hath an eminent station among visible creatures; the other, that interior and invisible principle of operations peculiarly called human: as to the former, we did, among other such parts of nature, take cognisance thereof, and even in that discovered plain marks of a great wisdom that made it, of a great goodness taking care to maintain it. The other now we shall chiefly consider, in which we may discern not only onμeia, but oμowμara, of the Divine existence and efficiency; not only large tracks, but express footsteps; not only such signs as smoke is of fire, or a picture of the painter that drew it ; but even such, as the spark is of fire, and the picture of its original.

1. And first, that man's nature did proceed from some efficient cause, it will (as of other things in nature) be reasonable to suppose. For if not so, then it must either spring up of itself, so that at some determinate beginning of time, or from all eternity, some one man, or some number of men did of themselves exist; or there hath been a succession, without beginning, of continual generations indeterminate (not terminated in any root, one or more, of singular persons).

Now, generally, that man did not at any time in any manner spring up of himself, appears, 1. From history and common tradition; which (as we shall otherwhere largely show) deliver the contrary; being therein more credible than bare conjecture or precarious assertion, destitute of testimony or proof. 2. From the present constant manner of man's production, which is not by spontaneous emergency, but in way of successive derivation, according to a method admirably provided for by nature. 3. Because if ever man did spring up of himself, it should be reasonable that at any time, that often, that at least sometime in so long a course of times, the like should happen, which yet no experience doth attest. 4. There is an evident relation between our bodies and souls; the members and organs of our bodies being wonderfully adapted to serve the operations of our souls. Now in our bodies (as we have before showed) there appear plain arguments of a most wise Author, that contrived and framed them; therefore in no likelihood did our souls arise of themselves, but owe their being to the same wise Cause.

Also particularly, that not any men did at some beginning of time spring up of themselves is evident, because there is even in the thing itself a repugnance; and it is altogether unconceivable that any thing, which once hath not been, should ever come to be without receiving its being from another and supposing such a rise of any thing, there could not in any case be any need of an efficient cause; since any thing might purely out of nothing come to be of itself.

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Neither could any man so exist from eternity, both from the general reasons assigned, which being grounded in the nature of the thing, and including no respect to this circumstance of now and then, do equally remove this supposition, (for what is in itself unapt or unnecessary or improbable to be now, was always alike so; the being from eternity or in time not altering the nature of the thing;) and also particularly, because there are no footsteps or monuments of man's (not to say eternal, but even) ancient standing in the world; but rather many good arguments (otherwhere touched) of his late coming thereinto; which consideration did even convince Epicurus and his followers, and made them acknowlege man to be a novel production. I add, seeing it is necessary to suppose some eternal and self-subsistent Being distinct from man, and from any other particular sensible being, (for there is no such being, which in reason can be supposed author of the rest; but rather all of them bear characters signifying their original from a Being more excellent than themselves;) and such an one being admitted, there is no need or reason to suppose any other, (especially man and all others appearing unapt so to subsist,) therefore it is not reasonable to ascribe eternal self-subsistence to man. This discourse I confirm with the suffrage of Aristotle himself; who in his Physics hath these words: 'In natural things, that which is definite and better, if possible, must rather exist: but it suffices that one, the first of things immovble, being eternal, should be to others the original of motion;' (I subjoin, and by parity of reason it is sufficient, that one and the best thing be eternally subsistent of itself, and the cause of subsistence to the rest.)

As for the last supposition, that there have been indeterminate successions of men, without beginning, it is also liable to

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most of the former exceptions, beside that it is altogether unintelligible, and its having this peculiar difficulty in it, that it ascribes determinate effects to causes indeterminate. And ‘indeed it hath been to no other purpose introduced, than to evade the arguments arising from the nature of the thing, by confounding the matter with impertinent intrigues, such as the terms of infinite and indeterminate must necessarily produce in man's shallow understanding. I therefore, on such grounds, ́assume it as a reasonable supposition, that man's nature is nowise avroquis, but hath proceeded from some cause.

2. I adjoin, secondly, that it could not come from any sensible or material cause, nor from any complication of such causes; for that the properties, the powers, the operations of man's soul are wholly different from in kind, highly elevated in worth, above all the properties, powers, and operations of things corporeal, in what imaginable manner soever framed or tempered the properties, faculties, and operations of our souls are, or refer to, several sorts or ways of knowlege, (sense, fancy, memory, discourse, mental intuition;) of willing, (that is, of appetite toward and choice of good, or of disliking and refusing evil;) of passion, (that is, of sensible complacency or displeasure in respect to good and evil apprehended under several notions and circumstances;) of avroкivnoía, or self-moving, (the power and act of moving without any force extrinsical working on it.) The general properties of things corporeal are extension according to several dimensions and figures; aptness to receive motion from, or to impart motion unto, each other in several degrees and proportions of velocity; to divide and unite, or to be divided and united each by other; and the like, coherent with and resulting from these: now to common sense it seems evident that those properties and these are toto genere different from each other; nor have any conceivable similitude unto, connexion with, dependence on each other, as to their immediate nature. Let any part of this corporeal mass be refined by the subtlest division, let it be agitated by the quickest motion, let it be modelled into what shape or fashion you please; how can any man imagine either knowlege or appetite or passion thence to result? or that it should thence acquire à power of moving itself, or another adjacent body? Even, I say, this

inferior locomotive faculty is too high for matter, by any change it can undergo, to obtain: for we (as inward experience, or conscience of what we do may teach us) determine ourselves commonly to action, and move the corporeal instruments subject to our will and command, not by force of any precedent bodily impression or impulse, but either according to mere pleasure, or in virtue of somewhat spiritual and abstracted from matter, acting on us, not by a physical energy, but by moral representation, in a manner more easily conceived than expressed ; (for no man surely is so dull that he cannot perceive a huge difference between being dragged by a violent hand, and drawn to action by a strong reason; although it may puzzle him to express that difference): such a proposition of truth, such an apprehension of events possible, such an appearance of good or evil consequent, (things no where existent without us, nor having in them any thing of corporeal subsistence; nor therefore capable of corporeal operation,) are all the engines that usually impel us to action; and these, by a voluntary application of our minds, (by collecting and digesting, severing and rejecting, sifting and moulding the present single representations of things, by an immediate interior power, independent from any thing without us,) we frame within ourselves. And even such a self-moving or self-determining power we cannot anywise conceive to be in, or to arise from, any part of this corporeal mass, however shaped or fixed, however situated or agitated: much less can we well apprehend the more noble faculties to be seated in or to spring from it; of them the grossest and the finest, the slowest and the nimblest, the roughest and the smoothest bodies are alike capable, or rather unlike, uncapable. To think a gross body may be ground and pounded into rationality, a slow body may be thumped and driven into passion, a rough body may be filed and polished into a faculty of discerning and resenting things; that a cluster of pretty thin round atoms, (as Democritus forsooth conceited,) that a well mixed combination of elements, (as Empedocles fancied,) that a harmonious contemperation (or crasis) of humors, (as Galen, dreaming it seems on his drugs and his potions, would persuade us,) that an implement made up of I know not what fine springs, and wheels, and such mechanic knacks, (as some of our mo

dern wizards have been busy in divining,) should, without more to do, become the subject of so rare capacities and endowments, the author of actions so worthy, and works so wonderful; capable of wisdom and virtue, of knowlege so vast, and of desires so lofty; apt to contemplate truth and affect good; able to recollect things past, and to foresee things future; to search so deep into the causes of things, and disclose so many mysteries of nature; to invent so many arts and sciences, to contrive such projects of policy, and achieve such feats of prowess; briefly, should become capable to design, undertake,. and perform all those admirable effects of human wit and industry which we daily see and hear of; how senseless and absurd conceits are these! how can we, without great indignation and regret, entertain such suppositions! No, no: it is both ridiculous fondness and monstrous baseness for us to own any parentage from, or any alliance to, things so mean, so very much below us. It is indeed observable that no man can well, or scarce any man hath disowned the receiving his being from God, but hath also in a manner disavowed his own being what he is; that no man denying God hath not also withal denied himself; denied himself to be a man; renounced his reason, his liberty, and other perfections of his nature; rather than acknowlege himself so well descended, hath been ready to confess himself no more than a beast, yea much less than probably beasts are; a mere corporeal machine, a ball of fate and chance, a thing violently tossed and tumbled up and down by bodies all about it. But let these degenerate men vilify their own nature, and disparage themselves as they please, yet those noble perfections of our soul speak its extraction from a higher stock; we cannot, if we consider them well, but acknowlege that,

Mentem e coelesti demissam traximus arce;

or, as Epicharmus said of old, that man's reason did sprout from the Divine reason;'* they plainly discover their original to be from a cause itself understanding and knowing, willing freely, resenting things, (if I may so speak,) and moving of itself in a more excellent manner and degree.

* Epic. Cl. Alex. Ser. v. pag. 441.