THE NATURE OF TRUTH Its Union and Unity with the soul, Which is One in its Essence, Faculties, Acts; One with TRUTH.  
Discussed by the Right honourable ROBERT Lord BROOK, in a Letter to a private Friend.  
By whom it is now published for the public Good.  
LONDON, Printed by R. Bishop, for Samuel Cartwright, at the Bible in Duck-lane, 1641.   

THE PREFACE to the Reader, showing what first gave Birth to This Discourse of truth.  
READER,  
WIthout an Epithet: for, you must expect no compliments. I am now a Pleader, and so am forbid {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}: Yet, with submission to That Severe Court 
* Ariopaguses: for, such were the orders for all Pleaders there: Aristotel. Rhet. lib. 1 Lucian. in Anachars. , I hope 'twill be no offence, by breaking their First Injunction, to keep their Second. One Word then by way of Preface, may perhaps not seem unseasonable, unnecessary, and so not {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}.  
This Divine Discourse of Truth, coming to me, from so Noble an Hand; I could not envy it the public Light: For, what heart could endure to stifle such a Beauty, at its first Birth, at its first Breath? Nay, though Cruelty should scorn to take a check, yet Power itself, might plead impotent, for such an Act. For, where, or who is He, that can resist the strugglings of Divine Truth, forcing its way out from the womb of Eternity? Where, or who is he that by a Viperous wrea●he 
* with such, Juno assayed to kill Hercules in his cradle, as the Poets say. , or other assault, can smother Hercules, though yet but sprawling in his cradle? View then This newborn Beauty; mark its Feature, proportion, lineaments; Tell me now, was Its Birth an object of pity? or rather of envy? at least admiration; for, Envy finds no place in Noble spirits.  
One thing yet, I must excuse (which yet indeed needs no excuse) A Second Conception is here First borne; yet not Abortive; no, but by mature thoughts, 'tis again decreed, the elder shall serve the younger. For, That was meant the Act, This but the Prologue, ushering in That yet more curious Concept (if such be possible) which was an Embryo before This, but is yet unborn.  
The truth is, This Noble Lord (the Author of this following Discourse) having dived deep in those prophetic Mysteries (at which his first lines glance, 
Matth. 24. Apocal. 20  in this) was even forced (by that occasion) upon a more exact and abstract speculation of Truth itself; naked Truth, as in herself, without her gown, without her crown.  
At first view, he saw her sparkle with most glorious luster; But her rays dazzled his eyes, so that he durst not, he could not, enough behold, admire, and adore, her perfect Beauty, exact Proportion, Divine Harmony; yet though dazzled, he viewed still; remembering that of the Ar●opagite 
Dionys. de Divinis Neminib. , Earthly Bodies are best seen in, and by, Light; But spiritual Beauties, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, in, and by, Divine Clouds, Divine darkness? This, This is the best Perspective to Divine Objects; and the Brightest stars shine best, sparkle most, in the Darkest, the Blackest Night.  
That which ravished his soul most, and most enforced him more to pry, to adore more, Was, the experience of that which Plato speaks: When our souls (saith he) glance first upon Divine Light, 
Epist. ad Dionys.  they are soon ravished, and cannot but pry more and more, because in it they see {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, somewhat of Kin to themselves. And this Kindred, if I mistake not, is the nearest possible; more than Consanguinity; I had almost said more than Identity itself. For, alas, that Corporal union in Materials, which we miscall sometimes Identity, is at best but a cold touch in a point or two; a most disdainful embrace (at greatest distance) in those Beings which have much {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, 
See Plato's Parmenid. & Timeus.  and but little {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, as Plato's Mastet taught him long ago. But in spiritual Beings, and in These only, is True Harmony, Exact Convenience, Entire Identity, Perfect union, to be found.  
Such, even Such, is That near Relation, That near Kindred between the soul and Truth; as will fully appear in This following Discourse of Truth; (which was never meant, nor now published, but as a Prodromus to a Future Treatise about prophetic Truth revealed now in Scripture:) Of which I shall only add this; Read it; if it displease, Read it again, and yet again; and then judge. It needs not my Apology; if so, I might truly say, When 'twas first Wrot, 'twas intended but a Letter to a private Friend, (not a critic;) and since its first writing, and sending, 'twas never so much as perused, much less, refined, by its Noble Author.  
One word more I must speak, and so have done. If any Ingenuous Reader shall Dissent (in any Particular of Consequence) and freely, yet ingenuously, manifest the Reasons of his Dissent: Nothing can be more grateful to This Noble Lord, who promiseth the Fairest Answer; for, His aim is only Search of Truth; which, His Lordship well knows, is oft best found, as Sparks in the Flint, by much Contusion.  
Yet, if any shall wrangle, not dispute: rudely thrust, or strike not like a Gentleman; His Return will be, only a rational Neglect.  
I. S   

REcensui tractatum hunc, qui inscribitur, (The Nature of Truth,) per illustrissimum piissimumque Dominum. Robertum D. Brooke editum: apprimè sanè Doctum, profundisque conceptibus insignitum: quapropter dignissimum arbitror qui in summam utilitatem typis mandetur.  
Novemb. 19 1640. Johannes Hansley, R. P. Episc. Lond. Capell. domest.   

THE NATURE OF TRUTH. Discussed in a Letter to a private Friend.  
SIR,  
I Have according to my poor talon, essayed to find out the true sense of the Spirit in these 
* Mat. 24. Rev. 20. Expounded, in another Treatise.  two Chapters, and in this Inquest, have improved the labours of the piously learned; from whom I have received little other favour than this, that they have not seduced me; they not having approached so near to the truth, as to dazzle it. I confess, that Reverend, that bright man, Master Brightman, hath clothed his opinion, with such a Sirenian glory, that he had almost been to me an ignis fatuus. I had almost, in following the old, lost the young, lost the nest of Lapwings. But, with all respect to his Worth, (if I am not mightily mistaken) I have escaped that Syrtis; and yet dare I not with the Philosopher cry out {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}; for, 
* 2 Cor. 2.16.  who is fit for these things?  
Every truth is 
* Veritas in sundo putei. Democr.  a myste●y; what must that be then, which is purposely vailed by the Spirit? Jesus Christ, who is styled in Scripture, the 
* Ioh. 14.6.  way, truth, life, light, (and these things are apprehended by sense, and are common) is to 
* 1 Cor. 1.23.  the Jews a stumbling block, and to the greeks foolishness.  
May we not then justly say of him that dares pry into the ark, with hopes and thoughts clearly to unfold the mysterious, the prophetical part of Jesus Christ, to unknit the Gordian knot; May we not say of him, what GOD saith of Job; Who is this that darkeneth wisdom with counsel? 
Job 38.2.   
Alas, are we not all since Adam's lapse buried under the shadow of death, and lost in the region of darkness? Who is there that knoweth truth? 
* 1 Cor. 8.2  He that thinketh he knoweth any thing, knoweth nothing as he should.  
Moral truth, which (as some think) is yet more within our reach, than those sacred mysteries, is unknown to us, both in the universal nature, and in the particular actings of it; Difficilia quae pulchra.  
Indeed Truth is that golden apple, which though it hath (in some sense) been offered to the fairest; yet the most refined wits, the most high-raised fancies of the world, have courted her in vain, these many ages: For whilst they have sought, with a palsy hand, this glorious star, through the perspective of thick reason, they have either mounted too high, 
A double error in searching of truth.  and confounding the Creator with the creature, made her God; or descending too low, and deserting the universal nature, have confined their thoughts to some individual Truth, and restrained her birth to several parcels within the Chaos.   

THE NATURE OF TRUTH. It's union and unity with the soul.  

CHAP. I. The understanding and the Truth-understood, are one.  
TRUTH is indeed of the seed royal, of Progeny Divine: yet so, as to be (for I may say of her, what the Spirit saith of Faith) 
* Rom 10.8  near us, to be in us. And when she is pleased to descend into our valleys, and to converse with us, she erects her own pavilion, and doth fix it in whatsoever is lovely in us.  
The understanding is her throne, there she reigneth, and as she is there seated, as she shineth in that part of the soul; she appeareth to me under two notions, which are also her measure through the whole sphere of Being; as will be discovered more hereafter, when these lesser streams shall have emptied themselves by progress into a larger river.  
First, that very Being, which immediately floweth from above, and is the rise or the first and uniform groundwork in this particular Being which we now treat of, 
The understanding or Truth there, under two notions.  and which under this notion we call the form or substance.  
Secondly, those workings which breathe from thence, as all actions and sayings, which are (in our phrase) the effects of a reasonable soul.  
I shall first in few words treat of the first, and then very briefly conclude with a word or two upon the second part of Truth.  
This first Truth is the understanding in its Essence: 
An argument proving the nature of the understanding to be Truth.  for what is the understanding other than a Ray of the Divine Nature, warming and enlivening the Creature, conforming it to the likeness of the Creator? And is not Truth the same? For the Beauty of truth's character is, that she is a shadow, a resemblance of the first, the best form; that she is light, the species, the sparkling of primitive light; that she is life, the sublimation of light, 
Vitaest in se reflectio. Sen. Epist. Life a higher degree of light.  that she may reflect upon herself.  
That she is light, none will deny; that light in reasonable creatures is the fountain of life, is manifest. For the form of a reasonable soul is light, and therefore when the soul informeth and giveth life to Animal rationale, it enableth the creature to work according to light, and upon Her accesses the organs can entertain light, as the eye than beholds the light of the Sun; 
The eye by the presence of the soul made able to see light.  upon Her retirements they are dark and useless. Thus whilst life is light, and light is Truth, and Truth is conformity to God; and the understanding as we yet discourse of it, is this light to the soul, the understanding and Truth can be but one.   

CHAP. II. The second Argument, proving that truth is the Nature of the understanding.  
I Know the learned choose rather to style the understanding, a faculty; 
Most call the understanding a faculty.  and so institute a soul recipient; a Being (scil. Truth) received; and a faculty, which is the understanding, whereby the soul receiveth and acteth according to what it doth entertain.  
But with submission to their better judgement, I should crave leave to make one Quaere.  

Three notions requisite to the constitution of every Being.  Are there not to the constitution of every Being three notions requisite?  
First, the Fountain communicating.  
Secondly, the channel entertaining.  
Thirdly, the Waters imparted.  
I confess, we must not in metaphysical Beings expect physical subsistencies; yet {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} all learning doth allow of. But where shall we find these in the understanding? 
The understanding as a faculty affordeth not these 3. notions.  whilst the intellect passeth under the notion of a faculty. Indeed we may discern the last (scil.) those sweet beams of light which beat upon us continually.  
But where is the second which entertaineth them? 
The understanding is not the subject of truth.  If it be the understanding, than the light which differenceth us from the vegetative and sensitive creatures, lieth in the understanding, and not in the soul; and the soul (which all men hold to be a spiritual Being) is but a Theca to the intellect, as the body is the Tabernacle of the soul. Or, if the soul hath light as well as the understanding, then are there two enlightened Beings in one reasonable creature: Non belle quaedam faciunt duo, 
Marti. l. 5. epi. 53.  sufficit unus Huic operi. Two reasonable Beings in one Compositum, is too unreasonable a thing.  
Thirdly, Who is it that communicateth this light? It is conveyed to the understanding either from the soul, or some other way.  

The understanding receiveth not truth from the soul.  If from the soul, than the soul doth not find the defect of the understanding. For, if the soul can communicate light, than hath it light already; the same, or more excellent; then can it work, diffuse light, and enjoy itself; and so this faculty, the understanding, shall be in vain.  
If in any other way, it must either be immediately from God, or mediante Creatura.  
If from a creature, 
Not from any creature  and not from the soul, it must be by some other faculty intervenient. For, if the soul (which by their consent is a more noble Agent than the understanding) cannot, according to their Doctrine, act without a faculty; how shall an inferior Being work, without some such like subservient help? And thus may you excurrere in infinitum, which, according to the Philosophers, may not be done; for, Entia non sunt multiplicanda, nisi necessariò.  
If the truth come from God, 
Not from God.  then why is it not immediately, intrinsically, infused into the soul itself? But however the understanding be enriched with this treasure of Truth, 
Deus agit á centro in circumserentiam.  if it be imparted to it, than is it, itself that Truth, that light which I contend for. For God doth not communicate light (by light (which I take in a metaphorical sense) I understand some spiritual excellency) and such light (I say) God doth not offer but to light. For, quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis. Cleopatra her dissolved union would have been to Esop's cock of less value than a barley corn. And if the understanding have not light, 
In spiritual giving and receiving there must be a metaphysical union  it cannot take it, unless by being turned into the nature of it. For what giving and receiving can here be, besides that which maketh both to become one and the self same? Light came into the world, 
John 1.5.  but it was refused by darkness. Ignoti nulla cupido.  
Thus the understanding and light are different in names, may be different in degrees, but not in nature. For what that Reverend man 
i Doct. of Syn. Dort. p. 25. lin. 12 Neither a quality permanent, nor an act immanent, unless they be made inherent in the soul, and the latter also produced by it, can be said to be given to the soul.  Doctor Twist saith most acutely of a spiritual gift, I may say of spiritual light. The soul cannot refuse a spiritual gift (I now speak in his phrase.) The soul and any spiritual Being do not, as corporeal things, greet each other by the help of the Loco-motive faculty; but when Grace is given by God to the soul, there is, as it were (da veniam voci) an hypostatical union betwixt the gift and the soul; and the soul cannot reject it, because they are no more. Two but one. 
To receive light is to be light.  So to be in the capacity or act of receiving light, is to be light.  
Lastly, how passeth this light from the understanding to the soul? Will not here be left as vast a gulf, as they make between the understanding and the will, which make them divers; whence grow those inextricable disputes, How the the will is made to understand, what the understanding judgeth fit to be willed?   

CHAP. III. A prosecution of the second Argument, wherein these three notions are applied to the understanding, being made one with the truth.  
ALl these rubs are easily taken out of the way, 
If you make the understanding light, you have the three notions which make up every Being.  if you make that which you call the understanding, truth. For then have you,  
First, the Father of mercies, dispencing light and truth.  
Secondly, light and truth dispensed.  
Thirdly, the totum existens, consisting of matter and form, of material and immaterial Beings (as we distinguish them) called a reasonable creature thus informed or constituted, which we name the recipient of this light and truth.  
Do not tell me, that I thus make the recipient and thing received all one; that is not strange in emanation divine. In Scripture you have a parallel of this. 
1 The 4. vial mentioned Rev. 16.8. is the thing emptying and emptied upon itself.  The fourth vial is poured out upon the Sun (scil.) the Scriptures, and the Scriptures are the vial itself; the Scripture is emptied upon itself, it is agent and patient, receiver and received. I know learned Mede to prevent this, which to him is a difficulty, imagineth the Emperor to be the Sun; but in two words that is thus disproved.  
First, the Emperor is nowhere called the Sun in this book; when he receiveth a metaphorical typical title, he is called the Dragon.  
Secondly the Scriptures are in the Revelation divers times set forth to us by the Sun. So that if you refuse the sense which I fix upon, than you do not only forsake, but oppose the Scripture-phrase.  
But were not this truth mounted in a celestial chariot, 
Nay in all things Agent and Patient must be one to him that considers.  Reason itself would evince it. For, consider any individual Being you please, vegetative or rational, or what you will, 
No Being but it is the thing receiving & received  who is it that entertaineth this Being, but the Being itself which is entertained? Who is it that receiveth from the womb of Eternity that reasonable creature, but the creature received?  

The vanity of that question, Whether the soul be continens or contentum, discovered  The ignorance of this Point, hath raised that empty Question, Whether the soul or the Body be contentum? For if every Being be its own contentum, this Question will seem to be no more a difficulty. And if there happen any near union betwixt two Beings, as the Body and the soul, the first is not continens, the other contentum; but as husband and wife, each bringeth his part towards the making up of the compositum.  
Thus without any violalation of Reasons right, I seem justly to conclude, that the totum existens, consisting of matter and form, the reasonable creature, is the Recipient of this truth.   

CHAP. iv. This Argument further cleared by more objections propounded and answered.  
BUT still it is demanded, why may not the understanding supply the third place? why may it not be this Recipient?  
To whom I give this answer; 
The understanding cannot be the recipient.  That if they make the understanding but a quality, and depending upon some other Being, it cannot, as I have proved in this Discourse, course, be the recipient: but if they look upon it as this light, this truth itself, than the dispute is reconciled.  

Some call the Intellect virtus quâ.  Some conceive, all these difficulties are cured, if you make the understanding only virtus quâ, concluding with the Philosopher, that ibi subsistendum est, without inquiry after a further progress. I could jurare in verbamagistri, I could acquiesce here, but that I desire to be convinced by reason and not by terms. I shall therefore humbly ask this question.  

The Intellect cannot be virtus quâ.  What difference is there betwixt virtus quâ and a faculty? as in a knife, the cutting ariseth from the sharpness, and this sharpness is virtus quâ, or the faculty whereby the knife doth cut.  
If it be but a faculty, than I repair to my former answer: but if something else than a faculty, it must either be a nominal Being, or real existence.  
If the first, it beareth no weight.  
If the second, than I say, it must entertain species (for all spiritual glories do operate by the communication of their divine species) and then will you be cast upon the former rock.  
Yet still they say, the understanding, being a spiritual Being, receiveth light in some way which we know not; and so they proceed to obscure distinctions and voluminous discourses, concerning intellectus agens & intellectus patiens or passibilis. But the wiser sort of them, 
As the Arabians, Zabarell, &c.  perceiving the thinness, aerialness and craziness of this spider's web, have with greater probability made God to be intellectus agens, by his influence upon the understanding.  

The last objection answered.  Respon. Is not this the Athenian Altar, which groaned under that Superscription, 
* Act. 17. vers. 23.  To the unknown God? I would I could discover with S. Paul to them this light, this truth, which they know not, that they might love it and embrace it. But secondly, I dispute not against things I know not: They know not this. I know that I may better maintain the other, that the Understanding is not the Recipient of this light, than they aver that it is, in a way whereof they never hope to find any footsteps.   

CHAP. V. The soul and truth in the soul are one.  
I May yet be pressed with this objection: All these difficulties may be urged against the soul, which have been produced against the understanding.  
Resp. Are not these like the untrue Mother, who will kill the child, because she cannot call it her own? If these inconveniences be justly urged against the Soul, it will not deliver the understanding. But I will deal ingenuously, and confess that if you take the soul under any other notion than Truth; If you deem it, first to be a Being, and then to be light, as God made Adam first (I mean the body) and then breathed life into him; if, I say, there be first a Being, and then an infusion of light, you will be pressed with the former arguments. But if you make the understanding, 
The Soul, understanding, Truth, all but one.  the Soul, Light, Truth, one, then are you quite delivered out of all these straits, and then is it true which I aver, that, that degree of light, which we enjoy in the inward man, is the specifical difference, which distinguisheth between us and brutes, deservedly called reason, that ample Sphere of Truth, which is the All in us, and besides which we are wholly nothing.  
Are not we said to be made after the image of God? 
An Argument proving the soul and Truth to be one.  and if in any thing we are honoured with this inscription, it is in the most noble part? Now God is unus, purus, simplex actus. For (with submission to his better learning and judgement) I cannot subscribe to D● Ames his manner of expression, 
God and his attributes are not two.  who saith, first there is God, and then his attributes are in him, 
* Deo insunt quasi in esse secundo, ab essentiâ & inter se distinguuntur non solùm ratione rationante, sed etiam rationatâ, ita ut fundamentum distinctionis sit in ipso Deo. Theo. lib. 1. cap. 4. Sect. 27.28.  tanquam in esse secundo. If then we do bear his impress, quanquam non passibus aequis, it must be in that which is (as far as we can judge) DEI formalis ratio, which is to be purus, simplex actus.  
In this our shadowy resemblance of the Deity, I shall not challenge perfection; for though the Scripture say, 
* 1 Ioh. 3. vers. 2.  We shall hereafter be perfect as he is perfect, and doth here style us, partakers of divine nature; yet all this is to be understood according to our little model. Unity is that wherein we carry some touches, some lineaments of his Majesty. Unity is God's Essence. Unity is all what we are. For division being the birth of nothing, can be nothing. And thus may we raise from our microcosm, 
Truth as it hath been described, resembleth the Trinity.  a passable hieroglyphic of the Trinity.  
Truth as it is in the breast of Eternity intended to the sons of men, resembles Patrem intelligentem; as it descends from above, Filium intellectum; as it informeth the soul, enjoyeth and reflecteth upon itself, Spiritum dilectum. We must not then expect, First, a Being of the soul: Secondly, a faculty whereby it worketh. God and his attributes, are but one; mercy and justice kiss each other in him; he and they are ens necessarium; And so the soul and the Faculty is one, that divine light and truth.   

CHAP. VI. All things are this one light or truth, shining from God.  
BUt if the Intellect, the Soul, Light and Truth are (from the reasons alleged) all but one, this argument will press all things that are; then will all being fall under the same Predicament.  
This is that which I aimed at; and why not? Seeing that▪ First, all being is derived from the same fountain, scil. from him who is uniform, in all like himself.  
Secondly, All Being is the same in nature, (scil.) a beam of that excellent light, and therefore in metaphysics 
* unum, verum, bonum, Ens, terminiconvertibiles. All being is this truth.  Truth and Being are one.  
Thirdly, All Being is entertained in the same manner by every individual existence, which is the subject receiving this light from above: and all real true reception is alone by similitude and union of nature.  
Yet I shall not agree to confound the names of particular Beings, though I do conjoin their natures. For, all Being may be compared to light; in such a body it is styled the sun; in another it is called the moon; in the third it beareth the name of a star, and under various shapes, the names of various Stars, as Syrius, Canopus, &c. but all is light, and it is but light. The body of waters is by us called Seas; when they beat upon such a coast, it beareth one name; when it coasteth upon another soil, it receiveth a several denomination. All Being is this light, this truth; but contained within those Circles, it appeareth to us under this name; and again, it hath another style when it beateth upon a various object.  
All Being is but light, communicating itself to us through several crannies, some greater, some less, whilst all is light.  

* Vide Platonem in Phile. in Timaeo. Terminus, Insinitum, prima elementa, unde quin. que genera teru●.  Plato most excellently, most acutely, most truly hath madé all Being of Terminus and Infinitum.: The first Being appearing to us in several bounds and measures amidst the vast infinity of darkness or nothing. 
Ficin. come. in Tim●o. Vide Platonem ubique.   
The Platonic Philosophers do not err, 
Omnes numeri in unitate.  who reduce all Beings to number, making one all and the chief, and the other more or less glorious, as they have two, three, or four, more or less numbers or degrees.  
Whence they had this maxim, I know not; this I know, Satan, that old Serpent, is very learned, and can sometimes (as he doth, when he calls Jesus the Christ and son of God) can, I say, sometimes, tell true, that so he may even by truth entail to himself a certain interest in such Disciples as refuse any other allurement than that of golden truth: and it is to be feared, that they have had too great and free converse with him. For even this sweet point of learning have they shamefully abused to charms and spells, as that of the Poet, 
r Virg. in {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}.  Numero Deus impair 
s Quia numerus impar, numerus indivisibilis. Ficin. comment. in Plat. Timae.  gaudet. Two was cursed, because it first departed from unity; Three whereby unity again returned into itself, became sacred.  
But it may be (& spero meliora) that they received it from the Egyptians, and the Egyptians from the Hebrews.  
Now, if this be true, (which I submit to the judgement of the wise) than all Being is but one, and all things are more or less excellent, as they partake more or less of this first Being.  
This doctrine of Platonists will not be so unfavory, if we pay unto unity its due tribute. I confess, according to true Philosophy, Time is but mensura motus vel ordinis, which both are the same; Number, calculus temporis; One is principium tantùm numeri, and so it is hardly a part of that which is but the handmaid of circumstance.   

CHAP. VII. How unity is all in all things.  
BUt I should desire 
The excellency of unity.  that we might consider whether it doth not carry something in it, in nature more glorious, something that may seem to inform a Being. If I cannot tell what it is, you will excuse me, knowing how hard a thing it is to find out the form of any Being, and how much more hard to discover the Being of a form.  
But from this reason I do seem to collect some glimmering light of what I now propound.  
All Being seemeth to breath and catch after unity. Gravia do not more naturally incline downwards, than all Being doth naturally seek for unity.  
Of Beings there are but two sorts.  
Uncreated.  
Created.  
Uncreated, is God only.  
Created, is  

Spiritual.  
Moral.  
Physical.  
Mathematical.   
In all these you will find Unity as it were the form of their Being.  
My thoughts, my ignorance, my no thoughts of the first, incomprehensible, inaccessible Majesty, I desire to propound with fear, trembling and reverence.  
If John in the midst of revelation, 
Rev. 22.9.  being overcome with nothing but the glitterings and sparklings of the creature, did mistake, and worshipped one of his fellow-servants; if the Jews refused to trample upon any contemptible scroll, fearing lest, in them, the nameless name of God might be included: surely we in the midst of darkness, having to do, not with the name, but with the nature of Eternity, aught to clothe our spirits with much modesty.  
I shall therefore humbly propound this to consideration, Whether unity be not all in God.  
I confess there are three persons in one Godhead (and that is the mystery) and yet but one God. And more there could not have been; for this God is infinite, eternal, &c. and only one can be so; there cannot be two Infinites, two eternity's.  
And again, this one cannot not be otherwise, for if he could have been something else, he had not been infinite.  
If then unity be such a necessary (give us leave to speak as we can) accident, as, without which God could not have been what he is: 
unity all in God.  may it not be said that unity is coessential to him, seeing that the Deity admits of no accidents? And if of his Essence, than unity is in him all, for the Essence of God is all in God, and God in his Essence is but one Divinity.  
Ob. But so, infinity, power, &c. all attributes are in God his Essence, as well as unity?  
Answ. All other attributes are at length resolved into this of unity. Of this, can be given no account, but only negative. All explications flow from this, return to this, that God is one.  

fie. comment. in Plat. Sympos.  What is it to be infinite? Ficinus answers, to have nothing of privation mixed, to be plenus sui; which is to be One.  
The power of God is the unity of all Being in one point. What is this, I am that I am; but this, I am one? The same we may say of all other the names of God.  

unity in spiritual Beings.  When we survey the nature of spiritual Beings, we shall find them in Scripture styled one. For God reduceth all the commandments to love. And the Saints, who are, quatenus Saints, spiritual Beings, (for their Saintship is a spiritual excellency) are styled, Rom. 12.5. one body; and, Gal. 3.16. they are all one in Jesus Christ.  
Christ and his Church are but one body. Now, this union carrieth certainly something with it more essential than a figure.  
When the three persons are united in one deity, the union is more close than a figurative union. The conjunction of the human nature, and the second person in the Trinity, is a very entire conjunction; and so is that of the Saints with Christ. There is the union of the whole human nature with one person. Here is the union of divers persons to the whole divine nature. And we may easily allow a near union to these metaphysical Beings: seeing even in natural things, there is as it were an unity, even of two physical existences. For GOD saith, You two shall be one flesh; 
Gen. 2.24.  he saith not one, but one flesh. But these are aenigmata, 
1 Cor. 13.12.  while we see through glasses of flesh.  

moral.  Seeing moral Beings are, by general consent, of fraternal alliance to spiritual, both in nature and operation; I shall not say any thing of them, but only what is said by all, that virtutes sunt concatenatae.  
I shall therefore mind you but of this, 
unity in physical Beings.  how in physical Beings, every thing doth delight in unity. And this is very plain in the stillicids of water, which, if there be water enough to follow, will draw themselves into a small thread, because they will not sever: and when they must disunite, than they cast themselves into round drops, as the figure most resembling unity.  
Whence is that Sympathy in nature between the Earth and the Adamant, but from hence, that they being of one nature, desire to improve their unity by mutual embraces?  
When have the sunbeams their vigour and efficacy, beating upon the burning glass, but when the glass hath gathered them all into one?  
Where is the power of our five senses, which are in their nature so honourable, that nihil cadit in intellectum, quod non prius cadit in sensum? Where is their virtue, but in communis sensus? Nay (if I durst be so bold) but this I may not now dispute: I conceive all the senses are but one, and that is 
* I am informed that my Lord Castle. I stand in his book de Veritate, affirmeth that there is but one sense: but I am not so happy as to have that book by me, nor do I remember it since my last reading it, so that I dare not say it confidently.  Tactus. For their energy is nothing till the ray from the object to the organ, and from the organ to the object touch in one.  
It is most happily expressed by Sir John Suckling; 
[Who having drawn the breasts of wit and fancy dry,  
May justly now write Man, must not a Suckling die.]   
When he saith, 
The circumambient air doth make us all  
To be but one bare individual. 
Sir John Suckling in his Play, Act 2, Scene 1.    
What are the mathematical sciences, but unity turning itself into several forms of Numbers and Figures, yet still remaining entire? Harmony, proportion, proportionality, which are the subject, the soul of all Knowledge here, are so many several names of the same unity. Beauty is but one act of grace and sweetness, 
Ficin. Comment. in Sympos. Plat.  which seems to us composed of various parcels. 
* Ficin. Comment. in Tim. Plat.  music is one form resulting from many different sounds. This is that mystery, which unknown, hath confounded the Schools in that Question, whether quantity be divisibilis in semper divisibile. All things are certainly at last reduced to an unity; yea, all things appear to us clothed with one form; yet are we never able to search out the perfection of this, when we most accurately pursue it. The glory and majesty thereof is such, that it rendereth our minds uncapable of any more than a gross view, like that of the sun in his splendour.  
Democritus his definition of Being, is very considerable, 
* Plato in Symp. in Orat. Erixym.  Est aliquid differens à se, quod sibi convenit: and indeed, all Being is but one, taking various shapes, sometimes discovering itself under one, sometimes under another, whereas it is but one Being: and this is light, truth, that (as I said before) beam of divine glory, which is the spring of all Beings.  
To close this discourse, give me leave thus to set forth that Majesty, whereby Unity wrappeth up all things within itself. There can be no recedence from Unity, unless by addition of a new, distinct, Unity. But where will you find This? A simple Unity must be entirely one with the First; if you add any thing to Unity, whereby it may differ, it remains no more One, but becomes a Duality.  

nominal division of Being requisite for our converse.  Yet do I in no wise reject that division of Being left us by our Masters, when they teach us, that there is first a Being which is known to Be, but itself in its Being is insensible.  
Secondly, another that is sensible, but knoweth not its own excellency.  
Thirdly, that which knowing its own excellency, can reflect upon itself. For, I say, this which is called vegetative, sensitive, and rational, is all of one nature.   

CHAP. VIII. The nature of Habits.  
ANd whilst I affirm that the soul is nothing but this Truth, I do not refuse the doctrine of Habits, 
Habits infused, acquisite.  either 
Infused or Acquisite.   
For when the soul by virtue of its Being, is clear in such a truth, it is said to be an infused habit. When by frequent action, such a truth is connatural to the soul, it may be styled an habit acquisite: though indeed all is but light more or less glorious, discovering itself frequently or rarely, and by divine appointment, at such a conjunction of time, and not any other, not that the soul is informed by its own action; for what hath the stream which it derives not from the source? What can those workings added to that, from which they receive themselves?  
And therefore I wholly subscribe to the Platonists, who make all scientia nothing but reminiscentia; for when it appeareth not, it is not; the soul being but an activity, it must be no more than it acteth: and though we seem by frequent actings to help the soul, and so to create in it acquisite habits, yet these are but a Phaenomenon. This is but the way which God discloseth to our eye, whereas all the actings are only new discoveries.  
Our Philosophers affirm thus boldly of the unreasonable creature, attributing it all to the instinct, or a new influence.  
Why may not, why must not we conclude the same of man, seeing it is a received truth, that acti agimus, and we are in our strength in regard of God no better than the most abject creature?  
But if all be one; 
The difference between natural and supernatural habits.  (Soul, Understanding, Habits, all the same:) then neither do faith and reason differ.  
Surely they differ only in degrees, not in nature.  
That Reverend holy man, that dexterous cominus-pugnator, seemeth to aver the same or more in historical and saving faith 
* Mr Ball. Divers sorts of Faith. page 3. Faith signifying belief, is used to note, first an ordinary knowledge and bare assent to the historical truth of the Speaker, though sometimes holpen by experiments, and other inducements and probabilities of the things: and this is called Faith historical, that is, a naked, imperfect, dead assent, without trust or confidence in the mercies of God, or adherence to the commandments. Howbeit we must not imagine, that Faith is reputed unsound or not salvifical, because historical (rather it is oftentimes unsufficient to save, because it is not so fully historical as might be) but the name of historical Faith arose hence, that some are said to believe, who did never embrace Christ as their only Saviour with all their hearts, nor confidently rely upon the promises of mercy; otherwise, justifying Faith doth more certainly believe the truth of the history of the Gospel, and so is more historical than the Faith called historical. .  
Mr Huit in his Anatomy of Conscience, clearly affirmeth it. 
* These means teach us further to make much of the least beginnings of grace, even those which Divines commonly call repressing, since they prepare the heart to conversion, and in some sense be called the inchoation thereof: seeing temporary and living faith differ not in form, but degrees of perfection; there is a faith in the true convert, of no better perfection than that in the temporary, though he stay not there, as the other (being an unwise son) doth. Huit Anat. Conscience pag. 214.   

The first degree is Reason.  
A second, historical.  
A third, Temporary.  
A fourth, Saving faith.  
A fift, plerophory.  
A sixt, 
* 1 Ioh. 3. vers. 2.  Beatifica visio, that light whereby we shall see as we are seen; these are of the same nature with that light which a reprobate is partaker of.   
And if any man question the truth of this, let him but consider, that the Donor is the same, our good God.  
The Efficient, instrumental, and formal cause, is Jesus Christ.  
The subject recipient, the totum existens.  
And the Gift itself is light or truth, a spiritual Being.  
How can it choose then, but to be one and the same, seeing (as I said before) such a Recipient cannot entertain any other guest?  

The controversy about falling from Grace.  Neither do I at all abet that unhappy opinion of falling away from Grace.  
There is in the opinion a liquid nefasti, and therefore I study to shun it. The propugnators of it are unhappy; for they have not only made a rent amongst us, but strengthened a common adversary.  
The oppugnators also are unhappy; for they have so managed the cause, that their Adversaries lie almost under invincible darkness: for the oppugnators fearing to speak plain, have called Spontaneitatem, liberam voluntatem, and it is impossible to distinguish between Libera voluntas Contra-Remonstrantium, & liberum arbitrium Remonstrantium.  
And whilst the Remonstrants find no difference in this main Tenet, they weigh all the rest in the same scale, and judge accordingly. For an argument often alleged by many learned men, if it confuteth not, it doth confirm an error; and thus are they out of the reach of truth.  
That learned, that pious man, the first fruit of our Church her resurrection, famous Calvin, styled it Spontaneitatem, and not liberam voluntatem: For, Deus and libera voluntas are incompatible, not to be cemented by that distinction without difference, Libera à necessitate, sed non ab infallibilitate. And therefore mighty 
* Deo enim, sive scientiam ejus spectemus, quippe omnia scit; sive voluntatem, quae ad nihil creatum vel creabile est suspensa, sed ab aeterno determinata, nulla 〈◊〉 potentia disjunctiva: considerari quidem potest potentia creata, non considerato divino decreto, & in signo rationis decretum Dei antecedente. Said in tali Chimar●●● consideratione, adversary nobis litem vitiosâ nuce ha●● emptitandam srustraserunt. Ac verò actu, non est ulla potentia creata, nisi quae subest aeterno DEI decreto, nisi qu●● {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} divinae providentiae renuntiare velit, &c. Rutter Exerc. Apolog. Exerc. 1. c. 1. Sect. 8.  Rutterfort affirmeth, that posito Dei decreto absoluto (and all things are under such a decree) insulse quaeritur an potentia libera sub eo decreto sit indifferens.  
But here I am not to, I cannot, dispute this question. Only I say thus much, it is so unhappy an opinion, that I hope I shall not at all abet it.  
For though Reason and Faith be one in nature: yet is not reason that degree of light, of which the Spirit hath said, 
1 Ioh. 3.9. Difference betwixt knowledge and Faith.  My seed is in you, and you cannot sin. And therefore men cannot lose that which they never had. And this will be a little more clear, by the answer to the next objection, which is this.  
If Faith and Reason, 
Object.  if knowledge and grace be all but one light, how cometh it to pass, that some who have less light, have more faith? and those again, who are for knowledge, as Angels of light, are not partakers of that which is called Saving faith?  
This difficulty is rather mazy, than strong; I shall therefore hope to bring the Ariadnean thread.  
And at first aboard, I deny the proposition. I conceive it a mistake. For I do verily believe, that the weakest Saint knoweth more of God, than the most intelligent of those Spirits, who though once in heaven, are now in intolerable flames.  
All men confess thus much, that even the meanest Christian, hath more experimental knowledge of GOD, than Beelzebub the Prince of the air. And doth not this convince them of what I affirm? For what (to speak in their language) is experiment, 
Experience, collection of particular lights.  but the daughter of light, gathered by frequent observation? If experiment be but light, and their experience is more than that of the greatest wits; then (if I mistake not) by necessary consequence, their light is more and greater.  
But I suppose, the error may be cleared by this Simile.  
The one is as the man who hath studied the Theory, the other the practice of any art of science.  
The first may know more in appearance; but the other indeed knoweth more.  
You shall find two unequally learned, 
knowledge, real. apparent.  The first is a Gnosticke, a helluo literarum▪ the other hath not read so much, but hath concocted, mastered and subdued all before him. Which now is said to know more?  

Psal. 14.1.  The fool hath said (not, as some expound it, wished) in his heart, there is no GOD. It is true, now and then he hath some glimmering light of a Deity, but anon again all is shaken, and he faith, there is no God.  
Doth not the people of Israel say, 
Psal. 12.4.  we are our own Lords, who shall control us? We have made a covenant with death and hell, and none shall reach us. Can these men, these Beings be said to know God?  
If you object the devil's age and experience, it cannot help; it is but, as you call it, a collection of his own lights, and all the stars shining together make not day.  
I should only ask this one question, Can the devils believe or know God to be all mercy? It is impossible, because they cannot believe him so to themselves.  
Ob. But some say, Neither do the best men believe him so to the wicked.  
Resp. Yes, we do, we know him in his nature to be merciful to them.  
Besides, 
God, mercy and sweetness to the devils.  mercy and justice are all but one thing in God; and this those miserable Creatures cannot consent to, that their ruin is the effect of supreme perfection, infinite sweetness.  
To the confirmation of this, I shall but press this one consideration.  

As we know, we love.  If they did know more than the Saints, they must needs love more; and in this I shall have all those my abettors, who hold that the Will doth necessarily follow the understanding; which whilst Aristotle denieth in broad and open disputes, 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}. Arist. Eth. lib 3. c.6. vide & c. 7. ci●ca finem.  he doth in tacit terms closely yield to.  
I do apprehend it an undeniable truth, that what Good soever I know to be good, I must love. And therefore if wicked men did know more of God, they must know him needs under the notion of good: and so Seeing goodness in his nature, they must love him more. 
What we know, we are.  I might add, what good we know, we are: our act of understanding being an act of union, which (as before) being metaphysical in the soul, must be entire.   

CHAP. ix.. The difference betwixt Knowledge and affection, discussed.  
IT may be that what hath been disputed, will be granted: but there is yet an objection which requireth solution.  Ob. 
If all Being differeth only in degrees, not nature; if knowledge, affection, light, activity, be all one; Whence is it that even amongst Christian men, holy, spiritual men, men of largest affections, (and the affections are the activity, the main of the soul) I say men of the largest affections are esteemed to know least of God? And others, whose affections are as it were benumbed, and all activity is placed in their brain, understand more of the divine nature?  
Doth it not appear from hence, say they, that all Being is not one, differing only in degrees: but that there are even different natures, amongst which one may excel, whilst the other is depressed?  Sol. 
I could tell these men, who start the objection, that they deem the light in the head, more than the love in the heart: and then I shall say, 
Affection handmaid to Knowledge according to some.  that with them the head is the higher degree, the heart the lower degree of light, and so all is but a different light; from whence, affection, being judgement in its infancy, ceaseth, when Knowledge groweth mature: as the heat and blaze of fire, is but its labouring towards purity and perfection, which therefore are no more when the clear flame reacheth its Element. But other men think otherwise, and they do pitch all in the affections, and the meaner light in the understanding; and so turning the table, still one shall be a parcel of, or a step to the other, 
knowledge a step to Affection, according to others. Knowledge & affection names of different degrees in the same nature.  and each carry along both in equal measure according to reality: how much true affection, so much knowledge, & vice versa: as I shall show in other two answers, on which I fix the strength of my thoughts in this point. And therefore  

Affection perfection of Knowledge.  Secondly, I affirm confidently, and, I hope, truly, that he, who soars upon the wings of Affection, and layeth himself in the arms of Jesus Christ, though he amuse not his head with the mystical nature of the Trinity, with the procession of the Spirit, with the incarnation of Jesus Christ, attempting to make that holy oil; Touching the ark, this glory which is too high for him; losing himself, while he laboureth to see how human nature can be raised so high; divine condescend so low, as to bring forth the hypostatical Union: I say, such a one knoweth more of God, than the other.  
It is often seen, 
Knowledge often no Knowledge, but a vain swelling.  a working head is like an overhot liver, burneth up the heart, and so ruineth both: Whereas sweet humble affections, are the only way to keep the poor creature in a constancy of spiritual health. And in this care the Apostle to Titus forbids foolish questions, 
Tit. 3.6.  endless genealogies, contentions, and brawlings about the Law.  
This Law is the rule of life; and if we know not the Law, 
knowledge without power, even in the law forbidden.  we cannot keep the Law, and so we must perish; and yet we find the search of this forbidden.  
Object. Some will say, here is meant the ceremonial Law.  
Answ. I will allow it; but is not the ceremonial included under the second precept? 
ceremonial law included in the moral.  The people upon Christ his Sermon, wherein he taught, that He that looketh on a woman to lust after her, 
Mat. 5.28.  hath committed adultery with her in his heart (and so he gave the Law its full latitude) say, He speaketh as one that hath authority, 
Mat. 7.29.  and not as the Scribes and Pharises: conceiving it their duty and happiness to know the Law in its utmost limits; and yet we are restrained from any brainsick, heady, nice inquiry, even into the Law, scil. not to busy our heads with the knowing part, in overgreat proportion, but labour to bring our knowledge to practise.  
If then all such knowledge (I mean all knowledge of this nature) be forbidden, it is because it is not good; it is not knowledge, but a vain tumour in stead of real greatness or growth: and that other of the affection, hath certainly more of God in it, and so more of truth.  
The Apostle is so great an enemy to this kind of knowledge, that having disputed such a point in disdain of gainsayers, he concludeth, If any man lust to be contentious, 
1 Cor. 11.16.  we have no such custom, nor the Churches of God.  
— Demonstrat quaelibet herba Deum. He who refreshed with the sweet odours, pleased with the various comely shapes of a flower, can say, this is sweet, this is lovely, lovely indeed; Yet Jesus Christ is a bed of spices, 
Cant. 2.1.  as the lily of the field, the Rose of Sharon, sweeter, much sweeter, ten thousand times more lovely. This man knoweth God, this man loveth God, this man knoweth him indeed; and this knowledge, as it is the most pleasant here, so it will certainly prove the most profitable hereafter, and always declare itself most real.  
Doth not the Apostle, doth not he most truly, most pathetically cry out; Though I had the gift of prophecy, 
2 Cor. 13.2.  and knew all secrets, all knowledge, yea, if I had all faith, so that I could remove mountains, I were nothing; I were as sounding brass and a tinkling Cymbal, if I have not charity. When all these excellencies meet in a Christian, as haply they may, yet it is charity that maketh him what he is, and the other Beings are but as Phalerae, as trappings which give a handsome set-off, but not a Being to a Christian.  
Love is lovely in God's eye, 
God, from whom all light cometh, is stil●d Love 1 Ioh 4 16.  he is styled the God of Love, the God Love. And in another place, the Scripture affirmeth that in this we have fulfilled the will of God, if we love one another; for by this we are made one with God, and so dwell in true light.  
The two Tables are reduced to Love of God and our neighbour. So that sweet affections do make the most sweet harmony in God's ears. 
Women in greatest number truly gracious, because most affectionate.  Of the Chorus of Saints, the greatest number will be found amongst the feminine sex, because these are most naturally capable of affection, and so most apt to make knowledge real. It is true, I confess, these affections misguided, led them first into transgression; but these same affections after, carried them first to the grave, then to the sight of a Saviour, gave them the enwombing of Christ, who (in some sense) might have entertained our nature in another way (if he had so pleased;) and these affections will one day raise many of them into the sweet embraces of everlasting joy.  
Amongst the Church-Officers, the Pastor and the Doctor, according to Timothy, are more eminent than the rest, because they labour in the word and doctrine. 
1 Tim. 5.17  Of these two, the Doctor is always to have his sword always girt about his thigh, he must enter into the lists with every uncircumcised Goliath. he must stand continual sentinel, that no heresies be forced upon the Church. He must beat his brains in dissolving difficilia, and clearing obscura. He must sometimes faint away in watery cold fits, by picking up, and throwing out witless, sapless sophisms, which though they cannot hurt the strong, may seduce the weak. In the mean time, the Pastor leadeth the flock into the sweet and pleasant meadows, 
The Pastor preferred before the Teacher, because the truth of truth in the heart lieth in the affection.  feeding them by the little brooks of seemingly shallow affections; and yet this man shall not only receive equal honour with the Doctor, but be preferred before him; as appeareth clearly in Eph. 4.11. 1 Cor. 12.26. As it was with the Israelites, so it is here; those who keep the stuff, receive equal reward with the combatants. I do therefore conclude, he who hath the largest affections, hath most of God, most of his image, which is renewed in knowledge.  
Thirdly, 
Knowledge, where it is eminent in truth as well as appearance, there affection is equally eminent.  sometimes it happeneth, that those who have the largest knowledge, have the most enlarged affections, even to our eye; and this is happiness indeed. I confess, it doth not so seem to an eye that would read it running; but if it be exactly looked on, if it be presented to our view in the portrait of an example, I think it will be very clear.  

David and Solomon compared with Paul.  David and Solomon compared with Paul, will be as a thousand witnesses. The two first do seem to outstrip all men in affection, they are brimful, running over.  
For, David is styled the sweet Singer of Israel; in his psalms he is ever magnifying the rich mercies of God, singing forth the praises of God, choosing rather to be a doorkeeper in the house of God, than to dwell in the tents of Mesech: making his Word to be a light unto his feet, and a lantern unto his paths, placing all his delight in the Law of the Lord.  
Solomon is the happy penman of that hymn, which by the Spirit is styled the Song of Songs. Yet for all this, even in this, they are both exceeded by Saint Paul.  
But some, it may be, will imagine those Worthies to be endowed with higher gifts of Nature and Art, than S. Paul: and then they will give all the glory to their understanding, and not to their affections.  
If it be so, I confess I have not fitly chosen my Opposites; But the truth will then appear in Them, without comparison distinctly.  
For, if in affection they exceed all, and in abilities are as Saul, taller than their brethren by head and shoulders, than is it manifest in them, that eftsoon men of the most raised parts, of highest abilities, do superabound in love.  
But, if, in things which are not directly of Faith, I could cease to be a sceptic, I should with that most Reverend Worthy, Thomas Goodwin, give Saint Paul for head and heart, that Throne in heaven which is placed next to Jesus Christ. But secret things belong to God; let us only compare their eminency here below. I think it will be out of question, that Saint Paul was the most excellent. For, though Solomon (there I suppose will be the difficulty) be said to be the wisest of men, that ever were, that ever should be; yet that is to be applied only to Government, and (if it may reach so far) to his excellent skill in natural Philosophy. 
Solomon's preeminence in knowledge extended to politics, and natural Philosophy only.   
View but Saint Paul, and see whether he doth not excel in every thing. He had gathered up vast learning at the feet of Gamaliel; for his parts he was advanced to eminent power in Church and commonwealth. He saith of himself, I profited in the Jews religion above many my equals in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. And after his conversion, he was judged the only man fit to contend with the Philosophers at Athens. For they who seemed to be somewhat, in conference added nothing to him. And therefore to him was committed the unravelling of all the difficult knots. It is he that disputes about meats, long hair, divorces, irregular partings of husband and wife. It is he that openeth the nature of prophecy, evinceth the resurrection from the dead, maintaineth justification by faith. And that he may be perfect in knowledge, God is pleased (whether in the flesh or spirit, 
2 Cor. 12.3  he knoweth not) to take him into the third heavens: and there he was so filled with Revelation, that God was forced to put the philomela-thorn under his breast, that he might not fall into the sleep of sin, and so give himself up (as Samson) into the hands of Philistine enemies. And yet this man exceeds all men in affections, and in his affections surpasseth all his other excellencies. It is he that is often in journeys, 
2 Cor. 11.26.  in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his own nation, in perils amongst the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils amongst false Brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold & nakedness. And as he saith of himself, Who was weak and I was not weak? who was offended and I did not burn? It is he that fought with the beasts at Ephesus. He is content not only to be bound, but to die for Christ.  
Good Saint Paul was so tender over his kinsmen according to the flesh, that for their sakes he could willingly be content to be separated from the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is greater love than that which Christ mentioneth; for no man had then showed greater love than to die; but this holy Saint will go one step further, he will suffer an eternal death for his friend.  
Thus, if suffering either for the head, or members, for the Church, or Christ, will discover affection, I suppose he will merit the Garland.  
And as a compliment and crown of all, if to live be most for God's glory, though death be his advantage, he is resolved to submit, making obedience to Christ in life and death, his gain and triumph.  
I confess, when he traveleth through those briery disputes, he cannot display such sparkling vivid affections: But when he hath gotten but a little above those lime-twigs, how doth he mount on high, and there, upon even wings, disdain all things below, triumphing in the embraces of his Saviour, who is to him more choice than the choicest of ten thousand?  
If what I have attempted to prove, be true, as I hope it is, then Consider,  
Either those who are eminent in affection, and otherwise know little; or those who, as they abound in one, are also Masters in the other: 
True knowledge, true affection, separated from all appearances or outward advantages of the body, or the like, are one.  Distinguish appearances from truth; Reading, memory, discourses, effects of sense or complexion, from that which entreth the soul, becometh real there, acteth, floweth from thence as a spring: And then will you conclude, that all knowledglieth in the affection; that all knowledge is but one, differing only in degrees.  
And lastly, that all, whether knowledge or affection, is but the Truth, that spiritual ray of heavenly light which God is pleased to present to our view under several shapes, yet is but one and the same Being, scil. light and truth.   

CHAP. X. That all the several and particular actings of the soul, are this one light and truth.  
THUS have I dispatched the first discourse of the general form and nature of the Understanding. 
Apprehensions, conclusions, affirmations, &c. all one truth in the soul.  Now concerning the particular and various workings thereof, in conclusions, simple apprehensions, negations and affirmations, &c. which seem to be the offspring of the first and original Being; even these, I hope to prove all one and the same, as with themselves, so with the former, all conjoined in one Being of light and truth. That is truth in the fountain, this in the streams; and no man will deny the fountain and stream to make one river. Only, sometimes it appeareth in such a shape, sometimes in another, but is still the same soul.  

The operations of the soul are proved one with the essence thereof.  This will appear if we compare the nature of the soul or Understanding (for we have proved them both one) with their irradiations, actings and several emanations. Res enim dignoscendae sunt ex causis. Now, we conceive the first Being to be no other thing, than activity, so confessed by all. And if you would know what an activity is, you shall find it to be either potentia agendi, or ipsa actio, or rather actus primus & actus secundus.  
If it be actus, either Primus or Secundus (for primus and secundus are to me differenced only by time, and so not differenced at all, (of which I will presently speak a little more) it must be still in work, and is no longer than it acts. Now, what can this act be in this subject, whereof we discourse, but the reasonable working of the soul in this or that conclusion? If it be any other than a work of reason, how can it constitute, or become the form of a rational soul and human understanding? If it be such, how differs it from thought, ratiocination or positions in the mind?  

The activity which is the form of the soul, not different from the actions thereof.  Whilst then these conclusions, sayings, actions, are the form of that truth, of that universal first truth, they must be that truth. For, forma quae dat esse, est esse, and whatsoever is the form of any thing, that is the Being of it. For, Being and form are but one.  
If the form of this activity be not these reasonable workings, it must be something either of a baser allay, or of a higher stamp.  

Not of a higher strain.  If the latter; than you speak of Angels or some other spiritual Being, if there be any which is more noble than the soul. And then how doth this excellency discover itself? Where or what is it? How is it said that Action is the perfection of all things?  
If the former; 
Nor of a lower.  then first you descend to some lower degree of existency; for, all Being is but an activity; and according to the glory or baseness of that activity, doth the Being receive denomination.  
Or secondly; Shall the cause be more ignoble than the effects? What then? If it be neither more excellent, nor lower, 
Neither can it be various.  is it various, hath it less or more of action? still you fall at the same stone.  
But they who approve of the distinction of actus primus and actus secundus, think they salve all by the distinction of substance and accident; So, with them, actus primus is the Being, the substance itself: and actus secundus is the product of that Being or accident belonging to that which they make a soul; and thus forgetting this, that omnis virtus consistit in actione, they make the soul a mere virtual Being.  

The distinction between actus primus and actus secundus, examined.  But, besides that the former Reasons are not thus everted, of these men I should ask this question.  
What is this their actus primus? What is the form of it? What is with them the form of a reasonable soul?  
Is not Reason? can there then be a soul, till there be reason? And this Reason is not potentia ratiocinandi, but Ratio. For, if you distinguish between the act and power, the act must ever be first in order, dignity, and nature.  
So then, What is the form of this primus actus? is not some act? if it be, it must exist; else you will allow it but a bare notional Being, which lieth in the apprehension. And if it doth exist, must it not be this which you call actus secundus?  
If it be not an act, they make it nothing but a power, a faculty depending upon something else. And if this be the nature of the first, what can the second Being (which is the effect, and so lower) be, but a bare notion?  

The distinction between Substance and Accident called into question.  If here were fit place, I might perhaps set upon the Rack that long-famous Distinction of Substance and Accident, whereby It should be forced to confess itself an aged imposture, at least in the general and frequent acceptance.  
But the activity consisting in the action, That and It shall both be proved but one; and so, actus primus and actus secundus are this same truth, this light which I plead for.   

CHAP. XI. An objection answered, in which the nature of Time and Place are touched.  
YEt this doth exceedingly stumble men's thoughts; we see various actings of the soul, distinguished by the circumstances of Time and Place; there are several distinct actings; are there then so many several souls?  
First, I could justly give this answer; When these men can tell me what time and place is, I do hope I shall find both time and place to dissolve the difficulties.  
Secondly, I shall, I suppose, both by reason and their own assertions in the like case, prove that time and place are nothing, or alter nothing in this point; and that, these similes will a little irradiate.  

The nature of Beauty illustrating time and place.  Beauty (if I bring not the exact description of the learned, yet I shall remember so much as concerneth the point in hand) consists in complexion, in lineaments, and in harmony.  
Complexion draweth his Being from colour, from the subject wherein colour is seated, the spirits which give a Being to this colour, &c. and these are differenced by many circumstances. Lineaments as they are adorned by, so are they the ornaments of this complexion. And these again are divers from themselves, and divers from Harmony. And yet, by Harmony, these make up one sweet, one pleasant Being, which we call Beauty.  
A Flame rising from divers thorns, is not many, is but one flame. A stream filled with various springs, is not various, is but one stream. So is it in our case.  
Those Circumstances of time and place, differencing these various Beings, are something, or nothing.  
If nothing, the objection is answered.  
If something, they are a piece of the whole, they serve to make up that harmony, which we call Beauty, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}. Thus time and place, with all Beings of the like nature, are either nothing, or else they have a share in the Being, and make up the totum Compositum.  

Time and Place nothing different from the essence of the soul.  The soul is but one Act distinguished to our notion by several apparitions; and these intervals, with all variations, either are nothing, or are of the nature of the soul, and serve to make up that comfort, that truth, that life that we now discourse of.  
And that this is so, I hope by this clear ratiocination to leave you assured.  
Time and Place seem to me nothing but an extrinsical modification of a thing. I cannot find that the learned have made anything at all of them. Let us survey them, as they define them, when they treat of them; as they esteem them, when they meet them occasionally.  
How hath Aristotle defined Place? 
The definitions of time and place rejected.  Est superficies concava corporis ambientis; Where is the truth of this in the highest heaven which incompasseth all the rest? 
Place.  Hath Ramus any whit advanced the cause in his definition? Est subjectum rei locatae; Idem per Idem! Are not those who propound, and they who entertain such a definition, justly compared to the Constable and the Country-Justice? The first having received from some higher power a Warrant, wherein in was this hard word, Invasion, repaired to his Rabbi for Solution: he, that the question might seem somewhat obscure, paused a little, that it might not shame him; after he had consulted, in a stroke or two with his grave-learned beard, replied; the sense of this word is very plain, it is Invasion, it signifieth Invasion; with which the Constable being fully satisfied, gave him many thanks and departed. Locus and spatium corporis locati, is little better; what have we in this definition, of the intrinsical nature of place? So that, if I be not wholly blind, they, whilst they treat of it as Scholars, make it nothing: when they make use of it by the By, it is the same. As, the soul, they say, is tota in toto, and tota in qualibet parte; whilst they spread and diffuse the soul over the whole body, from one extremity to the other, Place maketh no division in the soul; it is but one soul, yet extended quite through the body. Angels are definitivè in loco; that place which is within the circumference so limited, doth not at all cause them to make two in this angelical Being.  
I may affirm the same of time, 
Time.  Tempus est mensura motus; What do I know of time by this? how can I from hence guess time to have so considerable a Being, as that it shall make two of that with otherwise would be but one? In the Deity we are sure it can have no such effect. In the Deity we have creation, preservation, redemption, decree, and execution of that decree. All these to our apprehension are distinguished by time: and yet no man will say, that in God they are two: for God is purus actus, nulla potentia.  
But you will say, this is obscurum per obscurius, and not to unmask and unveil difficulties: Which no Simile taken from the Divinity can do, because That is all mystical.  
To which I answer, Si magnis licet componere parva, we shall find the same in ourselves, we shall find that Time doth not at all difference, or any way act. I suppose it is clear, that Place hath lost all place and credit in this argumentation. Why may not I say the same of Time, seeing by all men's confessions they are twins of the same womb? But secondly, I affirm this, (and I hope truly) that if you make Time any thing, 
All actions nothing, if time be any thing.  you annihilate all the act of the Creation; that is, you will admit of no one perfect action. A thought, I confess, passeth in a moment; and yet, in this moment, under this moment, are many subdivisions of Time. We have in an hour, an half, a quarter, a minute, a second, (the 60 part of a minute:) & how many subdivisions will a scruple admit of? For aught I know, Time and punctum Physicum agree in this, that they are divisibilia in insinitum. If then you will make so many thoughts in a thought, as you have divisions under a scruple, you will have no perfect thought, no complete act. To shun this, you will confess that Time doth not divide one act alone: but one Act or thought comprehendeth many Times. Why may not I say, that if Time doth not parcel out one act, it cannot act upon two, when the duality ariseth only from Time? This not being well weighed, hath cast our wits upon strange rocks, hath raised this Question,  
How doth God see things? 
The difficulty untied, how God seeth things.  If in their existencies, than all things are coeternal with God: if in their Causes only, than all things are not present with God; but you must admit of succession, a former and a latter, to eye divine; which is blasphemy. This dilemma seemeth strong; but it is because we make Time something: whereas indeed all things did exist in their Beings with God ab omni aeterno. For, aeternum & tempus are all one in eternity: and this succession is but to our apprehension.  
Thus, if Time and Place be nothing, I hope the weight of this objection is is taken off.  
But I foresee another objection.  
Object. If Time and Place be nothing, if all our Actions are but One: How can there be evil and good?  
Answ. I fully conclude with Aristotle's Adversaries Anaxagoras, Democritus, etc That Contradictions may be simul & semel in the same Subject, same Instant, same Notion (not only in two distinct respects, or notions, as one thing may be causa & effectum, Pater & Filius, respectu diversi; but even in the same respect, under one and the same Notion.) For, Non ens is nothing; and so, the Being which it hath, may subsist with that which contradicts it. I speak in their terms.  
Now, let us view our actions, either  
as Many, in pieces, or, One entire act.  
As many; impute Transgression to what you please, either to the effects in the body, or the Will, and its workings: all these, so far as they have Being, are good; for, all Being is good. Where then is the sin? Certainly, sin lieth in this, that there is not so full a goodness as there should. Sin is only a Privation, a nonentity: But, a Privation, a nonentity may subsist (according to the subsistence it hath) with Being. Such a coexistence of Entity and nonentity, was in his faith, who cried, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. This Contradiction (of Entity, nonentity) must be in the selfsame Act, (and not in two distinct Acts:) else the Act is perfect, (having complete Entity, goodness, without admixture of nonentity:) and so is only the Creator: or else it is more imperfect than Beelzebub; for, It is Bad, and no Good, nonentity wholly, and no Entity, and so no Action.  
Thus we see Good and evil may coexist in several, in particular Actions; Why then not so, if all Acts should be but one entire Act, undistinguished by Time or Place? If the members composing the Body, have matter and form, why then not the whole Body? Sin in itself is nothing, only a nonconformity to God's Law.  
The Twilight hath not so much light and so much positive darkness: only it hath not so much light as Noon in clear day. Here's the defect: and by this defect, Light and darkness coexist in the same point of air.  
So, though our Acts be but one, undivided by Time and Place: yet, to our grief, are not free from sin.  
Thus the soul, Truth, Light, is always and continually one, though it appeareth otherwise to me: and this appearance ought not to dazzle the sight of the truth; for, as they say of honour, honour est in honorante: so may I say of apprehension, Apprehensio est in apprehendente: the thing is still the same, let my apprehension be what it will be.  

The same truth taking varicus shapes in our apprehensions.  I do not reject the phrases of several truths, and several actings of this truth: for, Loquendum cum vulgo; yet, phrases must not mislead us. For whilst I confess loquendum esse cum vulgo, I profess that sapiendum est cum paucis. For, to our apprehension, that truth which is but one, doth variegate itself, and take divers shapes.  

Set forth by a similitude taken from the Sun.  As that Sun which is one and the same, is ruddy in the morning, clear at noonday; of a moderate heat early, and at midday rather torrid.  
Various colours meeting in the same point, 
The same act of sense perfectly one, yet varied unto many forms.  to make up one indivisible act of sense, are by it judged divers Beings, whereas they all make up but one Being; they are but one and the same object of sense. Reason, which is exalted above Sense, telleth us it must be so; because that act of life is but one, and the Sense is not an Ubiquitary; it cannot act upon any more than one at once.  
The trigonal glass paints out to us more, 
A Similitude from the trigonal glass.  and more lively colours in every object (which as a medium it presents to the eye) than are in the Iris; yet, This object, may be but some duskish sad thing, in which there is no change of colours at all.  

Sense confuted by Copernicus.  The three leading Senses have confuted Copernicus these many years; for the eye seeth the circulations of the Heavens; we feel ourselves upon a stable and firm foundation; and our ears hear not from the volutations of the Earth such a black Cant as her heavy rollings would rumble forth: and yet now if we will believe our 
* Capernic. Kepler. Gallilaeus de Galil:  new Masters, sense hath done as sense will do, misguided our Reason.  
When the nimble jugglers play their pranks, you see and hear, yet neither see nor hear. So your sense is no good judge. Thus let the soul be raised to its supreme height of power, and it will clearly see, that all the actings of reason which seem several (Be they, as we think, distinguished by time and place) are but one, a fixed entire unity.   

CHAP. XII. Another objection is answered, drawn from the falsehood in the workings of the soul.  
BUt if these particular actings of truth, 
Object.  are truth; then when this Being, which we have so long discoursed of, acteth not truth, it ceafeth to be: and so, where the soul entertaineth or pronounceth a false position, the soul is no more itself.  
Grant that it is with the soul in this moment of time, when it acts upon falsehood, as when it acts not, and so is not; yet you will advance nothing, till you can prove the succession of moments to have a real being. By former discourse, 
Succession of moments, apparent, not real.  I hope it is clear, that Time is but a nominal Being, and then this cessation depending on that distinct moment, which is not, is likewise itself an imagination.  

The school never acts falsely.  But secondly, I will allow it, when any man can show me that falsehood is a real being, which the soul or truth can work upon; For, in every apprehension two things are to be weighed; The Agent itself, and the Subject acted upon, (I speak now in other men's language; for I conceive the Agent together with the Subject to be One in the act.) Truth is always truth, Nemine dubitante; and so it must be true, whilst it acteth on a truth. If that be True, which it acts upon, than all is well; if it be False, it is a vanity, a lie, a nothing. For, if falsehood have a Being, than we must either with the Manichees, make Two sources of Being, or else God must be the author of it; which no man will affirm.  
If then it have no Being, the soul cannot act in it, and so it cannot be the act of the soul; For, how shall the soul or truth act upon nothing?  

Object.  But the soul doth act, when it pronounceth a false position?  

Resp. In false propositions of the soul, so far as it acts, it acts truly: where it is deceived, it is by not acting.  He that in the twilight, mistaketh a man for a tree, acteth right in what he seeth; and when he raiseth a false conclusion upon the premises, he acteth not. For, how is it possible, that a man should act falsehood, a vanity, nothing?  
In this action, there are two things; There is the seeing a Being, and the seeing it under a confused notion. Or, which is the same,  
You may observe, first, the opining; secondly, the opining uncertainly or falsely.  
The opining, is a good act, none will deny; to think, let it be what it will be, is good.  
But secondly, the so-thinking, is that which is obscure. Now certainly, the formalis ratio of this so-thinking, lieth in thinking of error, which is nothing; and in thinking of nothing, the the soul cannot act; for, nothing produceth nothing.  
A man, who catcheth at the shadow of a Hornet, acteth rightly in catching, and stingeth not himself; because he apprehendeth only the shadow; because so far he doth not act; for to catch a shadow, to catch nothing, and not to act, are idem. And thus, whilst the soul catcheth at a false position, it graspeth but the shadow, which can be nothing, seeing evil is, nothing; ergo, it loseth not truth; for it pronounceth nothing but the truth of the position.  

pain hath no real Being.  The same may be said for pain. I conceive, it cannot act upon the soul, nor the soul upon it, because, it is but a bare privation of spirit and strength. And upon this ground, I shall subscribe to that opinion propounded by that reverend, worthy, that quick-sighted Balearian-jaculator, Mr Dr Twisse: Whether it be not better to be in perpetual pain, than not to be at all. If pain be but a bare privation, certainly Any Being is more desirable, than, for fear of a privation (a not-being) to become no-Being.  
Hîc rogo, 
Mart. lib. 2. Epigr. 80.  non furor est, ne moriare, mori? If any man shall tell me I speak against sense, I shall modestly ask him this Question: Whether it be not impar congressus betwixt Sense and Reason: and whether, in that case, Sense be an equal judge. Reason telleth us, that pain must either be something, or nothing; if nothing, than it is but a privation; if something, it must be either good, or evil; if good, it cannot (as hath, and will yet appear more in this Pamphlet) hurt us; if evil, it is either a nominal evil, or real; if it be named an evil, and is not, it will not be disputed; but if it be a real evil, than it is nothing; for, evil, by consent of all, is nothing but privation of good. In this case shall Reason or Sense guide, judge You.   

CHAP. XIII. Discovering the consequences of this Position, that All things are one Truth.  
SIR,  
WHEN you collect your thoughts, and pass sentence upon these unsheaved gleanings, your gentleness (though the papers merit no such favour) will smile upon them; and say, here our eyes indeed are pleased with the curiosity of Pallas her needle: but, what hath Reason to work upon? what is the usefulness of this more than Arachne's web? more than to entangle empty wits withal? What fruit doth it yield better than the silkworm, which is worn only for ostentation? Give me leave to plead for my own. Our own (you know, though black) is comely to ourselves.  
If This were well weighed, 
The happiness of our lives advanced by this opinion.  that all things are but one emanation from power divine: If this were taken fully into the Understanding, that we might be said to live upon, to live in this truth; we should live more Christianly, more cheerfully. 
Non est vivere, 
Mart. li. 6. Ep. 70.  sed valere, vita.  I say more cheerfully, more Christianly, in a few moments, than we do now in the whole course of our distracted time. And you will more easily consent to this, if you do consider that our happiness is compounded of two Simples only, which are so entertwined, as that they may seem One, 

The first is to know.  
The second, to do what is right and good.    
Of the former, the theoretical part, I shall speak hereafter. In the practic, Two things are considerable,  

This unity the fountain of knowledge.  First, that, Action dependeth wholly upon knowledge. And, of Knowledge, this is the wellspring and rule, that, unity is all. The Spirit saith, How can you love whom you do not know? and I may say, How can you do what you know not?  
The Not-knowledge of of what is right, with-holdeth from, and wearieth in action; if perchance we ever have any glimmering of light. 
Action wholly depends on knowledge.  For, Ignorance bringeth this double evil with it.  
First, it leadeth into error; and error (simply in the view of it) giveth no content.  
Seconly, in the progress it wearieth and distracteth. One who is lost in a Wood, suffereth as much in seeking as losing the way. Whereas, if we Knew aright, how even and smooth would be the way of action, and how great our contents therein?  
Secondly, not only all our actions turn upon this hinge; but out of this treasury issueth forth the whole complacency that we gather from, or receive in action. For, if we knew this truth, that all things are one; how cheerfully, with what modest courage should we undertake any action, reincounter any occurrence, knowing that that distinction of misery and happiness, which now so perplexeth us, hath no Being, except in the Brain? We should not need to check and raise ourselves with David's outcries, why art thou cast down my soul, why art thou disquieted within me? Our Spirits could with him wait upon God; make him our only rock, and then we should not be moved. We should not call for Epictetus nor Boëtius de consolatione Philosophica; we might fetch our cures from our own bosoms, if from this one truth of unity we could conclude these two things.  
First, that Misery is nothing, and so cannot hurt.  
Secondly, that every thing that is, is good, and good to me: then we might sing with a joyful spirit, O nimium, nimiumque beati; and upon sure ground; for, whilst I being a Being, am Good, and that other Being is Good, and these Two Goods can fall under no other difference, but of degrees; Good & Good, cannot but agree, and so must be good to me.  

Ob.  If any man shall say, that the overflowing of another man's good, may be my evil; they mistake; 
Resp.  for, such a though is a falsehood; and, as I have already proved, falsehood is nothing, and so cannot hurt.  
That such a thought is falsehood, I suppose this will clear it.  
The philosopher's fancy to themselves animam mundi, and say every parcel is as a Simple contributing to the existence of that Compositum. But Christians know, and I have (if I mistake not) evinced, that, all Being is but one emanation from above, diversified only in our apprehension. How can then one piece of that Being impeach the other, 
All things one piece.  one part of the soul quarrel with the other? As the will (speaking in their terms) with the sensitive faculty; or the Eye with the Belly: the vanity whereof Aesop hath taught us long ago. So, of necessity, if either my envy, or another's folly, lay me low, because my brother is exalted, this must be a lie, and so cannot hurt. E contrario, the Good of another, being the perfection of the whole, is my advantage. If with this eye you view that Scripture, you will see it in its glory, Is thine eye evil, 
Mat. 20.15  because thy brother's good increaseth?  
The rule, you see is, that I should rejoice at the welfare of another. Now what is the reason of the rule? 
Propriety maketh lovely.  Philosophy teacheth us, that it is not only {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, but {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, that is, lovely. If then I must rejoice, I rejoice because of some propriety, and this propriety ariseth from unity; this Alkermes of Unity, cheereth the drooping spirit, cureth the atra bilis of Melancholy. The same potion easeth the heart of envyings, censurings and whisperings. So he, who knoweth that injuries, because they are nothing, cannot hurt; and good things, though another's, do serve him; cannot cherish such viperous starvelings in his thoughts.   

CHAP. XIIII. The benefit which Knowledge and all Sciences receive from this assertion.  
I Have in a word shown how Unity untyeth all difficulties, unites all happiness in practical things. Permit me to discover what influence it hath upon that other simple, which maketh up the compound of our happiness, (Scil.) Theory.  
Tully saith of Epicurus, 
The vanity of dividing knowledge into many Sciences.  Frangit, non dividit; The breaking of learning into so many Sciences, is but making so many miles, that so the Master may have more hire for his post-horse. They forget, that, vita est brevis, whilst ars est longae. It were much better if all Learning were like the chain fastened at Jupiter's Throne, all of a piece: Or the beam, which from the sun by a continual tract of irradiation toucheth the treasures of the earth.  
To the effecting of this, that learned, that mighty man Comenius doth happily and rationally endeavour to reduce all into one. Why do we make Philosophy and Divinity two Sciences? What is True Philosophy but Divinity? and if it be not True, it is not Philosophy.  

Confusions from division in knowledge.  do but see a little in particulars, the fruit of such like divisions.  
In the knowledge of Beings, we must observe  
First, 
knowledge double, of Beings, & of their Causes.  Being is:  
Secondly, What it is.  
There is the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, and the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}. What a tedious work doth this very division lay upon us? 
knowledge of Beings twofold, of their existencies, and their natures.  Alas, the very first, the easiest part of it, will take up all our time; and to ascend to causes before we know that there are effects, is to mount the highest round, before we ascend the first. And therefore that learned wit, Sir Francis Bacon, in his natural Philosophy, bringeth only experiments, leaving the search of causes to those, who are content, with Icarus, to burn their wings at a fire too hot for them. Indeed, sometimes as an embellishment of his discourse, that he may please stirring fancy, he interlaceth some causes, yet gently and modestly propoundeth them, but as for entertainment. If now our humble spirits could be content to see all things, as they are, but one, only bearing different shapes, we should according to that rule, Noli altum sapere, improve in what we know, and there sit down. But our spirits are mighty nimrod's, hunting after knowledge, venturing all, to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Which curiosity of ours, is wittily reproved by Sir John Davies; 
Why did my Parents send me to the schools,  
That I with knowledge might enrich my mind:  
When the desire to know, first made men fools.  
And did corrupt the root of all mankind.  And for this reason we lose with Esop's Dog, the substance, and get not the shadow.  
Causes we cannot, 
knowledge of existencies necessary, but altogether uncertain.  neither shall ever find out: The knowledge of existencies we omit; they are too voluminous, if we did attempt; and so much doubted of by men, that what to think, we know not. View all Learning, and see how the very Being of things, is questioned in natural Philosophy. Amongst the Quadrupedes, we question the existence of the unicorn: inter volatilia, the Phoenix, and the Bird of Paradise: amongst Fishes, the mermaid. When we seek into Minerals, we find not Ebur fossil; the incomparable virtues of it we meet with in all Physicians: but the subject of so many excellencies, we doubtfully hope for. Of herbs and plants, books name many which gardens, meadows, rivers afford not: If they ever were, we may give them to Pancirolla, that he may reckon them with perpetuum mobile, the philosopher's stone, cum multis aliis, inter Inventa perdita: For every age interreth old things, and is again fertile of new births.  
If we were mighty men, as Adam, 
knowledge of the natures more uncertain than the existencies.  that all the creatures would come and present themselves to our view: yet (which is the second part of this first Question) we could not give them their names according to their natures. For when we do know that any Being doth exist, we do not know what their forms, their several qualities and temperaments are. We altogether are ignorant of herbs and plants; which are hot and cold, in how many degrees they are so. For in these, how many, how eternal are the debates? Some deny the healing virtue to Dictamnum. Some question the nature of that killing-saving Indian herb, Hen-man-bane, Tobacco: whose insolence is such, as to make That part of man a chimney, an outlet of her smoky birth (expressed happily by Doctor Thory in these words, Inque tubo genitas haurire & reddere nubes:) I say, to make That an outlet of her smoky birth, by which the old Romans (in this their Proverb, Est homo nasutus) discovered their judgements of gifts and wit. Some say it is hot, and some say it is cold. Few of the Learned, consent about the degrees of heat and cold in any Simple, and so are forced to palliate all with the gaudy mantle of occulta qualitas; Yet what are all these but matter of observation? manifest effects, which Sense teacheth the ploughman, the countryman, yea the bruits themselves, as familiarly, as warmth in the sunshine, and wet in the rain. I could name many questions in 
* As all those laws concerning slaves, whereas a slave indeed is non ens, for if any man have given away, with Esau, his birth▪ right, yet he hath not lost it; because manhood and religion are not mei juris; they are talents which God hath entrusted me with, and are no more deputable, than places of jud catu●e. Et sic de caeteris.  politics, economics, ethics, &c. the very subject whereof are in dispute. But they will more happily fall in, when I discover our ignorance in causes.  
Thus you see in what a Maze you are Meandred, 
In what sense knowledge of Beings is to be wished.  if you admit of any division. The very knowledge of the Being of things, is more than we are capable of. And as yet that is necessary, so we keep ourselves still to this principle, that those things are all of one nature, variegated only in our apprehension: and this knowledge I must consent to.  
But if men once seek into the Causes of Subsistencies, I see no reason but they should suffer as Rei laesae Majestatis. For these are Arcana Imperii, which to meddle with, is no less than high Treason.   

CHAP. XV. Confusion in the knowledge of Causes, discovered, and redressed by this unity.  
IF we are thus at a stand, in these very beginnings, what shall we be, when we inquire after Causes? Two lie open to our view. 
Two only causes received, God, and emanation from God.  First, our great and good God, the fountain of all Being, and this the Ancients styled Fatum.  
Secondly, there is that Emanation from him, 
Aristotle's materia prima brought to light.  which is the first created cause of all Being, and this was Aristotle's materia prima, so far as sensible things extend. Which because it is the substance of all things, and the variations of it make all forms; therefore in itself, he described it to be neither quid, quale, nor quantum.  
All other causes are better known by name, than in the natures of them. They make many, as Efficient, final, material, formal; with divers subdistinctions; as instrumental, exemplary, &c. All these have matter and form. 
Matter & form have their matter and form, both of which meet in the emanation.  For, there is a matter, and form of a material cause, and form and matter of formal causes. For in a table of of wood, the material cause is not the matter, wood: wood is the subject, upon which this material cause bringeth forth that effect, a Table. It may be the material cause shall not be physical matter; we shall by and by find it another name.  
Of the form of a material cause, I shall say nothing, and so for formal causes.  
Faith is said to be the form of a Christian, and faith hath its form. The soul is by many deemed (which I understand not) the form of the reasonable creature, and it hath a particular individual form. And thus both material and formal causes have matter and form.  
Matter again, is either physical and substantial, or metaphorical and metaphysical. And this is the name I promised even now.  
Forms are either intrinsical, or extrinsical: the intrinsical are logical, metaphysical, &c.  
Now have you various and several kinds of forms; but who knoweth the least considerable part of matter or form? Who will not clearly lose himself in such an inquest? May we not say of these, what one saith wittily of the soul?  
For, Her true form, how can my spark discern,  
Which dim by nature, Art did never clear:  
When the great wits, of whom all skill we learn,  
Are ignorant, both what she is, and where?  
Do but survey the physical Beings of our Philosophers, with what impossible, with what unnecessary scrutinies of causes, 
The vain search of causes in physics.  do they weary themselves, and their Disciples?  
Till numeri Platonici cease to be a Proverb, I must remain a sceptic, although one undertake to teach me, how and whence it is, that various rollings of the tongue, shall send forth so many articulate voices, and so many several languages.  
Till it be known, how all numbers gather themselves into an Unity, I must not give credence to another, who promiseth an account of the estuation of the Sea.  
I know some surrender Neptune's Trident to the moon, and there six the reason of Thetis her uncertain ebbings. Others 
* Platonici; who make the world animal magnum. Vide Gal. in System. Ptolem. & Co. pernic. Kepler's Harmo.  give the world a good pair of lungs, and from these bellows expect the causes of what they inquire for. Others take a dish of water, and shaking it up and down, think to clear this difficulty. But these their ratiocinations discover clearly, that with Noah's Dove, through overmuch water, they can find no ground for footing. For veritas non quaerit angulos. And if the reason were ready, they would not have disputed; and yet they are very confident; and why may not they be so, who dare venture to give (before they prove any Orbs) the government of the Orbs to a band of celestial intelligences?  
I shall not wonder, if these men everywhere find an Euripus, and at its banks imitate their Grandy's 
Aristot.  outcry, Quia ego non possum te capere, tu me capias.  
How doth the Spirit befool these men? First he telleth them, that they are so far from finding out the Causes, that they are ignorant of the Effects: Knowest thou the time when the wild Goats of the rock bring forth? or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve? Canst thou number the months that they fulfil, or knowest thou the time when they bring forth?  
Solomon saith, There are three things too wonderful for me; yea, four which I know not. 
Prov. 30. 18.19.  The way of an Eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid.  

See Aristot. de mundo, de coelo &c.  How doth our great Master perplex himself in the inquiry of causes? Sometimes he makes the principia of natural things, to be contraria: whereas, neither the heavens, nor the stars, nor anything that is by univocal generation, is that way produced. Sometimes he allows three principia, Privatio, Materia, & Forma; forgetting his own principle, that Ex nihilo nihil fit, not remembering that when he hath matter and form, he is yet to seek for the Rock and Pit, out of which matter and form are digged and hewed; and therefore instituteth two several authors, one of matter, another of form.  
I confess, his Commentators do file of some rust from these Tenets, but not so clearly as to make him give the right cause of Being.  
romances and New-Atlantides, I shall gladly embrace as pleasant and glorious entertainments from specious and Ambrosian wits. 
Like Plato's and sir Francis Bacon's.  But for true knowledge of causes, having no cause to expect, I will not hope.  
Sis Walter Raleigh saith exceeding well, that the Cheese-wife knoweth that Runnet curdleth Cheese, but the Philosoher knoweth not how.  
All this while I do not reject an industrious search after wisdom, though the wisest of men saith, He that increaseth wisdom, increaseth grief.  

Verulan: Augment. Scient.  I do only, with Sir Francis Bacon, condemn doctrinam phantasticam, litigiosam, fucatam, & mollem; a nice, unnecessary, prying into those things which profit not.  
Too great exactness in this Learning, hath caused our Meteorologists to blush when their confidence hath proved but a Vapour. Too great hopes of discovering the mystery of nature, hath caused some, contrary to the authority of Scripture contrary to the opinion of Julius Caesar, Picus Mirandula, Cornelius à Lapide, Joan. Barclaius, cum multis aliis, to attribute an unwarranted power to the stars over our bodies.  
But this ensueth, while we follow, for learning, what is not. And so, that noble comprehensive activity, the soul of man, is hindered from entertaining in its place more generous, more useful, and sublimated Truths.  
How would the soul improve, if all Aristotle's Materia prima, Plato's Mens Platonica, Hermes Trismegistus his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, were converted into some spiritual light? the soul might soar and raise itself up to universal Being, bathe itself in those stately, deep, and glorious streams of of unity, see God in Jesus Christ, the first, chief, and sole cause of all Being: It would not then contain itself within particular rivulets, in whose shallow waters it can encounter nothing but sand or pebbles, seeing it may fully delight itself in the first rise of all delight, Jesus Christ.  
Thus, when you see the face of Beauty, you will perfectly be assured how many the several pieces which make it up, must be, what their nature, and their several proportions. So shall you with certainty descend to knowledge of existences, essences, when you shall rest in one universal cause: and metaphysics, mathematics, and logic will happily prove one, while they teach the variations of unity through several numbers. All particular Sciences will be subordinate, and particular applications of these. So all shall be, according to Ficinus, Circulus boni per bonum in bonum rediens; and the face of divine Beauty shall be unveiled through all.   

CHAP. XVI. The unhappy fruits of Division, in other parts of Learning, made manifest.  
CAst your eye on moral Philosophy, and see how the truth is darkened by distinctions and divisions; How our Masters have set up in the same soul, Two fountains of Reason, the Will, and the understanding. Have they not virtutes Intellectuales & Morales? Is it not a great question, utrum Prudentia sit virtus Moralis? utrum Summum Bonum sit in Intellectu, an Voluntate? utrum Prudentia possit separari à virtute Morali? utrum virtus Moralis sita sit in Appetitu Rationali, an Sensitivo?  
I say, these questions, especially the dividing of the soul into so many faculties enthrones many reasonable Beings in the soul. 
Many reasonable Beings, placed by Philosophy in the soul.  For, when the will entertaineth or rejecteth the proposition of the understanding, she must do it one of these three ways: Either by an instinct; and this men will not have; for, hoc est brutum. Or by chance; and this many reject; for than she hath no liberty. Or by discourse; and this most pitch upon; for than she doth exercise vim illam imperatricem, which I read of amongst them, but understand not.  
Now, if they conclude upon this third way. What is this Discourse, but the Work of an understanding? if the Will act that way, which is, or aught to be to the understanding proprium quarto modo; Is not then the will an understanding?  
Thus like an unskilful Artist, they mince with distinctions; they whet, till there be no more steel: and whilst they would sharpen, they annihilate: Whilst they would enlarge, they overthrow the soul. They create names, and say, with Ajax, 
Eurip. Tragaed.  they are Ulysses, and so fight with them. They do, as one faith very well, giving Passion eyes, make Reason blind; raising the will, they ruin the understanding. Termini nullos habent terminos. The poor soul oppressed with black Melancholy, believeth some part of his body as big as a house: and no man can, in his thought, pass, unless he remove it: Even so do those men.  
But what may not be expected from That happy inventor, and bold Abetter of errors, who with much confidence maintaineth the eternity of the World, against Hermes, Museus, Orpheus, Anaxagoras, Linus, &c. Yet that they may insanire cum ratione, they say, that if you raise not up some faculty to contend with the understanding, the understanding seeing right, must ever do right, and that we by woeful experience know to be otherwise.  
I confess, whilst the understanding seeth light and right (I now discourse of the understanding, Will, Affections, &c. in their terms) it doth right; 
Seeing and doing one in the soul as knowing and willing.  for, seeing and doing is all one; for the act of the soul is but seeing or discerning. But that understanding, which now did see right perfectly, at the same instant is blind, even in a gross, absurd thing: and so the effect and birth of it is but darkness and folly.  

Vanity of dispures in metaphysics.  In metaphysics, with what curious nets do they entangle their hearers? certainly, that should be styled the Art or Science of Disputes and quaere's for the very Being and subjectum Metaphysices, is strongly disputed. Some will have ens taniùm, the universal nature of Being: Others, substances abstract from matter, as Angels, Spirits, souls of men, to be the subject of this Learning; And as it beginneth▪ so it groweth into thousands of disputes.  
As, utrum differentiae possunt esse sub eodem genere cum illo quod differre faciunt? utrum universale sit aliquid reale, ●n notionale tantùm? unde rerum individuatio exoriatur?  
If I should go through logic, Mediocrem artem, mathematical Sciences: I should but weary you with variety of opinions.  
Even Divinity itself is darkened with mists of inextricable questions. 
darkness in Divinity through the ignorance of unity.  The questions about Faith and Love, are sufficient to fill the world with perpetual quarrels; 
Faith and Repentance coevall.  As, whether Faith precedeth Repentance? which learned Master Pemble hath sweetly determined by making both Faith and Repentance fruits of semen vivisicum. Whether Faith be a particular application of Christ to myself, or only a bare spiritual belief, that Christ is the Son of God? Which Reverend, holy, learned Master Cotton, hath most acutely, most truly cleared, by proving that Faith can be nothing but a laying hold of that promise which God hath made. 
The general promise, the object of faith.  Now, that promise is, That, he that believeth that Christ is the son of God, shall be saved.  
Whether faith be a believing that I am saved, or depending upon God for salvation? And here Bellarmine hath with mighty wit assaulted our side; for, faith he, if belief be to believe I am saved, I was saved without faith. If belief be to believe that God will give me grace to be saved, I believe before I have grace, before I have faith. Which knot, I know not how to dissolve, but by opening with Reverend Mr. Cotton That (and this is another Quaere.)  

declaratiuè  We are saved by faith, only declarativè. I am saved, not only in the eternal decree, without faith, by God's free gift (that all consent to) but even in the execution. And when God hath pleased to take me out of eternal darkness; then faith discovereth to me that I am to be saved; and so, making faith to be a manifestation of that to me, that I am saved, Bellarmine's objection is answered.  
There are many other Questions, but I dare not so much as mention them.  
If we should but survey the disciplinable part of Divinity, we should be confounded with Chiliads of disputes, all which I will wrap up in one, scil.  
Whether there be a prescript form of Church-government? 
The ill consequence of the division between doctrine and discipline.   
Are not the two Testaments expositors of the two Tables? Do they leave us any latitude in any other of the commandments? why should we then think, that That commandment which God hath honoured in the second place, should be forgotten? Truly, had the Learned Papists so done, they would never have expunged it.  
Are not we as unable to prescribe the manner as the matter of God's worship? If we were left to ourselves, should we not institute cringings, crouchings, all those ceremonies of Will-worship, which carry a voluntary outward visible show of humility, but give the heart leave to play the truant? 
Doctrine of mater inworship; Discipline of manner, both are Doctrine, both prescribed by the same God.  If ever distinctions did harm, here they have been deadly poison: for, Doctrine and Discipline are all one. For, what is Discipline but that Doctrine of the manner of God's worship? wherein we ought to be as faithful, as in any point of Divinity: and this will certainly appear one day, when God shall with pittylesse holy scorn, ask some, Who hath required these things at your hands?  

The monstrous effects of division made manifest in other pieces of Divinity.  But, to conclude; give me leave to show you how these exorbitant wits have raised a Babel, have cast Pelion upon Ossa; and from thence discharged the Balistae of their ignorance, against the Throne of Eternity, against God himself.  
The schools for many ages, 
The weakness of the distinction Scientia simplicis intelligentiae, & purae visionis.  have looked upon the way of God's knowledge of things, under two notions; simplicis intelligentiae, & purae visionis. I confess, I see not the end of this distinction. For, if God's Power and Will be all one, (which I think no man disputeth) all the ways of knowledge, that can be in God, must be confined in that one notion of simplicis intelligentiae.  
I do seem (if I mistake not) to maintain this position by an evident demonstration, thus;  
Is there any that denyeth God to be purus actus? doth not everybody say, that in God there is no potentia? If God then be actus, and not potentia, all things were, that ever shall be, ab aeterno under a decree; and so, what he could do, he did do, and can do no more.  
Yet, that Truths may come more clearly and easily to our apprehension, I shall allow the use of the distinction, so that they improve it only for memory, and do not expectany reality from it.  
But some, not content with this distinction, have found out another, which discovereth a mean parentage, by the very name, it is called Media scientia. 
Scientia maedia discussed.  I will not contend with it in the power of those arguments, whereby our Divines have so often left it spiritless and helpless. I shall only from this point of Unity, show the vanity of it.  
If this sciencia be one with that which we allow, than is it but nominal and vain. If it be different, you make two in God: for, if I overvalue not my former ratiocination, I have proved it clearly that scientia simplicis intelligentiae carrieth forth as much of God as is discernible to our darkness; and making two in God, you exalt two Gods; and whilst you find two Gods, you lose the true God, which is but only one, an eternal Unity. And thus whilst men gaze continually in search of causes, they blind themselves, and know not effects.   

CHAP. XVII. A Recapitulation of former instances, with some additions of a question or two more.  

In what sense intermediate causes may be allowed.  I confess there is a secondary intermediate Being, which you may call a Cause; which in our language, doth precede and produce another; the observation of which, is very fitting, so that we search and puzzle not ourselves with the grounds and Reasons of this precedency.  
As, apply fire to combustible matter, and it will burn; and if you call (which in some sense you may call) this application, the cause of burning: I dispute not only the search into the nature of wood and fire, and how the fire doth work upon the wood, and how the wood can be both passive and active, Simul & Semel; for, they say, Nulla est actio quin sit reactio, this is That I desire to shun; for, intus exstens prohibet alienum; whilst we entertain ourselves with these poor sophisms of wit, we lose that glory which the immortal soul thirsts after.  
But if our spirits, and the light of our reason be dim; Let us go to the forge of the Philistines, and sharpen our inventions, our apprehensions there; 
Division the policy of the Prince of darkness.  Let us learn from the Prince of the air, who (knowing well, that, dissolve the fasciculus, and Jugurtha his prophecy to his children will prove true) taught his Scholars this lesson for these many ages, Divide & impera; Divisions and distractions, being the great road of all error.  
And if you long, with the Israelites, to have a King, as your neighbours have; and you desire to speak in their language: When the soul entertaineth light, say it doth understand. When it doth exercise any moral virtue, say it willeth. When you see some things precede others, call the one a cause, the other an effect: but travel not far in the search of the source of this cause. Do not make the will and the understanding two faculties, Fratrum concordia rara; 
Recapitulation of all.  Jacob will supplant Esau in the Womb. Make therefore the several Actings of the soul, as rays of this one soul; make these rays, and the soul sending forth these rays, a perpetual emanation Divine: and so by these degrees of truth, mount up into the arms of Eternity, and he will take care of you, that you shall not dash your feet against the stone of free will: that you shall not overthrow all faith, by starting so many nice questions in the point of faith.  
If you follow this rule, and see all things in the glass of Unity, you will not lose all Arts and Sciences in the Wood of Divisions and Subdivisions in infinitum; you shall be more substantial, than to make Substance and Accidents Two; neither will it ever happen, that you maintain transubstantiation, by affirming that Accidents can haerere in nullo subjecto.  
You shall not make to yourself a God of contradiction, dividing the will and power of God. Both which in God, is God; and so but one. You will not maintain two Covenants, one of works, another of grace, seeing grace is graceless without works, and Works worthless without grace.  
If God shall give you to walk by this light, practical questions will be laid aside, as well as theoretical: you will not dispute whether you ought to be more holy on one day (as at a Sacrament) then at other times; for, you will then know, that these Scriptures express fully the rule you must walk by; Pray continually; rejoice evermore: blessed is he that feareth always: Be ye holy [not by fits and starts, but] as I am holy; serving me always, with all your heart, your might, your affections. So that every day, every duty, is to you an holy day, an ordinance divine.  

The sense of the Sabbath's command.  And if any man shall say, Why doth God add this parcel, Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day, &c. and this strict injunction, before you approach the Table of the Lord, Let every man examine himself, and so let him eat?  
You will be able to answer, that you ought not to be more holy in one day, in one duty, than in another; for, you must be all one, Semper idem.  
And secondly, you will be able to prove, that the weight of this injunction, is not to add any other holiness to the day, or the ordinance, than a holiness of separation.  
For, a holiness of inherence, cannot fall anywhere , but upon a reasonable creature. The Temple had no more.  
For, with the leave of learned and holy Master Cawdry, Time & Place are incapable of any other sanctification.  
But the stress of these and the like precepts, lieth here. We ought indeed always to keep a Sabbath. 
All things Ordinances.  Every bread and every water, aught to be a confirmation of our faith and of our graces.  
But God considering that we are lower than the Angels (and them he hath charged with folly; 
The intention of special Ordinances. ) that we are infirm; that we cannot always keep the bow bent: If we cannot be holy all the week, if we cannot be pure at our own Tables; as who can? yet, if we will remember the Sabbath, and if we will come to that feast of marrow and fatness with a wedding-garment, and at other times do our best (though weak) endeavours, he will behold no iniquity in us.  
We shall not be perplexed, how far we ought to mourn for the sins of others, the sins of the times, or our own lives. [And these are entangling questions to many sweet spirits.] For, drawing all things to an unity, we shall know that sorrow and joy may meet in the same subject at once; 
Mourning and joy reconciled.  they must be both in the actings of faith. We must not sorrow as without hope; We may not lose our Faith in our tears; Our tears must be tears of joy; we may think, that we have sinned, and so sigh; but at the same instant, we must know we have a Saviour, and so triumph. And if I were now all gore blood, would I not now go to the chirurgeons? Truly the greater my sin, the sooner ought to be my return, the higher my Faith. But great and enlarged Faith, cannot be without exultation and magnificats.  
Thus could we lay aside foolish questions, could we seek into our hearts, according to the poet's advice, Ne te quaesiveris extra, and not into the causes, and the Being of causes, things too high for us; We might have an Heaven here, we might see how Christ is one with GOD, and we one with Christ; so we in Christ, one with God.  
If we cannot reach the perfection of this knowledge, yet let us come as near it as we can, for the true knowledge of God in Christ, is life everlasting.⸪    

A Postscript.  
AND now, Sir, I have with what brevity I can, run through, what I never intended to speak of. I had prepared a little in lieu of This, upon the nature of Prophecy, which I now shall reserve for a Discourse upon the fourteenth Chapter of the second to Corinth: But it was with me in this case, as it is with the soul, prostrating itself at the throne of grace. It designs to breathe itself out in confession, but is suddenly raised up into to sweet exultation. It intends a Magnificat, but by some unexpected irresistible power, it is dissolved into tears; which never did, nor ever can happen in a form, as might appear by ventilating the opposite arguments, if opportunity prevailed as well as reason.  
I had nothing in my resolution, but, by a word or two, to mediate in the behalf of these lines, a free and a friendly access, to Your more serious and useful studies. But (quo fato nescio) I have let fall my plummet into waters too deep, that if you lend not your favourable construction in the perusal, I must suffer. I confess my confidence in your gentleness is great; I shall therefore, without any further plea, after this long Parenthesis, give you a short account of what these papers bear.  
You have here my poor thoughts upon the twenty-fourth Chap. of Matth. that I was forced to, because I quote it, more than once, in sense differing from our Commentators: yea, I was necessitated to run through the whole Chapter. It will appear in costly robes, adorned with lofty and glorious language, sweetened by many a pleasant and clear Simile, quickened by divers acute and learned criticisms: These, none of these are mine: My Cabinet enshrineth no such Treasure. I confess, to save the labour of contending with Pareus, and others, I delivered to a Friend of Yours, and Mine, only the substratum of the Discourse, desiring him, from those principles to undertake my adversaries. In lieu of this, he returned me the Chapter 
* Matth. 24 , embellished with so much wit and learning, that I durst not call it mine, and so thought to have suppressed it; and Had done so, but that from the Law of friendship, you may challenge a share in what is His; and from that reason it liveth now, and is presented to Your view, hoping (for his sake, not for mine) to find grace in your eyes.  
You have also, my Thoughts, upon the twentieth of Revelations, because therein I have done Two things.  
First, According to my model, answered your three queries.  
Secondly, 
Various sorts of Millenaries.  Discovered my opinion concerning the Millenaries. I find That point entertained by many learned and pious men, under various and different notions.  
The first who were of that opinion, 
The first too earnall.  lived immediately after St. John, as Papias, Irenaeus, and so on; in after ages, Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, cum multis aliis: these men did a little Alcoranize; for, with Mahomet, they cast all the glory of it, into the outward pomp the Church should then enjoy: which is but as the body of that other spiritual beauty, wherein the Church of God shall at that time be more than exceedingly resplendent. Yet these men have happily fixed upon the due Season, expecting them at the pouring out of the seventh Vial, a thousand years before the end of the World.  

The second only spiritual.  Of latter days, most famous and glorious Lights, as Calvin, Beza, Junius, Tremelius, Broughton, &c. have wrapped up all the glory under a spiritual notion, robbing both it and other Scriptures, of that sweetness; whereon even Our souls, but especially Our children shall feed as upon Marrow and fatness; wherewith we shall be refreshed as with Wine refined upon the lees. Contraries may sometimes (in some sense) be Errors; the others erred because they have not the spiritual; and these have mistaken, not observing the temporal glory of this thousand years.  
These last men are succeeded by a generation of Worthies, 
A third sort, in some things too literal.  who have come nearer to the Truth; yet (if I mistake not) have missed it; and some of these are Alstedius, (who justly meriteth the Anagram of Sedulitas) Mede, and some others; who indeed expect a time of glory, confuting the first men, because they made theirs too carnal. Yet do they fail themselves, by placing the time after the burning of the world with material fire, spoken of in Peter; and joining with it their opinion, of the resurrection of the Martyrs, which I do not wholly condemn, though therein I am not yet so clear.  
Lastly, we have the Reverend man Mr. Brightman, against whom I will not now dispute, whose opinion, seeing I must oppose it, when I mention it, I will not now name. For he ought always à me non sine honore nominari. Pliny saith Venerabilis Catonis ' ebrietas, and so say I of Brightman, The very Errors (if errors) of Brightman have their beauty: I must confess, if God hath been pleased to discover light to me, I have borrowed from him. If there be any thing of sweet, I have gathered it from the strong. And I do seriously protest I have not with Scaliger the soldier; undertaken Cardan, that his ruins may be my rise.  
No, no, I honour his very urn, and do believe that one day I shall see the Jews very zealous in raising to him some stately Mausoleum, who hath been the first means of quickening the affections of Christians to pray for their return.  
Sir, I have overtired your gentleness, and your Patience, therefore now give me leave to refresh your spirits; Let me in a word say here, what I prove more amply elsewhere; the days are at hand; We shall see the Laying of the first stone, if not the rearing of the structure to some good height.  
I know there is a Great Reader, who, though he hath Lynx his eyes, yet using overmuch the Septuagenary Spectacles of antiquate Antiquity, loseth to himself, and, by his justly-merited authority, robbeth others of, this sweet truth, of the Church her approaching glory, which is in my apprehension, as blood to the veins, as life to the blood, as spirit to the life, as all to the Spirit. But certainly, while he thinketh the Witnesses, to be yet unburied, he doth bury two witnesses, which are as able to bring Christ to his Espousals, as the two post-knights were to nail him to the cross.  
I know there is another worthy, who hath for many years stayed Christ's sainting Spouse with flagons of Generous and Good Wine, who adjourneth our happiness by expecting the sad downful of the two Witnesses. But (as I have, I hope, clearly proved elsewhere) That is past. Macte ergo gaudio, Tune up your ten-stringed instrument: Let us hear that pleasant melody of a Christian Hymen; O Hymenaee! Let Your sweet spirit sing, and We will dance: For certainly ere long, all tears shall be wiped away from our eyes, and perfect fruition of Love will cast out fear.  
And now, I commit You, and Your hopeful, Flourishing Studies, to the expectation, and advancement of these glories which make way for the coming of our Saviour.  
And to Him alone be the glory  
FINIS.   

The Contents of the several Chapters handled in this TREATISE of TRUTH.  
CHAP. I. The understanding, and the Truth-understood, are one. 
page 1.  CHAP. II. The second Argument, proving that Truth is the Nature of the understanding. 
p. 5.  CHAP. III. A prosecution of the second Argument, wherein all Requisites to a Being are applied to the understanding, being made one with the truth. 
p. 13.  CHAP. iv. This Argument further cleared by more objections propounded and answered. 
p. 17.  CHAP. V. The whole soul and truth in the soul are one. 
p. 21.  CHAP. VI. All things are this one light or truth, shining from God. 
p. 26.  CHAP. VII. How unity is all in all things. 
p. 31.  CHHP. VIII. The nature of Habits. 
p. 45.  CHAP. ix.. The difference betwixt Knowledge and affection, discussed. 
p. 59  CHAP. X. That all the several and particular actings of the soul, are this one light and truth. 
p. 81.  CHAP. XI. An Objection answered, in which the nature of time and place are touched. 
p. 88  CHAP. XII. Another Objection is answered, drawn from the falsehood in the working of the soul. 
p. 109  CHAP. XIII. Discovering the consequences of this position, that All things are one Truth. 
p. 114  CHAP. XIIII. The benefit which Knowledge and all Sciences receive from this assertion. 
p. 123  CHAP. XV. Confusion in the knowledge of Causes, discovered, and redressed by this unity. 
p. 133  CHAP. XVI. The unhappy fruits of Division, in other parts of Learning, made manifest. 
p. 146  CHAP. XVII. A Recapitulation of former instances, with some additions of a question or two more. 
p. 160   
FINIS.