Substance that is the necessary Source of them, and that acts by them as its own connate or natural instruments, sitted for the ends that the et●…rnal Wisdom and Goodness of God has conceiv●…d or contrived them for.  
For it is manifest, that those essential Attributes of a Spirit contrary to Matter are not in vain. For whenas a Plastic Spirit is to actuate and organize Matter, and inwardly dispose it into certain forms, Penetrability is needful, that it may possess the Matter, and order it throughout; As also that Oneness o●… Essence and Indiscerpibility, that it may hold it together. For what should make any mass of Matter one, but that which has a special Oneness of Essence in itself, quite di●…erent fro●… that of Matter? And f●…rasmuch as all S●…uls are endued with the Plastic whether of Brutes or Men, not to add the Spirits of Angels; still there holds the same reason in all ranks, that Spirits should be as well Penetrable and Indiscerpible as Vital. And if there be any Platonic Ni●…, that have no Plastic, yet Penetrability must belong to them, and is of use to them, if they be found to be within the verges of the Corporeal Universe (and why not they as well as God himself?) and Indiscerpibility maintains their Supposital Unity, as it does in all Spirits that have to do with Matter, and are capable of a vital coalescency therewith. But I have accumulated here more Theory than is needful. And I must remember that I am in a Digression.  
To return therefore to the particular point we have been about all this while. I hope by this time I have made it good, that the Dr.'s Desinition of a Spirit is so clear, so true, so express, and usefully instructive (and that is the scope of the Doctors Writings) that neither he himself, nor any body else, let them consider as much as they can, will ever be able to mend it. And that these affected Cavils of Mr. Baxter argue no defects or flaws in the Doctor's Definition, but the ignorance and impotency of Mr. Baxters' Spirit, and the undue elation of his mind, when notwithstanding this unexceptionableness of the Definition, he, pag. 82. out of his Magisterial Chair of Judicature pronounces with a gracious nod, You mean well— but all our Conceptions here must have their ALLOWANCES, and we must confess their weakness. This is the Sentence which grave Mr. Baxter, alto supercilio, gives of the Doctor's accurate Definition of a Spirit, to humble him, and exalt himself, in the sight of the populacy. But is it not a great weakness, or worse, to talk of favourable allowances, and not to allow that to be unexceptionable against which no just exception is found?  
But to give Mr. Baxter his due, though the extreme or extimate parts of this Paragraph, pag. 82. which you may fancy as the skin thereof, may seem to have something of bitterness and toughness in it, yet the Belly of the Paragraph is full of plums and sweet things. For he says, And we are all greatly beholden to the Doctor for his so industrious calling foolish Sensualists to the study and notion of invisible Being's, without which, what a carcase or nothing were the world?  
But is it not pity then, while the Doctor does discharge this Province with that faithfulness and industry, that Mr. Baxter should disturb him in his work, and hazard the fruits and efficacy thereof, by eclipsing the clearness of his Notions of Spiritual Being's, (for Bodies may be also invisible) by the interposition or opposition of his own great Name against them, who, as himself tells the world in his Church-History, has wrote fourscore Books, even as old Dr. Glisson his Patron or rather Pattern in Philosophy arrived to at least fourscore Years of age? And Mr. Baxter it seems is for the common Proverb, The older the wiser; though Elihu in Job be of another mind, who says there, I said Days should speak, and multitude of Years should teach Wisdom; But there is a Spirit in man, and the Inspiration of the Almighty giveth him Understanding. But whither am I going?  
I would conclude here according to promise, having rescued the Doctor's Definition of a Spirit from Mr. baxter's numerous little Criticisms, like so many shrill busy Gnats trumpeting about it, and attempting to infix their feeble Probosces into it; and I hope I have silenced them all.  
But there is something in the very next Paragraph which is so wrongfully charged upon the Doctor, that I cannot sorbear standing up in his justification. The Charge is this: That he has fathered upon Mr. Baxter an Opinion he never owned, and nicknamed him Psychopyrist from his own ●…ction. As if, says he, we said that Souls are ●…re, and also took Fire, as the Doctor does, for Candles and hot Irons, etc. only. But I answer in behalf of the Doctor, as I have a little touched on this matter before, That he does indeed entitle a certain Letter (which he answers) to a Learned Psychopyrist as the Author thereof: But Mr. Baxters' name is with all imaginable care concealed. So that he by his needless owning the Letter, has notched that nickname (as he calls it) of Psychopyrist upon himself, whether out of greediness after that alluring Epithet it is baited with, I know not; but that he hangs thus by the gills like a Fish upon the Hook, he may thank his own self for it, nor aught to blame the Doctor. Much less accuse him for saying, that Mr. Baxter took Fire in no other sense than that in Candles and hot Iron, and the like. For in his Preface, he expressly declares on the Psychopyrists behalf, that he does not make this crass and visible Fire the Essence of a Spirit, but that his meaning is more subtle and refined. With what conscience then can Mr. Baxter say, that the Doctor affirms that he took Fire in no other sense than that in Candles and hot Iron, and the like, and that he held all Souls to be such Fire? whenas the Doctor is so modest and cautious, that he does not affirm that Mr. Baxter thinks any to be such; though even in this Placid Collation, he professes his inclination towards the Opinion, that Ignis and Vegetative Spirit is all one, pag. 20, 21. I have oft professed, saith he, that I am ignorant whether Ignis and Vegetative Spirit be all one, (to which I most incline) or whether Ignis be an active nature made to be the instrument, by which the three spiritual natures, Vegetative, Sensitive, and Mental work on the three passive natures, Earth, Water, Air.  
And again, pag. 66. If it be the Spirit of the world that is the nearest cause of illumination, by way of natural activity, then that which you call the Spirit of the World, I call Fire; and so we differ but de nomine. But I have (saith he as before) professed my ignorance, whether Fire and the Vegetative nature be all one, (which I incline to think) or whether Fire be a middle active nature between the spiritual and the mere Passive, by which Spirits work on body. And, pag. 71. I doubt not but Fire is a Substance permeant and existent in all mixed bodies on Earth. In your blood it is the prime part of that called the Spirits, which are nothing but the igneous principle in a pure Aereal Vehicle, and is the organ of the Sensitive faculties of the Soul. And if the Soul carry any Vehicle with it, it's like to be some of this. I doubt you take the same thing to be the Spirit of the world, though you seem to vilify it. And, pag. 74. I suppose you will say, the Spirit of the world does this. But call it by what name you will, it is a pure active Substance, whose form is the Virtus motiva, illuminativa & calefactiva, I think the same which when it operateth on due seminal Matter is Vegetative. And lastly, pag. 86. I still profess myself in this also uncertain, whether Natura Vegetativa and Ignea be all one, or whether Ignis be Natura Organica by which the three Superior (he means the Vegetative, Sensitive, and Intellective Natures) operate on the Passive. But I incline most to think they are all one, when I see what a glorious Fire the Sun is, and what operation it hath on Earth, and how unlikely it is that so glorious a Substance should not have as noble a formal nature as a Plant.  
This is more than enough to prove that Mr. Baxter in the most proper sense is inclined to ‛ Psychopyrism as to the Spirit of the world, or Vegetative soul of the Universe; that that Soul or Spirit is Fire: And that all created Spirits are Fire, analogicè and eminenter, I have noted above that he does freely confess.  
But certainly if it had not been for his ignorance in the Atomick Philosophy which he so greatly despiseth, he would never have taken the Fire itself, a Congeries of agitated particles of such figures and dimensions, for the Spirit of the world. But without further doubt have concluded it only the instrument of that Spirit in its operations, as also of all other created Spirits, accordingly as the Doctor has declared a long time since in his Immortalitas Animae, Lib. 2. Cap. 8. Sect. 6. And finding that there is one such universal Vegetative Spirit (properly so called) or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the world, he could not miss of concluding the whole Universe one great Plant, or if some obscure degree of sense be given to it, one large Zoophyton or Plantanimal, whence the Sun will be endued or actuated as much by a Vegetative Nature as any particular Plant whatsoever; whereby Mr. Baxter might have took away his own disficultie he was entangled in. But the truth is, Mr. Baxters' defectiveness in the right understanding of the Atomick Philosophy, and his Averseness therefrom, as also from the true System of the world, which necessarily includes the motion of the Earth, we will cast in also his abhorrence from the Pre-existence of Souls (which three Theories are hugely nec●…ssary to him that would Philosophise with any success in the deepest points of natural Religion and Divine Providence) makes him utter many things that will by no means bear the Test of severer Reason.  
But in the mean time this Desectiveness in sound Philosophy neither hinders him nor any one else from being able Instruments in the Gospel-Ministrie, if they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a due measure; If they have a firm Faith in the revealed Truths of the Gospel, and skill in History, Tongues and Criticism, to explain the Text to the people, and there be added a sincere Zeal to instruct their Charge, and (that they may appear in good earnest to believe what they teach) they lead a life devoid o●… scandal and offence, as regulated by those Go●…pel-Rules they propose to others; this, though they have little of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly so called, that reaches to the deepest account of things, (but instead thereof, Prudence and Ingenuity) will sufficiently enable them to be Guides to the people, especially by adhering in Matters of moment to the Ancient Apostolic and unapostatized Church, and presuming nothing upon their private spirit against the same. Such, questionless, will prove able and safe Pastors, and will not fail of being approved of by our Lord Jesus the great Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls.  
But if any such, as I noted above, for that they conceit themselves also dapper fellows at Cudgils or Quarter-stafs, shall, leaving their Flocks solitary in the fields, out of an itch after applause from the Country-Fry, gad to Wakes and Fairs to give a proof of their dexterity at those Rural exercises; if they shall, I say, for their pains return with a bruised knuckle or broken pate, who can help it? it will learn them more wit another time. Thus much by way of Digression I thought fit to speak, not out of the least ill-will to Mr. Baxter, but only in behalf of the Doctor, hoping, though it is far from all that may be said, that yet it is so much, and so much also to the purpose, that it will save the Doctor the labour of adding any thing more thereto. So that he may either enjoy his Repose, or betake himself to some design of more use and moment.  
In the mean time, I having dispatched my Digression, I shall return to the main business in hand. I think it may plainly appear from what has been said, that it is no such harsh thing to adventure to conclude, That the Truth of the Divine Intellect quatenus conceptive, speculative, or observative, which a Platonist would be apt to call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Divine Intellect exhibitive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, (for though it be but one and the same Intellect, yet for distinctness sake we are fain to speak as of two) does consist in its Conformity with the Divine Intellect exhibitive, with the immutable Ideas, Respects and References of things there. In conceiving and observing them (as I may so speak) to be such as they are represented in the said Intellect quatenus necessarily and unalterably representing such Ideas with the immediate Respects and References of them. In this consists the Truth of the Divine Intellect Speculative. But the Transcendental Truth of things consists in their Conformity to the Divine Intellect Exhibitive. For every thing is true as it answers to the immutable Idea of its own nature discovered in the Divine Intellect Exhibitive. To which also the same Divine Intellect quatenus Conceptive, Speculative, or Observative, gives its suffrage steadily and unalterably, conceiving these immutable Ideas of things in their Objective Existence what their natures will be, with their necessary references, aptitudes or ineptitudes to other things when they are produced into act.  
From whence we may discern, how that saying of this ingenious Author of the Discourse of Truth is to be understood. Where he writes, It is against the nature of all Understanding to make its Object. Which if we will candidly interpret, must be understood of all understanding quatenus merely conceptive, speculative or observative, and of framing of its Object at its pleasure. Which as it is not done in the settled Idea of a Sphere, Cylinder and Pyramid, no more is it in any other Ideas with their properties and aptitudes immediately issuing from them, but all the Ideas with their inevitable properties, aptitudes, or ineptitudes are necessarily represented in the Divine Intellect Exhibitive, immutably such as they are, a Triangle with its three Angles equal to two right ones, a right-angled Triangle with the power of its Hypotenusa equal to the powers of the Basis and Cathetus both put together: Which things seem necessary to every sober man and rightly in his wits, our understanding being an Abstract or Copy of the Divine Understanding. But those that say that if God would, he might have made the three Angles of a Triangle unequal to two right ones, and also the powers of the Basis and Cathetus of a right-angled Triangle unequal to the power of the Hypotenusa, are either Bussoons and Quibblers, or their Understandings being but creatural huffiness of mind and an ambition of approving themselves the Broachers and maintainers of strange Paradoxes, has crazed their Intellectuals, and they have already entered the suburbs of downright Frenzy and Madness.  
And to conclude; Out of what has been insinuated, we may reconcile this harsh sounding Paradox of our Author, that seems so point-blank against the current doctrine of the Metaphysical Schools, who make Transcendental Truth to depend upon the Intellectual Truth of God, which they rightly deem the Fountain and Origine of all Truth, whenas he plainly declares, That the Divine Understanding cannot be the Fountain of the Truth of things: But the seeming absurdity will be easily wiped away, if we take notice of our distinction touching the Divine Understanding quatenus merely conceptive, speculative or observative, and quatenus necessarily (through its own infinite and immutable pregnancy and foecundity) Exhibitive of the distinct and determinate Ideas or natures of things, with their immediate Properties, Respects or Habitudes in their Objective Existence, representing them such as they certainly will be if reduced into act. His assertion is not to be understood of the Divine Understanding in this latter sense, but in the former. But being it is one and the same Understanding, though considered under this twofold Notion, our Author, as well as the ordinary Metaphysicians, will agree to this truth in the sense explained; That the Divine Understanding is the Fountain of the truth of things, and that they are truly what they are, as they answer to their Ideas represented in the Exhibitive Intellect of God. How the Author himself comes off in this point, you will better understand when you have read the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth Sections of his Discourse. Let this suffice in the mean time for the removing all stumbling-blocks from before the Reader.  
Pag. 168. Nor the foundation of the references one to another; that is to say, The Divine Understanding quatenus Conceptive or Speculative, is most certainly not the Foundation of the references of things one to another; but the Divine Understanding quatenus Exhibitive, that represents the Ideas or natures of things in their Objective Existence such as they would be if reduced really into act, represents therewith all the references and habitudes they have one to another. Which habitudes are represented not as flowing from or arbitrariously founded in any Intellect whatsoever, but as resulting from the natures of the things themselves that respect one another, and are represented in the Exhibitive Understanding of God. Which is the main thing that this ingenious Author would be at, and such as will serve all his intents and purposes.  
Pag. 168. It is the nature of Understanding ut moveatur, illuminetur, etc. namely, of Understanding quatenus Conceptive or Speculative, not quatenus Exhibitive.  
Pag. 169. No Ideas or Representations either are or make the things they represent, etc. This Assertion is most certainly true. But yet they may be such Ideas and Representations as may be the measure of the Truth of those things they represent: And such are all the Ideas in the Divine Intellect Exhibitive, their settled distinct natures necessarily exhibited there in virtue of the absolute perfection of the Deity, though only in their Objective Existence, are the measures of the Truth of those things when they are reduced into act, as I have noted above; but they are not the things themselves reduced into act, no more than an Autographon is the very Copy.  
Ibid. All Understanding is such; that is, Ideas and Representations of the natures of things in their Objective Existence, the Patterns of what and how they are when they Exist, and what references and aptitudes they have. I suppose he means here by Understanding, not any power of the mind to conceive any thing, but Understanding properly so called, viz. that, whose Objects are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Platonists speak, the Ideas or Representations of such things as are necessarily and unalterably such, not fictions at pleasure. Let the Intellect Speculative be such Ideas or Representations as these, and then what it perceives, conceives, or observes, it does not make, but it is made to its hand, as not being able to be otherwise, nor itself to think otherwise. And therefore it is rightly inferred as follows: That no Speculative Understanding in that restrict sense abovenamed makes at pleasure the natures, respects and relations of its Objects represented in the Intellect Exhibitive in their Objective Existence, but finds them there. Nor does any Intellect whatsoever make them at pleasure, but they are necessarily and unalterably represented in the Exhibitive Intellect of the Deity, both their natures, respects, and habitudes, as Inoted above.  
Sect. 5. pag. 169. It remains then that absolute, arbitrarious and independent Will must be the Fountain of all Truth, etc. It being supposed that the Divine Understanding and the independent Will of God are the only competitors who should be the Fountain of all Truth, and the former Section proving in a sense rightly understood, that the Divine Understanding cannot be the Fountain of Truth, it remains that the mere Will of God should be the Fountain of Truth, and that things are true only because he wills they be so. As if four bore a double proportion to two because God would have it so; but if he would that Two should bear a double proportion to Four, it would immediately be so.  
Ibid. Which Assertion would in the first place destroy the nature of God, etc. Nay, if he will, it destroys his very Existence. For if all Truths depend upon God's Will, than this Truth, That God Exists, does. And if he will the contrary to be true, namely, That he does not Exist, what becomes of him then?  
Ibid. And rob him of all his Attributes. That it robs him of Science and assured Knowledge, whose Objects are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Things immutable and necessary, this Section makes good. And that it despoils him of his Rectitude of Nature, the Eighth Section will show.  
Pag. 170. Any Angel or man may as truly be said to know all things as God himself, etc. Because this supposition takes away all the steady and scientifick Knowableness in things, it taking away their settled, fixed and necessary habitudes one to another, as if double proportion of Four to Two did no more belong to it in Truth and Reality than Sub-double, and that Four in Truth were no more the quaternary number than the Binary, but indifferently either, as the Will of God will have it. This plainly pulls up by the roots all pretence of Science or Knowledge in God, Angels, and Men. And much more, flatly to assert, That if God will, contradictions may be true. For this plainly implies that there is really no Repugnancy nor Connection of one thing with another, and that therefore no one thing can be proved or disproved from another.  
Pag. 171. If we distinguish those two Attributes in God, etc. namely, of Wisdom and Knowledge, as if the one were Noematical, the other Dianoetical; although that discursiveness is more quick than lightning, or rather an eternal intuitive discernment of the consequence or cohesion of things at once.  
Sect. 6. pag. 172. Because they suppose that God is immutable and unchangeable, etc. This can be no allegation against the other Arguings, because we cannot be assured of the Immutability or Unchangeableness of God, but by admitting of what those arguings drive at, namely, That there is an immutable, necessary and unchangeable reference and respect or connection of things one with another. As for example, of Immutableness or Unchangeableness with Perfection, and of Perfection with God. For to fancy God an imperfect Being is nonsense to all men that are not delirant; and to fancy him Perfect, and yet Changeable in such a sense as is here understood, is as arrant a Contradiction or Repugnancy. Wherefore they that would oppose the foregoing Arguings by supposing God Unchangeable, must acknowledge what is aimed at, That there is a necessary and unchangeable respect and connection betwixt things, or else their opposition is plainly weak and vain. But if they grant this, they grant the Cause, and so Truth has its just victory and triumph. This Section is abundantly clear of itself.  
Sect. 8. pag. 174. Will spo●…l God of that universal Rectitude which is the greatest perfection of his nature, etc. In the fifth Section it was said, That the making the Will of God the Fountain of all Truth robs him of all his Attributes. And there it is proved how it robs him of his Wisdom and Knowledge. Here it is shown how it robs him of his Justice, Mercy, Faithfulness, Goodness, etc.  
Pag. 175. For to say they are indispensably so because God understands them so, etc. This, as the Author says, must be extreme Incogitancy. For the Truth of the Divine Understanding Speculative consists in its Conformity with the Ideas of things and their Respects and Habitudes in the Divine Understanding Exhibitive, which necessarily, unchangeably and unalterably represents the natures of things with their Respects and Habitudes in their Objective Existence, such as they necessarily are when they do really exist. As of a Sphere, Pyramid, Cube and Cylinder. And there is the same reason of all natures else with their Respects and Habitudes, that they are as necessarily exhibited as the Cube and Cylinder, and their Habitudes and Respects one to another, as the proportion that a Cylinder bears to a Sphere or Globe of the same altitude and equal diameter. Which Archimedes with incomparable clearness and subtlety of wit has demonstrated in his Treatise De Sphaera & Cylindro, to be ratio sesq●…altera, as also the Superficies of the Cylinder with its Bases to bear the same proportion to the Superficies of the Sphere. And as these Ideas are necessarily and unalterably with their Respects and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 represented, so are all Ideas else, Physical and Moral, as I have noted above. And the nature of Justice, Mercy, Faithfulness and Goodness are with their habitudes and respects as fixedly, determinately and unalterably represented in their Ideas, as the Sphere and Cylinder, or any other Form or Being whatsoever.  
Sect. 9 pag. 178. For we are to know that there is a God, and the Will of God, etc. That is to say, If there be no settled natures and respects and habitudes of things in the order of Nature antecedent to any Will whatever, Meditation or Contrivance, nor there be any certain nature, respects, habitudes, and connections of things in themselves; it will be necessary that we first know there is a God, and what his Will is touching the natures, respects and habitudes of things. Whether these which we seem to discern and do argue from are the same he means and wills, or some other. And so there will be a necessity of knowing God and his Will, before we have any means to know him; or, which is all one, we shall never have any means to know him upon this false and absurd Hypothesis.  
Sect. 11. pag. 181. Then it infallibly follows that it is all one what I do or how I live, etc. This, as the following words intimate, is to be understood in reference to the pleasing God, and to our own future Happiness. But it is manifest it is not all one what I do or how I live (though I did suppose there were no real distinction betwixt Truth and Falsehood, Good and Evil in the sense here intended) in reference to this present condition in this World, where the sense of pain and ease, of imprisonment and liberty, and of the security or safety of a man's own person will oblige him to order his life in such a manner as hath at least the imitation of Temperance, Faithfulness, and Justice.  
Sect. 12. pag. 183. If the opposition of Contradictory Terms depend upon the arbitrarious resolves of any Being whatsoever. The plainness and irrefragableness of this Truth, that the opposition of contradictory Terms is an affection, habitu●…e or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betwixt those terms that no power in Heaven or Earth can abolish, methinks should assure any that are not pure Sots or crazy Fantastics, that there may be many other such unalterable and immutable habitudes of Terms, Natures or Things that are every jot as unabolishable as this. Which is no derogation to the Divine Perfection, but an Argument of it; unless we should conceit that it is the height of the Perfection of Divine Omnipotence to be able to destroy himself. And truly to fancy an ability in him of destroying or abolishing those eternal, necessary and immutable habitudes or respects of the natures of things represented in their Ideas by the Divine Intellect Exhibitive, is little less than the admitting in God an ability of destroying or abolishing the Divine Nature itself, because ipso facto the Divine Wisdom and Knowledge would be destroyed, as was shown in the fifth Section, and what a God would that be that is destitute thereof!  
Wherefore it is no wonder that those men that are sober and in their wits, find it so impossible in themselves but to conceive that such and such natures are steadily such and no other, and betwixt such and such natures there are steadily and immutably such habitudes and respects and no others. Forasmuch as the Intellect of man is as it were a small compendious Transcript of the Divine Intellect, and we feel in a manner in our own Intellects the firmness and immutability of the Divine, and of the eternal and immutable Truths exhibited there. So that those that have their minds so cracked and shattered as to be able to fancy that if God would, he could change the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or common notions into their Contradictories, as The whole is less than its Part, etc. must have very crazy Intellectuals, and have taken their lodging at least in the suburbs of downright dotage or Frenzy, as I noted above.  
Pag. 184. If any one should affirm that the Terms of common notions have an eternal and indispensable relation to one another, etc. That this privilege is not confined to the common notions they are abundantly convinced of, that have bestowed any competent study upon Mathematics, where the connection of every link of the demonstration is discerned to be as firmly and indissolubly knit, as the Terms of a common notion are the one with the other. And it is our Impatience, Carelessness or Prejudices that we have not more conclusions of such certitude than we have in other studies also.  
Sect. 13. pag. 184. For if there be Truth antecedently to the Divine Understanding, etc. This Objection of the Adversaries is framed something perversely and invidiously, as if the other party held, That there were Truth antecedently to the Divine Understanding, and as if from thence the Divine Understanding would be a mere passive Principle actuated by something without, as the Eye by the Sun. But it is a plain case, out of what has been declared, that the Divine Understanding (though there be such eternal Natures and unchangeable respects and habitudes of them represented in the Ideas that are in the Exhibitive Intellect of the Deity) that it is, I say, before any external Object whatever, and yet always had exhibited to itself the eternal and unalterable natures and respects of things in their Ideas. And it was noted moreover, that the Truth of the external Objects, when brought into act, is measured by their Conformity to these Ideas.  
Besides, the Divine Understanding being before all things, how could there be any Truth before it, there being neither Understanding nor Things in which this Truth might reside? Or the Divine Understanding be a mere passive Principle actuated by something without, as the eye by the Sun, whenas questionless the Divine Intellect quatenus Exhibitive is the most active Principle conceivable; nay, indeed Actus purissimus, the most pure Act, as Aristotle has defined God? It is an eternal, necessary, and immutable Energy, whose very Essence is a true and fixed Ideal Representation of the natures of all things, with their respects and habitudes resulting eternally from the Divine foecundity at once. How then can this, which is so pure and pregnant an Energy, be a mere passive Principle, or be actuated by any external Object, when it was before any thing was? But a further Answer is to be found of the Author himself in the Fifteenth Section.  
Pag. 185. Which is to take away his independency and self sufficiency. Namely, If there be mutual and unalterable Congruities and Incongruities of things, as if they would determine God in his actions by something without himself. Which is a mere mistake. For the pregnant fullness of the Divine Essence and perfection eternally and necessarily exerting itself into an Ideal display of all the natures, properties, respects and habitudes of things, whether Congruities or Incongruities, and these fixed, immutable, necessary and unchangeable in their Ideal or Objective Existence; And in time producing things according to these Paradigms or Patterns into actual Existence by his Omnipotence, and ever sustaining, supporting and governing them by his unfailing Power and steady and unchangeable Wisdom and Counsel; I say, when all things are thus from God, sustained by God, and regulated according to the natures he has given them, which answer the Patterns and Paradigms in him, how can any such determination of his Will any way clash with his Selfsufficiency or Independency, whenas we see thus, that all things are from God and depend of him, and his actions guided by the immutable Ideas in his own nature, according to which all external things are what they are, and their Truth measured by their Conformity with them. But there is a fuller answer of the Author's, to this Objection, in the sixteenth and seventeenth Sections.  
Sect. 14. pag. 187. And to fetter and imprison Freedom and Liberty itself in the fatal and immutable chains and respects of things, etc. This is a misconceit that savours something of a more refined Anthropomorphitism, that is to say, Though they do not make the Essence of God finite and of an Humane figure or shape, yet they imagine him to have two different Principles in him, an extravagant and undetermined lust or appetite, as it is in man, and an Intellectual or rational Principle, whose Laws are to correct the luxuriancies and impetuosities of the other, and to bridle and regulate them. But this is a gross mistake; For there is no such blind and impetuous will in God upon which any Intellectual Laws were to lay a restraint, but his whole nature being pure and Intellectual, and he acting according to his own nature, which contains those Ideas and immutable respects, Congruities and Incongruities of things there eternally and unalterably represented, he acts with all freedom imaginable, nor has any chains of restraint laid upon him, but is at perfect liberty to do as his own nature requires and suggests. Which is the most absolute liberty that has any sound or show of Perfection with it, that can be conceived in any Being.  
Sect. 15. pag. 189. And does as it were draw them up into its own beams. This is something a sublime and elevate expression. But I suppose the meaning thereof is, That the natures and respects of the things of this lower Creation, the Divine Understanding applies to the bright shining Ideas found in his own exalted nature, and observes their Conformity therewith, and acknowledges them true and right as they answer to their eternal Patterns.  
Sect. 16. pag. 189. To tie up God in his actions to the reason of things, destroys his Liberty, Absoluteness, and Independency. This is said, but it is a very vain and weak allegation, as may appear out of what has been suggested above. For reasons of things and their habitudes and references represented in the eternal Ideas in their Objective Existence, which is the Pattern of their natures when they exist actually, is the very life and nature of the Divine Understanding; And as I noted above, the most true and perfective liberty that can be conceived in any Being is, that without any check or tug, or lubricity and unsteadiness, it act according to its own life and nature. And what greater Absoluteness than this? For that which acts according to its own nature, acts also according to its own will or appetite. And what greater Independency than to have a power upon which there is no restraint, nor any modification of the exercise thereof, but what is taken from that which has this power? For the eternal and immutable reasons of things are originally and Paradigmatically in the Divine Understanding, of which those in the Creatures are but the Types and transitory Shadows. The Author in this Section has spoke so well to this present Point, that it is needless to superadd any thing more.  
Sect. 17. pag. 191. In this seventeenth Section the Author more fully answers that Objection, As if Gods acting according to the reasons of things inferred a dependency of him upon something without himself; Which he does with that clearness and satisfaction, that it is enough to commend it to the perusal of the Reader.  
Sect. 18. pag. 193. Truth in the power or faculty is nothing else but a Conformity of its conceptions or Ideas unto the natures and relations of things which in God we may call, etc. The Description which follows is (though the Author nowhere takes notice of that distinction) a Description of the Divine Understanding quatenus Exhibitive, not Conceptive or Speculative. The Truth of which latter does indeed consist in the Conformity of its Conception unto the natures and relations of things, but not of things ad extra, but unto the natures, habitudes and respects of things as they are necessarily, eternally and immutably represented in the Divine Understanding Exhibitive, which is the Intellectual World, which the Author here describes, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the vast Champion or boundless field of Truth. So that in those words [unto the natures and relations of things which in God we call an actual, steady, immovable, eternal omniformity, etc.] Which is to be referred to [the Natures and Relations of things] as is evident to any that well considers the place. And with this sense that which follows the description is very coherent.  
Pag. 194. Now all that Truth that is in any created Being, is by participation and derivation from this first Understanding (that is, from the Divine Understanding quatenus Exhibitive) and Fountain of Intellectual Light. That is, according to the Platonic Dialect, of those steady, unalterable and eternal Ideas (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) of the natures and respects of things represented there in the Divine Understanding Exhibitive in their Objective Existence; In conformity to which the Truth in all created things and Understandings doth necessarily consist.  
Pag. 195. Antecedently to any Understanding or Will, etc. That is, Antecedently to any Understanding Conceptive, Observative or Speculative whatsoever, or to any Will; but not antecedently to the Divine Understanding Exhibitive. For that is antecedent to all created things, and contains the steady, fixed, eternal, and unalterable natures and respects or habitudes, before they had or could have any Being. I say it contains the Truth and measure of them; nor can they be said to be truly what they are, any further than they are found conformable to these eternal, immutable Ideas, Patterns and Paradigms, which necessarily and eternally are exerted, and immutably in the Divine Understanding Exhibitive. And of these Paradigmatical things there, what follows is most truly affirmed.  
Pag. 195. For things are what they are, and cannot be otherwise without a Contradiction, etc. This was true before any external or created things did exist. True of every Form in that eternal Omniformity, which the Platonists call the Intellectual World, as the Author has observed above in this Section. A Circle is a Circle, and a Triangle a Triangle there, nor can be otherwise without a Contradiction. And so of a Globe, Cylinder, Horse, Eagle, Whale, Fire, Water, Earth, their Ideal fixed and determinate natures, habitudes, aptitudes, and respects necessarily and immutably there exhibited, are such as they are, nor can be otherwise without a contradiction. And because it is thus in the Divine Nature or Essence, which is the root and fountain of the exterior Creation, the same is true in the created Being's themselves. Things are there also what they are, nor can they be a Globe suppose, or a Cylinder, and yet not be a Globe or a Cylinder at once, or be both a Globe and Cylinder at once; and so of the rest. As this is a contradiction in the Intellectual World, so is it in the Exterior or Material World, and so, because it is so in the Intellectual. For the steadiness and immutableness of the nature of all things, and of their respects and habitudes, arise from th●… necessity, immutability, and unchangeableness of the Divine Essence and Life, which is that serene, unclouded, undisturbed, and unalterable Eternity, where all things with their respects and aptitudes, their order and series, are necessarily, steadily and immutably exhibited at once.  
P. 195. As they conform & agree with the things themselves, etc. 〈◊〉 The more Platonical sense, and more conformable to that we have given of other passages of this learned and ingenious Author is, if we understand the things themselves, at least primarily, to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Plato, which is the term which he bestows upon his Ideas, which are the Patterns or Paradigms according to which every thing is made, and is truly such so far forth as it is found to agree with the Patterns or Originals in which all Archetypal Truth is immutably lodged. All created things are but the Copies of these, these the Original, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Writing itself, from whence Plato calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as if those Archetypal Forms were the forms or things themselves, but the numerous created Being's here below, only the Copies or Imitations of them. Wherefore no Conception or Ideas that we frame, or any Intellect else as Conceptive merely and Speculative, can be true, but so far as they agree with these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in that sense we have declared, or with cre●…ted things so far as they are answerable to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Archetypal things themselves. And from hence is sufficiently understood the nature of Truth in the Subject.  
These few cursory Notes I thought worth the while to make upon these two lear●…ed and ingenious Writers, the Subjects they have written on being of no mean importance and use, and the things written in such a time of their age, as if men be born under an auspicious Planet, best fits their minds for the relishing and ruminating upon such noble Theories. For I dare say, when they wrote these Discourses or Treatises, they had neither of them reached so much as half the age of man as it is ordinarily computed. Which has made them write upon these Subjects with that vigour and briskness of Spirit that they have.  
For the constitution of Youth, in those that have not an unhappy Nativity, is far more heavenly and Angelical than that of more grown age, in which the Spirit of the World is more usually awakened, and then begins that Scene which the Poet describes in his De Arte Poetica, 
Quoerit opes & amicitias, inservit honori.  their mind then begins to be wholly intent to get wealth and riches, to enla●…ge their Interest by the friendship of great Persons, and to hunt after Dignities and Preferments, Honours and Employments in Church or State, and ●…o those more heavenly and Divine Sentiments through disuse and the presence of more strong and filling Impressions are laid asleep, and their Spirits thickened and clouded with the gross fumes and steams that arise from the desire of earthly things; and it may so fall out, if there be not special care taken, that this mud they have drawn in by their corpse desires, may come to that opaque hardness and incrustation, that their Terrestrial body may prove a real dungeon, & cast them into an utter oblivion of their chiefest concerns in the other State. 
— Nec auras  
Respicient clausi tenebris & carcere coeco.  Which I thought sit to take notice of, as well for the instruction of others, as for a due Appretiation of these two brief Treatises of these florid Writers, they being as it were the Virgin-Honey of these two Attic Bees, the Primitioe of their intemerated Youth, where an happy natural complexion, and the first Rudiments of Christian Regeneration may seem to have conspired to the writing of two such useful Treatises.  
Useful, I say, and not a little grateful to men of refined Fancies and gay Intellectuals, of benign and Philosophical tempers, and Lovers of great Truths and Goodness. Which natural constitution were a transcendent privilege indeed, were there not one great danger in it to those that know not how to use it skilfully. For it does so nearly ape, as I may so speak, the Divine Benignity itself, and that unself-interessed Love that does truly arise from no other seed than that of real Regeneration (which Self-mortification and a serious endeavour of abolishing or utterly demolishing our own will, and quitting any thing that would captivate us, and hinder our union with God and his Christ, does necessarily precede) that too hastily setting up our rest in these mere complexional attainments, which is not Spirit but Flesh, though it appear marvellous sweet and goodly to the owner, if there be not ●…ue care taken to advance higher in that Divine and Eternal Principle of real Regeneration, by a constant mortification of our own will there may be a perpetual hazard of this Flesh growing corrupt and flyblown, and sending up at l●…st no sweet savour into the nostrils of the Almighty. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit; And all flesh is grass, and the beauty thereof as the slower of the field; but that which is born of the eternal Seed of the living Word, abideth for ever and ever.  
And therefore there is no safe Anchorage for the Soul, but in a perpetual endeavour of annihilating of her own Will, that we may be one with Christ, as Christ is with God. Otherwise if we follow the sweet enticing Counsels of mere Nature, though it look never so smugly on it, it will seduce us into a false liberty, and at last so corrupt our Judgement, and blind us, that we shall scarce be able to discern him that is that great Light that was sent into the world, but become every man an Ignis Fatuus to himself, or be so silly as to be led about by other Ignes Fatui, whenas it is most certain that Christ is the only way, the Truth and the Life, and he that does not clearly see that, when he has opportunity to know it, let his pretence to other knowledge be what it will, it is a demonstration that as to Divine things he is slark blind. But no man can really adhere to Christ, and unwaveringly, but by union to him through his Spirit; nor obtain that Spirit of life, but by resolved Mortification of his own will, and a deadness to all worldly vanities, that we may be restored at last to our solid happiness which is through Christ in God, without whose Communion no soul can possibly be happy.  
And therefore I think it not amiss to close these my Theoretical Annotations on these two Treatises, with that more Practical and Devotional Hymn of A. B. that runs much upon the mortification of our own Wills, and of our Union and Communion with God, translated into English by a Lover of the Life of our Lord Jesus.   

THE Devotional HYMN.  

1.  
O Heavenly Light! my Spirit to Thee draw,  
With powerful touch my senses smite,  
Thine arrows of Love into me throw.  
With flaming dart  
Deep wound my heart,  
And wounded seize for ever, as thy right.   

2.  
O sweetest Sweet! descend into my Soul,  
And sink into its low'st abyss,  
That all false Sweets Thou mayst control,  
Or rather kill,  
So that Thy will  
Alone may be my pleasure and my bliss.   

3.  
Do thou my faculties all captivated  
Unto thyself with strongest tye;  
My will entirely regulate:  
Make me thy Slave,  
Nought else I crave,  
For this I know is perfect Liberty,   

4.  
Thou art a Life the sweetest of all Lives,  
Nought sweeter can thy Creature taste;  
'Tis this alone the Soul revives.  
Be Thou not here,  
All other cheer  
Will turn to dull satiety at last.   

5.  
O limpid Fountain of all virtuous Leer!  
O wellspring of true Joy and Mirth!  
The root of all contentments dear!  
O endless Good!  
Break like a flood  
Into my Soul, and water my dry earth,   

6.  
That by this Mighty power I being reft  
Of every Thing that is not ONE,  
To Thee alone I may be left  
By a firm will  
Fixed to Thee still,  
And inwardly united into one.   

7.  
And so let all my Essence, I Thee pray,  
Be wholly filled with thy dear Son,  
That thou thy Splendour mayst display  
With blissful rays  
In these hid ways  
Wherein God's nature by frail Man is won.   

8.  
For joined thus to Thee by thy sole aid  
And working (whilst all silent stands  
In mine own Soul, nor oughtst assayed  
From Self-desire)  
I'm made entire  
An instrument fit for thy glorious Hands.   

9  
And thus henceforwards shall all workings cease,  
Unless't be those Thou dost excite  
To perfect that Sabbatick Peace  
Which doth arise  
When Self-will dies,  
And the new Creature is restored quite.   

10.  
And so shall I with all thy Children dear,  
While nought debars Thy workings free,  
Be closely joined in union near,  
Nay with thy Son  
Shall I be one,  
And with thine own adored Deity.   

11.  
So that at last I being quite released  
From this straitlaced Egoity,  
My soul will vastly be increased  
Into that ALL  
Which ONE we call,  
And one in't self alone doth all imply.   

12.  
Here's Rest here's Peace, here's Joy and holy Love,  
The H●…aven's here of true Content,  
For those that hither sincerely move,  
Here's the true Light  
Of Wisdom bright,  
And Prudence pure with no selfseeking mient.   

13.  
Here Spirit, Soul and cleansed Body may  
bath in this Fountain of true Bliss  
Of Pleasures that will ne'er decay,  
All joyful Sights  
And hid Delights;  
The sense of these renewed here daily is.   

14.  
Come therefore come, and take an higher flight,  
Things perishing leave here below,  
Mount up with winged Soul and Spirit,  
Quick let's be gone  
To him that's One,  
But in this One to us can all things show.   

15.  
Thus shall you be united with that ONE,  
That ONE where's no Duality;  
For from this perfect GOOD alone  
Ever doth spring  
Each pleasant thing,  
The hungry Soul to feed and satisfy.   

16.  
Wherefore, O man! consider well what's said,  
To what is best thy Soul incline,  
And leave off every evil trade.  
Do not despise  
What I advise;  
Finish thy Work before the Sun decline.   
FINIS.   

Books Printed for, or Sold by Samuel Lownds, over against Exeter Exchange in the Strand.  
PArthenissa, that Famed Romance. Written by the Right Honourable the Earl of Orrery.  
Clelia, an Excellent new Romance, the whole Work in Five Books. Written in French, by the exquisite pen of Monsieur de Scudery.  
The Holy Court. Written by N. Cansinus.  
Bishop saunderson's Sermons.  
Herbert's Travels, with large Additions.  
The Complete Horseman, and Expert Farrier, in Two Books: 1. Showing the best manner of breeding good Horses, with their Choice, Nature, Riding and Dieting, as well for Running as Hunting; as also, Teaching the Groom and Keeper his true Office. 2. Directing the most exact and approved manner how to know and Cure all Diseases in Horses: a Work containing the Secrets and best Skill belonging either to Farrier or Horse-Leach: the Cures placed Alphabetically, with Hundreds of Medicines never before imprinted in any Author. By Thomas de Grey.  
Claudius Mauger's French and English Letters upon all Subjects enlarged, with Fifty new Letters, many of which are on the late great Occurrences and Revolutions of Europe; all much Amended and Refined, according to the most acquaint and Courtly Mode; wherein yet the Idiom and Elegancy of both Tongues are far more exactly suited than formerly. Very useful to those who aspire to good Language, and would know what Addresses become them to all sorts of persons. Besides many Notes in the end of the Book, which are very necessary for Commerce.  
Paul Festeau's French Grammar, being the newest and exactest Method now extant, for the attaining to the Elegancy and Purity of the French Tongue.  
The Great Law of Consideration; a Discourse showing the Nature, Usefulness, and absolute necessity of Consideration, in order to a truly serious and Religious Life. The Third Edition, Corrected and much Enlarged, by Anthony Horneck, D. D.  
The Mirror of Fortune, or the true Characters of Fate and Destiny, Treating of the Growth and Fall of Empires, the Misfortunes of Kings and Great Men, and the ill fate of Virtuous and handsome Ladies.  
Saducismus Triumphatus: or full & plain Evidence concerning Witches and Apparitions, in Two parts, the first Treating of their Possibility, the second of their Real Existence; by Joseph Glanvil, late Chaplain to His Majesty, and Fellow of the Royal Society. The Second Edition. The advantages whereof above the former, the Reader may understand out of Dr. Henry More's Account prefixed thereunto. With two Authentic but wonderful stories of Swedish Witches, done into English by Anthony Horneck, D. D.  
French Rogue, being a pleasant History of his Life and Fortune, adorned with variety of other Adventures of no less rarity.  
Of Credulity and Incredulity in things Divine and Spiritual, wherein (among other things) a true and faithful account is given of Platonic Philosophy, as it hath reference to Christianity. As also the business of Witches and Witchcraft, against a late Writer, fully argued and disputed. By Merick Causabon, D. D. one of the prebend's of Canterhury.  
Cicero against Catiline, in Four Invective Orations, containing the whole manner of discovering that notorious Conspiracy. By Christopher Wase.  
〈◊〉 Jests, being Witty Alarms for Melan●… Spirits. By a Lover of Ha, Ha, Herald  
FINIS.