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3. And God can either keep the ungodly from this union for a punishment, or let them unite with the infernal fpirits, which they have contracted a connaturality with; or let ́them, where ever they are, retain the venom of their fin and mifery.

And he can make the Refurrection to be a return of all 4. thele fouls, from the Ocean of the univerfal nature, into a more separated individuation again. I only fay, that if it had been true, that departing fouls had fallen into a common element, yet on all these reasons, it would not have overthrown our arguments for a life of full retribution. God, that can fay at any time, [This drop of water in the Ocean is the fame, that was once in fuch a bottle] can fay, This particle of the univerfal foul, was once in fuch a body, and thither can again return it. But the truth is, no man can fhew any proof of fuch a future aggregation.

And to conclude, the Scripture here cleareth up all the matter to us, and affureth us of a continued Individuation yet more than Nature doth, though the natural evidences before produced are unanswerable.

And as for the fimilitude of Light returning to the Sun, it is ftill an arguing à minus noto: we know not well what it is: we know not how it returneth: and we know not how the particles are diftinguishable there. They that confefs fouls to be indivifible (though the individuals are all numerically diftinct) muft on the fame ground think that two or many cannot by union be turned into one, as they hold that one cannot be turned into two, or into feveral parts of that one divided.

OBJECTION XVIII.

The Platonifts, and fome Platonick Divines, bave so many dreams and fopperies about the foul's future ftate, in aerial and ethereal vehicles, and their durations, as maketh that docrine the more to be fufpected.

Anfw. 1. Whether all fouls hereafter be incorporate in fome kind of bodies, which they call vehicles, is a point

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which is not without difficulty. A fober Christian may poffibly doubt, whether there be any incorporeal fimple effence in a feparated existence befides God alone. Thofe that doubt of it, do it on these grounds. 1. They think, that abfolute fimplicity is a divine incommunicable perfection. 2. They think that Chrift is the nobleft of all creatures; and that feeing he fhall be compound of a humane Soul and Body, (though glorified and spiritual,) to eternity, therefore no Angel fhall excell him in natural fimplicity and perfe- Plotinus his Egnead. ction. 3. Because it is faid that we shall be equal with the 4. de Anima, bath a Angels and yet we fhall, (at the Refurrection) be com- great deal of doctrine pounded of a foul and body. 4. Because it is faid, that He in it, much wiser and Epicurus and the Amade his Angels fpirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. 5. Be-wholesome than that of cause the ancient Fathers, who first thought Angels to be tomifts. fubtil bodies, were confuted by thofe (as Mammertus forementioned) who afferted them to be fiery bodies, animated with incorporeal fouls. 6. Because they read of the Devils dwelling in the air, as one caft down: therefore they think that he hath an aery body, inftead of an ethereal or fiery. 7. Because they fee the Sun fo glorious a creature, in comparifon of a body of flesh; therefore they think that the fymmetry and proportion among God's works requireth, that bodies and forms, or fouls, be fuitable. 8. Because they know not what elfe becometh of the fenfitive foul of man, when he dieth; which they take to be but a fubtil body and therefore think it goeth as a body or vehicle with the rational foul. 9. Because they mistake that difficult Text, 2 Cor. 5. 1, 2, 8. think by the 7 and 8 verses, that it speakcth of the inftant after death; and thinking by the firit and fecond verfes, that (as Beza and moft think) it fpeaketh of a celeftial body as our cloathing, and not of a meer ftate of glory to the foul.

I name their reafons, that you may be charitable in your cenfures; but the truth is, they talk of unrevealed or uncertain things, which do but trouble the heads of Christians to no purpose, who may live better, and (peed better, by following the naked precepts of Chriftianity, and hoping for fuch a glory as Chrift hath plainly defcribed, without prying into that which doth lefs concern them to be acquainted with.

2. And

2. And Satan knoweth that over-doing is one way of undoing. Thus men on all extremes do harden one another. As in thefe times among us it is notorious, that the men of one extreme in Church affairs do harden the other, and the other harden them. And as Fanaticifm 1ifeth from the difliking of fenfuality and prophaneness; incautelous, and fnfual and prophanc men run into hell to avoid fanaticism; even fo the bruitifh grofsnefs of the Somatists driveth fome Philofophers into Platonick dreams, and the Platonick fictions harden the Epicureans in a far worfer way. Lactantim, de ira Dei, cap. 13. thirks, that Epicurus was moved to his opinion against Providence, by fecing the hurt that good men and Religious endure from the worfer fort here in this world. But why fhould you run out on one fide the way, because other men run out on the other? why do you not rather argue from the doctrine in the fober mean, that it is true, than from the extreams that the truth is falfhood? When reafon will allow you to conclude no more than that those extremes are falfhood. Bat furely I had rather hold Plato's Anima mundi, or Ariftotle's Intelectus agens, and his moving Intelligences, than Epicurus his Atoms and metion only. And I had rather think with Alexander Arphad. that omnis actio corporis eft ab incorporeo principio; yea, or the • Stoicks doctrine of Intellectual Fire doing all; than Gaffendus his doctrine, that no incorporeal thing can move a corporeal, or that Atoms and their motion only do all that we find done in nature.

When I look over and about me, I find it a thing quite past my power to think, that the glorious parts above us are not replenifhed with much nobler creatures than we. And therefore if the Platonists, and the ancient Platonick Fathers of the Church, did all think that they lived in communion with Angels, and had much to do with them, and that the fuperiour intelligences were a nobler part of their ftudies than meer bodies, they fhall have the full approbation of my reafon in this, though I would not run with them into any of their prefumptions, and uncertain or unfound conceits.

Saith Eneas Gazeus, pag.778. when he had told us that Plato, Pythagoras, Plotinus and Numenius were for the paffing

of

of men's fouls into bruits, but Porphyry and Fimblichus were against it, and thought that they paffed only into men, Ege quidem hac ipfa de caufa filium aut famulum ob id quod cominiferint peccatum puniens, antequam de ipfis fupplicium fumam, præmoneo, ut meminerint ne pofthac unquam in eadem mala recurrant. Deus autem quando ultima fupplicia decernit, non edocet ecs qui pænarum caufas, fed fcelerum memoriam omnem tolet? vide pag. 382. For this reafon and many others, we affume not their conceit of the foul's pre-exiftence, and think all fuch unproved fancies to be but fnares to trouble the world with. We think not that God punifheth men for fin in another world, while he totally obliterateth the memory of the other world and of their fin: When he hath told us that In Adam all die, and By one mans difobedience many are made finners, and fo condemnation passed upon al, Rom. 5. Nor will we with Origen thus tempt men to look for more fuch changes hereafter, which we can give them ro proof of. Nor will we diftribute the Angelical Hierarchy into all the degrees, which the pfeudo-Dionyfius doth; nor with the Gnoftiks, Bafilidians, Saturninians, Valentinians, and abundance of thofe antient Hereticks, corrupt Chriftianity with the mixture of fanatick dreams, about the unrevealed Powers and worlds above us, either worshipping Angels, or prying into those things which he hath not feen, (and are not revealed) vainly puft up by his fleshly mind, (or without caufe piffed up by the imagination of his own flesh, as Dr. Hammond tranflateth it) Col. 2. 18. Nor will we make a Religion with Paracelfus, Behmen, the Roficrucians, or the reft, defcribed by Chrift Beckman, Exercit. of the Philofophical whimfies of an over-ftretch'd imagination. And yet we will not reject the faying of Athensgiras, Apol. pag. 57. Magnum numerum Angelorum & Miniftrorum Dei effe fatemur, quos opifex & architectus mundi Deus Verbo fuo tanquam in claff's ordinavit centuriavitque, ut elementa, cælos, mundum, & que in mundo funt, vicefque ordinem omnium moderarent. Though we may adde with Janilius Africanus, that [Whether the Angels meddle with the government of the world of stablished creatures, is a difficult question.]

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Conceiveth all things

OBJECTION XIX.

See Plotin. Ennead. 4. IF the foul do continue individuate, yet its actings will not be 1. 3. p. 185. fhewing, fuch as they are now in the body, because they have not that in feparated fouls fpirits to act by: And as Gaffendus thinketh, that the reason Reason is so powerful, of oblivion in old men, is the wearing out of the veftigia of the that it ex tempore former fpirits, by the continual flux or tranfition of matter; fo propounded by the In- we may conceive that all memory will cease to feparated fouls, tellect; and that fouls on the fame account and therefore they will be unfit for Rein Heaven converfe wards or Punishments, as not remembring the cause. without voice, but Anfo. 1. If Gaffendus his opinion were true, men fhould demons and fouls that are in the air converfe forget all things once a year, if not once a month, confiderby voice. ing how many pounds of matter are spent every 24 hours., And why then do we better, when we are old, remember the things which we did between nine or ten years old, Vid. Porphyr, de oc and twenty, than moft of the later paffages of our lives, (as I do for my part very sensibly.)

cafion. de Paffionibus Anime & corp.

2. What is mans memory (for with bruits we meddle not) but fcientia præteritorum? Is not remembring a knowing of things paft furely we may perceive that it is, and that it is of the fame kind of action with the knowing of things prefent. And therefore we may make not memory a third faculty, because it is the fame with the understanding.

3. We have little reason to think, that the furviving foul will lofe any of its effential powers, and grow by its change not only impotent, but another thing. Therefore it will be till an intelligent power. And though remote actions and effects (fuch as writing, fighting, &c.) are done by inftruments, which being removed we cannot do them without; yet effential ads are nothing fo, (which flow immediately from the effence of the agent, as light, heat and motion of the fire :) If there be but due objects, thefe will be performed without fuch inftruments: Nor will the Creator, who continueth it an active intelligent power, continue it fo in vain, by denying it neceffaries for its operations. There is like to be much difference in many refpects, between the foul's actings here and hereafter: but the acts flowing from its effence immediately, as knowledge, volition, complacency,

(called

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