ΨΥΧΟΣΟΦΊΑ: OR, NATURAL & DIVINE CONTEMPLATIONS OF THE PASSIONS & FACULTIES OF THE SOUL OF MAN.  
In Three Books. By NICHOLAS MOSLEY, Esq  1 PET. 2.11. 
Dear beloved, I beseech you, as Strangers and Pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the Soul.  Ignat. Epist. ad Philip. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
LONDON, Printed for Humphrey Mosley at the Prince's Arms St. Paul's Churchyard. 1653.   

TO My Honoured Kinsman, ROBERT BOOTH, Esquire.  
'tIs not (dear Nephew) Blood, 'tis not Consanguinity, those several ties and relations of Nature, more than a virtuous Mind and understanding Soul; those Powers and Faculties of your Soul, which I have known from your Childhood Active and Industrious, and now find crowned with Habits Intellectual, These have laid an Obligation upon me, of a more sacred civil reverence and respect unto your person; such Homage will I ever own to the man where these are seated; for though I myself fall very short of such perfection, yet is it not the least of my comfort here, that I am a Philosopher, a Lover of Wisdom and Learning where ever I find it; my hand and heart is for it; to no petition against it, or the Nurseries thereof; for which cause I have entered myself a Student in the School of Nature and of Christ, there to find out this noble Science of the Soul; what I have met with here, and there dispersed, I have endeavoured to recollect and compile into this Volume; It is not therefore my own, I am no discoverer of New Lights, no teacher of Strange Doctrines; I challenge in this Piece nothing but the Composure, the Substance or Matter you may find in the old and beaten path of Faith and Truth, which our Forefathers have trod, and whose Footsteps we may securely follow. To you then (as no affecter of Novelty, but a lover of Truth) do I dedicate these my labours as a pledge of my Love, and part of that Debt own you, accept then of these from him, who shall ever remain,  
Sir, Your obliged Uncle, to serve and honour you, NICH. MOSLEY.   

The Epistle to the Reader.  
EVery man naturally desires to know, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristotle.  it is the ground the Philosopher hath laid and placed in the very frontispiece of his Metaphysics; this innate desire to knowledge comes with the Soul of man, even that which Forms him, and distinguisheth him from beasts, and makes him like unto God, which is the Reasonable soul, immortal and intellectual; for when God said, Let Us make man in our own image after our own likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the foul of the air, and over the cattles, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; man is not God's Image in respect of his Body, but his Soul, which is a spirit as God is, and the Image of God in man consists in that wherein man excels and hath dominion over other creatures; now man excels not, nor rules over Beasts in the parts of his Body which are far stronger in many beasts than in man, but in the faculties of his Soul, having a mind endowed with reason, will, and understanding, which the soul of a beast is not capable of.  
This Intellectual faculty of the human soul hath one property, viz. that it is capable of all knowledge; and herein is the excellency of our souls again manifested, that nothing is able to know all things, besides God, the Angels, and humane Intellect; But forasmuch as human understanding is ignorant of many things, and yet the Arch-philosopher saith it understands all things, we must distinguish twixt the power and act, and then there will be no contradiction; the Understanding knoweth not all things actually that is proper to God, the Understanding knoweth all things potentially, this is true of the humane Intellect, & thus is Aristotle to be understood; This Soul of man hath an innate desire, an aptitude and ability of knowing all things, which kindles a desire of knowing all things actually, and makes the Intellect practic, and to be in action; Hence are found out so many arts & sciences of all sorts, the arcana naturae, the very depth and secrets of nature comprehended within that general division of Moral, Natural, and Metaphysical; as for that Theological science, how hath it been enlarged and exemplified by writers on all points thereof, yea upon the deep mysteries of Divinity; of the Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity, of the two natures of Christ, of the incarnation of the Son of God, and the like? all which shows that even to this day the Tree of knowledge still works in all men as well Christians as Heathens; we still account the attaining of knowledge a thing to be desired, and be it good or evil we love to be knowing all the sort of us.  
In this ensuing treatise thou hast (Gentle Reader) for thy benefit intended (what in my Meditations for my own behoof I had digested) a discourse upon the Soul of man; a Science than which (of all that ever were or can be attained to by the strictest disquisition of humane learning) none more necessary, as being most excellent, most profitable, most pleasant, and therefore none more desirable; if thou be'st inflamed with a desire of knowledge, learn to know thy own Soul.  
By the knowledge of the Soul we come to the knowledge of ourselves, which how necessary it is, the very Heathens may convince us Christians of by that notable famous sentence which was engraven upon the door of the Temple of Apollo at Delphos, and said to descend from Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, know thyself, for a vain and foolish thing it is to understand other things, and to be ignorant of ourselves; to bend a man's studies to know the Heavens, Elements, and other things, and not to know himself, is the part of a fool, and not of a wise man, 
Zabarell de ment humana.  saith the Philosopher: But we come not to the true knowledge of ourselves but by the knowledge of our Soul with its faculties and operations; for than we are said to know ourselves when we know our Soul more than our Body.  
Especially the Intellectual faculty of our Soul, by which we are that we are, by which we are distinguished from beasts, by which we are made like unto God.  
In one part of this discourse is handled the state of the Soul in the body of man, not somuch before the fall of our first parents, as in his lowest and weakest condition clogged and pressed down with the fetters of Original sin, and depraved Nature, enclosed and entombed in these bodies of ours, which carry about them a body of sin; And thus the Soul is considered as the Formal part of a Man; Form and Matter making one Compositum; And this takes up the first Book, being of the Physical Science of the Soul.  
In another part is handled the state of the Soul of Man, not so much in its essence and Form clogged with the weight of misery and body of corruption, as in its Operations and Faculties abstracted from Matter and use of the body which is a more Spiritual and Divine condition, and this is the subject of the second Book; whether we consider the Soul abstracted from the body in those purer workings of the Intellect, the Soul still quickening and remaining in the body; or consider it as the body lying in the grave, and the Soul totally and really separated from it.  
In another is touched the state of the Soul after death in a body glorified, when this corruption shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal have put on Immortality; wherein as the Body so the Soul is in the highest pitch of bliss and glory that ever it was, or can be capable of (which is infinite) therein being restored to the likeness of his Maker, not only by that Righteousness, Freedom of Will, and clearness of Understanding in which it was first created, but in a far more eminent manner resembling his Maker in endless glory, bliss, and happiness; we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is, not in a glass, darkly, but then face to face; And this Beatifical Vision of God is also a full Fruition of him, who is our summum bonum, the final cause of our Creation, & the Intrinsical end thereof (viz.) our perfection of state which consists in the full Fruition of God, who only is our summum bonum. The first Book than is Natural or Physical, the second is Metaphysical, the third is Theological.  
Consider we our Souls under the first Notion, and as by a ladder (whereof this is the first or lower most step) we may raise up ourselves in an orderly ascent into Heaven, till we come to see God (not only as far as is possible to behold him in this Vale of tears and Veil of Flesh, but) till we come to be transformed into his Image, to enjoy and see God even as he is.  
If thou desire Knowledge, the study of the Soul is most useful for thee, what Science soever thou most affectest, or what manner of Person soever thou art; Be'st thou a Philosopher, it is necessary for thee; for if thou addict thyself to Natural Philosophy, and to know the causes of things, the Soul is a subject for it, it is principium animalium, that which gives being to all living creatures, so saith Aristotle; is it the Mathematical Science which for certainty and plain demonstration thou desirest? this thou hast in the Soul, the Soul of Man gives this demonstration; is it Metaphysics thou affectest, for the Nobleness of the subject therein handled, Spiritual and abstracted from matter? the Soul of man is spiritual, immortal, impassable, & abstracta à materia, saith Aristotle, so a Metaphysical subject.  
Nay higher yet, Art thou a Christian & wouldst come to the knowledge and fruition of God? the Soul of man runs through the whole body of divinity, pointing and leading thee all along through the same.  
Mistake me not, I do not judge it possible by any humane art and Science only to attain to true wisdom, by any light of Nature to reach to saving grace, or to that true light which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world, by the eye of sense to come to the eye of faith; I have not so learned Christ; yet as Philosophy is said to be handmaid to Divinity, and the Law a Schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, so must the Reasonable soul be judged a necessary instrument towards the attainment of supernatural gifts, for as natural Reason without Grace can never find the way to Heaven, so Grace is never placed but in the Reasonable soul, and proves by the very seat which it hath taken up, that the end it hath is to be spiritual eye-water to make Reason see what by Nature it only cannot, but never to blemish Reason in that which it can apprehend; Grace hinders not the work of Nature wherein it is able to work, nor faith blemish the eye of Reason in that which it can see and comprehend, and doubtless that is very far even to the eternal power and Godhead, which makes the very heathens inexcusable; where Nature is weak and cannot see, Grace affords an helper and instrument to the eye of Reason, to bring to its sight those things which for want of due requisites, as convenient distance, etc. it was not of itself able to discern, such are all the Mysteries of Divinity, as the Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity, the Hypostatical Union, the Incarnation of the Son of God, etc. all which are supra captum humanum, Man's Reason cannot attain unto, here Faith comes in and supplies this defect; through the prospect of Faith Reason looks, and without Reason Faith is useless; here Faith perfects Reason, and where it is wrong sets it right, never undermines it, may be above it, but not against it, nor without it. So then is it Grace, is it Faith thou seekest? thou findest it in Humane Nature, in a reasonable Soul; This is a gift of God proper to man only and to no other creature; the mere Sensitive creatures have not this gift of Faith, their nature is not capable of Faith, they are below it, this prospect of Faith would nothing avail the eye of Sense.  
The mere Intellectual creatures (as Saints and Angels in Heaven) they have not need of Faith, they are above it, their Intuitive intellect needs no glass to see him whom they behold face to face; only to Man this glass is given, this glass of Faith to the eye of Reason to make the soul see what by nature it cannot whilst it is veiled and imprisoned in this mortal and frail body; but after death Faith ceaseth; then whether in the body, or out of the body, viz. before the Resurrection whilst the body sleeps, or after the Resurrection when the body is raised to glory, and both are reconjoyned, we shall not need any help of Faih, but shall see him even as he is, know him even as we are known, and be as the Angels in Heaven.  
Reader, being too conscious of my own weakness, the importunity of my friends prevailed not with me, to make these papers public, till I had received encouragement herein from some more knowing men, who took the pains to peruse them and then to return use this account ensuing.   

MOSLEIO suo generoso Pietatis & Philosophiae vindici ἘΥΧΆΙΡΕΙΝ.  
MUlta voluptate (vir mihi charissime) scripta tua quae pridiè hujus diei ad me dederas, recensui; & ne dignitati tuae pro necessitudine nostra defuisse viderer, quid de instituto tuo sentiam, Doctissimo viro, tuique amantissimo RUTTERO nostro palam feci; omnia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, gravia, arguta, & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ita mihi apparent ut Sacramento (quod ait Orator) contenderim tua esse; nec vero quicquam scriptione hac tua video, quod non utile sit antiquae & sobriae pietatis Christianos videre, certò sciam. Eaes in philosophicis ment quam ratio & veritas praescribit, ea in divinis, quam pietas, Ecclesia, & Deus suaserit; tam amico foedere Ecclesiam & Scholam Sociasti, ut planè in Philosophicis Theologum egeris, in Theologicis Philosophum; Aristotelem ipsum, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Christianum autem bona ment Stagyritam. Consilio tuo quote usum scribis facilé cedo; tanta enim perturbatione & confusione rerum cum perculsa & prostrata jacent omnia, nulla res alia levare animum molestiis potest, nisi Deo animaeque vacare. Rectae voluntatis conscientia, constansque in Deum pietas, maxima est rerum incommodarum consolatio; perditis rebus omnibus ipsa se sustentat virtus, & ad bene vivendum satis est recte facere atque animarum saluti consulere. Quod reliquum est festination meae ignoscas velim; nec eos qui te non admirentur invidos, nec qui laudent assentatores arbitrere; Macte pietate tuâ, atque optimarum artium scientiâ, ut bono reipublicae statu, meritam tibi reliquiae vitae dignitatem acquiras; Qualem me tibi semper fuisse existimes velim futurum esse confidas,  
Pietatis tuae & Eruditionis cultorem, R. BRIDE-OAKE.   

Amico & literarum & meo NICHOLAS MOSLEYO Bene audire Cum optime meruerit.  
ITa precor animitus, & istis precibus opus esse nunc dierum, qui non nôrit, similis tui, parum est: De fama tua (modo recte fama nuncupetur, quae abore praesentis seculi pendet) periclitatus es valde; apud nostros enim, qui maxime sapiunt, quam desipiant maxime, vident omnes qui quicquam vident; quò à veterum sententiâ longiùs i ur, eò ad veritatem accedere proprius videntur hujusce aetatis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (eo enim honore Blaterones istos Athenis dignati sunt) quasi inventis vix dum triduanis nugari, id demum Philosophari sit: At tu (MOSLEIE mi) veritatis simul & vetustatis Cultor, Philosophiam omnem (quam peperit Natura, perfecit Theologia) ita falebris suis exutam nobis reddidisti, ut à vulgo certe metuerim, ne libris tuis evolvendis saperent nimis, ni probè scirem vulgus esse cui sapere à querelis, à litibus nondum vacat: Quam male tibi scriptisque tuis ominer, vides; at illud mihi semper solenne amicis integrum me dare. Ita est (mi MOSLEIE) & Philosophiam tuam ex ipsis sapientiae penetralibus depromptam ad gustum aegrotantis aevi fore si sentirem, nae ego famae meae minus quam tuae consulerim; quare cum (quod olim Seneca) posterorum negotium egeris, decus illud quod viventi tibi atque sentienti debetur, persolvant posteri: Plura post BRIDE-OAKIUM meum ut quid ego? cujus tu judicio fretus, & candore, popularis censurae quasi Syrtes praetervectus, enatare poteris.  
SA. RUTTER.   

Natural and Divine CONTEMPLATIONS Of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man; In Three Books.  
THE FIRST BOOK. The Physical part.  

CHAP. I.  
Of the Soul's original.  
MAN is a creature specifically distinct from all others, and that which gives him this difference is his Soul; both Man and Beast agree in their genus; for (not to speak of that Soul which is in Plants and Trees, as well as other creatures) a Beast is defined to be animal, so is man; yea animal sensibile, so is man; yet that is the full and perfect Definition of all Brutes, and that which gives them hoc esse; 
Chap. 1. Book 1.  and therein they fall short of the excellency of man's constitution, for that form which constitutes a man, is his soul, not Vegitative, which denominates him vivens, nor Sensitive, which denominates him animal; but that which makes man to be man, and denominates him so, is his Reasonable soul; this gives the specifical difference; anima rationalis est forma hominis, is the current opinion of all Philosophers.  
Since man is made so excellent a creature (so above the excellency of all other terrestrial creatures, that the Psalmist in the deep consideration thereof cryeth out, 
Psalm 8.  Lord, what is man that thou art so mindful of him, or the son of man that thou shouldst so regard him? thou hast made him paulisper inferiorem Angelis, something lower than the Angels; but all creatures else are brought into subjection under man's feet) and that this excellency and dominion of man is not in respect of his frail and mortal body (many brute beasts excelling man in strength of body) but in the endowments of mind; It is a thing worthy our greatest pains and industry seriously to search into the nature and quality of this soul, this which is formae informantis hominem, whereby man is so distinguished from other creatures.  
We come to the knowledge of things two ways, by their Causes, or by their Effects; the effects are nobis notiores, and therefore we many times judge of things by the effects, which is a nearer knowledge as to us, but not so sure; to judge by the cause is the surest (though more difficult to us, because more remote) for scire est rem per causam cognoscere.  
For a more Mathematical demonstration, and certain science of the soul, we shall begin our examination of the soul from the souls beginning, from the cause and Original of the soul, and so proceed to the effects.  
Every soul hath an external and celestial productive principle; so saith Aristotle in his Book de generatione misti, 
Lib. 1.  which though it be true in one sense, of the vegetative and sensitive as well as the Rational; for all living creatures which are begotten per propagationem, and generated ex semine, have not only an elementary internal principle (for such hath the inanimate creatures) but an external and celestial principle also: Yet the humane soul hath it in a far more eminent manner; the soul of beasts is produced from a celestial cause, yet so, as by, and from the power of the matter; the soul of man is produced from above, without any power of the matter concurring or intervening; the matter indeed is fitted and prepared to receive the form, but doth not at all produce it, that comes immediately from God; therefore saith Aristotle in the same place, sola mens humana est divina (viz.) Lib. 2. Gen. anim. ca 3. In another place, Restat ut mens sola extrinsecus accedat, eaque sola divina sit; not comparatively in respect of others only, but because it proceedeth immediately from God, without the concurrence of secondary causes, whereas others are drawn out of the power of the matter, per media agentia naturalia, 
Fol. 975.  saith Zabarella de ment humana.  
Nor is it natural Philosophy that teacheth this, but Reason and Religion confirm and back it; Let me reason with thee my soul, as a learned Cardinal did with his about this very point of the soul's creation: I demand of thee (O my soul) who gave thee thy being, since thou hadst it not from eternity; thou wast created in time, and lately it was that thou hadst not a being; certainly it could not be thy parents in the flesh, for what is sprung from flesh is flesh, but thou art spirit; neither did Heaven, or Earth, or Sun, or Stars produce thee, for these are corporeal, thou incorporeal; neither could Angels or Archangels, or any other spiritual creature be the authors of thy being, for thou of no matter but merely of nothing waste created, and none but a power omnipotent can create a thing out of nothing, therefore God only without any companion or helper, with his own hands, which are his Wisdom and his Will, when it seemed him best, did create thee. Again a little after." Besides the conjunction of soul and body (which is a principal part in the making of the humane nature) can be made by none but a workman of an infinite power; for by what art except divine can the spirit be joined with the flesh in so close a bond as to become one substance? for there is no likeness and proportion 'twixt the flesh and spirit, therefore he only must do it, who only doth great wonders.  
Consider then (O my soul) from whence, from whom, in what manner, and into what thou art come.  
First, From whence? From heaven thou art descended, a pilgrim and a stranger here for a time, thou art not here to continue and dwell; thy country is above, thither then aspire from whence thou camest; mind not earthly things, but seek those things which are above, that when this my earthly tabernacle shall be dissolved, thou be not pressed down lower with the weight of carnal l sts into the lowermost hell, but mayst have a building of God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.  
Secondly, From whom? From God thou camest, thou art the spirit and breath of God in men; O then breath again out of man to God; whilst thou art in this prison of flesh send out thy hot breathe to God, and draw in those cooler breathe of the Spirit from God; thy hot sighs and zealous prayers to God, his cool and gentle refreshments of love and pity from God; that when I shall have paid all my rights of nature unto death, and am gone into my silence, though my body lie in the dust for a time, my spirit may return to God that gave it.  
Thirdly, In what manner? Not per media naturalia, by any ordinary means, but immediately, and modo extraordinario, without any companion, without any helper.  
1 Learn then this (O my soul) that as God hath used no natural means or secundary causes in the work of thy Creation; so thou rely upon none in the work of thy salvation; thou mayst safely and boldly approach the Throne of grace without the mediation of Saints or Angels; there is but one Mediator unto us, who is both God and man, Christ Jesus.  
2 Since God hath put nothing betwixt thee and him, beware that thou thyself interpose nothing; sever not what God hath not disjoined; let not thy sin be a Wall of separation twixt thee and him; nor the mists and fogs of Carnal concupiscence eclipse the Sun of righteousness from thee; from whom thou borrowest all thy light, and without whom thou art but Cimmerian darkness.  
Fourthly, consider whither thou art come; into a Humane body, a Humane nature fitted and prepared to receive thee; but how? not as a Subject, but as a Prince; thou to rule as a Queen, it to obey as a Subject. Therefore know this (O my soul) by the concurrent opinion of all Philosophers, man is of a middle nature twixt mortal and immortal, twixt terrestrial and celestial things; and some way resembles both, participates of both; in that man is endued with Vegetative and Sensitive faculties, he is like unto brutes and ignobler creatures, but in regard of his Intellectual faculty, especially that which consists in speculation, he is most like unto God; twixt these two the Humane nature is s●ated, and in a kind participates of both; in this nature the soul sits as Empress; if Sense rules here, man lives as a beast, degenerates into a brute, if Reason and understanding rule, especially the speculative Intellectual faculty, man lives as God; suffer not then, O suffer not (my soul) thy vassals and slaves, Sense and Appetite, those ignobler faculties of thine, to rule and reign over thee, and so to transform the whole man into the nature of beasts, but rule and govern thou by those more noble and Diviner faculties of thine, Reason and understanding, by which man resembles his Maker is made like unto him.  
L●stly consider (O my so●l) this mysterious conjunction of soul and body to become one man, flesh and spirit one substance, which cannot be but by a power Divine, and thou wilt cease (though not humbly to admire, yet) curiously to search into that sacred Mystery, that Article of Christian faith, touching the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, he Hypostatical Union of the two natures in Christ; St. Athanasius proves it and explains it from this Union of the soul and body in one man, saying The right faith is this, that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, is God and Man; God of the substance of the Father begotten before the World, and Man of the substance of his Mother born in the World:  
Perfect God and perfect Man of a Reasonable soul and Humane flesh subsisting.  
Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead, and inferior to the Father touching his Manhood.  
Who although he be God & man, yet he is not two, but one Christ:  
One, not by conversion of the Godhead into Nan, but by taking the Manhood into God.  
One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by Unity of person.  
For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ.  
The conjunction of soul and body is a secret and hidden thing, but the Incarnation of Christ, the Union of the Godhead and Manhood, far more secret; for without doubt great is the mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh; and if it be so difficult a matter for man to find out the hidden things of this visible World, that none (as Solomon saith) can comprehend the works thereof from the beginning to the end, no not the workings of God within a man's self, how shall man attempt to search out those invisible things of Heaven, the hidden mysteries, the unsearchable things of God? therefore if thou be'st wise (O my soul) seek saving knowledge, and embrace the wisdom of the Saints, which is, to fear God, and keep his Commandments; delight more in supplication and prayer, than in vain janglings and disputations; in charity that edifies, than knowledge that puffs up; for this is the way that leads to life & the Kingdom of Heaven, where shall be given to us little children humbly ignorant here an equality of knowledge with the Angels which always behold the face of their heavenly Father; therefore sing thou with the Psalmist, Lord I am not high minded; I exercise not myself in things too high for me: 
Psalm. 131.  But I refrain my soul and keep it low, like as a child that is weaned from his mother; Yea my soul is even as a weaned child.   

CHAP. II.  
Of the Attributes of the soul.  

Chap. 2. Book 1.  AFter the Original of the soul, it will not be amiss, before we come to its Definition, to treat of the Attributes of the soul, (viz.) the Immortality and Eternity, the Indivisibility, impatibility, Separability and Impermixture of the soul; not but that these are more properly touched in the second Book, the Metaphysical science of the soul as it is abstracted from bodily Organs; only here to show (as I have already done the Divine principle of the soul) how far these properties of the soul have been, or may be evidenced by the light of Reason; by the truth of natural Philosophy: and first with the last, of the soul's Separability and impermixture from the body, and so in order upwards.  

The Separability and immixture of the soul.  
The soul of man is inorganical, and hath its operations out of the body, and therefore it is separable from the body; separable (I mean) not as it doth subsist after death without the body, as some of the ancient Plilosophers only held; but even in this life also, whilst it is in the body, it is separated from it, so the Modern and most of the ancients maintain; 
Lib. 3. de anima cap. 5. & 6.  Aristotle every where affirms it to be a property of the whole Intellect, as well the patiented as the agent; and from this property of the soul is gathered arguments of the souls Immortality, by Scotus, Piccolomineus, Alexander Aphrodiensis, Vicomeratus, Julius Pacius, and others.  
Art thou married to this weak and frail body, (O my soul) seek not a divorce in any unwarrantable, unnatural way; for though it be better to be dissolved and to be with Christ, yet (but for the cause of Christ) thou mayst not put her away; not kill her, or hate her, but love her as a Wife, cherish her as a weaker Vessel; yet if she command, obey not, if she entice, consent not, let not thy Affections overcome thy Reason to cap ivate thy love to her lust; in this case separate thyself from her, not in affection, but action, let thy Diviner faculties, Reason and understanding, be thy Counsellors, and rule thou in her, yet above her, and without her.   

The Impatibility of the Soul.  
The soul of man is Impatible, it suffereth not, for the rule is quicquid patitur corrumpitur; as the wood suffers by the fire till it be consumed of the fire; the soul of man not so; it receives Objects and Species, yet no way suffers or is hurt by what it receives. Object. But this property (you will say) the Sensitive soul hath as well as the Rational; for even as the Intellectual faculty receives intelligible forms, yet doth not thereby suffer (viz) passione corruptiva; so doth the Sensitive also receive its forms and Objects, and is not hurt by them; and therefore saith Aristotle, sensus est impa●ibilis. To this I answer, that though this property agree with the Sensitive as well as the Rational faculty, yet with the Rational in a higher and much more eminent manner; the Sense is not hurt by any Objects, nor suffers any detriment so long as the Objects are presented in an orderly manner and due proportion; there the Sense in no sense is patible, (viz. passione corruptiva) but if a due proportion of the Objects be not observed, (for quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis) the Sense is destroyed of its more vehement Object; for he that saith, sensus est impatibilis, meaning in the former sense, saith also, vehemens sensibile destruit sensum, and this, v●hemens Objectum corrumpit sensum; as, too great a sound makes a man deaf; too great a light will make a man blind: But this cannot be said of Humane intellect, since there is no such vehement Object which can corrupt it, yea rather perfects it; for after we have understood the highest and difficultest matters, we are not made incapable of understanding easier (as with gazing upon the Sun, our sight will be so dazzled with the light thereof, that we cannot presently see dat lights) but much more capable to understand them than before; and herein is an argument of the Divinity and immortality of the soul.  
For were it mortal, it would certainly be destroyed or wounded by its more forcible Object, but vehemens in elligibile perficit intellectum, ergo intellellectus non debilitatur in operando, so incorruptible, so immortal; 'Tis Scotus his argument for the souls immortality.  
Behold how sin overthroweth as it were the whole Fabric of Heaven, God hath created the Humane soul of an impatible nature, not subject to pain or punishment; sin enters the soul, and makes it liable to greater grief and torment than is imaginable; evil of sin begets evil of pain, pain privative, and pain positive, paenam sensus, and paenam damni, pain of loss, the privation of eternal felicity, banishment from the heavenly Country, loss of the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven, absence of God and want of the vision of him, and an utter exclusion from all good things for ever; this is the privative pain, which is more bitter to me (saith Saint Chrysostom) than the positive torments of Hell; nor is it any wonder if this loss cannot be expressed; for we have not yet known the beatitude of those things that are reserved for us, how then shall we apprehend our misery in the loss of them? but besides this pain of loss, there is a pain of sense, a worm that never dieth, a fire that never goeth out; nor can any tongue express, or heart conceive this pain, but such as know them experimentally; but a general torture it is in all the parts of the body, in all the faculties of the soul, the soul as well as the body is passive, a passion worst of all passions, a passion void of corruption, void of consumption; the wood suffers in the fire till it be totally consumed by the fire; and well were it with the damned had they such pains which might at last consume them; but as the widow's barrel of meal should not waste, nor her cruse of oil be spent, so (though in a different sense (she in mercy, these in judgement) the worm shall continually gnaw and eat, but they not waste; the bush shall burn in the fire, and the fire not consume the bush for ever. These things are writ for thee (O soul) that thou come not into this place of torment; that if thou canst not patiently abide the eternal fire of hell hereafter, thou mayst not so patiently suffer sin here, but fly from it, as from a serpent; and if with any sin thou chance to be overtaken, that thou mayst mourn and weep for them here, that so thou mayst avoid this place of sorrow, where there is weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth for ever: For he that saith, Woe unto you that laugh and rejoice now, for ye shall mourn, saith also, Blessed are they that mourn now, for they shall be comforted; and the Psalmist, They that sow in tears shall reap in joy: He that now goeth on his way weeping, and beareth forth good seed, shall doubtless come again with joy and bring his sheaves with him.   

The Indivisibility or impartibility of the soul.  
The soul of man is a simple essence, and is not to be found (except p●r accidens) in the Predicament of Quantity; 
Continuum non constat ex indivisibilibus, sed in semper divisibil●a est divisibile; cum enim ex eis constat in ea resolvetur. Sennert. lib. 1 cap. 4. Corpori suo modo coextenditur quamvis ex parte anima extensionem non habet. Suarez. disp. 15. sect. 3.11. fol. 251.  therefore it admits not of fractions and parts; is not capable of division; If it were corporeal, it would be quanta, and so divisible (as quantity is) in semper divisibilia; but being a spirit, it is simple, incorporeal, immortal, and so an indivisible substance. That souls Rational are multiplied according to the multiplication of the Individuals, I shall not deny to stand with Christian Religion as well as Philosophical verity; but that the soul is divisible or extensible, ad extensionem corporis, I deny to stand with either; the soul of Beasts and Plants is material and corporeal, extensible as the body is extended; so as part of the soul is in part of the body, and the whole in the whole body; but the Humane soul, which is a spirit indivisible, in a most wonderful manner, is tota in toto & tota in qualibet parte; so saith Philosophy.  
And though it fill the whole body, 
Bellarm. de ascensione mentis in deum, etc. grad. 8. fol. 179. and 180.  it takes up no room in the body; it increaseth not as the body increaseth; only gins to be where before it was not; and if the body decrease, if any member be cut off or whither, the soul is not diminished or dried up, only ceaseth to be in that member it was in before, and that without any hurt or blemish to itself. Replet non occupat totum corporis locum, nec etsi corpus hunc locum jam ante occupaverit impeditur quo minus & ipsa in omnibus corporis partibus ad sit, & videmus eandem formam quae primo infantis corpus replet, illud ipsum corpus, nihil auctam, ubi in vastam, aetate virili molem excreverit, repleris. Sennertus, lib. 1. cap. 4.  
And herein (O my soul) art thou a lively Character and Image of God, a resemblance of thy Creator in his infinite being and omnipresence; for God is a Spirit indivisible, filling all the World, and all the parts thereof, yet taking up no room there; nor may it be so imagined that God so fills the World, as part of God is in part of the World, and whole God in the whole World, for God hath no parts, cannot be divided, but as thou art in the little World Man, so he in this great universe, whole in the whole, and whole in every part of the World, and so is every where present with his omnipotency and wisdom; and when any new creature is produced, God gins to be in that creature, though the same from eternity, and when any creature is destroyed or dieth, God dieth not, nor is destroyed, only ceaseth to be there, yet without variation or shadow of change; thus far the resemblance holds; though thou must acknowledge (O my soul) God's Indivisibility infinitely to surpass thine; 
2 Chron. 6.  his omnipresence and illimited greatness is such as Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain; and truly; for if another World were created, God would fill it, if more Worlds, yea infinite Worlds, God would fill them all, and where he should not be, there should be nothing.   

The Immortality and eternity of the soul.  
Touching the Immortality of the soul, the Grand Philosopher not only sets it down as of opinion, but with many reasons proves the same; I do not say all the operations and faculties of the soul, or the soul according to all its faculties and operations, 
Arist. de gen. anim. c. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. i. e. restat, ut mens sola extrinsecus accedat eaque sola divina fit, nihil enim cum ejus actione commmunicat actio corporalis; which cannot be spoken of the soul were it mortal; and therefore I must needs be of Paulus Benius his opinion, who says plainly, and proves it too, turpiter affixam à quibusdam Arist. mortalitatis animae opinionem. Benius in Timaeum Platonis, Decad. 2. lib. 3. See further Bishop Lawd against Fisher pag. 16. Num. 34. pun. 7. fol. 113. in margin.  did Aristotle hold to be immortal; a Christian may doubt of that, and not be counted Heterodox; since whether the operations of the Sensitive soul, as seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, remain in the body glorified, and in what manner, hath been, & is to this day a controversy in the Schools; and as for the Vegetative faculty (since there is no accretion or diminution in that state of glory) it is perished or altogether useless: But that all the operations & faculties of the soul which are Essential, as to understand, etc. are immortal, that he boldly affirms, saying, hoc solum est immortal, not understanding (as Pacius observes) the word (immortal) in that large sense as Plato did, to prove every soul to be immortal, the soul of Beasts as well as the Humane soul, (because every soul is life, and no life can be the Subject of death; therefore every soul is Immortal) which argument proves not the Immortality of the soul and to remain after the body, only proves that the soul is not the Subject of death, which is true, for when any brute beast dieth, it is not the soul but the animal or compositum that dieth, but Aristoile to show the Rational soul to be altogether Immortal, and to remain after the death of the body, he adds the word aeternum, adds Eternity to Immortality, saying, hoc solum est Immortal & aeternum, not but that the soul had a beginning, not Eternal à parte ante, but because it never shall have end, so Eternal à parte post.  
But wherefore do I spend my time in proving that which hath been so generally received of all, of what Religion or Profession soever? not Christian Religion only, but all the several Religions in the World have ever taught the Immortality of the Soul; were it the Grecian, Chaldean, or Arabian of old, or the Jews, the Turks, or other of the Gentiles in these later times; and therefore they likewise hold there are rewards and punishments for souls departed according as they have acted in the flesh, be it good or evil; Only they have differed about the state of souls departed, in which some have held ridiculous things.  
Touching which we will proceed to show how far this verity is evidenced to us by Philosophical principles, by the light of natural reason.  
The Soul of man after this life remains and abides for ever whole and entire, as to its essence (for that is simple and undivided, as hath been said) though not as to all its faculties and operations; all the faculties of the soul remain not with the soul after the death of man (at least the operations) in that condition as before, and therefore may be said to be perished.  
The Intellectual faculty abides for ever with the soul, so is no way mortal; but for as much as the Sensitive faculty is organical, and cannot work without a body, when the body dies, that faculty is said to perish; but this in respect of the body, not in respect of the soul, which faculty abides with the soul for ever potentialiter, though not actualiter, but is idle and cannot work whilst the body sleepeth in the grave; and as Aristotle saith, An old man, had he the eyes of a young man, would see as well as a young man; so if after death the soul should enter into a body, it would do all the operations which before it did; now since all these faculties as to the soul remain, (though in respect of the body they are said to perish) it is necessary (and that according to the principles of Philosophy) that sometime the soul should reassume a body, or else these faculties are reserved and kept in vain: But because no power or faculty can be in vain, 
Vide Pacim in Arist. de anima lib. 3. c. 6. sect. 5. ● Et lib. ●. c. 10. sect. 5.  yet that is in vain which is never reduced into act; and that Deus & natura nihil frustra operantur, according to Aristotle, and the rule of Philosophy; therefore it must needs be confessed that the soul shall sometime come into the body again; which Conclusion is confirmed by very good reason; for the soul is (according to its essence) a Form, and a Form naturally desires the Matter to which it relates, and without the Matter it is but imperfect; for nothing is perfect ex sola forma, not by Form alone, but Matter and form together; so that Matter concurs to the perfection of all created compounded substances; otherwise death would not be so terrible if all perfection and happiness consisted in the soul.  
Being thus seasoned with these Philosophical verities thou mayst more readily assent to those Theological truths of the soul's eternity and immortality; thou seest (O my soul) how near nature rectified and rightly principled leads to Christ; what Affinity there is 'twixt Reason and Faith, Nature and Grace; they thwart not one the other; the Truth of Philosophy agrees with the Truth of Divinity; and from this Philosocal Principle will I teach thee a Christian Article of the Resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. For let me argue with thee (O my soul) in thine own natural principles; if the soul be a Form which naturally desires the Matter to which it is the Form, and without which it is imperfect; if it have Faculties which it cannot exercise without a body, and that God and Nature have made nothing in vain; therefore the soul must of necessity reassume a body; it must either be the same numerical body, or another different from what it had before; if another, then must thou grant a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Transmigration of souls, an error of the Pythagoreans; and is an impossibility according to the principles of Philosophy; because (as Aristotle every where affirmeth) a determinate Form requires a determinate Matter; a specifical Form a specifical Matter, and a numerical Form requires the same numerical Matter, so the same Individual Soul requires the same Individual Body; and if the soul assume the same body, then must thou hold the Resurrection of that body, which Christian Religion teacheth also.    

CHAP. III.  
Of the Definition of the Soul.  

Chap. 3. Book 1.  ONe and the same thing may be the subject of several Sciences, though diversely handled and considered in every one of them; and as it is diversely considered, so may it diversely be defined; Logic is not tied to certain matter, but runs generally through all kind of things, not standing so much upon the matter; Mathematics handles things abstracted from matter, non re, sedratione; Metaphysics handles things altogether separated from matter, but Physics handles things not separated from matter at all, nec re, nec ratione.  
Thus are the Definitions of one and the same thing various, according to the several Sciences which treat of it: Aristotle puts an example of Anger, that being considered in the Physical Science, is defined to be A certain motion of the body for some injury received, with desire of revenge; being in Logic considered, it's defined only A desire of revenge; the one expresseth the matter, he other not.  
The Soul of man is a subject for all Sciences, Philosophical or Theological, and therefore admits of several Definitions; but for as much as it is not our purpose at present to treat of the soul of man, either Theologically, as the Image of God in man; nor yet Metaphysically, as incorporeal, spiritual, and abstracted from bodily organs in its diviner contemplative intellectual faculties which resembles the nature divine; nor yet to handle it only in its Sensitive parts, which resembles the nature of beasts; but as it hath assumed humane nature, and is the Form of man, and so a part of him who is compounded of Matter and Form, who is in that respect of a middle nature 'twixt Terrestrial and Celestial, 'twixt Mortal and Immortal creatures, and participates of both; and this nature too we consider not as in the state of integrity in which it was created, but in this lapsed & degenerate condition it groaneth under since the fall of man, and is entombed in a body of weak and sinful flesh, and operates not but by and with the body: The subject therefore of this Book is Physical, material, and inseparable from the body, as well in its Affections, which we here handle, as in its Essence, such than must our Definition be; for quale est definitum, talis esse deb●s definitio.  

The Definition of the soul.  
The Soul is the act and perfection of the natural organical body, having life in power. I shall not stay to comment upon the words of this Definition, to show how the soul is an act and perfection, which words are Synonimons, the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comprehending both, and is the genus in this Definition; and how this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not the second act, to wit, the Operation and Motion which is the souls accidens; but the first act of the body, not Artificial, nor Mathematical, but of a Natural body, nor of every Natural, but that Natural body which is Organical, and consists of many parts and members; and this body Natural and Organical having life not actu, sed potentia; this is the Definition given by Aristotle in his book De anima; where he also defines the soul to be that beginning by which we have life, sense, 
Lib. 2. ca 1. Another Definition of the soul. Lib. 2. c. 2.  and understanding chief; the which as it is a full and perfect definition of the Rational soul, so take it disjunctively in it several parts, and it will agree with the soul of Plants and of Beasts; for the Soul of Plants is principium quo primò vivunt, the soul of Beasts, quo primò vivunt ac sentiunt, the soul of Men, quo vivunt, sentiunt, ac intelligunt primò; the Soul is the beginning of life, and Vegetation chief; for when the soul is gone out of the body it ceaseth to live or grow any longer; the soul is the beginning of Sense chief; for the soul being absent, the body is altogether insensible; and the soul is the beginning of Understanding chief; for the carcase or cadaver is void of understanding when the soul is departed out of the body.  
And it is said (chief) because though the body Natural and Organical may be said to be the beginning of life, sense, and reason, yet that is but Organically, and Secondarily; the Soul is the beginning chief and primarily. Totum compositum dicatur principium ut quod, cum sit illud quod agate, forma vero principium ut quo, cum agat beneficio formae, instrumenta denique per quod, cum per ipsa operetur. Sennert.  
These are the Definitions given by Aristotle; the former being drawn from those things which are notiora secundum naturam, though nobis ignotiora; the latter from those things which are secundum nos notiora, though secundum naturam ignotiora; and those are the Effects and Faculties of the soul, which are called the second act of the soul, not the first act, and are the companions & associates of the soul; neither of which do we reject, but make use of both, since in the subsequent Chapters we shall consider the soul not only as it is principium corporis animalis tanquam forma, or the act and perfection of a Natural Organical body, which is according to the former Definition; but as it is principium operationum tanquam eftrix, as it is considered in the latter, so making of two one Definition, thus.  
The Soul is the act, the perfection, and beginning of a Natural Organical body, endued with life, sense, and understanding.  
And now having traced thee (O my soul) from thy original, the place and person à quo, to the place and person ad quem, from Heaven to Earth, from God to Man, and find thee clothed in humane nature, I shall not raise a consideration from that close conjunction, and mysterious union which is betwixt the soul and body, flesh and spirit; that being formerly couched in the first Chapter of this Book; but finding thee seated in humane nature, entombed, and imprisoned in a body of flesh, consider (O my soul) into what a body thou art come, the body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (saith Plato) is quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the soul's prison and sepulchre, a dungeon foul and noisome in materiâ primâ, even in its first and best matter of which it is made, slime, and mud, red earth, and clay; For God made man (saith the Text) of the dust of the ground; And again, Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return; And again, Behold I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord which am but dust and ashes: And this first matter, if we look into its original, it was of mere nothing, not of any other preaexistent matter; for than it would not be materia prima: Its true, in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth, but as true, not out of another Heaven and Earth, but of mere nothing; and thus much of the first matter of this body of flesh: But if we look into the second matter, this body of sinful flesh contracted by the fall of our first Parents, what is it but sanguis menstruus, worse than a menstruous cloth, or polluted rag? which is a thing so vile and filthy as cannot be expressed; the eyes refusing to b hold, and the hands to touch it, and the mind abhorring to think of it; into to such a dungeon art thou cast (O my soul) fettered and fast bound in the chains of carnal lusts and concupiscence, having thy Understanding darkened, and thy Will and reason captivated, and scarce the essence and definition of a soul remaining in thee, thy act being turned into power, nay rather impotency and weakness, thy perfection into much imperfection, thy beginning of life into a beginning of death and misery. There was a time when the soul of man enjoyed more immunities, and though a prisoner as it were in the body, yet as Joseph who was made ruler and overseer of the whole house, and had the command of all in the prison, and whatsoever was done there that did he: The soul was not a captive to the flesh so long as man continued in his innocency, but contrariwise had the care and command of all; the body was subject to the soul, the flesh unto the spirit; the inhaerent justice in which man was created subjected the inferior and Sensual parts to the superior Intellectual faculty, without the least predominancy at any time; so long as the superior continued in obedience and subjection to God, the body was obedient to the command of the soul; but after that the soul had rebelled against God, the body took occasion to rebel against the soul, so that to this day there hath been a continual civil war within us, the law of our members warring against the law of our mind, and bringing us captive to the law of sin which is in our members; this is the miserable estate of mankind by nature, that in the deep sense thereof we may all cry with Saint Paul, O wretched creature that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? But stand thou still (O my soul) and see the salvation of our God; seest thou thyself in the state of nature, dead in trespasses and sins, an heathen, an alien from the Commonwealth of Israel, without hope, without God in the world? There is a law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made thee free from the law of sin and death; this Christianity teacheth, to this Christian Religion, not Heathenish superstition, leadeth: There is a state of Grace which is Christian, as well as a state of Nature corrupt and heathenish; 
Rom. 6.14.  they that are under this law, sin hath power on, but they that are under Grace sin shall have no power over: Unto this state of Grace (O my soul) thou art called, a state of righteousness and justification by Faith, which is the gift of God; and say not thou with thyself, that this gift of God doth not extend to thee; for none are excluded that will lay hold on, and receive this gift really tendered to all; for as by the offence of one, judgement came upon all men to condemnation, so by the Righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. The righteousness that comes by Christ doth recompense the loss by Adam's transgression, and the advantage that comes by Christ is much every way; for not as the offence so is the gift; for judgement is indeed by one offence unto condemnation; but the gift is of many offences unto justification.  
Secondly, By this (O my soul) thou art loosened from thy fetters, released from imprisonment; grave, and hell; by this thou art renewed in that image of God wherein thou wast created, and restored to thy ancient right of rule and dominion; by this thou comest again to the true definition of a Soul, (viz.) The very perfection and act of a Natural Organical, nay more, of a Supernatural Organical Body, and the beginning of llfe, not a Natural only, but Supernatural, not Temporal, but Eternal also.    

CHAP. IU.  
Of the Unity of the Soul.  

Chap. 4. Book. 1.  THere be three distinct Effects and Operations of the Soul from which we have drawn our Definition  (viz.) Life, Sense, and Understanding; and these have their distinct Powers or Faculties (viz.) the Vegetative, the Sensitive, and Intellectual; the Vegetative Faculty hath the proper effects of the Vegetative Soul to produce Life, the Sensitive hath the property of producing Sense, and the Intellectual Faculty the property of the Rational Soul of begetting Understanding; of these we purpose to treat distinctly and apart in the next ensuing Chapters; by the way we shall say something of the Soul's Unity, to prevent some mistakes and errors which have arisen, and still may be, touching the Soul in its Essence and Powers; for when we see and learn these distinct Faculties and operations of the Soul, we are easily drawn to conceit there are also three distinct Souls in Man; this was the Error of no mean Philosophers, Plato of old, Averro, Gandavensis, Zabarel, and others of later days; and accordingly they held that these Souls had their peculiar and distinct places of residence and abode in Man; the Vegetative they placed in the Liver, the Sensitive in the Heart, and the Rational Soul in the Brain; but this doth Aristotle every where confute, so do the generality of Philosophers after him; Scotus, Pacius, Faber Faventinus, and others.  
For man is certainly One, and how comes a Trinity of souls in the Unity of a person? What is it that unites man and makes him one? it must be his soul, or his body; but not his body, that's clear, for first the body is united and preserved by the soul, not the soul by the body; wherefore we see by experience, that when the soul is departed out of the body, the body continues not long after, but turns to putrefaction. Again, man is said to be one, not in respect of his body, but his soul; the body which is materia is nothing but in power, 'tis the Form which actuates and perfects; the Form gives being, and since ens & bonum convertuntur, 
Forma ut dat esse, sic etiam dat unitatem. Sennertus.  that which gives Being gives Unity, the soul of man gives him his being, that hoc esse, the soul of man gives him to be one; now if there were three Forms, three distinct souls in man, every distinct Form must give him a distinct being, so man would not be one but three, a Monster, a tergeminus Geryon; an opinion exploded as well in Divinity as Philosophy. See Tertullian in lib. de anima.  
But man is but One, therefore but one soul in man, though distinct in its powers and faculties; there is a Trinity of faculties in the Unity of a Reasonable soul; the Vegetative is a faculty of the Vegetative soul, the Sensitive of the Sensitive, and the Intellectual of the Rational soul; yet is there not three souls in man, but one soul.  
One Individual soul only in man according to Aristotle, which notwithstanding hath dividual and distinct powers and faculties; one simple essence which is the Form of man distinguished into three faculties of Vegetative, Sensitive, and Intellectual; one in respect of its essence, three in respect of its faculties.  
Neither are these faculties one before or after another in time, but all are Cotemporarie, there is no Priority or Posterity in time (only in order) amongst them.  
Object. Averro and Zabarel who maintain three souls in man, are against this position, and quote the words of Aristotle in his Book de gener. animal. cap. 3. which are these, Man first lives the life of Plants, than the life of Beasts, and afterwards the life of a Man; from whence they would infer, that one faculty is in time before another, and one succeeds another, therefore there are so many several and succeeding souls.  
Ans. But to this it may be answered; That because the soul hath need of Organs and Instruments of the body to work withal, and that these Instruments are too weak, and little fit to exercise the noblest Operations of the soul in the first times, therefore doth the soul exercise the Operations of Vegetation first, because those Organs are first fitted and prepared, and afterwards the Operations of Sense and Reason; and in this sense is Aristotle to be understood, where he saith, A man first lives the life of Plants, than the life of a Beast, and afterwards the life of a Man; to wit, in the Operations of the soul which are in time one before another, the Operations of the Vegetative soul are first, then of the Sensitive, and lastly of the Rational; and that will be granted by reason of the defect and inability in the other Organs, which are not so soon fitted for the other faculties to operate; yet the faculties of the soul are in one instant of time without any Priority one of another in time, and so they continue after the dissolution of the soul and body; though the Operations of some of the faculties are perished, because the body whose Organs they require are perished; the faculties of the soul as well the Sensitive as Intellectual remain and abide with the soul after the death of man; although the Intellectual than is only operative, as hath been elsewhere said; and as we cannot say (and say truly) that the Sensitive faculty is perished with the body, and the Intellectual only survives and abides with the soul, because it only operates, no more truly can we affirm that the Vegetative faculty in the first Generation is first in time, because it first operates; therefore saith Philosophy, There is no Priority or Posteriority in the faculties of the soul; there are none before or after other in the Generation of man; See Magirus his Comment in Physicam suam lib. 6. cap. 3.  
By this Philosophical Verity of the Unity of the soul in the Trinity of faculties, mayst thou more readily assent (O my soul) to that Christian and Catholic article of that sacred Mystery of the Unity of the Godhead in the Trinity of persons; thou art an Emblem of the trine-une-God, of one God in essence, and three persons in operation; one simple essence in three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; thou art one Soul, a simple and undivided essence in three divided and distinct powers, Vegetative, Sensitive, and Intellectual; and these are three, not confounded but so distinct powers, that one may not be predicated of another, the Vegetative is not the Sensitive or Rational; nor the Sensitive▪ the Vegetative or Intellectual faculties; nor the Intellectual, either Vegetative or Sensual; so in the Trinity of persons in one Godhead, they are all distinct, not confounded persons; we must not confound the persons, nor yet divide the substance; so saith Catholic faith; the Father is not the Son, nor the Holy Ghost; 

St. Athanasius his Creed. Licet namque in hac ineffabili & incomprehensibili deitatis essentia alter & alter id quidem requirentibus proprietatibus personarum sobrie Catholiceque dicatur; non tamen ibi est alterum & alterum, sed sim● 〈…〉 ●um: ut nec prejudicium faciat unitati trinitatis confessio, nec propri● 〈…〉 ●it exclusion, vera assertio veritatis.  
Bernardus Epist. 190. fol. 1581. K. & paul● infra. Alius procul dubio pater, alius filius, quamvis non aliud pater quam filius, nam per aliud & aliud novit pietas fidei caute inter personarum proprietates & individuam essentiae unitatem discernere, & medium iter tenens regiâ incedere via, ut nec declinat ad dextram confundendo personas, nec respiciat ad sini tram substantiam dividendo.   It's truly said (saith Ursinus in his Catechism) the Father is alius, another from the Son and Holy Ghost; the Son is alius, another from the Father and the Holy Ghost; and the Holy Ghost is alius, from the Father and the Son; but not truly said the Father is aliud, the Son aliud, the Holy Ghost aliud, for alium esse denotes the diversity of persons, but aliud esse the diversity of essence; now though the persons in the Trinity be dictinct, and the names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are proper names, and may not be predicated one of another, yet God is a common name, because the essence of the deity is common to them all, and may be predicated of any of them; therefore doth holy Church acknowledge; the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; not as a part of God or the Divine essence, for God is indivisible, and hath no parts, and there is no person in this Trinity but is perfect God and whole God; Even so the Soul is a Common name, and may be predicated of any of the faculties; not as a whole to its parts; for the soul is indivisible and hath no parts, and there is none of the faculties but is the full and whole soul.  
For as the essence of the soul is indivisible, and is whole in the whole, and whole in every part of the body; so are the powers and faculties of the soul of the same nature; for since the powers and faculties of the soul are or at least flow from the very substance of the soul, and the substance of the soul is in all and every part of the body, it must needs follow, that the faculties of the soul are also there entire. It is true, 
Anima quae est in toto corpore eadem, eisdem quidem est ubique instructa facultatibus & in omnibus membris omnia quae sibi propria sunt agendi potentiam habet, per certa tamen organa certas actiones perficit, videt per oculum, audit per aures, olfacit per nares. Sennartus lib. 6. cap. 1. Tom. 1.  the Operations of the soul are not in every part and place of the body; because in every part there are not requisite Organs; and therefore it's said, The faculties of the soul are in every part of the body as to their essence, though not as to their Operations. See Fab. Favent. theor. 82. in sine primi capitis.  
Again, in this Trinity of persons, none is before or after other, none is greater or less than the other, but the whole three persons are Coeternal together, and Coequal; so saith Athanasius; And thus far may the Soul of man with its faculties, in a sort (though in a weak and imperfect manner) hold the resemblance of God and the blessed Trinity; yet mayst thou not (O my soul) but conceive, that this sacred Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity, in a far more eminent manner excels that of thine; nor mayst thou with safety too curiously search into this mystery, but what in Reason thou canst not apprehend, with the Catholic Church, adore and believe; and the Catholic Faith is this, That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance; for there is one perperson of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one; the glory equal, the Majesty Coeternal; Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost; The Father Uncreate, the Son Uncreate, and the Holy Ghost Uncreate; The Father Incomprehensible, the Son Incomprehensible; and the Holy Ghost Incomprehensible; The Father Eternal, the Son Eternal, and the Holy Ghost Eternal, and yet they are not three Eternals, but one Eternal; as also there are not three Incomprehensibles, nor three Uncreated, but one Uncreated, and one Incomprehensible; so likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty, and yet they are not three Almighty's, but one Almighty; so the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and yet they are not three Gods, but one God; so likewise the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord, and yet not three Lords, but one Lord; for like as we be compelled by Christian Verity to acknowledge every person by himself to be God and Lord, so we are forbidden by the Catholic Religion to say there be three Gods or three Lords; the Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten; the Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but Begotten; the Holy Ghost is of the Father and the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but Proceeding; so there is one Father, not three Fathers, one Son, not three Sons, one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts; And in this Trinity none is before or after other, none is greater or less than another.  
But the whole three persons be Coeternal together and Coequal; So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped; He therefore that will be saved, must thus think of the Trinity.   

CHAP. V.  
Of the Vegetative faculty, with its operations and effects.  
THE Vegetative is the meanest, but the most common of all the other faculties, for this is the Nature of them that the Inferior may subsist without the Superior, but the Superior cannot be without the Inferior faculties; therefore where the Intellectual faculty is, there must needs be the Vegetative & Sensitive, but where the Vegetative or Sensitive is, it doth not necessarily follow the Intellectual faculty should be; therefore is the Vegetative more common than the Sensitive, and the Sensitive more common than the Rational faculty; Vegetation is to Plants, Beasts, and Men common; Sense to Beasts and Men, but not to Plants; Reason is only proper to Man, not to Plants and Beasts. We will begin with the lowest and most common; so in order upwards, to the highest and most special.  
The Vegetative faculty is the beginning of life; so hath it been defined, principium quo primo vivimus; but here it's also principium motus, and hath three Operations peculiar to itself, of Nourishment, Growth, 
Of Nourishment, & Augmentation.  and Generation, which are the several kinds of Motion & Mutation; Nutrition and Augmentation are indeed one and the same Operation, though diversely considered; for that food which by Concoction is turned into blood, and that blood into flesh, is both Nutrition and Augmentation; only is called Nutrition as it preserves the Animal, who hath a continual waist and consumption upon him, and needs a new restauration and recovery by this nutriment, and new converson of food into blood, and blood into flesh; and in as much as the Body or compositum hath regained by this operation of the Vegetative Faculty what it had lost, it is called Nutrition; but in as much as more is gained than was lost, it is called Augmentation; & as they are one in operation, so they are in the end for which they operate, they both tend to one and the same end (viz.) the perfecting of the creature so nourished, and augmented; which when it is consummated, those operations cease, & the other motions of diminution and alteration come in their room; and herein they differ from the Generative operation which looks not to the conservation of the Individual in which it is resident, so much as the begetting of another like Individual, by which Propagation and continued series of succeeding Individuals, the Species and forms of them may be preserved. 
Of Generation, or Precreation.   
The Generative operation is more noble and divine than either of the other, because thereby living creatures come nearest to Immortality and Eternity; for thereby (though the Individuals perish, for quic quid oritur moritur, and quic quid generatur corrumpitur, yet) are they in their forms preserved from corruption, the Species remain and abide as it were in a surviving kind of Immortality, amidst the divers mortal and succeeding Individuals; for there is an innate desire and appetite in every living creature to Eternity; a Deity they all aim at, and since they cannot attain thereto in the singularity of Individuals, for they are all subject to corruption, every Individual hath in it this faculty to procreate and beget another like itself, whereby the Species is the same, and continued as it were unto Eternity; the end then of this faculty is to beget an Individual like to itself, as the Generative faculty in Man is to beget a Man, and one Horse begets another.  
Hence may be noted three things.  
Note 1 First, that these various motions and mutations before mentioned (viz.) of Generation and Corruption, of Augmentation and Diminution, of Altrition and Alteration are not in respect of the Soul, but the Body or compositum; 'tis true the Soul is the cause and beginning of motion, and so may be said to nourish, to increase, to diminish, to alter, or the like; but it is the Body is nourished, augmented, and diminished, for that is only capable of dimensions; the Soul not so, for that's a simple and incorporeal Essence, and falls not within the predicament of Quantity (I speak of the Soul of man) as hath been elsewhere said.  
Every thing procreated is by nature Note 2 corruptible, and what may be augmented, may also be diminished.  
Every like begets its like; this is a Note 3 property in the Generative Faculty of all perfect Animals; a Man begets not a Beast, nor a Beast a Man in the course of nature, but Man begets a Man like to himself, and a Beast one like to it; and so every creature is preserved in their form and likeness, though not in the same Numerical body.  
There is a twofold Vegetative faculty in man, the one Temporal and caduce, because in a body sinful, mortal, and corrupt; the other Spiritual and Eternal, because in a body sanctified, and tending to a state of Glory and Immortality; the one thou hast (O my Soul) by Nature, that Philosophy teacheth; the other thou hast by Grace, that Divinity: Yea and this faculty of the Soul in a Spiritual estate hath all the operations of Nourishment, Augmentation, and Generation which are in the natural and carnal condition, and that in a more eminent manner: In what stature and age Adam was created, whether in full age, in a perfect natural condition, needing no accrestion being created in that full augmentation of parts which God and Nature hath prefixed unto man, and in which whether he had continued without diminution or declination to old age, but should have been supported by those supernatural abilities in which he was created, had he continued in his integrity, I shall not here determine: But certain it is (and Christian Religion so teacheth) that since the Fall death hath passed upon all men, death natural as an effect of sin, and man cometh into this world, as by the course of nature he is to go out of the world, in a weak and feeble estate; tender infancy brings us into the world, decrepit old age leads us out, and during the time of our abode here we labour under those various changes and counter-marched of Generation, Corruption, of Augmentation and Diminution, of Altrition and Alteration, from our womb to our tomb; from the day of our birth to the day of our death, toiling and spending ourselves in a circular motion till we are reduced to our first matter; 
Sir Walter Raleigh his History of the World, lib. 1. c. 2. sect. 5  we pass over our Generation from Infancy to Youth, from Youth to Manhood, in those purer motions of Nutrition and Augmentation, whose ends are to bring the Body to that determinate perfection of Magnitude which Nature hath allotted it.  
From our vigorous estate of Manhood, we decline to Old age, then to Dotage, this closeth our eyes, and lays us asleep in death, and this sleep brings us to our bed the grave; and this part of our life is attended with those impurer motions of corrupt Nature Diminution and Alteration, whose ends are to bring us again to our original, our first Parents, (viz.) Corruption our Father, and the Worm our Mother and our Sister; and thus we tread the Maze, and run the round, like the Sun's yearly course in the Zodiac, ascending from the lower most House in Capricorn through those two seasons of the year Spring and Summer, to the highest House the Tropic of Cancer; and there's the Solstice, where the Sun is got to that height that higher it cannot, but turns retrograde; and down it descends through the other seasons of Autumn and Winter to its Vertigal point the Tropic of Capricorn from whence it came, the four Ages of man, to wit, Infancy, Youth, Manhood, Old age, being like the four seasons in the year (viz) Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter; or like the Sun's Diary course in the Firmament, Psalm 19 which goeth forth from the uttermost part of heaven, and runneth about unto the end of it again; or like the Winds, or like the Floods; to all which the Wiseman compares the travels of man upon earth, saying, 
Eccles. 1.4, 5, 6, 7.  One generation passeth away, another cometh, but the earth abideth still; the Sun ariseth, the Sun goeth down, and returneth to his place, that he may there rise up again: The Wind goeth towards the South, and turneth unto the North, fetcheth his compass, whirleth about, goeth forth, and returneth again to his circuits from whence he came: All Floods run into the Sea, and yet the Sea is not filled; for look into what place the waters run, thence they come to flow again. And this is the Felicity that miserable man laboureth for under the Sun, and here's the fruit of all (viz. Death) for the end of all things is Death. And thus much of the Vegetative faculty in the state of corrupt nature.  
There is (to answer this sinful Generation and Procreation by our Parents in the flesh, by which we are made corruptible; mortal, subject to a transitory, short, and miserable life, but to an endless everlasting death (For all flesh (saith the Apostle) is as grass, 
Pet. 1.  and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass; the grass withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth away: So doth the Psalmist compare the transitory life of man to the grass, 
Psal. 90.6.  which in the morning is green and groweth up, but in the evening is cut down, dried up, and withered) to answer this, I say, there is a Spiritual Generation, a new Birth, and this is not of corruptible Seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever: But it is with the Christian as it is with the Natural man in this, that none are generated and produced in their full and perfect stature, but in the tender age of Infancy; there are Babes in Grace as well as in Nature, which before they can attain to the stature of a man require daily food and nourishment, and much growth and augmentation of parts; much is required for the perfecting, 
Eph. 4.13  for the increase, and edifying of the body of Christ, before any Christian come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; these operations (after our Generation) then of Nutrition and Augmentation are requisite to bring up a Christian from his Infancy, to his Youth and riper years, and these continue with us to the day of our departure hence, because none attains to full age here, our perfection is hereafter. But we now begin our growth here (after our conversion and new birth) first in Childhood and Infancy, and in this state we continue (so insinuates the Apostle calling us children) as long as we are tossed to and fro, 
Ibid. ver. 14  and carried about with every wind of Doctrine; from Childhood we skip not strait to perfect and full age, but by Youth and middle age; for after we are born to Christ in Infancy, debemus adolescere, saith Calvin upon the place, we must not stay in Childhood, but Youth-out our time here, grow on to middle age, and be no longer Children in understanding; and this stronger and riper age of a Christian the Apostle seems to exhort to, where after his dehortation from Childhood, Be no longer children, he adds, but speaking the truth in love, grow up into him in all things which is the head, even Christ; and in this age we pass the time of our sojourning here.  
Hitherto this twofold Vegetative faculty by Nature and by Grace have been examined, and agree in their operations; but now we shall show a difference (and that a vast one) 'twixt the workings of the one, and the workings of the other; and first in the first note of the natural operation in this Chapter observed.  
The Soul in the Natural state cannot be said to be subject to, 
The first difference  or passive in those several motions of Generation, Corruption, Augmentation, Diminution, etc. because it is impatible, incorruptible, indivisible; but the body or compositum only properly is generated, corrupted, augmented, diminished, and the like; but in this Spiritual condition the Soul as well as the Body is capable of some of these motions, and may be said to be begotten, nourished, increased, 
* Necesse est animam cresci & dilatari ut sit capax dei, porro latitudo ejus dilectio ejus; nam & anima minime (cum sit spiritus) corpoream recipit quantitatem, tamen confert illi gratia, quod negatum est natura, crescit quidem & extenditur, sed spiritualiter, crescit non in substantia sed virtute, crescit & in gloria, crescit denique in virum perfectum, in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi, crescit etiam in templum sanctum in domino, ergo quantitas cujusque animae aestimetur de mensura charitatis quam habet, ut verbi gratia, quae multum habet charitatis magna est, quae parum, parva est, quae vero nihil, nihil. Bernardus fol. 30 16. & 30 17. F. G. Item super Cant. sermo. 27. fol. 647. l. & K.  to grow as well as the body groweth in a spiritual and intellectual sense; for here it is quanta, as all abstracted Essences and Intelligences (viz.) the Angels and Heavens be quantae, for as much as they be finite, and so fall within quantity, but not quantitatem praedicamentalem, sed intelligibilem, only within an imaginary intellectual, not a predicamental; a metaphysical, not a physical quantity, as hath been said.  

The second.  That compositum which is generated may be corrupted, and that which is augmented may also be diminished, this in Nature, but otherways in Grace; we are begotten and born not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, which endureth unto eternal life without corruption, without putrefaction: And Augmented we are in a Christian state, we grow and increase until we come to that measure of stature of the fullness of Christ, which we continue in without diminution; we do not wax and wean with the Moon; we begin not senescere, to wheel about to our first principles by the way of old age; but we continue vigorous in that full and perfect age (supported by God's grace) to perpetuity, without the least diminution or alteration in soul or body, or declination to old age, for quod senescit (saith Calvin upon Ephes. 4.13. afore quoted) ad interitum declinat; and so the Apostle, Hebr. 8. That which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away; old age being Gentleman-Usher to corruption; but in this blissful estate, there is Gneration without Corruption, Augmentation without Diminution, Altrition without Alteration.  
Every like begets it like to preserve its Image in succeeding individuals; 
The third difference.  the noblest of all generated substances is man; and highest faculty he hath, is to beget one like himself; so Man is the likeness of Man: But by our new Birth and Regeneration we are made like unto God; God hath begotten us in his own likeness, we are his offspring, and have this honour to be called the Sons of God, and if Sons, than Heirs and Coheirs with Christ; Christ is the begotten Son of God, so are we; he is the express Image of his Father, so are me; But with this difference.  
First, Christ is the begotten Son of God by Natural Generation, we are the begotten Sons of God by grace and Adoption only.  
Secondly, as it is the property of every living thing to beget it like, so God in the Generation of Christ hath surpassed all in begeting a Son, like (nay most like) to himself, of the self same essence, an essence to subsist of himself, for as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to his Son to have life in himself, so saith St. John, and as the life and being of God is not severed no more than his essence and existence, for God's essence is his existence; so we may say, as the Father hath being in himself, so hath he given to his Son to have being in himself, but with this difference, God hath life and being in himself, because he is the Fountain of life and being, and hath it not elsewhere; and he hath given to the Son to have this life and being in himself, and by this is the Son a Fountain of being, but a Fountain of being from the Fountain of being, as God of God and light of light; this is the likeness that Christ hath with his Father; which as it surpasseth all that any living creature can confer upon whom they begot; so doth it far surpass the likeness of God in any of us the Adopted Sons of God, though we bear the Image of God in a far more Eminent manner than any generated nature can do their Parents; for we shall be preserved to Immortality and Eternity, not only in a series of succeeding individuals, but also in our own Individual Souls and Bodies; and we shall be like unto God, not only in that perfect Righteousness, Freedom of Will, Clearness of Understanding, in which we were first created; but surpassing all, we shall be like unto God in the fruition of endless Glory, Bliss and Happiness. 
Chap. 6. Book 1.    

CHAP. VI  
Of the Sensitive faculty, with its Operations External.  
IN the Sensitive faculties are included the Motive to a place, and the Appetitive, of which more hereafter; there are incident to this faculty (though not Inseparably) eight Senses, five are External, as Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, Touching, and three Internal, as the common Sense, Fantasy, Memory; of these in their order, but first of Sense in general, and of its properties, whereby it is distinguished from the other two faculties of the Soul, Vegetative, which hath been handled, and Intellective, which hereafter comes to be considered.  
First, It differeth from the Vegetatative, for, first the Vegetative hath no External Objects which it perceiveth or knoweth; its Objects are only Internal, it discerneth nothing out of itself: but but the Sensitive faculty discerneth and judgeth of divers and various Objects which are all External and not in the Sense.  
Secondly, Again the Vegetative is Agent upon its Object, and not Patient, as for example, the Nutritive faculty works upon its Object, (viz.) food, which it receives, by turning food into it own likeness; but is not worked upon by it, is not converted into its similitude: but the Sensitive faculty recipiendo patitur, receives its Object, and in that Receipt is Patiented, and converted to that Actually which before it was not, but Potentially.  
Again, it differeth from the Intellectual, for that judgeth and discerneth of Internal Objects, and External also, the Sensitive only of External; the Intellectual judgeth of things absent, and future, as well as of things past & present, the Sensitive of things present, (or passed happily) not of things future; the Intellectual knoweth all things Material, and Immaterial, as well Forms abstracted from matter as Form and matter together, the Sense severs not Form from Matter; the Intellect knoweth Spiritual and Eternal, the Sense only things Temporal and Corporeal.  
So here, a twofold Judgement in Man, one by Sense, which is External, and of things Material and Present; the other Internal by the Understanding of things Immaterial, Spiritual, and Future.  
The Judgement of Sense is very deceitful, being External, 
The judgement of sense not internal; the senses have no knowledge of themselves.  and Judging of Objects merely External; for therefore are the Senses called External, not only because their Organs are External, but also for that their Objects are External, which they receive and Judge of without any inward knowledge or Sense of themselves; for there is no Sense of the Senses, they do not perceive themselves, nor perceive that they do perceive; the eye doth not see itself, or see itself to see; the ear doth not hear itself, or hear that it doth hear; for of themselves the Senses are not any thing but in Power, nothing of the Act or Operation is within them. 'Tis the Object without which works upon them and brings the Act of Judging and discerning.  
The sight of Sense or the Sense of Seeing then is outward to Judge of things External, it hath no inward principle, 
The judgement of sense is by external objects.  no Internal Object to look into, but requires External Objects and principles; and interjected mediums also, otherwise it is not Operative, it hath not the art of Judging at all; nor is every Object for every Sense, but every Sense requires his proper Object, or else there will be a false Judgement given; for the eye doth not judge of sounds, nor the ear of colours, the palate Judgeth not of smells, nor the nose of tastes; but the eye Judgeth of colours, those two extremes white and black, and the colours intermediate; the ear Judgeth of sounds, as shrill and sharp, or base and dull sounds, and their intermediums; the nose and palate are near a kin, and have Objects alike of which they Judge, the one of sweet or bitter smells, the other of sweet or bitter tastes, and their mediums; the hand or Sense of feeling hath its different Objects, of hot and cold, moist and dry, soft and hard, and the like, of which it passeth its Judgement.  

And by interjected means.  The Senses as they require their proper Objects, so also fit Mediums for the conveyance of things sensible to the Senses; the Objects of the Sense work not immediately upon the senses, but by intcrjected means; so the eye to discern and judge of colours, needs light and a transparent perspicuous body, as Air, Water, Glass, Ice, or some such diaphanous body, actually enlightened, to convey the Object to the sight, without which interjection the eye could not discern at all; and indeed many more things are required to make the Judgement that comes of Sense perfect, which otherwise is very uncertain and deceitful; though positis omnibus requisitis, all necessaries being premised, the rule holds true, sensus est semper verus; and this, sensus non fallitur circa proprium objectum; and in this sense and no other is Aristo●le to be understood.  
The Senses by receiving things sensible are made one, or like to those Objects they receive; for the Form and similitude of the Object presented to the sight is in the eye, and made one with it, and so of the other Senses and their Objects; the sight and thing seen, the ear and thing heard, the smell and taste, and their Odours and savours are all alike, no difference twixt the Sense and its Object, but talis est sensus, quale est objectum; such, potestate, in power, not in Act; not in act the same with the Object which is a matter; for the matter is not received by the Sense, the Form and similitude only is received into the Sense, abstracted from Matter; And therefore doth Aristotle compare the Sense to Wax, and the Object to a Seal; Now as the Wax taketh the impress and Form of the Seal, whether it be Iron, Brass, Gold or Silver, but no part of the Iron, Brass, Gold or Silver: So the sense receives the Form and print of the Object or thing discerned, but no part of the matter of the Object.  
Nor was there any being in the Sense before, but a bare faculty, a faculty to receive sensible Forms; an aptitude & power of receiving colours is in the sight of the eye, in that Instrument or Organ of sight which is called pupilla, in English, the ball or apple of the eye, this hath a faculty, a power of receiving colours (as the Organs of the other Senses have of receiving theirs) but is not actually coloured, hath no colour in it, for than it could not receive those that are without, nor have an aptitude thereunto, for saith Aristotle, intus existens prohibet alienum; the good man within doors keeps the stranger forth; But that the Senses may more readily receive their Objects, therefore are the Organs destitute and naked of the Nature of the Objects they receive, as the eye is void of colour, and the ear of sounds; for if the eye had Actually in it either white or black, it could not receive another from without; so when any savour or smell is actually in the Organs of those Senses, it is an impediment to other savours and smells, that they either not at all, or at least very weakly, are discerned; for intus existens prohibet alienum; that which is within keeps all others out.  
Lastly, these External Senses are the five Ports and Gates of the Intellectual Soul, at least of that Intellectual faculty which is called Patient or Practical; and there is nothing entereth into this faculty, but is let in through some of these doors, the Cinque-ports of the Soul, for so is the rule in Philosophy, nihil est in intellectu, quod non prius fuit in sensu.  
I need not tell thee (O my Soul) thou hast a conscience within thee is in stead of a thousand witnesses, showing thy miserable seduction and Perdition by following the Judgement of Sense, and refusing the dictates of thy own Understanding, judging according to the outward appearance of External Objects; gilded apples and fruit of the tree, bona apparentia, only pleasant to the eye and good for food; bitter in thy belly, though sweet in thy mouth; gall in digestion, though Honey in taste; nor need I to show thee the resemblance and similitude twixt thee and thy Objects, which thou hast contracted by receiving and embracing of them; such as thy Object is, such art thou; sin is thy Object, therefore thou art such; such in Form and likeness; and since sin is a non- entity, privatio boni, the Form of sin is mere deformity; this print and Form hast thou within thee as fully and plainly as the Wax retains the Form of the Seal; through the Senses it is conveyed unto thee; the innumerable sins and transgressions wherewith mankind is involved springs from hence, even from this Sensitive faculty of the flesh; the Senses are the doors through which all sins of all kind have entered into the Soul of man; the rule in Philosophy, nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuit in sensu, holds true in sins of all sorts, which come not to the Soul, but through these wider Gates which lead unto destruction; through these the three Grand enemies of Man's Salvation, shoot their poisonous darts at the heart of man.  
Help, help me, O Lord my God, for my Enemies have compassed about my Soul, the Flesh, the World, and the Devil; and the dangerousest Enemy is my own Flesh, my bosom-friend is become my greatest adversary; they of my household are my deadly foes, the Flesh which I cannot fly from, nor yet drive from me, I am constrained to carry about me, it is so close conjoined to my Soul, d stroy it I may not, though unwillingly I uphold it; feed it I must, though in feeding of it I nourish my Enemy; an Enemy worst of all enemies, not an open enemy, for against a professed Enemy one may make head, but thou my familiar, an intestine secret Enemy, who slayest unawares as Joab did Abner, and Amasa; this is the Enemy within, that betrays my Soul to its Eenemies without, and sets open these Senses, the Soul's Cinque-ports, through which the World and Devil shoot their poisonous arrows, and have grievously wounded me, and death through these windows hath entered my Soul.  
I open my eyes, and the world presents me with beautiful Objects, a Dalila, a Bethshaba; the Devil strait shoots his poisonous dares, lascivious thoughts, unchaste desires, Carnal lusts, and concupiscence, and fastens in my Soul; I open my ears, and the World presents me with the various sounds of blasphemy towards God, scandalous and reproachful speeches towards our Neighbours, perjuries, lies, curse from my own mouth, and from the mouths of others; strait the Devil shoots his arrows, of Anger, Malice, Strife, Envy, Murder and the like; I would please my palate, and behold I am presented with all the delicates the World affordeth; the Devil shoots his darts of excess, of Gluttony, Drunkenness and the like; to my feeling is presented the World's various Objects, of Warm and Moist, and soft and Smooth; the Devil's darts are Adultery, Fornication, etc. Thus whether I See, Hear, or Speak, Taste, or Touch, I am assaulted on every hand by these my Enemies who bear a Tyrannous hate against me, and which way soever I turn me I find no safety; Perils and Dangers, Temptations and Trials, Snares and Begins, Bonds and Imprisonment whither soever I go do attend me; darts are continually cast, close Siege is laid to my Soul; sometimes they assault me vi & armis, in open field; sometimes by undermine, sleights and Stratagems; sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly; always maliciously.  
To thee do I fly for help against these evils, (O my God) for vain is the help of Man; unto thy Word have I recourse, where I find present cures and remedies for all such as will faithfully apply them; and first of the remedy against the evils of the eye, this I find set down by holy Job, and practised by himself; I have made (saith he) a Covenant with my eyes, that I will not think upon a maid; The words are not, I will not lock, but, I will not think, for look I may, but not so long look, till that aspect doth pierce to my heart, and I begin to think of her beauty, and to lust after her embraces. St. Augustine's rule for chastity accordingly is, occuli vestri si jaciantur in aliquem sigantur in neminem; we may cast our eyes on some, but fasten on none; for simple aspect cannot be avoided; nor can that hardly hurt the Soul unless it be continued; therefore saith Augustine, not the beholding, but the continuance in beholding is perilous.  
The remedy against the evil of hearing, the Prophet David lays down, Psalm the 39 I said, I will take heed unto my ways that I offend not in my tongue, I will keep my mouth as it were with a bridle, whilst the ungodly is in my sight.  
Speak I may, that's not prohibited, but a caution given to take heed what I speak; I may speak with discretion if I speak, with deliberation; warily and wisely, rashly and foolishly; therefore, saith David, I will take heed to my way, that I offend not in my tongue; that is, I will ponder and consider beforehand what to say, my words shall not be many, and ex tempore, but few, and with premeditation; I will keep silence awhile and muse, though it be pain and grief to me, and whilst I am musing the fire kindle, and at last I speak with my tongue. And this rule Saint James prescribes, 
Jam. 1.19  that every man be slow to speak; so Saint Bernard, Verba antequam proferantur pensanda; we must stay to weigh our words before we utter them; and b cause we many times receive hurt from others tongues as well as our own, Saint Bernard 's rule is for slow hearing as well as slow speaking; for the profane and scandalous speeches of others do suddenly infect our souls, if we lend a willing ear thereto; for words, saith Democritus, are the shadow of deeds; for what we do hear with delight, we will as readily act; and therefore (saith he) many lose the benefit that comes by refraining their tongue, because they refrain not their ears from others tongues.  
Now against Gluttony and Drunkenness the sins of the Palate, and against Adulteand Fornication which come by the Sense of Feeling, the Remedies are such as Physicians use to prescribe their Patients in their sick and weak condition (viz) abstinency from much meat and drink, a spare and moderate diet, 
1 Tim. 5.2  such as Paul prescribes Timothy, a little wine for his stomach's sake, and his often infirmity; a little wine to strengthen him against his often infirmities, and but a little wine, to avoid Luxury; 
In lib. de arte bene moriend.  for in wine is Luxury (saith Bellarmine.) Again, Physicians use Phlebotomy, launching and cutting of Veins, and prescribe bitter Pills and Potions, all which are enemies to Nature and the body of man; such are all fastings, and watch, and humbling of the body, which though they turn to the Mortification of the Flesh, yet tend to the Vivification of the Soul; and this is the chastising of the body which St. Paul speaks of, 
Cor. 1.9.  saying, Castigo corpus, I chastise, I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means when I have preached to others I myself should be a castaway.  
But for further remedy against such evils as come to the Soul by these Senses, I will show how the Soul hath five Senses by which it is cured, as the Body hath five by which it is wounded: As the Body hath five Senses, so hath the Soul; there are five Organical Corporeal Senses; there are also five Inorganical and Spiritual Senses; the Body hath five, by which it is joined to the Soul in life; the Soul hath five, by which it is united to God in love. 
De natura & dignitate amoris divini cap. 6. f. 1155. & serm. 16. parvis sol. 481. c. Et de vita & quinque sensibus animae, fol. 374 a. Et in caena domini serm. 5. fol. 1360.  'Tis Saint Bernard 's observation, his words are these, There are five Corporeal Senses by which the Soul gives sense to the body, which are (beginning with the lowermost, and so upwards to the noblest of them) Feeling, Tasting, Smelling, Hearing, Seeing: There are also five Spiritual Senses, by which Charity quickens and enlivens the Soul (viz.) Paternal Love, Social or Conjugal Love, Natural Love, Spiritual Love, and Divine Love, or the Love of God; and as the body by the means of life is joined to the soul by five Organical Senses, so is the soul by the means of Charity joined to God by these five Spiritual Senses; the Love of Parents is the meanest Spiritual Sense, and answereth the bodily sense of Feeling; the Love of God the highest and noblest Sense, and answereth the bodily sense of Seeing: So Love runs through the whole Soul, and without this Love the Soul is dead to God, Love, I say not Lust; the Soul's Love, 
Chap. 7. Book. 1.  not the Senses Lust; Love the action of Virtue, not the passion of Vice; Love the fruit of the Spirit, not Lust the weed of the Flesh. Of which Love we shall speak more in the Chapter of the Affection of the Soul.   

CHAP. VII.  
Of the three Internal Senses (viz.) Common Sense, Fantasy, Memory.  
THus much of the External Senses which are seated in the body, whose Organs are extra to judge of things out of themselves: Now come we to the Internal, which are intra cranium seated in the Brain, not outward in the body; and have their Organs in the Brain; the Brain is the seat of these Senses.  
The Internal do differ much from the External in the power of operation; the operation of the one is more general than the other; the External judge only of things present, the Internal of things absent as well as present; the External judge only of the differences of their own particular objects, the Internal of the difference of every object belonging to every sense.  
And as the Internal are thus distinguished from the External Senses, so are they likewise amongst themselves, both in their Situation and Operation; and first in their Situation.  
1 Although they have all of them their Situation in the Brain, yet keep they their distinct and several seats in the Brain; the Common Sense possesseth the nearest seat of the Brain, which lieth in the fore part of the head called Sinciput; the Memory keeps the remotest seat, which lieth in the hindermost part of the head called Occiput; the Fantasy keeps the middle part of the Brain 'twixt them both: Thus is the Brain divided into three parts or Ventricles (as the Anatomists observe) in which there be issues and passages from one part to another, which are called Meats, through which the vital spirits pass to and fro.  

Of Common Sense.  2 They differ in their Operations; the Common Sense gives sense to the External, that's it work; we have said heretofore, that there is no Sense of the Senses, they do not perceive themselves; but here we must lay down a contrary position, and all this out of the rules of Natural Philosophy, quilibet sensus percipit se sentire, the Eye doth perceive itself to see, the Ear to hear, and the like; and so the Senses have sense of their objects; to reconcile which seeming contradiction, we say the External Senses, virtute propria, of themselves, and by their own operation, do not perceive themselves; yet they do it by another power, and this is by the faculty and operation of the Internal Common Sense, whose work alone is to give sense to the External.  
Which Common Sense is all one with the other five, not divers from them; one and the same Sense divided into five conjoined in one; the five External being as so many Rivulets arising from one Spring and Fountain (viz.) one Internal Common Sense; and this Internal being like unto the centre or point in the Circle (it is Aristotle's comparison) from whence so many lines are drawn out to the circumference, which lines are united in one individual point and centre; in the same manner are the five External Senses drawn from one, and again united in one Internal Common Sense; the operation therefore of this Sense, is to receive, perceive, distinguish, and discern the difference of the different objects presented to the outward Senses, and to give sense to the Senses; and therefore it is seated in the forepart of the Brain, which part is more moist, and so aptest for reception, and is nearer to those outward senses, whose aid and assistance they most require, and to whom they are nearer related than the rest.  

Of Phantasie.  The operation of Phantasie is more exactly to weigh, and diligently to examine those forms and similitudes received in the Common Sense; and this is seated in the middle part of the Brain, which is drier, and so more apt for retention; Phantasie is the highest faculty of the soul that any brute or irrational creature is capable of, and it differeth from Common Sense, for Fantasy retains not only those things which are, or were the objects of the External Senses, and by them presented to the Internal, but those things also which never were, nor ever will be the objects of Sense, being entiâ rationis, non entiâ rei, chimaeraes, figments of the Brain, having no existence in nature, only a notionary, imaginary existence, but extra operationem intellectus nihil, no longer any thing than they are in our mind, such are the representation of Centaurs and other Monsters which Poets and Painters have feigned and painted, which are not, nor indeed have any existence in nature, but are a mere imagination of the Brain; so Phantasie may be of such things as fall not within Sense, are not subject thereto; but otherways it is of the Common Sense.  
But this is by virtue of the Intellectual Fantasy, for there is an Intellectual Fantasy, as there is an Intellectual Memory, which is proper to Man, not common with Beasts, as hereafter shall be showed; for otherways Phantasie is not without Sense, nor is in any but sensitive creatures, nor of any objects but what are sensible and fall under sense; and therefore it is that new born babes whose External Sensitive faculties in respect of their Organs are too weak to operate at their first production, are destitute of Fantasy, till such time as fit objects be presented, and the Senses made capable to receive and discern them; and so be reduced into act, till such time, I say, our Fantasy worketh not; therefore Phantasie presupposeth Sense, not only in power in its faculties, but in act in its operations; Sense then leadeth the way, Imagination followeth after; for those things we fancy which we formerly have discerned; and what we never discerned severally or jointly, we cannot fancy; but what we have discerned by Sense asunder we may join together in our Fantasy; for so we fancy a Golden Mountain, a Flying-Horse, a Centaur, which is part Man, part Horse, and the like, which notwithstanding we never saw, nor ever were there such in nature; but this I say, by virtue of our Intellectual fantasy (for such is not in beasts) by which we imagine those things jointly which we never saw but severally and in parts; for a Golden Mountain was never seen, but because we have seen both Gold and Mountains severally, our Intellectual fantasy joins them together, and makes us imagine that jointly which we never saw, nor could see but in sunder.  

Of Memory.  The Operation of Memory is to lay up as it were in a store-house all those forms so presented, judged, and examined; it is the Storehouse and Treasury of all Science; therefore Plato held, that scientia was nihil aliud quam reminiscentia, all our knowledge was but a kind of remembrance; and the Poets called Lady Mnemosyne, that is, Memory, the Mother of the Muses: This Sense differeth from the Common sense, because it retaineth the forms and similitude of sensible things which are absent as well as present; the Common sense retaineth only the forms of sensibles present; it differeth likewise from Fantasy; for though Phantasie retain the forms of things absent as well as present, and in that regard is called Memoria imperfectior, yet Phantasie retains them without any apprehension or knowledge of time; but Memory retains them under the notion of time, but this only of time past, not present or to come.  
Not of time present; we cannot be said to remember things present, they fall not under the object of Memory properly; things present fall under the External senses, those things we hear or see without any use of our Memory; nor of time future, that is not the notion of Memory, things future we remember not, they fall not under Memory, but under Faith, Opinion, Hope, and Expectation; but the object of Memory is the form of External objects conserved and kept under the notion of time past only.  
And of this there are two sorts in man, a Sensitive Memory which is common with Beasts, and perisheth with the Body, and an Intellectual Memory proper to Man, which is Immortal, and remains with the Soul after death; this Intellectual Memory is called Recordation, or Remembrance, and only found in such creatures as can rationally discourse; and this is a Memory of such things which were once in a manner clean forgotten, but brought again into our mind, and re-imprinted in our Memory by reason and deliberation, and weighing of repeated circumstances of time, place, person, or other like things.  
We shall not insist upon that faculty which is called Common Sense, it being the same with the five External, they as the Rivulets, it as their Spring; it as the Point, they as the Lines drawn from the Point, of which we have raised our consideration before.  
Phantasie is the highest faculty that irrational creatures are capable of; this sits as supreme Judge in the Sensitive Soul; yea and I may say too in the Rational Soul, even since the Fall of man, by which his Understanding was darkened, and captivated to the lusts of the f●esh, and whose operations are slower, and more obstructed than the operations of our Fantasy; the operations of Reason and Understanding are impedited many ways upon any perturbation of mind, either by immoderate Love or Anger, Fear or Grief, or the like; or else by some sickness and distemper of the body; or else by sleep; for then the External Senses rest, neither doth the Understanding that while work; but in all these cases the Fantasy is working; and let a man sleep or wake his Fantasy is seldom idle; but man is slothful, and loath to go to that strict inquisition and painful search of things which the Understanding standeth upon, therefore he goeth to Fantasy, which is more nimble, easy, and ready at hand: This causeth man to run into so many errors; for whilst right reason was his guide, he continued upright; Intellectus est semper verus, is a Maxim in Philosophy; for that judgement which Reason passeth upon things, as it is with deliberation, so it is void of error; but when man rejected the judgement of his own Understanding, and followed the judgement of sensual Fantasy (which was our first Parent's case, and in them of us all) he runs himself upon a thousand errors, and involves himself in a sea of miseries; for the judgement of the Understanding is not so sure and true, but that of Phantasie is as deceitful; for though Sense may give a true judgement in some cases, pofitis omnibus requisitis, as a proper object, present and presented to an Organ fitted and prepared to receive it by due mediums, convenient distance, and the like, yet Phantasie sticks not to these rules but passeth her sentence on all objects that have been presented to her by the Senses, whether they be present or absent, proper or common, near or far off; and who seethe not upon what weak principles, how rotten a foundation this judgement of Phantasie standeth? yet from hence all things are conveyed into our Memory, and there registered as they are by our Fantasy apprehended; true or false, good or bad, there they are reserved and kept.  
And thus we descend to the consideration of our Memorative faculty, from whence they pass into our Affections & Soul.  
The Memorative faculty as it takes and retains the impression of all vain objects presented by the Fantasy, so its operation is to think of them so retained: Memory then is the Magazine and Nursery of our thoughts; this is the source of sin, and sink of all uncleanness, from whence springs every wicked invention, every foolish imagination, every evil thought and cogitation, and these are the beginnings of sorrow, hinc illae lachrymae; sin creeps first into our thoughts, then into our words, then into our actions; in our Memory our destruction is first hatched; Memory sends forth lusts, lust when it hath conceived brings forth sin, sin when it is finished brings forth death. Saint Bernard makes three degrees of sin, one in thought, that's from our Memory; another in affection, that's from our Will; the third in purpose and resolution, that's from our Mind; the thought to sin defiles and stains the soul, the affection to sin wounds the soul, but the resolution to sin kills the soul; thoughts breed delight, delight consent, consent action, action custom, custom necessity, necessity death.  
Thus sin, like the cloud arising at the first in the compass of a hand, soon overspreads the surface of Heaven; or like a Gangrene beginning in the Memory, but quickly overrunning all the parts and faculties both of soul and body; this is that Basilisk which must be crushed in the shell, lest it grow to a Dragon, and drive the woman into the wilderness; and this is done by resisting the beginnings, by driving all lustful thoughts out of our Memories: It may seem (and really it is so) a difficult work to expel all those various thoughts and imaginations of the heart which are evil, only evil, and that continually; but when once the Memory is seasoned with other cogitations, the evil and corrupt will not so easily find entertainment, vicious and virtuous thoughts will not cohabit together, the love of the World and the love of God, the lust of the Flesh and love of the Spirit cannot consist in one subject; If any man love the World, the love of the Father is not in him; they are contrary, which cannot be in one place at one and the same time; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and pride of life is not of the Father, but of the World.  
The remedy against these is the same with that against the evils of the eye set down by Job, I have made a covenant with my eyes, how then shall I think upon a Maid? if I resolve to withdraw mine eyes from beholding vanity, much more my mind from thoughts of vanity; wherefore that my Memory be seasoned with purer meditations, I will call to remembrance the loving kindness of the Lord, I will think of God, and in him will I rejoice; I will think upon my Redeemer how and what he suffered for me; I will think on the hour of death, and day of Judgement, of the joys of Heaven, and of the torments of Hell; the consideration of these is of force to affright and drive away all the wicked thoughts of the World, the Flesh, or the Devil, of what kind soever, whether they be ambitious proud thoughts, or light and vain thoughts, or envious malicious thoughts; or they be thoughts of gluttony and excess, or thoughts of lust and carnal concupiscence, or the like.  
Let the mind and Memory be replenished with such pious Meditations, and holy Contemplations, the thoughts of the World will find no admittance; Intus existens prohibet alienum; where the strong man armed keeps the house, the enemy dares not enter; and whilst the soul is armed with the commemoration of God's blessing, it will not open the door to the temptations of Satan, or lust of the Flesh, but say with Joseph, Behold my Master hath committed all into my hands, and there is none greater in this house than I, neither hath he kept any thing from me but thee; 
Gen. 39.8, 9  how then shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God.  
Praise then the Lord (O my Soul) and forget not all his benefits, which forgiveth all thy sin, and healeth all thine infirmities; call to mind the loving kindness of the Lord, and have them in everlasting remembrance; exercise thy Memory with such heavenly meditations as may build thee up unto eternal life; for this will be thy companion for ever, whether in weal or in woe; it dieth not with the body, but is immortal as thou thyself; the rest of the faculties may sleep for a while with the body, but this survives to perpetuity: This is that Intellectual Memory or Recordation which none but reasonable creatures enjoy, which is not diminished by the body's death, but infinitely enlarged; when all the thoughts, words, and deeds done in the flesh shall immediately in a wonderful manner come into remembrance, the secrets of all hearts shall then be disclosed, and all such thoughts, words, and actions which in life time were slipped out of mind shall come again into fresh remembrance with a Conscience, 
Chap. 8. Book 1.  a Book which that day shall be opened, a Book of Man's life upon Earth, an account of Man's works, where they that have done well shall go into life everlasting, but they that have done evil into everlasting fire.  
Which Recordation or Intellectual memory, if the Saints in Heaven (whose bodies yet sleep in the grave) had not, how should they sing misericordias domini in aeternum, the loving kindness of the Lord for ever, as the Prophet David hath it, which Psalm and Song saith St. Augustine made for the glory of the mercies of Christ, by whose blood we are redeemed, the Saints do joyfully sing in Heaven. Of which Memorative faculty more shall be said hereafter.   

CHAP. VIII.  
Of the Appetitive faculty, and the Motive to a place.  
WE have done with those Sensitive faculties External and Internal which have power of Judgement, Knowledge and Discerning; we come now to those which have not this power in themselves, but are guided by the Counsel and advice of others, being moved by the Object, good or evil, according as Fantasy or Reason presents it; the Fantasy imagineth it good, the Appetite is straight moved to desire it; This faculty is twofold (viz.) Appetitive and Motive to a place. The Local Motive Faculty is a power of the Soul moving the living creature from place to place to follow that which the Appetite coveteth as good; or to shun what it lottheth as hurtful; so that this Motive faculty is but an effect of the Appetitive, and necessarily follows it as the Effect doth the Cause; for where the Appetitive faculty is to desire good or shun evil, there must needs be this Motive also from place to place; otherwise the Appetitive should be given us in vain, had we not this Motive faculty to seek after that we desire, as good and pleasant, and to avoid what we conceive to be hurtful unto us.  
Aristotle (I grant) adds another cause of this Motion besides Appetite, to wit, Intellect, (and under Intellect he comprehends Sense, to wit Phantasie) for what ever is desired or shunned is under the notion of good or evil so desired or loathed; now this knowledge must either be from Reason or Phantasie, for there is no knowledge but is either Sensitive or Intellectual; therefore must Intellect (which includes Fantasy) be another cause of Motion; 
Vide Suarez. de metaphies disp. 35. Sect. 5. part. 15. fol. 172.  neither do I intent to exclude Fantasy and Reason from being a cause; for when I mention Appetite only as the cause, I do it partly because Appetite is the chief, Fantasy and Intellect are but subordinate causes; and partly because I take Appetite here in the largest sense, as comprehending Fantasy and Reason; for Appetite in general is both Sensitive and Intellectual, as shall be said hereafter; so this Motive faculty being but an effect of Appetite, we shall be the briefer in it, and insist more largely upon the cause; the knowledge whereof will necessarily conduce to the knowledge of the effect.  
Appetite is a natural desire of the Soul, by which the living creature for the cause of preservation is moved either to desire that which Sense judgeth as good, or to loath that which it apprehendeth evil and hurtful; so that Appetite is a necessary concomitant of Sense, and follows her close; for where there is Sense, there is sorrow and pleasure, and where these are, there must be Appetite. There is a twofold Operation of Sense; one whereby it perceives its Object, as the eye beholds colour; which is the first and simple Operation of Sense; the other, whereby, upon the preception and apprehension of the Object, the Sense is affected with sorrow or pleasure; this is the second, and in a sort a mixed Operation, in as much as with the Object is joined sorrow or pleasure, and to these are joined Appetite and flight, for things pleasant we desire after, and things grievous we fly from; but this last Operation belongs to Common Sense (not to any of the External) to perceive good under the notion of good, or evil under the notion of evil, and accordingly to be affected therewith is the Operation of the Internal, not External Senses; therefore it is this Common Sense to which the Appetite is so nearly related, that Aristotle saith, they differ not re, nor yet in subjecto, but only ratione; not re, for they have no distinct being, but one and the same essence; nor yet subjecto, they have one and the same subject, for the seat of Appetite is where the Internal Sense is seated, to wit, in the brain; this is to be understood of that Appetite which is called Sensitive, and is common to man and brutes.  
But there are three kinds of Appetite according to Arist. Appetite is divided into Lust, Anger, and Will; Lust is in that faculty which is called Concupiscible; Anger in that which is called Irascible, and Will in that is called Intellectual; Lust and Anger follow the judgement of Sense, for what Sense judgeth pleasant and good, Lust desireth; and what Sense judgeth grievous, the Irascible faculty rejecteth; and these are in brutes as well as in man; but Will followeth the judgement of Reason, for so saith the rule in Philosophy, voluntas sequitur dictamenintellectus, desiring and following that which Reason Judgeth good and desirable; now this Appetitive faculty is proper to Man, and is not to be found in any other creature, so there are but two kinds of Appetite in brutes, yet three in Man.  
Or there is a twofold Appetite in Man, and but one in Beasts; it is Aristotle still, who divides Appetite into Sensitive, and Intellectual; the Appetite in Beasts is altogether sensual, the Appetite in Man is sometimes governed by Sense, sometimes by Reason; and therefore he distinguisheth that in Man into Concupiscence, and Will; it is called Concupiscence when the Appetite follows the judgement of Sense, and not of Reason.  
It is called Will when it follows the judgement of Reason, and not of Sense: so there are two causes of the Motive faculty in Man, (viz.) Appetite and Reason; Appetite, to wit, Sensitive, is the only cause of Local motion in Irrational creatures, but in Rational creatures both Reason and Appetite; not jointly, as if there were not this motion without the concurrence of both; but severally, and a part, either of them hath this principle of Motion, and sometimes we are Moved by Appetite, sometimes by Reason, one while by Lust, another while by Will; by Appetite, when Lust and concupiscence which is the Sensitive Appetite overcomes the Will; by Reason, when the Will which is the Intellectual Appetite, and follows the judgement, and command of the Intellect overcomes the Concupiscence; for these are contrary the one to the other, and so are their motions, and therefore there is a continual War in man twixt these two faculties, sometimes the one, sometimes the other gets the victory, sometimes Concupiscence is the superior, and overcomes the Will, as in an incontinent Man it falls out, who doth contrary to that which his own Understanding bids him do, according to that of the Poet— video meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor, sometimes the Will overcometh the Concupiscible faculty; and that is when we do contrary to that which our Sensitive Appetite bids us do, because our Understanding commands, and our consciences tell us we ought not to do it, and so we chose to obey it rather than our Sense; Hereupon Arist. observes three motions in Man, one whereby Will and Lust fight one with another; the second motion is, that which proceedeth from the victory of the Will; the third proceedeth from the victory of Lust; now the Reason of this combat and contrary motion is this; the one follows the judgement of Sense, the other the judgement of Reason and Uuderstanding; Now Sense and Reason are for the most part of contrary Judgements; Sense judgeth of things as they appear good or evil at present without any consideration of time to come, it hath not cognizance of things future; but Reason hath knowledge of future times, and therefore judgeth of things not only as they are at present, but as they may be hereafter; hence it comes to pass, that Lust which only follows the judgement of Sense desires a thing as good, because it is so at present, regardless of the evil it bringeth afterwards; but Will following Reason, which looketh forward at things to come, flies from that present good because of that greater evil that doth follow it; as for example, a sick man is a thirst, he coveteth drink, for drink is pleasant and good to the thirsty, as food to the hungry, and sleep and rest to them that are weary; but this drink will prove hurtful to him afterwards; this the Sensitive Appetite knoweth not, be-because it hath no knowledge of time to come, but Reason knoweth this; therefore Sense moves him to drink, but Reason bids him forbear; thus comes there these two contrary Motions and Appetites in Man; one in respect of Sense and of the time present, another in respect of Reason and of the time future.  
Again, Appetite and Will do differ in their Object, for though Good be the Object of both, yet the Object of appetite is good sub ratione jucundi, a Delectable good only; the Object of Will is good sub ratione honesti, it chooseth things Honest as well as things pleasant; it prefers the good of honesty, before the good of pleasure; the Object of Appetite is a good present, particular, corporeal, 
Hooker Eccles. pol. lib. 1. Sect. 7. fol. 58.  fetched from the Objects of this Earth, the dureless pleasures of this stage-play-world by the eye of Sense; the Object of Will is good absent, general and Spiritual, fetched from the highest Heavens by the eye of Faith and Reason to behold our chiefest good, even God himself.  
Again, they differ in the Manner of operation; the one works Necessarily, the other Freely; the Appetite follows the judgement of Sense, and cannot but choose the good it presenteth; Will follows the judgement of Reason, yet freely not necessarily, it is a Voluntary Agent and free, not tied by any necessity to any determinate act; the fire works necessarily and cannot but burn; so do Sensitive creatures; otherwise it is of Man in respect of his Will, which is not necessarily moved to any one simple action, but freely may do or not do, may Will or not Will at his pleasure, for voluntas est libera libereque movetur ad bonum, is the current opinion of Philosophers ancient and modern.  
In this Intellectual Appetite (Will) which accompanies Reason, art thou a resemblance of thy Maker, (O my Soul;) Man was made like unto God in freedom of Will and clearness of Understanding; in these for for his Naturals; and he was made like unto God in Righteousness and Holiness; in these for his supernatural endowments; which supernaturals though he totally forfeited and lost by his fall, Original sin coming in the room of Original Justice, as Privation doth the Habit, yet did not Man lose his Will and Understanding by the fall; wounded indeed he was, not depraved in, not deprived of his naturals; his Understanding became more darkened, and his Will more servile; but some light the Understanding retained, some freedom the Will enjoyed after the fall; The Reason and Will of Man remained entire since the fall, as to their nature and essence, though not as to their Operations; the Operations of right Reason may be impedited many ways, either through the imperiousness of evil affections and carnal lusts which have got the rule, or through evil habits and customs it hath acquired, and the like, but yet Reason and Understanding in Man as to its essence is perfect as well since as before the fall; homo est animal rationale, is the definition of every man as truly now as then; Man is a reasonable creature.  
And as Man's Understanding is not taken away by his fall, no more is his Will which is always a concomitant of Reason, the essence of the Will is as entire as the essence of Reason; and the essence of Will is freedom, take away freedom and the Will is destroyed, it is not Will longer than its free; for that is it whereby it is distinguished from Appetite, and whereby Man is disstinguisht from Sensitive and all other agents, and made like unto God, resembling him in his manner of working; God works not necessarily, but freely; so we, what ever we work as men, the same do we wittingly work and freely, saith Mr. Hooker; else our actions would neither he righteous nor sinful in themselves, nor reward or punishment due unto us for the same; for these do always presuppose some thing done well or ill, and that willingly and freely; and because of this freedom of Will in Man, only Man's observation of the Law of his nature is righteousness; only Man's transgression, sin, righteousness and sin is imputed to none but voluntary free Agents that might have done better or worse than they do; Hence ariseth that conscience which is in every Man, and not to be found in other Agents, a conscience either accusing or excusing every Man for the good or evil he hath done though never so secretly, for as much as he might have chosen whether he would have done it or no; Every Man's heart and conscience (saith Mr. Hooker) doth, in good or evil even secretly committed and known to none but itself, either like or disallow itself, and accordingly either rejoice, very nature exulting as it were in certain hope of reward, or else grieve as it were in a Sense of future punishment.  
And this ariseth from an innate freedom that is in all Rational creatures, a freedom of willing and nilling those things which Reason judgeth good or evil; This light of Reason and Understanding is in all men, in all Intellectual creatures; the wickedest Man (that is wholly governed by the inferior Orbs, by unruly passions which flow from Sense, & not by the dictates of a right Understanding) hath so much of this Intellectual power, which serves to struggle, to combat, and to fight with those powers of Sense and Appetite; and though it seldom prevail, yet it leaves a sting of conscience sticking like a thorn in the flesh; because in doing evil he prefers (and that wilfully) a lesser good before a greater; the greatness whereof is by reason investigable and may be known.  
Known by an unregenerate man by the light of Natural Reason, much more by a regenerate man enlightened by the Spirit of God; which is an argument of the freedom of Will in all men; the will is always, and in all men free, free in it nature and essence, though in it operations an accidental servitude is acquired by the Fall; Man was created with a posse standi, and posse cadendi, without any servitude upon his Will; and though his choice was evil, and so he fell, yet to will and to do that which was good was more natural to him; the Moral Law was writ in his heart, and made connatural, more easy it was for him to have kept than broke it; though since the Fall the course of nature is changed from a posse standi, or posse non cadendi, to a non posse non cadendi, from a liberty of standing to a necessity of sinning, and all this by nature, not in massa pura, but in massa corrupta, by the vitiosity of Nature, an evil servitude, and sad accident acquired by the Fall of man is more prone to evil than to do good, we may not say so properly naturaliter as accidentaliter; the Will being wounded in its operations, having an accidental servitude upon it; so that now though to will be present with us, yet how to perform we know not; there is in the best so much predominancy of Sense and Appetite over Reason, through evil habits and customs accrued, or the seeds of Original sin derived to them, they many times do contrary to what their Wills desire, and their Reason presents as good, according to that of the Apostle, The good I would, that do I not, but the evil I would not, that do I.   

CHAP. IX.  
Of the Affections and Passions of the Soul.  

Chap. 9 Book 1.  IT remaineth to treat of the Affections and Passions which are incident to the Soul, and are but as it were the sundry fashions and forms of the Appetitive soul, which Aristotle sometimes calls Accidents, sometimes Affections, sometimes Passions of the Soul.  
Affections as they are moderate, natural, and engendered with the soul and body, are actions transient, not permanent, and so are neither vicious or evil in themselves, nor ought nor can be removed from our nature, which was the error of some Philosophers of the sect of the Stoics; Passions as they are inordinate and predominant, and so are vicious, and dangerous to the soul, and both may and aught to be expelled, such as fall not on a Philosopher, that is to say, a wise and virtuous man, for virtus consistit in moderatione passionum; therefore although to be angry is natural to every man, and cannot be expelled the soul of any, yet to be inordinate and immoderate in anger is the part of a fool, and not of a wise man, because where any inordinate Passions do bear rule, they cloud the understanding, and obscure the light of truth, as thick clouds the light of the sun; and therefore concludes Aristotle in the fourth of his Ethics, Mansuetus vult imperturbatus esse, & non duci à passione, from a wise man all unruly and disordered passions are to be driven away.  
This is the exhortation given by Philosophy itself to Boetius— 
— tu quoque si vis  
Lumine claro cernere verum,  
Tramite recto carpere coelum,  
Gaudia pelle, pelle timorem,  
Spemque fugato, nec dolor assit,  
Nubila mens est vinctaque fraenis  
Haec ubi regnant,—   
And though there be several other Affections and Passions of the Soul which are not here nominated, but are notwithstanding in themselves as vicious as these, yet these of Joy, Fear, Hope, and Grief, are the four Cardinal and chief Affections unto which all the rest may be reduced; for there is no Affection but is in respect of some Good or Evil, and that a Good or Evil present, or Good and Evil absent: Joy is an Affection of the Soul for a Good present; Hope an Affection of the Soul for a Good absent and future; Grief is for an Evil present; Fear for an Evil absent and future; which Affections as long as they be but rightly, ordinate, and subject, nor may, nor can be expelled being natural and good, but when they grow heady, sensual, fleshy, & terrene, set upon the lusts and pleasures of this stage-play world, are vicious, and hurtful, which a wise man & a virtuous will keep under, and not suffer to range and rule; for these are they which are properly called Passions, when they grow exorbitant, according to the definition of Aquinas, Affectus est vehemens animi passio animum torquens & verum judicium rationis impediens; otherwise it is of these natural and ordinate Affections, for they do neither animum torquere, nor verum rationis judicium impedire, so are not evil in themselves, and of their own nature, but through error in man's judgement, from whence the vitiosity passeth upon the Affections: Other reasons may be given of the evil and exorbitant Passions which doubtless are stronger or weaker according to the temperature of the four elements in the body of man, from whence the complexions have their denomination; if the complexion be Sanguine, it commonly feeds the Affection of Joy, and Mirth, and Love, and the like; if Choleric, expect Anger, Hatred, Malice, etc. if Melancholy, than Sorrow, Fear, and Grief; and thus according to the temperature of the body are Passions for the most part more or less predominant; the more temperate the complexion, the more moderate the Passions, the better the constitution, the purer and nobler the Affections are.  
That all Affections of the Soul are vicious, and not only to be moderated, but wholly to be extirpated and expelled from our nature, was an error broached in the School of the Stoics, condemned in Christianity, as well as by the Peripatetic Philosophers of old.  

Mr. Hooker.  It is not in our own power whether we will be stirred with Affections or no; It is as possible to prevent them all as to go out of ourselves, or to give ourselves a new nature; no more than we can refuse to wink with the eye when a sudden blow is offered at it, or refuse to yawn when we see a yawning sleepy fellow, though by frequent and habitual Mortification, and by continual watchfulness, 
Dr. Tailor's life of Christ 2 part fol. 122.  and standing in readiness against all in advertencies we may lessen the inclination, and account fewer sudden irreptions, saith a devout and judicious Doctor of our English Church.  
Many aught to be corrected, few totally to be rejected; some Affections there are which are virtuous and godly in themselves; some are wicked and diabolical, some are in themselves neither godly nor wicked.  
The good and virtuous are, Love, Pity, Joy, Charity, etc. the diabolical are, Envy, Wrath, Malice, and especially that which your Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, a rejoicing at other men's ill hap and misfortune; the indifferent Affections are, Fear, Sorrow, Anger, and the like, which as they are not simply good, so are they not morally evil, since our blessed Saviour, who knew no sin, was notwithstanding subject to like Passions of Sorrow, Fear, Grief, and the like; such as accrued to us by the Fall of our first Parents, and are infirmities and defects of pure nature, effects or fruits of sin, and so an evil, to wit of punishment, as well as other bodily defects, as hunger, thirst, sickness, yea and death, which come unto us but by the Fall, all these our Saviour was subject to, in all things being made like unto us, sin only excepted.  
The evil of sin he took not, though he took upon him the true nature of man, so saith Saint Augustine, As Christ took upon him a true humane nature, so he took the true defects and evils of that nature, but not all; he took upon him the defects or evils of punishment, but not the defects and evils of sin: Such Passions and Infirmities of Fear, Grief, Anger, of Sickness, Death, and the like, as are evils of punishment only, Christ was subject to as we are, therefore such are not simply sinful, neither can they be simply good, since they be effects and fruits of sin.  
Nor was Christ subject to these Passions in the same manner and measure as we, Christ only in the first motions, and sudden irresistible alterations, those twincklings of the eye as the Philosopher calls them, those Propassions as the Schoolmen term them, or Passions transient; but we not in Propassion only for a flash and away, but in Passion also, in Passion permanent to entertain it, and retain it, many times either without just cause, or longer than occasion requires, or beyond due measure, by which the Affections come to be inordinate, the Mind moved, perplexed and troubled, Reason blinded, Judgement perverted and depraved.  
These are the Diseases and Maladies of my Soul, far worse than any that can be of my Body, whether it be Lethargy, Frenzy, Apoplexy, Epilepsy, burning Fever, or the like, all which are the most dangerous diseases of the Body; for though the outward Senses may be surprised by these, and my Body thereby made insensible of pain, yet whilst my Soul remains un-distempered, my Reason is able to discover and judge of these bodily distempers, either by its inflammation, or beating of its pulse and arteries, or by some extraordinary heat and lassitude; but when my Soul is diseased, my Reason is also wounded, and being sick hath no judgement at all of that which she suffereth, for the self same that should judge is diseased, being surprised with those unruly Passions, which (like a tempestuous storm at Sea) carry this little Ship of my Body into the deep, without Tacklings, Mast, or Rudder, or any to steer her aright, whereby she is exposed to splittings, shipwrecks, and all other misfortunes of the Seas; But in the way of more strict Religion it is advised that he that would cure his passions should pray often; 
Dr. Tailor's life of Christ par. 2. fol. 125. A Remedy against passions in general.  it is St. Augustine's Counsel unto the Bishop Auxilius, that like the Apostles in a storm, we should awaken Christ, and call to him for aid, lest we shipwreck in so violent passions, and impetuous disturbances; Again, a continual exercise, Vigilancy, and Circumspection of thy Reason is a Sovereign Antidote for the Ejection of these poisonsome passions out of thy Soul; and therefore one advertisement given by Fundanus in Plutarch, against such inordinate passions is not here to be pretermitted; Whosoever (saith he) will live safe and in health, ought all their life time to look to themselves, and be as it were in continual Physic; and not as the Herb Hellebore (which we English Neeswort) after it hath wrought the cure in a sick man's body, is cast up again together with the malady, so Reason also should be sent out after the passion it hath cured, but aught to remain still in thy mind to keep and preserve the judgement; for Reason is to be compared to wholesome and nourishing meats, and not to medicines and purgative drugs.  
Of all those several affections and passions incident to the Soul, and are either as Lenitives or Corrasives (viz.) pleasant and wholesome, or harsh and noisome to the Soul, two only as principal, I shall insist on; upon which the rest are founded, from whence they spring, (viz.) Love and Ire.  
Anger though simply, and as it is in itself considered, to wit, in its first motions and natural inclination, be neither good nor evil, yet is made good or evil according to the circumstances of time, and adjuncts of manner, and measure; all anger in all causes and in all degrees is not simply unlawful; to be angry when we ought, as we ought, and as much as we ought, is not criminal but praiseworthy; but when we have no just cause, if then we be angry with our Brother, we are guilty of judgement, so saith our Saviour; yea though we have just cause we may miss it in the measure or in the manner, as when our anger exceeds the value of the cause or the proportion of other circumstances and adjuncts; thus Moses' anger (though for God's cause and Religion) was reproved, because it went forth into violent and troublesome expressions, and shown the degree to be inordinate; other passions there are which arise out of this, which are in themselves sinful and damnable; those are hatred and malice; Anger persisted in turns to hatred and malice, and these are nothing but a continued anger; odium est ira inveterata, Anger with deliberation, and purpose of revenge, which is morally evil, and prohibited in the sixth Commandment; Envy is another sprig of this root, and that which in Greek is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; the one proceeds from Anger mixed with Sorrow, repining at the prosperity and welfare of another; the other proceeds from Anger mixed with Joy, rejoicing at the calamities and miseries of others; 
A remedy against Anger, with its effects in particular.  the worst and dangerousest of all Passions; for prevention whereof propound to thyself the example of meek and patiented persons, remembering always, that there is a Family of meek Saints, of which Moses is the Precedent; a Family of patiented Saints under the conduct of Job; every one in the mountain of the Lord shall be gathered to his Tribe, to his own Family, in the great day of Jubilee, 
Dr. Taylor.  and the angry shall perish with the effects of anger, and peevish persons shall be vexed with the disquietness of an eternal Worm, and sting of a vexatious conscience, if they suffer here the transportations and saddest effects of an unmortified, habitual and prevailing anger.  
But love is the Queen of Virtues, the chief of all affections, and a duty enjoined and commanded by God; upon this hang the Law and the Prophets; it runs through the decalogue, it is the fulfilling of the Law: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and thy neighbour as thyself, is the whole duty of man; Love is an lnseparable affection of the soul, Faith and Hope may cease, but Charity abides for ever, and joins our souls to God; as the Soul is the life of the Body, so is Charity the life of the Soul, and as the Body by the means of life is joined to the Soul, so is the Soul by the means of Love conjoined to God; Love is the Soul's Sense and the love of God is the Soul's eye; There is another love called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is that natural affection which Parents bear towards their Children, and the Children again to Parents, & the like, which is one of the Soul's Senses, but not the noblest; for as the eye is the noblest of the bodily Senses, so is Divine love the noblest of the Soul's Senses, and is the Soul's eye by which we see God.  
As the body hath two eyes, so the Soul hath its eyes, Reason and Love; these are the eyes which the Spouse in the Canticle speaks of, saying, Thou hast wounded me my Spouse, my Sister, thou hast wounded me with one of thy eyes; now the eye of Love is the right eye, and seethe further than the eye of Reason; Ratio deum videre non potest nisi in eo quod non est, amor autem non adquiescit requiescere nisi in eo quod est; ratio per id quod non est in id quod est videtur proficere, amor postponens quod non est in eo quod est, gaudere deficere;— ratio majorem habet sobrietatem, amor beatitudinem, saith St. Bernard.  
Again, there is a twofold love of beatitude; one of desire, the other of enjoyment, est amor desiderii, & est amor fruitionis, 'tis St. Bernard's still; the love of desire is that natural Appetite or pondus naturale, which is in every creature towards their chief felicity; I mean not such a weight as always tends downward, such as is the natural weight of Earth; whose perfection lies below in its Centre; but such as looks upward, as the natural weight of fire; so man's love of desire looks up to God, who only is man's summum bonum, his chiefest felicity, and so beatitude,  
Let the eyes of my Soul (O God) for ever look up towards thee, especially the eye of my Love, which though in much weakness it behold thee here not in fruition but in desire; Let this innate desire and love of my Soul towards thee so quicken and stir up my elicit acts and abilities to pursue the means tending to thee as thou hast prescribed in thy Word; that at the last my desires may reach to a Beatifical Vision and full fruition, and my love be completed in the enjoyment of thee; that the panting desires of my Soul here may be so taken up hereafter with the cool refreshments of thee the everliving Water, that I may say (Lord) it is enough, That I may so behold thy face in righteousness here, that when I awake I may be satisfied with it.  
Amen, Amen.    

TO My much honoured Friend and Neighbour, HUMPHREY CHEETAM, ESQUIRE.  
SIR,  
IN the Garden and Paradise of God (not that Terrestrial which long since perished, but the Heavenly which hath not suffered by any Cataclysm) grows the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge, which God as the chief Husbandman and Gardener both planteth and watereth, and causeth to increase: Though it hath pleased Almighty God to plant and sow semina quaedam & frutices, some seeds and shrubs of Knowledge and Life in this earthly Garden, and set Man therein to dress and keep it, whose fruits (though in this life they come not to full maturity and perfection, yet) serve us for a taste of those spiritual & never fading fruits in Heaven; since by the pains and industry of some Labourers in this Vineyard, and the blessing of God, the Sun of Righteousness shining upon their labours, some fruits have been here gathered relishing much of the Heavenly perfection. The Fruits ensuing are of this nature, which I as a Gleaner have gathered from others, and dedicate as the choicest of my labours, and as I hope the welcomest present unto you; the former Treatises adding little benefit, but what you have formerly reaped from your own experience, being ever the best School-mistris: The two parts of this Rational life, the Practic and Speculative you may read in the History of your own life, who have well nigh by the course of Nature finished both; the Clue of your thread being almost spun out, and drawing on apace to the period set by the Prophet David, Psalm 90. Wherefore leaving those things that are behind, looking not backward at time past, you press forward to the things that are before, if by any means you can attain to the Resurrection of the Just, to that state of life which consists in Beatifical Vision to come, which this ensuing Treatise, though in much weakness points unto; May it lay the way open before you, and give you such a taste of the joys of Heaven, as may sharpen your stomach, and quicken your appetite, but not hasten your progress thither; for serus in coelum redeas, may you enjoy a long life here, and Heaven at the last, are the hearty wishes, and daily prayers of,  
Sir, Your most devoted friend, and servant, NICH. MOSLEY.   

TO My loving Brother, EDWARD MOSLEY, Esquire, one of the Commissioners for Administration of Justice in SCOTLAND.  
Brother,  
A Kingdom or Commonwealth is corpus politicum, consisting of many, and in themselves disagreeing members, but mixed and united in one Civil society by the rules of Morality; that which forms and unites this Body, is Government, without which it would not be a Body, but a Chaos 
— rudis indigestaque moles  
Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum.  But rules of Policy and Government are investigable by Reason, not by Sense; therefore Man only, who is animal rationale, is properly termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; the Reasonable Soul of Man runs through the whole Body of practic Philosophy, teaching the duty of a good man in Ethics, of a good Master of a Family in Economics, of a good Citizen and Magistrate in Politics; which Duties consist in the exercise of all Moral Virtues, especially those four Cardinal ones of Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, and above all (of a Magistrate) that of Justice; Justice distributive, as well as commutative, without which no men of old were linked together in a Civil society; nor at this day without it can be preserved.  
And though Solomon saw an Evil, and that a great one, under the Sun, an error proceeding from the Rulers, who placed ignorance and mean persons in high Thrones, when Wisdom and Nobility sat in ipsa abiectione, whereby happily Magistracy was brought into contempt, and Justice perverted, through the weakness or wilfulness of such Juridicials, who fall short of the perfection of those Moral Virtues, those habits of the Mind, which do complete a Magistrate; yet against such Evil our Laws have wisely provided, That none shall bear any high Office of Magistracy, no not the Office of a Justice of Peace in the Country, but Plus halt & meultz vailantzes, men of the best rank and quality, of the best reputation, and most substantial, as Lambert hath it.  
Such a one may you be in your place and calling, whose nurture and education from your youth up, hath been in the studies of the Law, and in the study of Ethics, as well Ethicae Christianorum as Ethicae Ethnicorum; not that Natural, only drawn from the rules of Heathenish Philosophy, but from the Fountain of Christian Divinity, which will so furnish you with all Intellectual Habits, not of Natural Virtues only, acquired ex crebris actionibus assuefactione & consuetudine, but of Supernatural also, infused from above, as may render you capable, and sufficiently meriting those high employments unto which you are called.  
Hence may you discover the necessity of this noble Science of the Soul, even for you whose conversation amongst men is Practical, and the Operations of your Soul such too, consisting in the excercise of Moral Virtues whose residence is in the Soul; the Reasonable Soul is the subject and receptacle of all Virtuous Habits acquired by Nature, or infused by Grace.  
Yet is there another noble Science of the Soul, whose end is not Action, but Contemplation, or Speculation of the divine Essence; this I presume is your chief study and delight, in which you spend those spare hours of retirement are gained from your State-employments; If these my poor and weak labours may be any help and furtherance of your meditations in that kind, I freely and hearty dedicate them to you, and rest  
Your affectionate Brother, NICH. MOSLEY.   

Natural and Divine CONTEMPLATIONS Of the Passions and Faculties Of the Soul of Man; In Three Books.  
THE SECOND BOOK. The Metaphysical part.  

CHAP. I  
Of the Intellectual faculties of the Soul.  
AFter the discussion of the Vegetative and Sensitive it remains to treat of the Intellectual faculties of the Soul, which are not Organical, Corporeal and Inseparable, but have their Operations apart, and without, and so are separable from the body; mere Operations of the Rational Soul which acteth without bodily Organs, 
Chap. 1. Book. 2.  and is of an Immaterial, Immortal Nature; There are incident to this Soul, three powers or faculties (viz.) Will, Memory, and Understanding; Will is distinguished from Appetite, (which is a concomitant of Sense and that necessarily) being itself a concomitant of Reason and Intellect, sed tamen liberè, not tied by any necessity to any determinate act; Memory is another branch of the Rational Soul, and perisheth not with the body, remaining as an inseparable companion to all separated substances, and abstracted Forms, of which two faculties (viz.) Will and Memory sufficient hath been formerly said.  
The Intellectual faculty which is the highest and noblest of the Rational Soul, is distinguished first into Agent and Patient; The Patiented Intellect again is threefold, in power, in Habit, and in Act; In Power only is the intellect in itself, and of its own nature, for at the first it is nothing else but a mere power or promptitude to receive intelligible Forms, and this is to be found in new born babes, and Infants who have not yet acquired the act or habit of Understanding but are capable, and receptible of Intelligible Forms; which Intellect Aristotle compares to the first matter, materia prima, which is nothing but in power; hath no Form but is capable of any; And where Aristotle saith, intellectus cognoscit omnia, we must conceive it in this sense, to wit in power; for although there be many things whereof we are ignorant, yet there is not any thing which our Understanding may not reach unto; as for example, we know not the number Stars, or the Sands of the Sea, but this ignorance is accidental, not natural; for our intellect is capable of the knowledge of these, if any one should but teach us the certain number of them.  
The Intellect in Habit is that which hath received Intelligible Forms, even those which it had power to receive, but doth not act, only hath power to act; and herein the Intellect in habit and Intellect in power do differ; for the Intellect in power hath power only quoad essentiam, non quoad operationem, but the intelin habit hath power tum quoad essentiam, tum quoad operationem; A learned man though he be asleep, yet hath this Intellect in habit, for as much as he hath received and retained those Intelligible Forms which gives him a power to operate and contemplate; although he doth not actually know and contemplate; he hath the habit, though not the act, whilst he sleepeth.  
The Intellect Patient in Act, is that which is reduced into act and exercise; so that it doth not not only actually receive what formerly was but in power, but also operates and works about those things it receives, and actually Understands them; which is done when the Phantasms which are illustrated and made Intelligible by the Intellect Agent are actually received of the Patiented Intellect, by which that knowledge which formerly it had not is acquired.  
The property of the Patient is to receive Intelligible Forms from Phantasms illustrated by the Agent Intellect, and from this property and Office of receiving Intelligible Forms, it is called Intellectus patience.  
For as Sense is said to suffer because it receives Sensible Forms; so the Intellecct by receiving Intelligible Forms, recipiendo pa●itur, it suffers from Intelligible Forms as Sense suffers by its Sensible Forms.  
But the Intellect Agent is no way passive, being of itself perfect and needs not an Object to supply its defects, being nothing in power, but as Aristotle hath it, essentialit r actus, a pure act, and receives not Intelligible Forms; Its Office is to illustrate the Phantasm, and to make of sensible, Intelligible Forms, and of Particulars, universals, and therefore the Intellect Agent is said omnia facere, as the Patient is said omnia fieri.  
Of these two Operations of the Agent Intellect (viz) to illustrate the Phantasm, and to Understand, the latter is only Essential and remains after death of the body, the other is less Essential and therefore remains not with the Soul after this life; for although the Office of the Intellect Agent in this life be to illustrate the Phantasms, and to make that Actually Intelligible, which was before but Potentially so, and to reduce the Intellect Patient into Act, yet this is not the sole and Essential Office of this Intellect, for as much as after this life it continues not with it; for after this life there remains another manner of knowledge, Proper and Essential to this Intellect, not per species impressas, by Intelligible Forms imprinted from some Sensible Object, but per species in elligibiles congenitas & innatas, as shall hereafter be demonstrated; And this is a part and faculty of that Reasonable Soul which is forma informans hominem, and not an Extrinsecal assisting Form, as a Mariner is of a Ship, as some would have it; it is that part of the Soul, by which it doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Intelligere & sapere, vel cognoscere & prudentis munere fungi, as Aristotle hath it.  
By which there ariseth another distinction of the Intellect, into Practic and Speculative, for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intelligere is an Operation of the Intellect generally, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sapere seuprudentis munere fungi is the proper Operation of the Practic Intellect, whose end is Action, and Object, such things as fall under Action, and such Action as falls under Sense, and subject thereto; and whose Science is Morality, being conversant about Manners, and Moral Virtues.  
This Practic Intellect (for of the Speculative is our whole discourse in the subsequent Chapters) is that faculty or Operation of the Soul whereby Man is distinguished from Beasts, who live a Sensitive life, and Angels, who live a Contemplative life; And that Beatitude, or summum bonum, which every man naturally coveteth after consists in action (viz.) in the perfect state of Moral virtues; this Happiness appertains to man as man, and without this Moral virtue none in this life can be accounted happy. 
De perfecta possibilia secundum naturam, non de perfecta absolute ●ut extraordinario dei munere. Fors●ca lib. 2 Metaph. cap. 1. q. 2. Sect. 7 fol. 420.  I speak of man's Natural and Temporal happiness in this life, and not of that Supernatural and Eternal in the world to come, in Heaven, which consists in the sole intuitive Vision & knowledge of the divine Essence; Aristotle I grant makes two parts of Natural and Temporal felicity, the one Practical, consisting in the perfection of Moral virtues, the other Speculative, consisting in the perfection of virtues Intellectual; and this Speculative and Intellectual part of a man's life he esteemeth the nobler part, as a virtue of an higher order, and sufficient in his kind to make a man happy.  
But this Intellectual part doth not necessarily make him good who is endowed therewith, or bring him to that perfect state of felicity in this life, since it is here commonly mixed with vices, and may be found in such, who though they know God, yet do not glorify him as God.  
Besides this part of Intellectual Contemplative Virtue (viz) that Intuitive Vision of God, or the perfect knowledge of the divine Essence, is not natural to Man; Man attains not thereto by any strength of Nature, it is the gift of God; unto this light of Glory, unto these supernal Joys, no man attains by his own strength; only that which is practical, and consists in well doing, in the exercise of Moral virtues, is proper to man in his Natural estate, which is the operation of the Practic Intellect, and therefore Aristotle in the tenth of his Ethics saith, The practic Beatitude agreeth with man as man; that which consists in Contemplation doth not agree with man as man, sed quatenus in eo est divinum quiddam & degit vitam quandam divinam.  
And in this respect the Soul may be said mortal, because that part which consists in the exercise of Moral virtues, whose end i● Action, and such as is taken from Sense and Fantasy, which is mortal and perishing, operates only in this life by the help of Fantasy, and without Phantasms the Soul understands not any thing; so saith Aristotle, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Soul, meaning this Practical part, for the Speculative part of the Soul doth not always and altogether work by means of Sense and Fantasy, since it knoweth such things as are immaterial, and not subject to Sense, as God, abstracted Forms and Intelligences, and it own self, as elsewhere shall be showed: Though to speak properly and truly, the Rational Soul is not mortal in any part of its Essence or Faculties, though the operations may cease in defect of requisite Organs; neither is there two several Intellects really distinguished, but one entire Intellect belonging to this Soul, only in regard of its several ways of knowledge, and manner of operation in this life, Practical and Speculative, the Intellect hath obtained its distinction of Practic and Speculative, which is but one in r●, though divers ratione.  
But some have gone about to prove a real and essential difference 'twixt the one and the other, making Reason or the Rational faculty of the Soul (which is that part of the Intellect which is Practical, and acquires knowledge by discourse, and that not without great labour, difficulty, and uncertainty, running from the Causes to the Effects, and from Effects to the Causes, groaning under the perplexity of framing demonstrations by wresting, deducing, infering, and concluding one proposition from another) making Reason (I say) but handmaid and subservient to the Speculative Intellect, no part at all of its essence, nor adliged to it by the inseparability of Union or Identity— but a Caduce sparious faculty accidentally advenient upon the degradation of our Nature; and is separable from the Soul at the instant of her emancipation from her Prison of Clay, and wholly useless to her in her state of restitution to the clarity of abstracted and intuitive Intellection.  
Which opinion of the Mortality of the Reasonable Soul, I have heretofore proved to thwart not only the general belief of Heathens, as well Philosophers as others, be they Grecians, Chaldeans, Arabians, Jews, Turks, or others, but also the Catholic Faith of holy Church, and concurrent judgements of all the Fathers.  
Nor can I be of opinion, that Reason is a faculty accidentally advenient upon the fall of our first Parents, and was not that Form which gave Adam his specifical difference from all other creatures, ab origine, as well before as since the fall; if Adam was not created a Reasonable creature, when God breathed into his Nostrils the breath of Life, and he became a living Soul; if that Soul was not a Rational Soul, and therefore living because Immortal; either Adam was no Man, or every Man is not a Reasonable creature, and then must we seek out a new Definition of Man; there being no truth in these Reciprocal terms, or Convertible propositions (viz) No Man but is a Reasonable creature, no Reasonable creature but is a Man; which never yet were contradicted by any, since Rationality is as essential to Man as Risibility, which is proprium quarto modo, quod omni, soli, semper, & convertibiliter accidit subjecto.  
But if you take Reason not as an Essence or faculty, but an Operation of the Soul which is Practical in this life, and cannot Operate or come to the knowledge of any thing but by discourse and arguments, running from Effects to their Causes, or from causes to their Effects, and for discharge of its office herein stands in need of Object, Form, Phantasm, and other bodily Organs, this Operation of the Soul, (I grant) ceaseth and perisheth with the body; and after this life the Soul hath another manner of Operation, as heretofore in part, and more fully hereafter is demonstrated. Otherwise Rationality is the very Essence of the Humane Soul, and impossible it is to sever them, distinguished they may be by suppositionality, not reality of essence; for the rule is, nulla res potest distingui realiter à differentia per quam essentialiter constituitur.  
In this Rational Soul is the glorious Image of the Almighty Jehova radicated and equally proper to it with its very essence, neither separate nor separable from this reasonable Soul; this is it which carries the Resemblance and Portraiture of the Immense Godhead in the most simple Unity & indivible Homogeneity of Spirit, being tota in toto, & tota in qualibet parte; and holds the Effigies of the sacred Trinity, not only in her Ternary of faculties Vegetative, Sensitive, and Intellectual, heretofore explicated, but also (as the more learned number of Christians judge it) in these three faculties of Intellect, Will, and Memory, in this Chapter handled.  

Vide St. Aug. in 14 lib. de Trin. & lib. 10. de Trinitate.  St. Bernard proving the Soul of Man to be God's Image, and therefore aught to be more serviceable to him, thus speaks unto his own Soul. O my Soul, if thou wouldst be beloved of God, reform his Image in thee, and he will love thee, renew his likeness in thee, and he shall desire thee; etc.  
The Original thus.  
O Anima mea, si vis amari à deo reforma in te imaginem suam & amabit te, repara in te similitudinem suam & desiderabit te; consilio namque sanctae Trinitatis ad imaginem & similitudinem suam creavit te Creator tuus; quod nulli alteri ex creaturis donavit, ut tanto eum ardentius diligeres quanto mirabilius ab eo te conditam intelligeres; considera ergo nobilitatem tuam, quoniam sicut deus ubique est totus omnia vivificans, omnia movens & gubernans, ita tu in corpore tuo ubique tota es, illud vivificans movens & gubernans; & sicut deus est, vivit & sapit, ita tu secundùm modum tuum es, vivis & sapis; & sicut in deo tres sunt personae, pater, & filius, & spiritus sanctus, sic & tu habes tres vires, scilicet intellectum memoriam & voluntatem; & sicut ex patre generatur filius, & ex utroque procedit spiritus sanctus, ita ex intellectu generatur voluntas, & ex his ambobus procedit memoria; & sicut deus est pater, deus est filius, deus est spiritus sanctus, non tamen tres dii, sed unus deus, & tres personae; ita anima est intellectus, anima voluntas, anima memoria, non tamen tres animae, sed una anima, & tres vires, ex quibus animae viribus quasi excellentioribus jubemur deum diligere ut diligamus eum toto cord, tota anima, tota ment, id est, toto intellectu, tota voluntate, & tota memoria, hoc est toto affectu sine defectu cum discretionis intuitu; nec solus sufficit de deo intellectus ad beatitudinem nisi sit in amore ejus voluntas; imo haec duo non sufficiunt nisi memoria addatur, qua semper in ment intelligentis & volentis maneat deus; ut sicut nullum potest esse momentum quo homo non u tatur vel fruatur dei bonitate vel misericordia, ita nullum sit momentum quo eum praesentem non habeat in memoria. And with him many of the Schoolmen; 
* Vide Aquinatem lib. 1. dict. 3 g.  and Bellarmine also. Habet etiam anima hominis imaginem in se quamvis obscuram divinissimae Trinitatis, tum quia habet memoriam faecundam, vim intelligendi, & vim amandi, tum etiam quoniam mens ejus intelligendo format verbum quoddam simile & à ment & à verbo procedit amor, quia id quod cognoscitur à ment & repraesentatur à verbo ut bonum continuo à voluntate diligitur & desideratur; sed tamen longè altiore & diviniore modo pater deus generat verbum deum, etc. Which is confessedly true, this Image of the Trinity is but a most imperfect and obscure shadow of it, and doth ill quadrate and respond with its prototype and prime examplar.  
Again, Man is made after the Image of God, in respect of his Immortal Soul and invisible, for God is Immortal, so is the Soul of Man Immortal; and God is Invisible, so is the Soul; God is Incorporeal and Immaterial, so is the Soul of Man.  
Moreover, Man is made after the I- of God, in respect of his Dominion which he hath, not only over the Fishes of the Sea, the Fouls of the Air, and the Beasts of the Field; for that is in regard of that Rational Soul and endowments of mind, in which Man as Man excels all other terrestrial creatures.  
But also in respect of that dominion which one Man hath over another; dominion belongs not to all the Sons of Adam, God hath appointed Kings to Govern them, and thereby hath imprinted a more lively Character of his own Image, upon Kings, than any other.  
But above all is God's Image seen in the endowments of his mind, in the faculty of the Soul, even that whose Act and Operation is the perpetual contemplation of truth, and therefore is called intellectus divinus & contemplativus, a divine Understanding and Contemplative mind; T●is is the power and faculty of our Soul, the purest, the noblest, and supremest faculty, called lumen animae rationalis, or anima animae; the Soul of the Soul, or the Eye of the Soul, and receptacle of sapience and of knowledge divine; This is that Eye of our Soul which by the bountiful grace of the Lord of all goodness, pierceth through the impurity of our flesh, and beholding the highest Heavens, thence bringeth knowledge and Object to the Soul and mind, to contemplate the ever durng glory and termless joy prepared for such as preserve undefiled, 
Sir Walter Raleigh.  and unrent, the garment of the new Man, which after the Image of God is created in righteousness and holiness, as saith St. Paul.   

CHAP. II.  
Of the Speculative part of the Soul.  

Chap. 2. Book 2.  THe Soul of Man as it is the Form of Man is notwithstanding an Immaterial, independent, & abstracted substance, though not so complete & perfect as the rest of the Spiritual & Immaterial substances be, it is of the Order (though of the lowest Rank) of simple essences; whose Operations (in regard of its imperfect and lowmost rank of Spiritual substances) are not so noble, so complete and perfect as the Operations of other Intellectual spirits be; but many times mixed with inferior Operations, and in some sense inseparable from them, or thence sprung, since all the knowledge which the Reasonable Soul attains to in this life by its natural strength, is, from Sense Mediately or Immediately derived; this for the Science Practical properly, and the practic Intellect, whose Operations are determinately Practical and not Speculative, as chief conversant about Manners and Moral Virtues, whether Ethical, Oeconomical, or Political; and whose end is Action (viz. well doing) though there is another Operation of the Soul whose end is not Action, to do, but to understand, or contemplate; this diviner faculty of the Soul, this Contemlpative Intellect, whose Operations are determinately Contemplative, not Practical; as chief about Theory, and whose end is knowledge or truth; its principal end so, sui ipsius gratia for its own sake, for the love of truth, for the cause of knowledge; This I say hath its Operations more immixed and separable from bodily Organs, or External Objects; and herein is a diversity twixt the Reasonable and Sensitive Soul; for to bring Sense into Act, as the Eye to see, etc. is required an External Object and bodily Organs; but to bring the Reasonable Soul into Act (viz.) to Understand or contemplate, which is the Operation of the Speculative Intellect, needs no External Objects at all, for that which brings knowledge into Act, and makes the mind actually to contemplate, is merely Interna, to wit, in the Soul; an Operation then there is a Science Metaphysical abstracted from matter; a Science of things which fall not under Sense, come not from External Objects, and of which no Phantasm or sensible Form can be presented to the Understanding, of which we mean to treat of in this Book; the knowledge of the Soul which it hath of Immaterial substances in this life, (viz.) of itself, of Angels, and of God, with the different manner of Operation of the Soul in this Natural condition or body corrupt, and in the state of Separation or body glorified.  
Yet is our knowledge of all Immaterial substances in this life very confused and imperfect, and agreeth not with the state of the Soul conjoined to the body, whose principal Operation is, to illustrate the Fantasy, and to make those things Actually, which were but before Potentially Intelligible, and to reduce the Intellect Patient into Act; This is the principal Operation of the Intellect Agent in this life, though not its sole and proper, nor Essential Operation, for than it would remain with the Soul after this life, which it doth not; for there is then another Operation and manner of knowledge, not per corpus, sed per influxum superioris causae (as Suarez hath it) proper and essential to the Soul, as hereafter shall be showed.  

Of the knowledge which the Soul hath of itself.  
The Operation of the Intellectual Soul is to know, yea to know itself, there is that faculty and power in Man's Soul whereby he may know himself; know himself, and be known by himself; for the Soul of Man is Immaterial, and so Intelligible as other Intellectual creatures which are merely Immaterial; now in those creatures who are Immaterial, idem est intelligens, & quod in●elligitur, 
Lib. 3. cap. 5.  scientia seu intellectus contemplativus & scibile. So saith Aristotle in his Book de anima; the Intellectual Soul is it which understands, the Intellectual Soul is it which is understood; it is not so with the Sensitive Soul, whose Organs are External, and whose knowledge is fetched from Objects ab extra, and therefore neither knoweth nor perceiveth itself, as hath been elsewhere said; But the Operation of the Intellectual Soul is Intrinsecal, it hath Objects Internal, itself is its own Object, always present, never absent from itself; the Soul of Man is not only a strait line drawn forth to point at other things, but a reflex and circular line pointing at itself; It knows itself by inspection, or (if I may say with Plato in this Timaeus) by reflection; for he compared the Soul that governs this World, and consequently the Soul which governs this Microcosm Man, (which is but a particle of that Soul which rules this Universe, both of them being Intellectual, and so may hold proportion and resemblance) to a line wherein was Rectitude and Reflection; and to number, which consisteth of Unity and Diversity.  
The Right & strait line of that Soul which rules the World, he made to be the Axletree and Diameter of the World (viz.) that imagined line reaching from one Pole to another, on which the World turneth about as a Wheel; the strait line of the Humane Soul he made that right Operation and knowledge of the Soul, procured by a certain progress from the essence (as it were by aline drawn out) to the powers and faculties, and from them to the act and Operation of the Soul, whereby the Soul looketh and pointeth forward, and by a strait aspect contemplates things out of itself, External.  
Again, this Rectitude or right line he bended into an Orb or Globe consisting like numbers of Parity and Imparity, Identity and Diversity; This reflex line of the World's Soul, was in respect of its circular motion upon the Axletree of the World; The reflex line of the Humane Soul, was that Operation whereby reflecting upon itself, it knew itself; And this reflex line of the Soul of the World, and of Man, had in her Identity and Diversity. The Identity of the World's Soul was in respect of the Eighth Sphaer which the ancient Philosophers called the primum mobile, for this Sphaer with one uniform motion is moved from East to West; The Diversity consisted in the motion of the seven Planets in their several Sphaers; So the Soul of Man had its Identity and Diversity; Identity in respect of its Speculative Intellectual faculty which is divine, Diversity in respect of its inferior faculties.  
Furthermore this Circular and Celestial line of the World he divided into two Circles, (viz.) the Eighth Sphaer, which is by him, and the Ancients called primum mobile, and moves from East to West; and the Sphaer of the Planets which moves in a contrary motion to the Eighth Sphaer (viz) from West to East; and these two Sphaers are said to be conjoined by two points (of the Axletree) cutting through them (viz.) two Equinoctial points; Again, the other Circle (viz) that which moves from West to East, he subdivided into seven Circles of seven Planets, to all which he resembled the Soul of Man, which is one essence, and as it were one Celestial Sphaer, and is divided into the Intellectual faculty answering in analogy to the primum mobile or Eighth Sphaer; and the Irrational faculty answering in similitude to the Sphaer of the Planets; for this faculty is opposite, and contrary to the Intellectual, and moves contrary to it, as the Planets do in a Countermotion to the Eighth Sphaer; and as in the Heavens the second Circle is subdivided into seven Planets; so doth Plato, in his Timaeus, subdivide the Irrational faculty of the Soul into seven faculties, (viz.) the particular or External Sense, Common Sense, Fantasy, Memory the Cogitative, Concupiscible, and Irascible faculty.  
As for example.  
α, β. Is the Axletree of the World.  
γ, δ. The Axletree of the Zodiac.  
And thus would Timaeus prove the Soul of Man to know itself by Reflection or Inspection into itself; which though it may be true in a sense, yet we are not to imagine such an Inspection or Intuitive Vision of itself inthis life, as the Angels and separated Souls have of themselves; for this knowledge agreeth not with the state of the Soul as long as it is joined with this Body, being hindered of the free and perfect exercise of those Actions, (which are Common and Essential to it and the separated Souls) whilst in this body of flesh, no more than the knowledge which now it ordinarily exerciseth, agreeth with the state of the Soul departed and separated from the Body.  
And though idem est intellectus & quod intelligitur, scientia & scibile; yet are we not to conceit an Identity of Essence betwixt the Understanding and the Object Understood; there is not such a Conformity twixt them in Essence, but in Representation. The Form and similitude is there, the Intellect receives the species of things only, and therefore is it called forma formarum intelligibilium, and so there comes an Identity, not of Essence, but of Proportion and Form.  
Thus the Soul knoweth itself in this life non per essentionan, by its own substance but per speciem, and without this species the Soul knoweth not itself in this life; though it needeth no Intelligible Forms to know its self by after this life; but knoweth itself, (as other separated substances do themselves) by their own substance, and not by Form.  
Neither is this Intelligible Form innate and engendered together with the Nature and Essence of the Soul; (as those Forms, whereby Angels and Souls departed know one another, are, as hereafter we shall show) but Imprinted in the Understanding from some Object Sensible conveyed to the Fantasy, from the Fantasy by the Operation of the intellectus agens, to our Patiented Intellect, where of Sensible they are made Intelligible Forms, so from Sensible Objects are produced Intelligible Forms; and without Sense no Intelligence; this in the ordinary way and manner of the Souls Operation in this life, we have no knowledge, no not of Immaterial and Insensible Essences, as of God, or of our own Souls, but is in a sort deduced from Sense; for although some things are not sensible in themselves; yet they may be sensible in their parts, as a Golden Mountain which we never saw but Fancy; or in their similitude and Portraiture, as men absent, or dead, are known by their Pictures; or by their opposites, as darkness by light, coldness by heat; or by their efects, as God, our own Soul, and the Virtue and Operation of natural things which are all hidden to Sense, but known unto us by their Effects; So God and our own Souls are known to us by their Effects and Operations; whereby may be inferred, that all our knowledge, yea our Metaphysical knowledge of abstracted and Immaterial substances do spring from Sense, and so the Contemplative Intellect, neither immixed nor inseparable from bodily Organs, but Organical and depending on Sense, contradictory to what hath before been affirmed.  
To which I answer; although it may be said, that Immaterial and Intelligible Forms are drawn in a sort from Sense; yet it is to be noted, that Immaterial things do otherwise depend on Sense than things Material do; for although our Intellect takes its principles from Sense, by which it is brought to the knowledge of God, arguing from the Effect to the Cause, as Aristotle argues, where from the Effect he proves the First mover to be Eternal, Immaterial, Infinite, although I say our Intellect may know God to be insensible and Immaterial even from Sensible and material Effects; which is its usual manner and way whereby it attaineth to knowledge here whilst in the body; yet it undoubtedly not only knows those principles and Effects which are subject to Sense and Fantasy, but even God himself, without any help of Fantasy or Sensible representation; Even so, although the Soul of Man doth come to the knowledge of itself by the Effects and Operations which it hath found in itself, and so of Sensible are produced Intelligible Forms; yet is not the Soul dependent of the body, either in respect of Organ or Object, but these Forms are illustrated and made Intelligible by Virtue of the Agent Intellect, and though Phantasie be made Instrumental, yet not so necessarily, but that this Intellectual faculty may operate without the concurrence of Sensible objects, Intelligible Forms may be imprinted in the Understanding, though no Phantasm appear, and many times through a vehement application of the Understanding to Contemplation, the concourse of Phantasie is weakened, yea sometimes, though rarely, altogether hindered, as those Holy Men who are given to deep and Divine Contemplation of Immaterial and Spiritual Substances can witness, so saith Fonseca lib. 2 Metap. cap. 1. q. 2. sect. 6. & lib. 1. cap. 2. q. 3. sect. 6.  
Alluding still to Plato's Imaginary lines of the Soul (viz.) the Direct and Spherical, consider (O my Soul) the use of these with thyself; The direct line points to the knowledge of all things here without and beneath thee; Phe Spherical to all within and above thee; That knowledge which is acquired in the direct line, is fetched from Objects External, and so hath Sense for its base; looking at things External, Corporeal, Mortal, which are all below the Soul of Man; And though by the knowledge of these externals, we may come to the notion of Internal things, by the knowledge of others to know ourselves; by sensible Objects to Intelligible Forms, whereby our Souls may be represented; Yet that knowledge must needs be imperfect, confused, and very un- ertain; no Quidditative knowledge of things Spiritual and Immaterial, as the Schoolmen call it; which is fetched from effects, and not from the Cause, from the direct line of External, Corporeal, and inferior bodies, and not from the Spherical of Intellectual spirits.  
A strait line is full of imperfection and deformity, whereas the Spherical is the perfectest, fairest and capaciousest of all the rest; Sphaera which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek signifies beauty, because of all other figures it is the fairest; and as it is fairest, so it is the perfectest and most Capacious of all the rest; and therefore it is, the Heavens are in a round and Spherical, not in a long and strait figure; for if the heavens were in the Form and figure of long or direct lines, there would be beyond them some place and body, or else a Vacuity, which argues a deformity, an emptiness and imperfection; so saith Aristotle in his second Book de caelo, and his fourth Chapter.  
Even so in the Soul of Man the Spherical line is the fairest, perfectest, and the most capacious; the Circular line reflecting upon itself, that eye of the Soul which contemplates itself, and hath its Objects Internal, that Soul which can see itself in itself, and commune with it own heart, is undoubtedly the divinest and perfectest, and Beautiful of all others; For to fetch our knowledge from outward Objects, and to bend our studies to know the Heavens, Elements, and all other Material and Corporeal creatures, is that imperfect line beyond which is something else, or a Vacuity; and though thou cast discourse of the Nature of all things here below, though thy line of knowledge be drawn from North to South, though it extend to all things from the Arctic to the Antarctic Pole, though thou givest thy heart to seek and search after Wisdom (as the wise man saith) of all things that are done under Heaven, of all works under the Sun, and yet art ignorant of thyself; all is but labour and travel, which God hath given to the Children of Men to be exercised therein, and without this Circumflex line, (viz.) the Souls self-Inspection and knowledge of itself, the end is Vanity and Vexation of Spirit; In brief, this Circular Spherical knowledge and Inspection of the Soul, is that Encyclopaedia which comprehends all other Sciences within it.  
Learn then this Platonic Idea, and Imaginary Circle (O my Soul) by which thou mayst reflect upon thyself, and find thyself in thyself, by that Eye of right Reason who fetcheth its knowledge from Internal Objects and Intelligible Forms; whose base is Reason; lower it looks not, nor yet is hurried and tossed about with the Counter-motions of inferior faculties; may soar aloft sometimes in Contemplation of Caelum Empyreum, where those Divine, Immutable, and Impatible Essences (which Aristotle speaks of) do inhabit; the highest Heavens where is the Throne of the most high God, and Choir of Innumerable Saints and Angels; may in a holy rapture sometimes with St. Paul, be caught up to the third Heaven, and there learn the secrets of God, which is not lawful for Man to reveal; may know things happily above Reason, above itself, but never contrary or below itself; This is a Science Metaphysical properly so called, which Grace not Nature teacheth; a Science Theological, a truth not acquired by Humane Art and Industry, but by Divine Revelation, taught us by the Spirit of God in the Scriptures.  


Stude cognoscere te, quia multo melior & laudabilior es, si te cognoscis, quam te neglecto si cognosceres cursum siderum, vires herbarum, complectiones hominum, naturas animalium, & haberes omnium caelestium & terrestrium scientiam, St. Bernard's Meditations, cap. 5. fol. 1054.  
Frustra cordis oculum erigit ad videndum deum qui nondum idoneus ad videndum seipsum, prius enim necesse est ut cognoscas invisibilia spiritus tui quam possis esse idoneus ad cognoscenda invisibilia dei, & si non potes cognoscere te, non praesumas apprehendere ea quae sunt supra te; praecipuum & principale speculum ad videndum deum, est animus rationalis intuens seipsum. fol. 3131.   And doubtless this Inspection and knowledge of ourselves, and our own Souls, is a Metaphysical, Supernatural, and Theological Science; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, nosce te ipsum is a Divine Lesson; so accounted by the Heathens, when Graven upon the door of Apollo's Temple, 'twas feigned to have descended from Jupiter; by the knowledge of our Souls, we come to the knowledge of ourselves, what we were, what we are, & what we shall be; by the knowledge of ourselves we come to the Unity of the Godhead, by it to the Trinity of Persons, by it to the Hypostatical Union of the two Natures in Christ, by it we are confirmed in the most Mysterious Articles of our Christian Faith; by it God's Essence is represented and lively Portrayed; look we into our Souls, and God is our Object, whose Form we are, whose similitude we retain; when no other created Form can be given which may represent the Divine Nature as it is in itself, God is pleased to Imprint an Intelligible Form of his own Essence upon the Reasonable Soul, by which God is United and made known unto us; for this is certain, 
Et Suarez. Metaphys. disp. 30. sect. 11. part. 27.  divina essentia unitur intellectui creato beatorum more speciei intelligibilis, it is the general opinion of the Schoolmen, and other Divines; See Fonseca lib. 1 Metaph. God's Image we are the sacred Histories are express; but principally in respect of our Souls; let us make man after our own Likeness, saith the Text, and again, God made Man in his own Image, in the Image of God created he him.  
Lift up now thy thoughts (O my Soul) to this thy Divine Exemplar; and think how that every perfection of the Image is placed in the Resemblance it hath with its Pattern; for though the Pattern should be deformed (such as is usually imagined of the Devil) yet the perfection of the picture is to be drawn like to that Pattern; and therefore, though the deformity in the Pattern be truly its deformity, yet the deformity in the Picture is its beauty.  
But if the Pattern itself be beautiful, the Picture than is most exact and perfect, if it imitate in its beauty, as near as may be, the beauty of its Pattern; and if every Picture had understanding, it would desire nothing more than continually to contemplate its Pattern to frame itself to its imitation, and to be made conformato it.  
God thy Pattern (O my Soul) is infinite beauty, a light in Which is no ●a●kness at all, whose brightness the Sun and Moon admire● whose brightness that thou mayst with ●ore ease imitate, his similitude desire, and by all means endeavour, in which consisteth all thy perfection. Profit, Honour, Joy, Rest, and all thy good● Know ●hat the beauty of God, thy Patter●, consisteth in Wisdom and Holiness; for as the beauty of the Body ariseth from the due proportion of the Members and pleasantness of Colour; so in this spiritual Essence the suavity of Colour is in the light of Wisdom, the proportion of Members, is in justice; But by justice is not meant any one particular Virtue, but that general which contains in it all the rest, that spiritual substance is the fairest, whose mind shines with the light of Wisdom, and whose Will is replenished with perfect justice.  
Now God thy Pattern (O my Soul) is Wisdom itself, Justice itself, and therefore is perfect beauty, and because these two are in Scripture expressed by the name of Holiness, therefore do the Angels cry on, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth; 
Isaith. 6. Levit. 11. Math. 6.  and God himself cries out to us his Image and likeness, be ye holy, for I your God am holy; and Christ in the Gospel, be you perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.  
Therefore (O my Soul) if thou the Image of God desire to be made like thy exemplar, thou must prefer Wisdom and Justice before all things; True Wisdom is to judge of all things according to the highest Cause; the highest Cause I call the Will of God, or the Law which reveals the same to men; therefore if thou love Wisdom, thou must not regard what the Law of the flesh dictateth, what Sense judgeth good, what the World allows, what kindred persuade, much less what flatterers propound; but turn thy deaf ear to these, and only hearken to the Will of the Lord thy God, judging and esteeming that the most profitable, most glorious, and most desirable good, which is most agreeable to the Will and Law of God; This is the Wisdom of the Saints, of which the wise Man Writes, 
Wisdom 7.10, 11.  I loved her before health and beauty, and chose to have her in stead of light; for the light that cometh from her never goeth out; All good things together came to me with her, and innumerable riches in her hands.  
Furthermore, Justice, which is the other part of spiritual beauty, comprehends all these Virtues which do adorn and perfect the Will, but principally Charity which is the Mother and root of all Virtues, and of which Saint Augustine saith, 
De natura & gratia cap. 70.  Charity begun is Justice begun, Charirty continued is Justice continued, Charity perfected is Justice perfected; for who so hath loved hath fulfilled the Law; for love worketh no evil, 
Chap. 3. Book. 2.  therefore love is the fulfilling of Law, as the Apostle teacheth; and contrariwise, he that keeps God's Word and Commandments, 
Rom. 13.  the love of God is perfect in this saith St. John; therefore whosoever would be like unto this Divine pattern, must obey him, saying, be ye followers of God as dear Children, & walk in love; for the Son is the Image of his Father; now the whole beauty and perfection of the Image is (as we have formerly said) to be most like the pattern. See Bellarm. de ascensione mentis in deum per scalas rerum creaturarum, gradu primo.    

CHAP. III.  
Of the knowledge which the Soul hath of Angels and Saints departed.  
THE state and condition of the Humane Soul is twofold, and so hath two several ways of Operation, two ways of acquiring knowledge, one in the body Natural in this life, another out of this body in another life; The Operation of the Soul in this life is per corpus, which is an impediment and let unto it, that it cannot exercise (as to all points) those other Actions and Operations which are Common to it and separated substances, so fully and freely as it doth out of the body; So must the knowledge of the Soul in this life especially of Immaterial substances be more imperfect and uncertain, by how much more it useth the body; For Immateriality is the cause in knowledge, and according to the degree of Immateriality is the degree to knowledge; therefore as God is said in be summè Immaterialis, so is he summè cognoscitivus; whereas on the contrary we see by common experience, by how much more any thing recedes from Immateriality, the less doth it partake of knowledge; as all Corporeal Inanimate substances, for their overmuch Materiality, have no knowledge at all: but your animalia sensitiva, Sensitive Souls, participate of a certain kind of knowledge, because they have some power over their matter, and in some measure are capable of Forms without matter; and this knowledge is called Sensitive; now the Reasonable creatures higher than they have attained to a degree of Intelligence; their knowledge is called Intellectual, because though their Souls inform the matter, they may notwithstanding subsist without the matter; so clear it is, by how much more the Reasonable Soul in this life stands in need of the body, by so much is it less knowing; but by how much more freed from the body, overcoming the imperfection of matter, by so much the more Operative, by so much the more Knowing; But because the Soul of Man so long as it is in this body, cannot exercise all its Operations out of the body, therefore the Operation & knowledge of the Soul in this life (of Spiritual and Immaterial substances especially) cannot be so full and perfect, as it is out of the body in another life; First therefore of the knowledge we have of Saints and Angels in this life.  
We have no Quidditative knowledge (as the Schoolmen call it) of abstracted forms & essences in this life; that is, such a knowledge as to define them not only with their Common but their Proper names also, even to the last specficial difference, which is the proper and positive knowledge of them; such a knowledge we have not, (which was a question started by Aristotle, but not assoiled) but a Quidditative knowledge improperly so called, to wit, a confused knowledge of some Essential predicates, but not of all, and those too by Imperfect notions, partly Common, partly Privative or Negative, not Proper or Positive, such we have; Some Essential attributes we know, which are not Proper to them, but Common with other things, as that they are essences entia realia perse existentia, substances, not accidences, that they are Incorporeal, Immaterial, Intellectual, Incorruptible spirits, of a finite power and perfection, all this hath been found out by the strength of natural Reason, heathen Philosophers have taught it, and Aristotle writes a whole Book, de deo & intellig●ntiis abstractis; wherein he acknowledgeth them to be entia realia, for as much as he grants them a being in nature; & Substances, for as much as they are per se existentes, not inhaering like accidences in any Material or Immaterial entity; if then Substance not Material nor Inhaering, they must be Incorporeal and Immaterial, and if Immaterial, then Intellectual, as hath been said, whence cometh their name Intelligen●ae, which is attributed to these spiritual essences by the heathen Philosophers, and that they are finite in power and perfection, their creation is an argument, for no created substance is infinite; but created they are, and all of them, though not all alike, in a necessary and an Essential order among themselves depending one upon another, and all upon one as head, which is God, whom Aristotle calls intelligentia prima; And thus much of the Nature and Essences of Angels and Separated Souls by the light of Nature, what they are; now of their Operations, what they do.  
The power of Angels and Souls abstracted, 
Of the power of Angels & Forms abstracted in their unstanding▪  is seen in three things (viz.) in their Understanding, in their Will, and in their External Actions and Operations; as for the power of their Understanding, for as much as we have proved them to be Intelligences Immaterial, and of an Intellectual Nature, it must needs follow they have in them the Act and Operation of knowledge, and this in a far more eminent manner than any Rational Soul in this life by it Natural strength can attain unto; we shall first speak of the Act and manner of knowing themselves, then of their Act and manner of knowing others.  

The faculty of knowing themselves.  Every created Intellectual spirit hath this power to know itself, which is not difficult to demonstrate by Natural Reason, since every Intellectual Spirit is of it own nature Intelligible, yea of itself actually Intelligible, and a proportionate Object to any Understanding, much more to it own; therefore doth eintellectual Spirit actually know itself, yea with an Intuitive, Quidditative and Comprehensible knowledge, know itself and is known by itself.  

And how.  The manner of knowledge which it hath of itself, is not (as ours in this life) per species impressas, by Intelligible Forms imprinted of some outward Object, nor (as it knows other things) per species congenitas & innatas, but it knows itself per propriam subst antiam, by its own substance; It needs no Accidental Form to represent itself by, but every spiritual substance knows itself, by its own substance, as an Adequate and proportionate Intelligible Object closely conjoined to it own Understanding; this is the way of knowing themselves.  
God is known by all Intellectual Spirits after the same manner; they know themselves by their own Substance, 
Their power of knowing God, and how.  and God by it as their Cause, Principle and Author; no other Spiritual or Corporeal substance is known this way save only God; yet is not this knowledge God of a proper Quiditative adn Comprehensive, but an Improper, Imperfect and confused Science, for God cannot properly be known, as he is in himself, of any creature, either by his Substance or proper Form, who is Incomprehensible by any finite Power, much less perfectly known by the proper substance of any Intellectual creature which is but a very imperfect Analogical representation of the Divine Nature: Therefore when it is said God is known by the proper substance of any creature, it is not to be understood of such a Quidditative knowledge, whereby he is known as he is in himself, but a knowledge of God per substantiam tanqnam per effectum, as the Cause is known by the Effect, and thus the Angelical Natures know God by their substance, yet as the Effect of such a Cause, which standeth with very good Reason; for if here we may attain to the knowledge of God in this life by Effects, if the invisible things of him from the creation of the World are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his Eternal Power and Godhead; much more, and in a more eminent manner may Angelical Spirits and Separated substances know God by their own Substances, as by Effects, for as they know their own substances, so must they know them to be Effects necessarily, and Essentially depending upon God, and so by their own Substance, as by the noblest Effect made after the Image and likeness of God, may they Naturally attain to the knowledge of their Maker.  

Of their knowing others and how.  But the knowledge which Angels and separated substances have one of another, and of other inferior creatures, is after another manner; not per substantiam, but per speciem; by Intelligible Forms; nor are these Forms imprinted by any outward Object presented to the Senses, and so to the Fantasy; but are Innate, Connatural and engendered together with their Nature, and altogether Intelligible.  

The difference twixt Sensitive, Rational, and mere intellectual knowledge.  True it is, the Sensitive knowledge is per speciem as well as the Intellectual, but perfecter the Intellectual than the Sensitive, and the Angelical perfecter than the Humane; the Sensitive creatures know nothing but per species, and those of Objects singular, it knoweth nothing of Universals; the Intellectual know per species too, but by those he understandeth Universals as well as Singulars; all à genere generalissimo ad infimam speciem; as for example, when we conceive in our mind Substance, which is the highest Genus in the Scale of the Predicaments, and understand it aright, we understand also all its Species under it, the whole with all its parts, so the Intellectual creatures know per speciem, but such as represents some Universal Nature with all its Singulars, the Genus with its Species, the whole with its parts; thus the Intellectual creatures excel the Sensitive in the manner of knowing per speciem.  
And as the Intellectual excel the Sensitive, so do they differ in excellency among themselves, the Humane from the Angelical and abstracted Intelligences, and these one from another, the Separated substances know that at once unico intuitu, by one and the same Form, (which we cannot but by many several Forms) running over the Cause with its Effects, the Universal Nature with its Singulars, with one simple aspect and apprehension, which we cannot but under many and divers Conceptions and notions; And thus much touching the Operation of the Angelical Intellect; Now of their Will and Freedom.  
Where there is Knowledge there is Desire and Appetite, where there is no Knowledge there can be no Appetite, (we speak not of that Natural propensity which is given to every thing) whereby, without any previous knowledge, they are inclined and are carried Naturally to their good, as the Earth Naturally desires the lowermost place, the Matter desires the Form, and the like, which is called appetitus naturalis, or pondus naturae, but of that which is given to living creatures, and drawn out of the Power of the Soul, and is called appetitus elicitus, even that Act and Operation of Natural Propensity, whereby every Soul that is endowed with knowledge, (according to that knowledge it hath of any thing, is drawn to affect and desire it) so that desire or Appetite is a Companion of Knowledge and concomitant; and according to the measure of knowledge, desire attends in an answerable measure; Sensitive knowledge is inferior to Intellectual, so is the desire; that which follows the Sensitive knowledge is called Appetite, that which follows the Intellectual is called Will; one follows necessarily, the other freely.  
Will then and Freedom of Will belongs to Intellectual creatures, 
Of their Will.  whether men or Angels, voluntas hominis est libera is a Philosophical rule, much more truly may it be verified of the Will of Angels, which is far perfecter; But how far this Freedom extendeth, whether unto all the Acts of Angelical Will, or that some Acts are necessary, and which those are; and whether this Freedom be to all honest and good Acts only, or it extend to wicked also; or according to the question propounded by Divines, whether Angels considered in their condition have posse peccandi, a liberty or Power to sin; this cannot be so clearly evidenced by Natural Reason.  
Though divers of the ancient Philosophers have gone very far in this point, as Plato and Socrates, and of your Poets not a few, who held that moral evil had place in Angels, and that they might do wickedly as freely as men, whereupon came the distinction amongst them of good and evil Angels; and the evil Angels they called Daemons; so that from the Effect and delusions of eull Angels, they were induced to believe that some Angels, were morally evil; and therefore to do evilly was not repugnant to the Nature of Angels.  

Of their External Opera●ions. 1 Negatively.  Now concerning the External Act and Operation of Angels, to wit, their Power and strength in working; First Negatively with Aristotle against Plato, we affirm the Angels can make no substance, nor yet any material alteration of bodies; neither by Creation nor by Generation; not by Creation out of mere nothing; nothing to produce something, all things to spring from nothing, something to be the Effect of nothing, nothing the cause of something, Natural Reason knoweth nothing of such Causes or Effects, nor is it in the Power of any created substance to create any thing, it is only the work of an omnipotent Power; Angels cannot do it, Philosophers were ignorant of it, nor doth it stand with the rules of our Faith and Christian Religion; And as Angels have not the power of Creation; so neither have they the Virtue of Generation; herein other animate creatures exceed Angelical Nature; they can beget their like, whereby their Species is preserved in the succeeding Individuals; Angels have not the seed of Generation, not to beget their like, nor yet to make any Corporeal substance either by Eduction of Form out of the power of the Matter, as Sensitive or Vegetative creatures are produced, or by substantial Union and Conjunction of Form with matter, as Rational creatures are produced; neither can they alter any Matter and fit it for the Form, without which praevious alteration of some Pre-existent Matter there can be no Generation, no Mutation or motion of matter à non esse ad esse, or ab esse ad non esse, nor yet in Alteration of Quality in the Matter, no such Mutation or motion of substance is ascribed to Angels, but an Accidental or Local motion of substances that they have.  
Then Affirmative power they have of moving of bodies by Local motion, 
2. Positively. And power of assuming bodies by Condensating and Solidating of air, when they have occasion, and laying it aside and resolving it into the same matter when they please.  a truth in Divinity as well as Philosophy; Philosophy teacheth that Angels do move Celestial bodies; the Orbs are moved by them; Every Orb hath its proper Intelligence and Angel; the primum mobile hath its Angel moving him from East to West, the rest have theirs; and this Local motion of bodies (though never so great) exceeds not the Angelical Power.  
And though every Angel moveth according to his Will, yet is this Motive Angelical power finite and limited, it hath its bounds which it cannot pass, (though he would) being bound by Laws of Divine providence; he cannot cause a Vacuum, for though he may remove one body from its place, he cannot prevent another for coming in the room.  
Thus much of Intellectual Agents is demonstrated by the light of Natural Reason; some have endeavoured also to show the number of these Agents, and this from the motion of the Heavens; affirming that every Heaven or Orb had its proper Intelligence, and so from the number of the Sphaers would gather the number of Intellectual Spirits.  
And that there are as many Angels as Sphaers is not difficult to demonstrate; But that there are no more Angels than Sphaers, or if there be more, how many more, cannot be showed by Natural Reason, nor are their certain number defined by Divine Revelation; but that there are a multitude more than those which move the Orbs, may easily be proved by the light of Reason. Aquinas brings many for the proving thereof, nor were the Heathen Philosophers ignorant hereof, as Aristotle, Plato, Heraclitus and others; And thus much of the Knowledge which the Soul of Man hath of Saints and Angels in this life.  
As for that Knowledge we have of Saints and Angels, and of ourselves in the Separated estate of the Soul, it is not inferior to other abstracted Essences, neither in the Power of knowing, nor Manner of Operation; Angels know themselves and all below them, or equal to them, with an Essential Quidditative and comprehensive knowledge, so shall we, not only by those general predicates and attributes, of Immaterial, Intellectual, Impatible, Immixed, Immortal, and the like; but with a full, perfect, Intuitive and Comprehensive knowledge of ourselves, our own Nature and Essence being actually Intelligible, and an Adequate Object to our own Understanding. Angels know themselves by their own Substance, and God by the same, so shall we; the Knowledge they have of all others, is per species, by Intelligible Forms, Innate and Aongenite, not imprinted in the mind by any External Sensible Object, such manner of Knowledge shall ours be, in nothing differing, in nothing inferior unto the Angels.  
And though sacred Writ hath been more silent and sparing in the Revelation, either of the Creation, or of the Nature and Essence, or yet of the Operations of these Angels and Spirits Intellectual (as a Doctrine less useful and necessary for Man's salvation) than of the Nature of Man or God; yet so much hath it imparted to her Disciples, as may evidence by necessary consequence the truth of this Metaphysical Science of Nature's Angelical; the Fathers and Doctors of the Church having little varied in judgement from the Curiousest Naturalist, and Philosopher in this point, all concurring in this particular, the School of Christ and School of Nature teaching one and the same thing, without any grand Variation and dissenting.  
The Creation of Angels (though holy-Churches-creed) is not where plainly pointed out in holy Writ, otherwise than in the first day's Creation under that General notion of Heaven and Earth, which may contain the whole host of Heaven, so those words, Genesis 1.1. (In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth) are by most understood (viz.) by Heaven, not only it, but all things therein contained, as Angels, and the like, whose proper seat is Heaven, which may seem to be thus also explicated by St. Paul. Col. 1.16. For by him are all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth, Visible and Invisible, whether they be Thrones, or Dominions, Principalities or Powers, (viz.) four of the Orders of Angels; further also by God himself in the 38 Chapter of Job, saying, where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the Earth— when the morning Stars sang together, and the Sons of God shouted for joy? that is to say, the holy Angels who were created together with Heaven and Earth, even in the beginning or morning of that first day, as some have hence gathered.  
Of all created substances, some were created Visible, Material, Corporeal, others were created Invisible, Incorporeal, Spiritual of their own Nature; that the Angels are such created Invisible, Incorporeal, and Spiritual substances may be gathered out of the word of God; David and Paul, Prophet and Appostle, both terming them Spirits; and if Spirits, then Invisible by Mortal eye, and then Incorporeal at least as unto Humane or other natural body of their own Nature, for so our Saviour hath resolved it, saying, a Spirit hath not flesh and bone as I have.  
And the Schoolmen have decreed and concluded, that Angels are merely Spiritual and Incorporeal substances, and no bodies or Corporeal Natures, and with them agree the Fathers, not a few, though Origen, and after him Saint Jerome would seem to maintain, that Angels as oft as they sinned and fell away, were thrust into bodies, and there remained as a punishment unto them; which opinion is exploded by all, both Ancient and Modern, as savouring of Platonism more than Christianity; Yet may we not deny but that Angels have been in bodily shapes, and so seen and appeared unto our Fathers of old; wherefore we must either grant unto them real bodies, or that they did delude and deceive the patriarchs with Phantasms and mere Apparitions, which is not to be conceived of the holy Angels; and therefore St. Bernard put a kind of necessity in it, that Angels should have bodies, otherwise how could they be ministering Spirits sent out to minister unto them who shall be Heirs of Salvation? to men who yet live in the body? how shall they perform this Ministerial Function of discoursing, of walking and talking, of eating and drinking, and the like, without a body? all which notwithstanding, Angels have done as sacred Writ accordeth.  
But it may be objected, if we do grant unto them true real Visible bodies, then must we also grant them all motions, and mutations incident to such Bodies, to wit, of Generation, Corruption, Augmentation, Diminution, Altrition & alteration, than such as may be borne, fed and nourished, may die, may suffer and the like as other corporeal Creatures do; how then are they merely Spiritual and of an Incorporeal nature.  
To which may be answered, First, 
1 Negatively.  negatively; True humane bodies Angels have not, humane nature no spiritual substance ever assumed except the Son of God the second Person in the ever blessed Trinity, of whom it is said, He took not upon him the nature of Angels, but the seed of Abraham, and by whom it is verified, A spirit hath no flesh and bone; so no humane or fleshly Bodies are ascribed to Angels.  

2 Affirmatively.  Secondly, affirmatively; True real bodies they have (not newly generate, created, or begotten, but) assumed of Air and other Elements, so condensate, consolidate, and contract together, as that it may be seen, felt, touched, etc. Beyond the very nature of Air; such a Body as is not essential, but accidental, taken up for a time, as we do put on our , and may be dissolved again at pleasure as soon as their Ministry is accomplished; now such a Body is not subject to those Mutations of Generation, Corruption, and the like, nor may it be said to die, to suffer, to feel, o feed, or the like, as a humane Body may.  
Thus is the nature of Angels Spiritual not carnal, Incorporeal not corporeal, and surpasseth the humane Nature in Understanding, freedom of Will, and external Operations. First, in Understanding, in regard of that Intuitive Vision they have of God per lumen Gloriae, (besides those superexcellent natural Endowments Intellectual of seeing God per lumen naturae) always beholding his Face, 
Vid. Hockers Eccles. pol. 1. Sect. 4. fol. 53.  as the Text expresseth, they are so acquainted with the Mind and Will of God, that Irrepercussa mentis acie divinorum judiciorum abyssum intuentur, as St. Bernard hath it; in comparison of which knowledge Angelical, all ours is but as that of Babes and Sucklings.  
Out of whose Mouth notwithstanding God hath perfected his praise, 
See Mr. Hooker his first book of Eccles. pol. Sect. 6. fol. 56.  or ordained strength, as the Psalmist hath it, here on Earth, till such time as we grow up to perfect Manhood, to the measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ, where shall be given to us little ones an equality of knowledge with the Angels, to be like unto them who always behold the Face of their Heavenly Father.  
As touching their Freedom of Will and Power of working, the Angelical far surpasseth the Humane Nature; Bellarmine puts these differences betwixt them, First, in the Power and Rule over Bodies. The humane Soul can only move his own Body at his pleasure, it cannot move others after the same sort; Again, the humane Soul moves its own Body upon the Earth in a slow motion step by step, it hath not power to bear it upon the Water, or elevate it above the Air, or carry it whither it pleaseth: but the Angels by the Power and Freedom of Will, by the mere force of their spirit, can lift up mighty Bodies, and carry them whither they please; Thus did an Angel take up Habacuc, and in a short space brought him to Babylon, with a Dinner for Daniel, and carried him back again into the Land of Palestine.  
Again, Man cannot fight with his enemies in Mind and Will only, but stands in need of Hands, Weapons and the like; but an Angel by the sole power of his Spirit, and Will, without either Hands or Arms, can both fight against, and also overcome a whole Host of Armed-men; so an Angel in one night slew of the Assyrians one hundred eighty and five thousand. Again, Man by the Art of Painting and Engraving may make such an Image of Man, so lively represented, that it may seem to live and breath, yet not without great pains and labour; but an Angel without any pains, without Hands, without Instruments, can even in an instant, as it were, so frame a Body of Elements that it shall be taken for a true humane Body of very wise Men, such a Body as can Walk, Speak, Eat, Drink, yea may be touched, handled, and washed.  
Thus Abraham prepared Meat for Angels, and washed their Feet, as th' Apostle hath it, entertaning Angels unawares, supposing they had been Men; the same which happened to his Nephew Lot, when he received two Angels into his house for Men as strangers and Travellers; so the Angel Raphael for many days together dwelled, and was conversant with Tobia the younger, Walking, Talking, and Eating, and Drinking, as if he were truly Man, and yet when he was to leave him said, I seemed to Eat and Drink with you, but I use invisible Meat and Drink, and so vanished suddenly out of their sight; a great power certainly, and an admirable, so quickly to make a Body as shall not be discerned to differ from a humane and living Body in any thing, and the same again to dissolve in a trice as oft as it pleaseth him. Again, the Soul of Man is so closely conjoined to the Body, that without it the Soul cannot move from place to place, but God hath not so tied a Body to Angelical natures, but without a Body they may most swiftly pass from Heaven to earth, from earth to Heaven again, or whither also they please.  
Thus as the Angelical Nature is next unto God in Dignity, so doth it resemble God's Omnipresence in Subtlety and Agility. God is every where by the infinity of of his being, and needs no local motion, since he is every where; Angels also do pass in so easy and swift a motion, from place to place, and have their Presence in all places, as in a sort they may be said to be ubiquitary.  
The number of these Angels are uncertain, not revealed in the Word of God, but without doubt so many as cannot well be comprised in the Art of Enumeration; millions of millions ministering unto God, and ten thousand times ten thousand standing before him; whereupon Dionysius, and with him Aquinas do conclude that the number of Angels are more than are the number of all corporeal substances whatsoever; and although their number be so infinite, yet they do every one differ amongst themselves, not only in individual number, but also in specifical form.  
Yet for all this number almost infinite, they are reduced into nine Ranks and Orders, under some of which every of them are comprehended. The first and highest Order is that of the Seraphims; secondly, Cherubins; thirdly, Thrones; fourthly, Dominions; fifthly, Principalities; sixthly, Powers; seventhly, Virtues; eightly, Archangels, and the ninth and last Angels, of all which Names we read in the holy Scriptures, by which their several Offices, Degrees and Orders are dignified and distinguished; 
Chap. 4. Book 2.  Wherefore else serve these different Names, if they signified nothing? but sure there is a difference twixt Angels and Archangels in degree, then why not twixt the rest? quid ergo sibi vult gradualis distinctio haec? saith St. Bernard upon the same subject.  
But Dionysius makes but three Orders of all, (putting three in every Order, so making a ternary of Trinities, alluding to the Sacred Trinity) viz. Three Superior, three middle, and three inferior Orders; The highest Orders are the Seraphim, Cherubin and Thrones; The middlemost Orders are the Dominions, Principalities and Powers; The lowermost are the Virtues, Archangel and Angel; but of this enough is said.   

CHAP. IU.  
Of the Knowledge we have of God, and his Attributes.  
THat which may be known of God by the strength of natural reason, is drawn from the Works of his Creation; for as the Cause is known by the Effects, so is the Creator by the Creature, the Physical Science of Causes and Effects here below brings us to a Metaphysical Knowledge of the cause of all causes, even God above, whose Deity may be seen in every place, omnia sunt de●rum plena, was the saying of Thales Milesius an ancient Philosopher thus cited by Aristotle, 
Lib. 1. De anima.  and thus said the Poets of old, Jovis omnia plena— paersentem que refert quaelibet herba deum; not the meanest of the Creatures, but manifest a Godhead. The Philosophers therefore (excepting the Epicureans, who held that this great & spacious universe was nothing else but Theatrum caeco atomorum confluxu genitum) searching out the causes of things, and finding a concatenation of them, in an orderly dependence one upon another, 
Simplicius Philoponus, Ammonius, Averrores, aliique multi viri illustres, neque numero pauciores, nec autoritate inferiores iis qui de sipere maluerint mundum à deo ut causa efficiente pendere affirmant. Scaliger.  and a necessary conjunction of every of them with their Effects (ne daretur progressus in infinitum vel circulus committendus, an absurdity in Nature, which otherwise they would run into) were forced to acknowledge one Supreme cause of all things, which was God. Plato, Aristotle, Galen, and others from hence do prove that there is a God.  
The quod sit is thus proved, the quid sit may from thence also be concluded; for when we look upon the Fabric of Heaven and Earth, we may see the Greatness and Power of God; when we behold the Governance and Guidance of all in so great a Beauty, Order and Distinction of all things, we may judge of the Wisdom, and Knowledge of God; when we consider the commodity, profit and Use of all things, we may experience the goodness and Love of God; and so we may come to know God in his Predicates and Attributes, (viz.) that he is Ens, Actus, Substantia, Vivens, Aeternus, Justus, Sapiens, etc. Yea, under such conceptions and notions as are only proper and essential to God, not agreeing with any other, may God be apprehended by us in this Metaphysical Science, (viz.) that he is Ens infinitum simpliciter, that he is Actus purus, causa prima, primus motor, immobilis, etc. And so we come to the knowledge of God, quodsit, and quid sit, both that he is, and what he is.  
Yet is not this knowledge comprehensive of him, these Motions of Gods Essential Attributes (though Proper to him, and Communicative to none beside) are not quidditative; an infinite Essence cannot so be comprehended within the Sphaer of a Finite capacity; neither know we him hereby as he is in himself, but as he is represented unto us in the Glass of his Creatures as in his Effects, which representation is very imperfect, not able to set forth the Divine Perfection; It is therefore a quidditative knowledge improperly so called, to wit, a confused knowledge of some (but not of all) Essential Predicates and Attributes proper to him.  
And hence may we learn another of God's Attributes (viz.) that he is Incomprehensible, understanding this in reference to Created substances, no created intelligence is able to comprehend him; otherwise of himself he is Comprehensible as an adequate Object of himself; for as God is said to behold himself, or to see himself in himself, so may he most properly be said Adaequately to see himself; for so we say the Soul of Man reflecting upon itself sees itself in its self; and not only the Soul of Man, but all other intellectual spirits are actually Intelligible of themselves, and a proportionate Object to their own understanding, and therefore do know themselves with an Intuitive, Quidditative, and Comprehensive Knowledge; and shall we deny this Knowledge to God, cujus intellectio reflectiturin seipsam seu in ipsum intelligentem, & qui non minus intellectivus quam intelligibilis, saith Suarez; so Comprehensive of himself, but Incomprehensible unto us, that he is and must be granted, and under that notion known to us, which is Negative Knowledge, no Quidditative or Positive Knowledge of him.  
Our Knowledge of God and his Attributes, is threefold, Negative, Relative, or Positive, our Negative conceptions of God are under these Attributes or Predicates of Infinite, Incomprehensible, Immortal, Increate, Immutable, Independent, and the like; our Relative notions are under the Predicates of Creator, Governor, Maker, and Pattern, etc.  
The Positive are under the Predicates of Being, Act, Substance, Eternal, Just, Wise, etc.  
Now our best Knowledge of God in this life is by Negation, and is preferred before our Positive notion of God, both by Dionysius and St. Augustine, as Suarez hath observed, and he gives the Reason, Because (saith he) if we desire to know any proper and absolute Attribute of God, and not that which is common, Analogical, or Relative, we understand it easilier and more distinctly by what God is not, than by what he is; and that is by these Negations of Infinite, Immortal, Incomprehensible, Immutable, Immense, and the like; that is to say, God is not Finite, not Comprehensible, not Mutable, not Circumscriptive, etc.  
For to know what God is not, sufficeth any one Negative Attribute which is proper to him; as for example, God is Independent, that is to say, not depending on any, by which very Attribute all created Substances whatsoever are excluded, and God is known by this as Proper to him alone; and thus we come to God easily by knowing first what he is not; whereas if we go about to know what God is by Positive and Absolute Attributes, we must then run over all the Attributes of God which are both infinite in number and perfection; upon which consideration, Cicero in his first Book of the Nature of the Gods, hath these words; Dost thou ask me (saith he) what God is? I will answer with Simonides, who being demanded the self same question by Hieron, a Tyrant, desired a day to consider of it, and being demanded the next day, he craved two days longer, and still as the question was pressed he doubled the time for his answer, Hieron wondering, asked for what intent he did so, because (saith he) the longer I consider on it, the obscurer it is to me, rectè autem dixit obscurior, saith Fonseca, for suppose you should know some Attributes of God, there remains an infinite number more to be known, nor is there any one at all which may be understood as it is proper to God, but as it is Analogically common to God and the creatures.  
Wherein Nature hath been lame, and Reason blind, the Scriptures have afforded us both staff and prospective, by which as it were setting us upon the Pinnacle of the Temple, we may walk and view the Almighty, not only in his works, his back parts, but even in his face, to wit, in his Nature and Essential being.  
O how hath it pleased God (O my Soul) to manifest himself unto thee in the sacred Scriptures, that by knowing of him thou might'st learn to fear him, to love him, to obey him, and to believe and trust in him for thy own healths sake and Eternal felicity?  
1. God reveals himself to be causa prima, the first of all Causes, and himself without all causes, having both being & beginning from himself; I am Alpha and Omega (saith God of himself) the first and the last, even so to the creatures as these two Letters are to the Greek Alphabet; Alpha is the first, Omega the last of the Greek Letters, God is both to every creature, Alpha the first, Omega the last of every Entity; Blasphemously impious then were those of the Classical Consistory, who demanded why there was a God; since no cause can be given, neither indeed can there be any; for could there be any Cause of him, it must be before him and better than he, and consequently God, which is impossible.  
2. God reveals himself to be Infinite in Power, not limited, not bounded, he is, an Almighty and omnipotent God, 
Genes. 2. Psal. 132.  so Isaac in his blessing of his Son Jacob, styles him saying, God Almighty bless thee, so David calls him, the Almighty God of Jacob; again, most high and Almighty, Psal. 91. the Scriptures are full of this Attribute of God, being seaventy times therein expressed as some have observed, and being further evidenced unto us, both by his Internal and External Actions, in his Operations ad intra before all time, and his Operations ad extra in time; In holy Scriptures is set forth unto us a Theological Science of God's omnipotency, even in his Operations ad intra, which are those of Begeting, Breathing, and Proceeding, and this is a Science purely Theological, not acquired by Humane Invention, not Investigable by Natural Reason, not Attainable by any rules of Philosophy, only delivered us in a Mystery which we must look into with the eye of Faith, not with an eye of Reason; it is a Science Supernatural, non ratione probanda, sed fide tenenda; we must not go to prove it by Mathematical demonstrations, but by Theological principles and rules of Faith; a curious search is not so safe, as humble ignorance; we may not pry into the manner of the Eternal Generation of the Son by the Father, or Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, thus much only is necessary to be believed, that there is a person begetting, a person begotten, and a person proceeding, a Trini- of Persons in the Unity of a Godhead, distinct according to the several relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost, which in a sense are included, and may be gathered from this power and Internal Operation of God, Begetting and Breathing.  
And these Operations ad intra (viz.) generandi & spirandi, in such an Ineffable Incomprehensible manner, argues an omnipotency Divine, and Power infinite in all the branches of Infinity; but unwilling I am to wade too far into this Mysterious point, this bottomless Ocean of God's Internal Workings, but rather to view it a far off as it is dispersed into Smaller and Shallower Rivulets, and treat of God's Power in his Works ad extra.  
All things were made of God, and without him nothing, from the highest Angel to the meanest Worm, from the highest Heavens to the profoundest Abyss; this Work of Creation is Wonderful, and argues an infinite perfection of Power, whether we respect the Magnitude, Multitude, or Variety of things created, the Magnitude is seen in the greatness of the Earth, who hath measured the breadth of the Earth, and the depth of its Abyss? saith Ecclesiasticus So great it is that a great part of it lies yet undiscovered, yet this Vast Earth being compared to Heaven, is but as a point or prick, (for so have Astrologers observed) wherein so many thousand Stars do shine, the least whereof is bigger than the Earth; the Multitude of things is seen, if we consider but the Sand of the Sea, and drops of rain, the Multitude of Minerals lie buried in the Earth, the several sorts of Grass, Herbs, Fruits & Plants upon the Earth, the number of Men, Stars and Angels, besides the innumerable sorts, forms and Individuals of living creatures, going, creeping, swimming, flying, and the variety of things in this Multiplicity, even in every Individual of every kind is wonderful, Man from Man differing in shape and feature, and one Star differing from another in glory; yet all this great Universe with the Infinite number & variety of things therein contained, to be made of nothing, of no preexistent matter, yea and in nothing, & all this in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, to be created, and as speedily and easily to be dissolved, argues an Almighty and omnipotent God; Nor are his works less wonderful in that Mysterious but Fundamental point of our belief, the Resurrection of the body, after so many Revolutions of days and years, being turned to dust and ashes, this dust dispersed into the four quarters of the World, or turned into other bodies, being eaten up of wild Beasts, or devoured by men, such as Cannibals who feed on man's flesh; yet these same bodies, Millions of Millions, however dispersed or transformed, in the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the Trumpet, to arise, the selfsame Soul to be reunited to the selfsame body, the same Individual Form to reinform the same Numerical matter, argues an Omnipotent hand and Almighty Power, which God both can and will bring to pass, so doth the Catholic Church profess.  
Nor is God's Almighty Power manifested only in these created beings which have or shall have a being in Nature, real Existencies do not Adequate God's Omnipotency, but it extends to all kind of beings whatsoever, to all Negative and Privative beings, as Darkness, Blindness, and the like, quae inhaerent entibus realibus, without which they subsist not; and so have a being in Nature Formally, yet not a Positive, but Privative being; to all Imaginable beings, mere entia rationis, which have no being in Nature in any sense, but only in the Intellect; to all possible things, entia possibilia, though never Future, all things whatsoever are absolutely, simply, and generally possible to be done, 
In his Book of God's omnipotency.  saith Doctor Preston, under which those things which never shall come into real being, those things which may be, but never shall be, Contingents possible, though never Future are comprehended, those things which are impossible with Man, are notwithstanding possible with God so saith our Saviour, for with God nothing is impossible, so said the Angel, non erit impossibile apud deum ullum verbum, so is the Original, where by (verbum) significatur id quod ment concipi potest ut factibile saith a Schoolman, all that is imaginably possible to be done, 
Non potest facere praeterita, ut non fuerint, necres dum est ut non fit. Suar. Disp. 30.  and implies not a Contradiction, falls with the Omnipotency of God, and though God cannot do contradictions, though something there is that is impossible for God to do, as to lie, to deny himself, to call back yesterday, that is to say, things that are past, that they should not be, nor any thing that is whilst it is make it otherwise than it is, he cannot make truth fashood, and the like; yet this is not through a weakness and defect of his Power, 
Lib. 6. Episto. 39  for so hath Saint Ambrose resolved it; istud impossibile non infirmitatis est, sed virtutis ac majestatis, it argues the greater perfection of Power, even as Infallibility is not the imperfection, but perfection of Knowledge, and to have no freedom to sin, is not an imperfection, but perfection of freedom of Will.  
3. 
God's Eternity.  God's Eternity and Immortality also is clearly set forth in holy Writ, so Saint Paul, to the King Eternal, Immortal, and only wise God, etc. But thou wilt happily reply, (O my Soul) that this Attribute appertaineth to thee, and therefore not appropriate to God alone, who art also of an Immortal, Invisible, Immaterial Nature, as hath been elsewhere proved, a simple Essence void of Composition, or such matter which is subject to Dissolution, Death and Destruction; and true it is, 
Patet hic quomodo avum differat à tempore & aeternitate, à tempore quidem ratione finis quaem tempus habet avum non habet; ab aternitate ratione principii quod avum habet aepernitas vero non habet.  yet know thou a difference twixt Eternity simply so called, and that which is improperly so called, or betwixt Duration Increate, and that which is Create, or inter aevum & aeternitatem, age & eternity; there was a time when thou wast not, and when thou wast thou camest to that being by the pleasure and will of God, who can as easily (when it pleaseth him) reduce thee to nothing again, though thou hadst no principles of corruption in thee; but God was from everlasting Immortal, and remains Immortal to perpetuity, and this of Necessity and Intrinscical Nature; for it is impossible for him who is the cause of all causes, life and being itself, and the Fountain both of being and life, by any means whatsoever to come to nothing, but as he was from Eternity, so to continue to Eternity. For this Attribute of God's Eternity is a duration Increate, which implies a Negation of all such Created Durations and Permanencies, as consist of a continual Succession and flux of time, for in God's duration is no Succession, so hath Boetius defined it, interminabilis vitae tota simul & perfecta possessio, where by (tota simul) is excluded all Succession, which though it have a Totality of being, yet is not altogether or all at once, there is no such differences of time past and time future in Eternity, all is present with God, no time past or any time to come, but all in the present tense, my Father worketh hitherto, and I work, and again, this day have I begotten thee, though it was from Eternity, before all times, years, and days, for Eternity with God is no more than this instant with us; wherefore, although our Souls may in a sense be called Eternal, Immortal, etc. yet it is said of God by way of Eminency, which is not appropriate to any other, who only hath Immortality, etc.  
And though God be Eternal both in Essence and in his Operations, yet we, 
Etsi enim aeternitati dies & annos attribuimus id tamen facimus nostri melioris intellectus causâ. Sennertus.  who are compact of Succession, and are not perfect all at once, neither in being nor in working, but stand in need of time coming to supply what was Wanting in time past, cannot speak nor think of God's Eternal being and workings as they are in themselves, but according to our capacity, comparing time with time, so conceipting a real or at least an Imaginable Succession of time, so we say God was, because we conceive him Coexisting with time past, God is, because Existing with time present, and is to come, because of his being with all times, and beyond all times to come, whereas in God, is, neither was, no will be nor flux of time, but all present, yea Eternally present both God in his being and in his Operations, God is from Eterntiy, and all the Acts and Operations of God are from Eternity  
And though God is said (and truly so) to have done many things in time, as to have created Man in the beginning of time, so have sent his Son in the fullness of time, etc. which implies a Succession, and no simple duration of God, as to his Operations, yet are these works ad extra, which are manifested to us in time, no breach of true Eternity, though they admit of Succession and Variation, God's Eternal workings in time manifested to us, hinder not Gods Internal workings before all time; the World and every thing therein were from Eternity, as unto God to whom all things are present, and were Eternally so, though manifested to us by the creation, which is ad extra, to be in the beginning of time.  

God's immutability.  4. Which brings us to another Attribute of God, whereby he is pleased to make himself known unto us, to wit, his Immutability, I am God (saith he of himself) and change not, yesterday and to day, and the same for ever, with whom is no Variation nor shadow of change, neither Substantial nor Accidental; no Substantial, for God is a necessary, being and impossible for him to be otherwise than he is, therefore cannot admit of any Substantial change; nor yet any Local change, since God by the Infinity of presence, and Immensity, is in every where, and there is no place where God is not, so cannot be said to move or change from place to place; nor yet is he changeable in his Acts and qualities, those mutations which may seem to happen in respect of his Divine workings ad extra, when God makes any thing which was not formerly made, argues no more Mutability in God, than the making them in time, argues a Temporal Succession and no simple Eternity in God, as hath been said before, for this Mutation à non esse ad esse is not in God but in the Creature, not in the Agent but Patient, for an Action Transient and External as this is, makes a Mutation or change in the Creature, but not in God, and though there are no External workings or Actions Transient, but flow ab intra, from Immanent Actions of God, yet argue they no Mutation in God, since as they proceed from some Immanent Act of God, so are they Eternal and Immutable in him.  
Again, some Acts of Gods are necessary, as those whereby he loves himself, some are free, as those whereby he loves the Creatures, those things which God knows and Wills necessarily those he knows & loves Immutably; of such Acts of God there can be no dispute, but they may stand with God's Immutability, but how the free Acts of God, as his freedom of loving or not loving his Creatures, can stand with Divine Immutability is the grand question, which here we will omit to resolve, intending briefly to assoil this doubt in the Metaphysical part of the Subsequent Chapter.  

God's Immensity or Infinity of presence.  5. Immensity is another Attribute whereby God is made known unto us in the Scriptures; Great is our God above all Gods, who made Heaven and Earth, and filleth Heaven and Earth, and yet Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens is not able to contain him, God is every where present, yet is contained no where, but is above all, and in all, and through all, as the Apostle speaks; in every place God is present, not Virtually only, but Really and Substantially, the very Essence of God is diffused into all parts of the World, as the Soul is in the body Indivisible, and wholly, not only in an Indivisible point, but a Divisible and Expatiated Circumference, for if we grant this manner of real presence to Inferior and Imperfecter Substances, as to the Soul of Man, we may not deny it to more Noble and Superior Natures, as to Angels, much less to the Divine Nature, to be whole in the whole, and whole in every part of the whole, in all places real or Imaginary whole, for where God is not, there is nothing, and where there is nothing he is in himself.  
For suppose we more Worlds and more Heavens, yea imagine we infinite numbers of them more, (all which fall within the compass of God's infinite Power) there could not be any Imaginable place throughout them all which Gods presence did not fill; for if his Power extend to the making, his presence will extend to the filling of all, otherwise God would be less Infinite in being than in working, existendo quam agendo, which is impossible, since all the Attributes of God are Infinite, and in infinitis non datur magis & minus; this serves to show the Immensity of God's Essence, the Infinity of his presence, which is not limited to any place Real nor Immaginary space, is incapable of Terms, can neither be Circumscribed nor defined in the Predicament of ubi, for as the Spirit of God witnesseth, There is no end of his greatness, magnitudinis ejus non est numerus; so the Latin renders it, so all the Fathers Unanimously teach, Nazianzen, Athanasius, Hilary, Damascen, Hieron, Ambrose, and lastly St. Bernard, de consideratione lib. 5. speaks of the length and breadth, the height and depth, which is in God, who is incomprehensible, since no place can contain him, and yet there is no place but where he is, nusquam est qui non clauditur loco, & nusquam non est qui non excluditur loco; God is not where, because concluded in no place, and God is every where because excluded from none.  
6. God is ens simplex & actus purus, and this simplicity is sufficiently manifested in holy Writ; I am that I am saith God to Moses, and again, I am hath sent me unto you, that is (as Doctor Preston hath it) a pure Act, all being, whole, entire, a simple and Uniform being without parts, accidents or any Composition, not like to the Creatures, for the best of them, although they have not a Substantial and Physical simplicity, i. e. no● compounded of Matter and Form, nor consisting of Integral parts, yet a Metaphysical and Accidental Composition they have and no simplicity, for as much as they are compounded of Essence and Existence, of Act and Power, or of Actions and Qualities, which, whatsoever it be called, cannot he said of God, who is a simple and Indivisible Essence, whose Essence is his Existence, and whose Act is Power, Power in God is neither objectiva nor passiva, such distinctions are not in God, whose Power is purè activa, and all that is in God is but one God, so do those words impart (viz.) I am that I am, as much as to say, whatsoever is in me it is myself, in God is nothing but himself, nihil in se nisi se habet, saith St. Bernard, hear him further, But God is a Trinity, what then? do we overthrow God's Unity by confessing a Trinity, no, but we confirm the Unity, we acknowledge the Father, and so the Son, and so the Holy Ghost, yet not three Gods but one God, what means this number and no number, as I may so speak? For if three, how is it not a number? And if but one, where then is the number? But I have (sayest thou) both what I may number and what I may not, the Substance is one, the Persons are three, and what Rid or Mystery lies in this? none at all, if we may divide the Persons from the Substance, but since these three Persons are that one Substance, and that one Substance those three Persons, who can deny a number, for they are truly Three, yet who can call a number that is but truly One? Or if thou hast as thou thinkest sufficiently numbered them by professing three, what dost thou number? Their Natures? That's but one, their Essence? It's but one, their Substance? It's but one, their Godheads? It's but one, but thou wilt say, I number not these, but the Persons, which are not that one Nature, that one Substance, one Essence, and that one Godhead, Thou art a Catholic and mayst not profess this.  
The Catholic Faith believeth the properties of the Persons is no other than the Persons themselves, and that the Persons are no other than one God, one Divine Nature, Substance, and Supreme Majesty, reckon therefore if thou canst, either the Persons without the Substance which they are, or the properties without the Persons, which they are.  

Qui duplici impietate & numerum trinitati minuit, & tribuit unitati. Bernard. Epist. 190. fol. 1581. G.  Or if any go about to divide and sever the Persons from the Substance, or the Properties from the Persons, I know not how the Trinity will own him for a Worshipper— we may therefore acknowledge Three, but not to prejudice the Unity, and acknowledge One, but not to confound the Trinity; This is a great Mystery and a sacred; if any would know how this Plurality is in Unity, or Unity in Plurality, I answer, it is rashness to search, Piety to believe, life everlasting to know.  
7. To these we may add another Attribute appropriate to God, by which he is made known unto us in his Word (viz) his Invisibility, where it is expressed as in the place before mentioned, To the King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, and only wise God; no man hath seen God at any time, neither indeed can see him with Mortal eye, and though this manner of Invisibility be not the proper Attribute of God, & so doth not sufficiently set forth the Divine perfection, being common also to all Spiritual Substances, as well the Rational Soul in this life, as Souls abstracted and Spirits Intellectual; for as much as no Spirit is Visible with Corporeal eyes; yet God in a more eminent manner is Invisible. There is a twofold sight, one of the body, another of the mind, the light of the body is the Eye, the light of the mind, Understanding; with the bodily eye no Spirits can be seen, but with the eye of the mind they are Visible, not properly and fully in this life; we know not any thing but per species impressas, by Intelligible Forms imprinted in our Understanding from some sensible Objects; not our own Souls, much less those purer Intellectual Natures; But the Intellectual Spirits and separated Souls do see themselves and other Created Substances though Superior, and so are they Visible with an Intuitive Vision from Innate and Connatural Forms; which way notwithstanding God is not Visible to any Created Intellect; And thus Invisibility comes to be Appropriate to God alone, and not Communicative to any besides; no Created Substance can see God as he is in himself by any Natural way of Created Intuitive Vision of the Understanding, without the infusion of some other Supernatural Endowments; which agrees with the rules of our Faith, and of Sacred Writ, professing God to be Invisible, and to dwell in an unaccessable light.  
Yet may we not otherwise but according to Catholic Faith believe that God is Visible too.  
1. He is Visible to himself, as he is Comprehensible of himself, because he is equally Intelligent and Intelligible, non minus Intellectivus quam intelligibilis, as hath been elsewhere said, therefore Visible in respect of himself, though Invisible in respect others.  
2. Visible in respect of others, (viz.) all the blessed Saints, and Angels; these enjoy a full Fruition and Beatifical Vision of him; not a glimpse as I may say, or some Created brightness and illumination in a glass, & per aenigma, either in the glass of his Creatures as Naturalists with the eye of Reason, or in a more Spiritual glass, as Christians with an eye of Faith, in this Vale of tears may behold him; but face to face, clearly and as he is in himself Intuitively not in any Natural Created light, but by an eye and light of glory unexpressibly Supernatural, by which God is pleased to convey Intelligible Forms of his own Essence unto us; which Vision is meant and signified by Saint John in his 1. Epistle. 3.2. We shall see him even as he is (viz.) in a glorified estate, per lumen gloriae, by a light of glory unexpressible.   

Of the Knowledge and Will in God  
CHAP. V.  

Chap. 5. Book 2.  WE have treated of God and his Attributes, which are of the Essence of God; we come now to treat of the Knowledge and Will in God, (as much as may be known by Natural and Metaphysical Reason) which by Analogy to things created (though there be nothing in God but is of his Essence, for quicquid in deo est deus est, yet) in a peculiar manner we shall here handle as Faculties and Operations, and not as those which are of his Essence.  
That in God there is Knowledge is so plain and evident by Natural light, that none of the Philosophers who acknowledge a God hath ever denied it; Aristotle in his Metaphysics and Ethics affirms it, proving it further from the Immateriality of God; the more Immaterial any thing is, the more Intellectual, as we have formerly said, now God is summè immaterialis, therefore is he summè cognoscitivus.  
Again, from the Effects and Works of God in this World; the order and beauty that is in them manifesteth they were produced both by an Intellectual and free Agent, 
Vnus hic mundus satis superque de monstrat deum esse summè bonum, quiá sponte id fecit quod non tenebatur facere; summè potentem, quia potuit ex nihilo facene quod voluit; summè sapientem, quia tam, admirabiliter & sapienter omnia fecit.  which opinion was generally received of all Philosophers after Anaxagoras and Hermotinus Clazomenius, who were the first that taught it, as Plato and Socrates, yea and Aristotle in 1 Metaphys. cap. 3. affirm.  
This Knowledge in God, according to himself must needs be Infinite, for so in the precedent Chapter hath been proved; the Knowledge & the Object known are Adequate and Proportionate the one to the other; the Object is Infinite, such therefore must the Knowledge be; and this is called God's Knowledge Essential.  
Besides, there is a Knowledge of God External, and this is also Infinite, & intensiuè & extensiuè, as the Schoolmen term it; by which is set forth unto us that Infinite perfection which this Knowledge hath even in all the conditions and properties incident to perfect Knowledge; for first it is most clear and evident, secondly most certain, thirdly most infallible, with a most perfect and simple aspect beholding every truth as it is in itself, and judging of every truth (though in themselves not equal) according to the measure of Verity that is in every of them; some being Increate truths, some Create, some Mediate, others Immediate, some Necessary, some Contingent truths; yet all these Varieties fall within this Infinite Knowledge which seethe every Verity according to the state in which it hath Determination and Certitude, and judgeth thereof according to the measure and degree of truth that is in every of them.  
And this resolves the doubt which some have made how a Future Contingent (which may or may not be) can be foreknown, (since till it come to pass it is not determined to a being or no being, till which there can be no determinate truth in either proposition; which was Aristotle's argument, from whence is concluded, that even God himself could not foreknow either part, to wit, the Affirmative or Negative of such Future Effects as determinately true; for what is not true is not knowable, for truth is the Object of Knowledge, and therefore what is not determinately true cannot be known as determinately true, so God hath no certain and infallible Knowledge of such Contingencies future:) For this doth not hinder but that such Contingencies may be certainly known even before they have any being, at least with that Knowledge which according to its all Infinite and Eternal verity comprehends all times, and every Object knowable, and beholds them as they are in themselves, in the self same manner, and according to the measure of truth they have in them.  
Neither doth this certain and Infallible Knowledge of Future Contingencies destroy the Nature of a Contingent; for God doth infallibly know Contingent Effects under the notion of contingency, as well as necessary Effects under the notion of necessity, without the destruction of either, without any change or Alteration of the Object; otherwise that Knowledge is grossly deceived that knoweth any thing to be Contingent, when by the very Knowledge such Contingent Effects cease to be Contingent, and forthwith become Necessary.  
Besides, Knowledge is not a Cause, but rather a Consequent of a future Event, for scientia nil ponit in re, it adds no necessity to the being of the thing known, though it may add certitude to itself, for that's the perfection of Knowledge; the ground of Science is not necessity but certainty.  
And for the Will which is in God by the like argument it may be proved; for God is an Intellectual Agent, so hath been said; and there is no Intellectual Agent but worketh for some end, and is also determinate to that work by some Appetite, will and desire; hereupon the ancient Philosophers laid it down for a rule, mentem & amorem esse causam mundi efficientem; according to those Verses quoted by Aristotle, 1 Metaphys. cap. 4. out of Hesiod and Parmenides, to prove this Assertion; Aristotle besides every where affirming that God worketh intelligendo & volendo.  
God as he is an Intellectual, so is he a a free Agent, all his Operations ad extra are freely and willingly done, not driven on by any necessity of Nature; True it is, the love wherewith he loves himself is necessary, arising from the dignity of the Object and necessity of it; God as he is summum, so is he necessarium bonum, which being the Object of his Will cannot but be willed necessarily ex necessitate naturae, himself being the Object of his Will, necessitates his Will to love him; voluntas divina etiam naturaliter ac necessario vult suum principale objectum, saith Suarez; But there is not the like necessity in any created Object to compel God's goodwill unto it, but so to love it as he may also not love it; Though it was the opinion of certain Philosophers of the Sect of the Stoics, who held, That all things here below were Ruled and Governed by a certain Fate; and though they denied not that the Order of these Secundary Causes proceeded from the goodwill of God, Yet they Attributed thereunto a necessity altogether Inevitable, even in respect of God, because they supposed that God did order and work all things ex necessitate naturae; 
* Deum liberè, nec ex necessitate naturae agere & liberimè hunc mundum produxisse rationi humanae contrarium non est, cum enim deus sit ens perfectissimum à nullo dependens nullius indigens sibi ipsi sufficiens, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & (quam vocem pulchrè excogitavit Scal. ex. 365. sect. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; nullam creaturam dei voluntas necessario appetet, nullamque ne●●ario producer, nec ulla re cogetur ejus potestas, sed ipse liberimè vult, po●uis●etque sivol●●sset mundum hunc vel longè ante producere, vel post, vel planè non Sennertus  But clear it is by Natural Reason, that as God works knowingly, so he Acts willingly and freely; for is freedom of Will an Essential and necessary Concomitant of all created Intellectual creatures, whether Angelical or Humane, and shall we deny it in God? This freedom of Will in God may be proved from the effects of Divine Power. Ask we therefore why God made no more Worlds than one; or the Angels, wherefore he Created in such a number and not in a greater or lesser multitude, and the like, the resolve must be either that he could not, or he would not; to say he could not, must exceedingly Derogate from God's Power, which we have heretofore sufficiently manifested to be Infinite; to say he would not, is to grant him freedom of Will, and that whatever he doth, he doth not necessarily but freely.  
Nor is not God therefore free because he is Immutable, as some would thence conclude so, for Immutability and freedom of Will in God will very well stand together, and it is no more than to say God is Immutably free; for that necessity which comes from God's Immutability, thwarts not Gods Will, but necessarily infers this perfection of Will (which we call freedom) to be as unchangeable as his other Attributes, of Wisdom, Goodness, Power and Eternity are; nam ineo quod deus semel liberè decrevit immutabilis permanet, saith Suarez; so to speak in reference to this present time, and according to our capacities, God necessarily willeth now, what formerly he did Will; but this is necessitas ex supposi ione, or immutabilitatis, though to speak properly, there is neither time past nor time future with God, to say he hath willed or shall Will; But God doth Will and Will freely from Eternity, and to Eternity abideth in the same freedom Immutably.  
This Metaphysical Science of God's free Will in all things agreeth with the Faith which Holy Church professeth; the Scriptures every where are plain and full; not Metaphorical, but Literal and proper, and so are understood by the Fathers, He doth what ever pleaseth him; and again, Who worketh all things according to the Counsel of his own Will; whereby it is evident, that the Power and Will of God are two distinct things; he doth not what ever he can do, but he doth whatever he pleaseth; so that the Effects of God are the Effects of his Will, God willeth what he doth, and doth what he willeth; to do which is an Act Extrinsecal, is an Effect of his Will and love which is Intrinsecal.  
Though there are and have been some Stoics in the Church of Christ as well as in the School of Nature, who have maintained that all things fall out by such an Intrinsecal necessity, that even God himself could not have made things otherwise than they are made, nor Govern otherwise than he doth Govern.  
And however few have been so bold as to call thus in question the Infinite Power of the Supreme Cause, yet have many laid an Inevitable necessity upon all Secundary Causes and Effects, even the Liberal Actions of men and Angels; saying, all things are Necessary in respect of God's decree, nothing can fall out Contingently; It is impossible for aught that is, not to have been, for aught that hath been, not to have been, for aught that is, not to be, for aught that shall be hereafter that shall not be.  
But there are Contingencies in Nature, some things that might have fallen out otherways than they do or shall, as well as there are some things which could not fall out otherways than they have done; we speak not only of those  Contingencies which proceed from Natural Causes, (for those come not from the Power (but rather from a defect and weakness of the Power) of their Immediate Cause, which toughit work necessarily, is notwithstanding unable to resist the Counter-workings of all other Causes conducing to that effect, and so produceth an Effect praeter intentionem suam, which therefore is called Contingent) but also of those  Effects which flow from a Cause, that of it own  Power and Virtue is able to give contingency to them, as being not determinate to one Effect, but is inspired with Variety of choice, and this is the Prerogative of all Rational and Intellectual Agents, yet none of these that fall out praeter intentionem dei, besides the mind and Will of God; he willeth Contingencies as well as Necessities.  
Nor do they fall out extra scientiam dei, God's infinite Knowledge comprehends them all, those which are in their own Nature absolutely Contingent, are not Casual in respect of his Providence and Eternal Wisdom; in that he comprehends the number of all means possible, and can mix the several possibilities of their miscarriage in what degree or proportion he list; he may, and oftentimes doth Inevitablely forecast the full accomplishment of his proposed ends by multiplicity of means in them themselves not Inevitable but Contingent, thus Doctor Jackson.  
And though some Theologists as well as Naturalists have or do question how there can be a certain Knowledge of a Future Contingent; I answer.  
1. All Contingencies are Finite, but God's Knowledge is Infinite, therefore must they needs be swallowed up and comprehended in that Infinite, Infinite not to be Incomprehensive of them.  
2. Infinite and Eternal Knowledge hath Coexistence with all times, therefore the Futurition is no impediment; with God is no distinction of times, flux of time belongs to the Creature; he knoweth all things in aeternitate sua, as we do in praesenti tempore; our instant is God's Eternity; all things are present before him, and Eternally present.  
So Contingents (future in respect of us, not of God) do fall within this Infinite Eternal and Infallible Knowledge, and not only Contingents future, but Contingents possible, though never future, as in the case of Keilites, Sam. 23.11, 12. God did as certainly know that the Keilites would have delivered David to Saul, if he had stayed in their City, as that David should thence departed and be safe.  
Therefore the prescience of God is most certain and infallible of Future Events of what kind soever: but this proceeds not from a necessity of the Event, but from the Infinity of his Science.  
3. God's Knowledge is as large and extends as far as his Power, otherwise it should not be Infinite; but God's Power extends to Contingent Effects, to all that may be, as to all that must be, to all that never shall be, as to all that necessarily will be, to all possible Effects though they never come to pass, as to those that are already accomplished; for God's Power which is Infinite cannot be determined to produce all it can of itself, but in that it produceth these Effects rather than other, makes some entia realia, others only entia possibilia, is merely by the determination of his Will and Knowledge; therefore entia possibilia, such are all Future Contingents, fall within the prescience of God, and are certainly known of him.  
He calleth things that are not, as though they were, saith the text, & the Psalmist, thou knowest my thoughts afar off; God is a searcher of the heart and trier of the reins, the desires of the soul, & thoughts of the heart are not hid from him; he long before knows all the free and voluntary acts of men, and certainly can foretell the Event of every Future Contingent; this is by Virtue of that Infinite Knowledge which is proper to God alone. Prevision and Prediction of Contingent Effects none is capabel of but God alone, and those to whom God is pleased to reveal it; and therefore though the Prophets of old have foretold (as we may read in holy Writ) of many effects of this Nature, which most truly and certainly came to pass; yet it was not they, but God in them foretold them, 
Luk. 1.70.  so saith Zacharie in his Benedictus; As he spoke by the mouth of his Prophets since the World began, and St. Peter in his 2. Epist. 1.21. Prophesy in old time came not by the Will of men, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.  
The Devils have formerly spoken in Oracles, and taken upon them to foretell such Future Events; but this is above the Nature of any Angel; a Conjectural Knowledge they may have at the best (such as a Mariner by his long Experience may foretell of the Wind, the Husbandman of rain, the Physician of diseases, and the like) by which the Devils have presumed to foretell such things to come, in which also often they have both deceived themselves and others.  
And where this Knowledge could not be attained, wherein they could have no probable conjecture of Future Events, they have in Oracles uttered Amphibologiously, and in a double meaning, that so (if the Event proved otherways) the fault might be imputed to the Misinterpretation, and not to the Prediction; But a certain Knowledge of a Future Contingent that they have not, it is only proper to God.  
Your Astrologers, Genethlialogists, 
Vide Sennertum lib. 2. cap. 2. fol. 34. a & b.  and other such Diviners, who (like God's Apes) take upon them to imitate him in such Predictions, are here to be derided and rejected as Impostors and deluders of mankind; since they pretend not to Divine Revelation and Inspiration of God, from whom alone such Effects do come to be certainly known.  
The consideration hereof may make us with the Apostle cry out, and say, O the depth of the riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God; Great is the Lord, and great is his Power, yea and his Wisdom infinite; sapientiae ejus non est numerus.  
Stand thou in Admiration and Adoration of this Knowledge of God (O my Soul) & say with the Prophet David, such Knowledge is too wonderful form (O God) I cannot attain unto it: for of such Knowledge doth the Prophet David there speak, (viz.) of the Knowledge of Future Cogitations, saying, thou knowest my thoughts afar of; not such as there already are, but such as shall be hereafter, nor such as shall be, but such as may not be hereafter also.  
Now the heart of Man is deep and unsearchable (profundum & inscrutabile, saith the Steptuagint) and who can know it? It is answered, I the Lord which search the heart and try the Reins; this makes the Psalmist cry out; such knowledge is too wonderful for me.  
If we but cast in our mind the number of all mankind that have been since the Creation of the World living upon the face of the Earth, and add thereto the number of those that are, with those that shall be conversant upon the Earth before the Consummation of this Universe, and we shall find they will not fall within the number of Arithmetic; Millions of Millions, and ten thousand times ten thousand are not the one half of them. Let us withal cast in our mind, the several various thoughts and desires of the heart which this day and night hath passed us, thee and me, much less the thoughts of every man's particular heart since the beginning of the World throughout the whole course of his life; we are not able to recount them; yet (such is the infiniteness of his Wisdom and Knowledge) that God in the Book of his Remembrance hath the number of all, with the names of every one that hath been, or now are, from the beginning of the World to this very instant, with a Register of all, and every one of their Thoughts, Words, and Actions, of what Nature soever, or how secretly soever committed; nor only so, but every man's thoughts and imaginations of heart that shall be, nay more, every thought that may be (though it never be) fall within the compass and comprehension of this infinite knowledge of God; the thoughts which are not in thy heart (O my Soul) but furthest from thee, nay and against thy mind as loathsome to retain, are known to God.  
It was not in Hasaels' heart to kill his Master, to take the strong holds of the Children of Israel and set them on fire, to slay the young men with the sword, to dash their Children, & rip up their women with child; when he answered the Prophet, What? is thy Servant a dog, that he should do these great things? nor was it in Peter's heart, (he was not guilty of such dissimulation) to deny his Master when he answered our Saviour, though all should forsake thee, yet would not I; and again, though I should die with thee, yet will not I deny thee, yet these were foretold, and so came to pass as they were foretold, by that admirable Knowledge of him, who searching the hearts, and trying the reins, seethe not as Man seethe, but knoweth the thoughts afar off, even such as are not, yea and depend upon the Will of Man, whether ever they spall be or not; Such Knowledge is too wonderful for thee (O my Soul) thou canst not attain unto it.    

Naural and Divine CONTEMPLATIONS Of the Passions and Faculties Of the Soul of Man; In Three Books.  
THE THIRD BOOK. The Theological part.  

CHAP. I.  
BUT oh the Trump hath sounded; the Earth hath opened her Womb, those that slept are awaked, the bodies of the dead are raised to life, and blessed are they that have died in the Lord.  
No longer now shall we view the Souls of those departed in their Metaphysical shapes and abstracted Forms, every form to its Individual determinate matter, and every Soul to its Numerical body; the Soul hath quickened and revived the Body; the Body is again reunited to the Soul in an Indissoluble Conjugal knot, in an everlasting wedlock.  
But since Corruption cannot Inherit Incorruption, or Souls Immortal ever dwell in trunks of clay and dust, therefore hath the Body cast off her old Garments, and changed her attire: she was sown a Natural body, she is raised a Spiritual body; sown in weakness, but raised in Power; in dishonour, but raised in Glory; sown in Corruption, but raised in Incorruption, that she may for ever dwell with the Incorruptible Soul in Unity.  
There are no jarrings twixt Soul and Body here as in the days of their Pilgrimage upon Earth, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; she who was erst Rebellious, is now Obse quious to the Dictates of the Soul; now is she wholly subject to the will of her Lord, yielding obeisance and obedience with admirable Agility and Celerity of motion; now not the least Ponderosity of a Massy substance or Natural body to foreslow her motion appears any more, but the Perpensility of a Celestial and Spiritual body, mounted as it were on the wings and Plumes of a Cherub to expedite the Souls Injunctions; such Homage and obedience the Body pays unto its Soul, that (as St Augustine saith) ubi volet spiritus ibi protinus erit corpus, nec volet aliquid spiritus, quod nec spiritum nec corpus possit decere.  
1. Hereupon is the body enfranchised of sundry Praerogatives and Immunities, which are altogether inconsistent with it in its Natural condition; whilst it was Elementary, its Natural motion tended downward according to the Nature of the Predominant Element; the ascendent motion of a Physical body is Excentrique and Irregular, which motion is Concentrique and Consonant to a body glorified; solo voluntatis impetu, etc. at the beck and command of the glorious Soul is the body mounted from Earth to Heaven, whose Nature it is to be wholly subject to that glorified Spirit, from whose redundancy the body likewise receives its Glorification.  
2. The Humane body in the state of Nature, in a slow Progress marcheth forward step by step, and that not without some Earth or other solid body to tread or go on; whereupon the Earth is made a cause of our walking; 
Causa fine qua non.  but in the state of Glory, most swiftly, and as it were in an instant, it moves from place to place, from one part of Heaven to another, absque adminiculo, without the benefit of Earth or other Element to impress the least Vestigias or footsteps of his tread.  
3. In the terrene estate the body is Opaque and Luskie, Dark and Purblind; Beautified only by the Additaments of External colour; but the Spiritual body is Diaphanous, transparent, transplendent, not like those lesser lights which only appear in the night, but like the Sun at noon day in the Firmament of Heaven, 
Matthew 13.43.  Then shall the Righteous shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father; The Confulgurations of bodies glorified are like the bright shining of the Sun, or compare we them to our Saviour's glorious Body after his Exaltation, which no doubt exceeds all the glory can be expressed or conceived, when this transfiguration upon the Mount was so glorious, That his face did shine as the Sun, 
Matthew 17.2.  and his Raiment was white as the light; yet such is the condition and state of these bodies which are fashioned like unto his glorious Body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself. 
Philip 3.21.   
Yet doth not this transcendent Glory superadded to the Humane body alter the Nature and Essence of the same, the same Humanity is retained as well after as before the Resurrection; the same body that is laid in the dust, the self same body ariseth and ascends into glory; that body is resumed in the Resurrection which was assumed in the Conception, only one to a Mortal, the other to an Immortal life, alterius gloriae sed ejusdem naturae, the glory is different, but the body's the same.  
The glorified bodies of Saints, and the glorious body of our ever blessed Saviour in Heaven, all of them of one Nature and Substance, made up of Flesh, and Blood, and Bone, Nerves, Sinews, Arteries, and what else conduceth to the perfection of a Humane body.  
To deny this is to run into the Heresy of Eutiches condemned in the several Councils of Constantinople and Chalcedon, who affirmed that the body of Christ was not of the same Nature with ours, and that ours also after the Resurrection were not Palpable or Visible, but more subtle and slender than Wind or Air.  
But (as we have said) the same body that is laid in the dust, the same ariseth and puts on Immortality and glory, a body of flesh is sown in dishonour, but the same body of flesh is raised in glory; Consonant hereto are the words of Job, 
Job. 19.25 26, 27.  I know that thy Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day day upon the Earth; And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my Flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another, though my Reins be consumed within me; thus we read, and thus is our Creed, so is preached, and so is believed, for the Resurrection of the flesh is an Article of our Faith, a Fundamental point of that Religion the Church Catholic professeth, and that our Saviour's body is of the same Substance is another Fundamental, Athanasius is plain, perfect God and perfect Man, Of a Reasonable Soul and Humane Flesh subsisting; yea Palpable flesh and Visible even after his Resurrection, our Saviour's words are full for it, behold (saith he) my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me have.  
And therefore those words of the Apostle (flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God) are to be understood of sinful lusts and corruptions of the flesh, 
1 Cor. 15.10.  and not of the flesh and blood itself dismantled of these.  
And as the substance of a Humane body continues entire, so hath she her faculties and qualities perfect (though not all) for in as much as the body is purged of sin and corruption, those qualities which argue corruption and infirmity must needs be perished also; absit labes (silicet corruptionis) assit effigies, assit motio, absit fatigatio, assit vescendi potestas, absit esuriendi necessitas, etc.  
Soft, soft, (O my Soul) dash not thyself on the Rock of Contention, be not prolix in Polemic discourses and points Controversal, since thou art devoted to thy calmer Theorems, and Diviner Speculations.  
The case standing thus, that none have admittance to those glorious Mansions in the new Jerusalem, the City of God, but bodies purged from their filthy lusts and sinful corr●ption; bodies morigerous, submiss and pliant to Soul and Spirit; see then and lament the wretched estate of us Mortals upon Earth, 
An evil it is under the sun, an error proceeding from the ruler, folly set in great dignity and the rich set in low place, servants on horseback and Princes walking as servants upon the Earth. Eccles. 10.5, 6 & 7.  whose lives and conversations Diametrically oppose the glorified Saints in Heaven. Apame, was but Concubine to the great and mighty King Darius, yet was she seen sitting on his right hand, and taking the Crown from off his head, did set it upon her own, she also struck the King with her left hand; Semblable to which is the rule and Dominion which Impetuous and Implacable flesh usurpeth and excerciseth over the Souls of Mortal men in their Pilgrimage here below, leading them Captive to the Law of sin and death.  
This is that miserable Bondage under which the Sons of men in this Vale of ●ars do groan, from which Bondage of Corruption and body of sin, they wait with earnest expectation to be delivered into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God; And not only they but ourselves also which have the first fruits of the Spirit; even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting for the Adoption, to wit, the redemption of our bodies; not that we should be found naked, and our bobodies unclothed, but clothed upon; that Mortality might be swallowed up of life.  
It is not a change of our bodies, but of our Raiment and Vestments which we do look for, a Crown of glory for a Crown of thorns, the Robes of Righteousness for the Rags of Sin; This change must be inchoate here, though completed hereafter, the Foundation must be laid on Earth in Grace, but finished in Heaven in Glory, the Garments of the Old man laid aside, and the Garments of the New man put on; the lusts of the flesh mortified, the fruits of the Spirit quickened; 
Ephe. 4.22, 23, & 24.  We must put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the Spirit of our mind; and we must put on that new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, that we may henceforth serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter; For if we live after the flesh we shall die, but if we through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live.  
Woe is me, that I am constrained to live in Mesech, to have my habitation in the tents of Kedar, my Soul hath long dwelled with them that are Enemies to peace, they are daily fight and troubling it, the Body with all its sinful lust's rebel against my Soul, and when I labour for Peace, they make them ready for Battle, they will not have her rule over them, whom thou (O Lord) hast made the Monarch and sole Empress of this little World, but attempt by continual Insurrections and Intestine Wars to introduce an Arbitrary Power over an Athenian and Popular Government For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he would grant me (according to the riches of his glory) to be strengthened in the inward Man, in the spirit of my mind, by the might and Power of his Spirit; who raised up Jesus from the dead, that (as he died for my sin, and risen again for my justification, so) I may die to sin, and live unto righteousness, and being buried with Christ into death by Baptism, may walk in newness of life, that being planted together in the likeness of his death, I may be also in the likeness of his Resurrection; kowing this, that my old man is Crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth I should not sin; And though I live and walk in the flesh, yet that I may not war after, but against the flesh (the weapons of my warfare being Spiritual and mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds) to the casting down of Imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the Knowledge of God, and bringing into Captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience of the flesh against the Law of my mind, which is only subject to the Law of God; Help me (O God) so to keep under my body and bring it into subjection, that I myself be no a castaway.  
Thy will (O Heavenly Father) be done on Earth as it is in Heaven, and as thou hast praepared an Heaven and fitted the body with all Obsequiousness to serve, and the Soul to rule and command with all just Authority and moderation; all this in the Resurrection of the body at the last day, when Soul and Body meet again in a glorified estate to Possess the Heavenly Mansions; so fit and and prepare them here, that whilst they are in this Earthly Tabernacle, all Schism being abandoned, all Rebellion Anathematised, the heel may not kick against the body, or the foot tread upon the head, but (however it fareth in the body Politic) there may be such an orderly subjection in the body Natural, that my flesh may be subject, not Predominant to my Spirit, my Body unto my Soul, and both Soul and Body subject unto thee.  
O my God do thou thus set my foot over the threshold of thy Heaven, 
Chap. 2. Book 3.  put thou my Soul into this happy condition of an inchoate blessedness; so shall I cheerfully spend the remainder of my days in a joyful expectation of the full Consummation of my glory. Amen.  
Bish. Hall his Susurium cum Deo.   

CHAP. II.  
Of the Organs of the body, and the Exercise of the Sensitive faculties of the Soul by them in the state of glory.  
AS the appearance of the Bride newly come from her Chamber in the days of her Espousals, on the Solemnity of her bride-ale and other Nuptial Rites, bedecked and adorned with all the Ornaments both of body and mind that may render her gracious, and Amiable in the eyes of her Betrothed; or like the King's Daughter all glorious within, and without in clothing of wrought Gold, brought into the King's Palace attended on among the Honourable Women by a Train of Virgins that be her fellows: Even such is the inward grace and outward Magnificence, Pomp and State of the body in the morning of her Resurrection and Ascension from the Chamber of death, to be Espoused again to the Soul in an everlast-wedlock, the Bill of Divorcement being canceled and Nullified by an Act of perpetual Oblivion.  
Her Soporiferous bed of rottenness she thenceforth loatheth and outrunneth; leaving behind her load of inward Corruption, all waywardness of mind, and frowardness of disposition; and her Troops of Natural Imperfection, Deafness, Dumbness, Blindless, Lameness, etc. such Sons of sorrow and servants of sin and perdition presume not to approach the marriage Chamber; all other her Companions in the flesh, that were faithful and serviceable to her, and instrumental to the Soul in the Acts of grace, are still her attendants, and are admitted into the Royal Palace, and invested with the Robes of Glory and Immortality, as a badge and livery of the glorified Soul, whose Servants and Ministers they are.  
Those Organical parts of the body in which the Soul was exercised, and without which it could not Operate (in which respect the Soul as to such faculties and Operations might be termed Mortal) are revived with the body and useful to the Soul in their several Stations.  
I do not, I dare not here affirm that all the parts of the body do still remain Organical after this life, so as the Soul may exercise all the Powers of her triple life, Vegetative, Sensitive, and Intellectual, as she did in her Natural and Physical state according to those several Organs in which the Faculties were resient and peculiarly seated; Nourishment Growth and Generation (the proper Effects of the Vegetative life) accomplish their ends in this life, whereunto when they have obtained, those Operations cease, and the Organs rest from that labour and employment; but since the Senses are Operative in a glorified body, (for it's not deprived of Sense) I have no reason to think the Soul hath utterly rejected her manner of Operation by bodily Organs, declining those old Servants as useless and inconsistent to such a glorified state; Eyes, Ears, Nose, Mouth, , Hands, Feet, and all to be quite emancipated & freed from the service of the glorified body and Soul in their works of that kind, but to believe the Senses External, and Senses Internal are Organical in Heaven as they were on Earth, and subservient to the Soul in their several stations & places of residence as Eye, Ear, Nose, Palate, Nerves, Brain, by which the Soul doth exercise its several faculties of Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, Touching, and the rest.  
The eye (the Noblest of the External Corporeal Organs) offers itself first to our consideration, which is not obscurely proved by holy Writ, to be useful, and serviceable to those in the state of glory; for this the damned in Hell do so far enjoy, though to their torment and woe, to see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, and they themselves thrust out; But the Saints to their endless joy and comfort have the use of their eyes and sight to see and behold the Splendour and Beauty of their own bodies, being changed from vile to glorious, after the fashion of Christ's most glorious body which exceedeth the brightness of the Sun, as the Apostle witnesseth, Acts 26.13. What delight and pleasure must it needs be unto the Saints in Heaven to see every part of their body, Hands, Feet, and all issuing forth such rays and beams of light, sufficient to dispel all mists and darkness from them, without further assistance of Sun, Moon, Stars, or other Luminaries?  
Nor is this Optic faculty of the Eye limited to it own body, so, as not to be of use to discern other Objects; for all the Saints and Servants of God whose bodies are likewise glorified, yea, and the glorious body of Christ himself, Christ the head with all his members, are all of them Visible Objects of this Sense; I know (saith holy Job) That my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth— whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.  
It is not enough for the eye to behold its own glorified Body shining as the Sun, but it beholdeth an infinite number of Suns together, no Parelia, nor yet in their Eclipse, but the glorious company of the Apostles, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets, the noble Army of Martyrs, and the holy Church throughout all the World, whose bodies do not only send forth a glorious shine, but every member, part and Organ of those bodies are bespangled with the like rays of glory and splendour, to the admiration of the beholder  
Who doubts (saith Bishop Hall) that these eyes shall see the glorious manhood of our blessed Saviour advanced above all the Powers of Heaven? and if one body, why not more? if our elder brother, why no more of our Spiritual Fraternity? Certum est, 
Bellar. in praefatione ad librum de aeterna felicitate.  beatos homines omnes ab omnibus videri, & sciri, & inter se familiariter versari ut amicos & proximos, saith another Doctor; so then there is a Communion of Saints in Heaven as well as on Earth, a society of bodies Visible one to another.  
Besides, the Vision of new Jerusalem apperteins to the glorious Saints; to them it is given to see Jerusalem built up with Saphires and Emeruads, and precious Stones, the Walls, Towers, and Battlements with pure Gold, the Streets thereof paved with Beril, Carbuncle, and stones of Ophir, and the Citizens thereof singing Hallelujah, and saying, Praised be God who hath exalted it for ever; which was the Prophecy of Tobias, and of Isaaih; which also Saint John in his Revelation saw (together with a new Heaven and a new Earth) to wit, the Holy City, the new Jerusalem descending from God out of Heaven, having the glory of God, and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a Jasper stone, clear as Crystal, it had no need of the of Sun nor the Moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof, and the Nations of them that are saved do walk in the light of it.  
Yea we ourselves (together with the whole Creation) do with earnest expectation wait for a Renovation and Melioration of the state of all things at the coming of the day of God, wherein the Heavens that now are, being on fire shall be dissolved, and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat, and we shall (as it is promised) see new Heavens and new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness, as the Apostle Peter hath it, 2 Peter 3. Chapter and verse. 10.  
What neither the eye here can see, nor the ear can hear, nor the heart of Man conceive in their Natural state, shall all be Object and Visible to the eye in the state of glory; so saith St. Bernard, Erit quando iam non dicetur, Audi filia & vide & inclina aurem tuam, sed leva potius oculos tuos & contemplare; quid? plane ea modo quae interim quidem etsi non videre adhuc & audire tamen credere potes; verum etiam quod sicut non videt oculus, sic nec auris a●divit, nec in cor hominis ascendit, quod praeparavit deus diligentibus se; nimirum tant a capiet oculus resurrectionis, quanta nec avaitus nec animus nunc captat; these eyes shall behold them and not another's, therefore in another place he addeth, nec novos tibi instaurandos pates, sed tuos utique restaurandos; not that they shall be of another Nature, but of another glory.  
The Ear also is exercised with Variety of sounds and voices, both Articulate and Inarticulate; the Organs of speech are as entire and perfect (yea more) in Heaven than on Earth; we may not conceive a deficiency in any part, there are, Guttur, Lingua, Palatum;  
Quatuor & dentes & duo labra simul. For the bodies of the glorified Saints are true, real, and lively bodies, and perfect in every member, even as our blessed Saviour after his Resurrection was manifested to be, both by his Conversation and Confabulation with his Apostles and Disciples, speaking of many things pertaining to the Kingdom of God; and by his hearing and answering of questions; and further from his voice from Heaven to St. Paul, and his reply to the Quaere of St. Paul.  
Such bodies and bodily Organs for Vocal music have all the Saints to sing & hear Halellujahs sung; a great voice was heard of much People in Heaven, saying and singing Hallelujah, in a most Melodious tune, the ditty or ballad whereof was, Salvation, and Glory, and Honour, and Power unto the Lord our God. There is a full Choir of Saints, thousands of thousands harmoniously canting the praises of the Lord, and as full a Chorus with the like affectionate melody again and again echoing and resounding the like praises and loving kindness of the Lord.  
And as the company of singers is great, so are the songs and Canticles various, though all of them Eucharistical; some in Memory of our Creation, others in Memory of our Redemption, some in triumph of the Holy Martyrs, some in joy of Converts and Penitents, others in Honour of Chastity and Virginity, and those who were not defiled with Women, the redeemed from amongst men being the first Fruits unto God and to the Lamb; others for the Victory of all Saints over the World, the Flesh and the Devil; over the Beast, and over his Image, and over his Mark, and over the number of his Name; others for the judgements of God inflicted upon the ungodly ones; There is sung the song of Moses, and there is sung the song of the Lamb; yea there is sung the Psalm of David, misericordias domini in aeternum, as St. Augustine affirmeth; & fortasse non solius dei laudes in civitate illa canentur, sed etiam t●iumphi sanctorum martyrum, & confessorum praeconia, & virginum gloria, & sanctorum omnium contra diabolum victoriae cantibus extollentur; haec enim omnia in dei laudes & gloriam redundabunt; And all these songs and cantons cannot but be wondrous pleasant and delightsom to the ears of all the blessed and glorified Saints of God, for which Cause, the Ear is Organical and serviceable to the Soul and Body in their state of glory.  
In the next place consider we the Sense of Olfaction, and those sweet smeling savours and Odours in the Nostrils of all the Saints; to show that the body is not destitute of an Organ for the exercise of this Sensitive faculty of the Soul, no more than of the rest which are so useful to her in this state.  
For though the Scriptures afford not so pregnant proofs for the two Senses of Smelling and Tasting, as for the other three, yet may we not in reason conceive a total Deprivation or Annihilation of them more than of the rest, nor without injury to the Humane Nature, (to which we attribute so great perfection and integrity of parts in that condition) debar her the freedom of exercising any of her faculties (other than what argue and favour Corruption) which so much tends to the perfection of a Humane body; there's no Privation of Sight, of Hearing, or of Touching, why then of the other? are the Saints Hosmei, and are not Goglites? if the want of an eye or an ear be such a blemish and imperfection, as may not befall a glorified body, is not the want of a nose as great a deformity? but Odours and Olfaction there is in this state, and this Sense hath its Objects of delight as well as the rest.  
Glorified bodie● are Odoriferous bodies, sending forth most fragrant scents; as they are glorious to the eye, so are they Aromatical to the smell. St. Hierom of the body of St. Hilarion affirmeth, after its ten months' burial it was found lively fresh and whole, & tantis fragrans odoribus ut delibutum unguentis putaretur; the like doth St. Gregory witness of St. Servulus, saying, anima exeunte, tanta fragrantia odoris aspersa est, ut omnes qui illuc aderant inaestimabili suavi ate replerentur; and a little after, quousque corpus ejus sepulturae traderent, ab eorum naribus odoris itlius fragrantia non recessi; and Bellarmine hence inferreth, the alive bodies of the Saints in Heaven must needs send forth most sweet perfumes, when their dead bodies are so Fragrant.  
But above all is the glorious body of our blessed Saviour, being perfumed with Myrrh, and Frankincense, with all powders of the Merchant, and whose Garments smell of Myrrh, Aloes, and Cassia; whereupon the Church, that Spiritual Spouse, cries unto Christ her Head and her Husband, melioria sunt ubera tua vino, fragrantia unguentis optimis; oleum effusum nomen tuum; Ideo Adolescentulaedi lexeruntte; trahe me post te, curremus in odorem unguentorum tuorum, thus saith St. Bernard. Now if the body of Christ be so Odoriferous, it is most propable the Saints are likewise so, the Members in a due proportion to their head, as in brightness, so in sweetness.  
The like probability is of the Sense of Tasting, that it should remain in the glorified estate; For if the Power of eating, than the Sense of tasting, but the first is granted, then why not the latter? adest vescendi potestas, abest esuriendi necessitas; and so resolves St. Augustine, non potestas sed egestas edendi corporibus refurgentium aufertur; 
Lib, 13. de civet dei.  and this puts the difference twixt the Humane Nature, Spiritual and Celestial, and the Natural and Terrestrial; the one eats necessitatis, the other potestatis gratiâ; Christ after the Resurrection did eat and drink with his Disciples, yet not as his Disciples for refreshment and nourishment, non alimentorum indigentiâ, sed ea qua hoc poterat popotestate; and therefore the Paraphrase of venerable Beda upon those words of our Saviour (have you here any thing to eat) is worthy our observation. 
Luk. 24 41.  Aliter obsorbet aquam terra sitiens, aliter solis radius calens, illa indigentiâ, iste potentiâ, manducavit ergo post resurrectionem non quasi cibo indigens, sed ut eo modo naturam corporis resurgentis astrueret; so glorified bodies may sometimes eat to show their Power and Freedom, but never for hunger or satisfaction of a Natural Appetite or an empty Panch.  
And this Comestion is real and true, not a Fictitious and feigned eating of the Angels, as that of Raphael's; for the bodies which Angels sometimes assume (being no Humane lively bodies) have not the true and Real faculty of eating, though happily of chewing or grinding, and swallowing down into the interior parts of the body; for a true Comestion is accompanied with a gust or taste, which Sense continues to the glorified bodies, and hath its recreation and delight as well as the other faculties, though not in the Act of eating, which they seldom use; de sensu gustandi scribunt Theologi non usuros beatos cibis mortalibus, sed habituros tamen oblectationem aliquam in eo sensu ne supervac aneus esse videatur; futuram tamen oblectationem illam loco & statui beaterum & immortalium congruentem. Bellarmine de aeterna felicitate lib. 4. cap. 8.  
As for the Sense of Touching, there is no difference amongst Divines, nor indeed can be any doubt but that it hath its Operations in this blissful state; since the gloried bodies may be felt and touched as all other true and lively bodies may, and as our blessed Saviour's was after his Resurrection, as well Palpable as Visible, not miraculously, but according to its own Nature; handle me (saith he) and see, for a Spirit hath no flesh and blood as you see me have.  
Thus much of the Senses Corporeal, External, and those parts of the body which are Instrumental and serviceable in the state of glory to the Humane Nature, as they were to her in her Natural condition, only with these exceptions and limitations.  
1. From hence is banished all sensual lusts and carnal Concupiscence, the Eye hath no lascivious looks, the Ear's infected with no blasphemous breath or impious sound, nor this Sense deflowered with any adulterous touch; here is no lust or desire of generation, no respect of blood; they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; this grosser acquaintance and pleasure is for the Paradise of Turks, not the Heaven of Christians; here is as no marriage (save betwixt the Lamb and his Spouse the Church) so not Matrimonial affections  
2. Banish we likewise from hence all Impatibility of Sense; sensus non fallitur nec laeditur circa proprium objectum; no vehemency of Object can destroy the Sense; in their Natural estate, their objects many times confound and wound them; too great a light may make a man blind, too great a sound may make him deaf, we may not long gaze upon the Sun without blemish to our eyes; otherways here, for the Senses are blessed and glorious, and so made Impassable and Immortal; he who strengthens the Eyes of the Soul with such a measure of light and glory, that they may see God face to face, and yet not be dazzled and confounded with his glory, doth also so confirm and strengthen the Eyes of the body, that without any hurt or damage to themselves, they may behold not one but infinite Suns and Illuminated bodies, though in themselves never so glorious.  
3. All Acts of Necessity are hence excluded, the Soul doth not exercise her Sensitive Faculties Necessarily, but freely, and rules with the body and bodily Organs when she pleaseth, and when she pleaseth the Soul rules alone; For she hath other ways of Operation out of the body more Excellent and Noble; the Senses are Secundary means for acquiring Knowledge, not the Primary; only subservient and at command of the Soul. In the Natural estate the Sensitive Knowledge precedes the Intellectual, nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuit in sense; and without Sense there is no intelligence. Not so in the Resurrection; the Soul knoweth all things as fully and infallibly by Intuitive Vision and Inate Forms, at once, unico intuitu, by one single aspect, as by those various multiplied Forms imprinted from sensible Objects under so many several notions and conceptions; the Understanding stands not need of an Eye, or an Ear, or other bodily Organ to evidence the truth of what it apprehendeth, it is not subject to Sense, but Sense to it, not the Soul to the Body, but the Body to the Soul; for the Nature of a glorified body is to be Spiritual, that is, subject to the Spirit, not that it hath no flesh and bones, but that it is so subject to the Spirit, that at the beck and command thereof, without any pains and difficulty, it moves most swiftly, Ascending, Descending, Coming, Going, and through every place penetrating, as if it were not a body but a Spirit, Ad hoc autem quod sit omnino corpus subjectum spiritui requiritur, quod omnis actio corporis subdatur spiritus volun●ati (saith Aquinas) and therefore it is in the Power of the Soul to see or hear, or the like, to use or not to use these bodily Organs, when and as often as she pleaseth, without which in her Natural condition she could not Operate or reduce all her Faculties into Act.  
This is the state of that Church, that part of Christ's Body triumphant, whose Organs and Senses are Spiritualised, to whom that part of Christ's Church militant here doth hold resemblance, the like Analogy and proportion bearing every Member one to another, they on Earth to those in Heaven, as every one beareth to Christ the H ad; as the Spiritual Body in Heaven is Organised, so is the Organical Body on Earth Spiritualised, and hath five Spiritual Senses, Senses refreshed with Spiritual Objects.  
This I can assure thee (O my Soul) being a Member of that Mystical Body whereof Christ is the Head, thou art entitled to, yea, and refreshed with such Sensitive Objects as the Saints in Heaven are refreshed and delighted with; Objects for thy Eye, thy Ear, thy Nose, thy , thy Hand, as Form, Sound, Odour, Sapor, Spissitude; but these made Spiritual, and are so to be received; I speak of Christ in the Eucharist, who is made the Object of every Sense, that the excellency of the Knowledge of Christ may more fully be evidenced to us from him of whose fullness we all receive; Christ is Visible to the Eye, Audible to the Ear, Sweet and fragrant to the Smell, Savory to the Taste; to the Nose, , Hand sensible; he is meat to the hungry, and drink to the thirsty; Angels food, and man's repast. Christ in the Sacrament is the Object of our Eyes, and as really present here as in Heaven, and is as really exhibited to us, who spiritually discern him though under other Forms; & hic & ibi veritas, sed hic palliata, ibi manifesta, he is palliated here, but unveiled in Heaven; here we see him darkly through the instrument of Faith, for we walk by Faith, and not by sight; his real presence is believed, our Corporal Eyes do not behold him otherways than veiled under those outward signs of bread and wine; the eyes of our Body seethe the signs, the Eye of our Faith the thing signified, aliud latet, aliud patet, what we see is Bread and Wine, what we believe is the Body and Blood of Christ; what our Souls cannot reach with Corporal Eyes, it may discern by an Eye of Faith; Faith is a director of the Soul, or prospective to the Eyes to bring to their sight such things as are not discernible without in this Vale of tears; through the prospect of Faith is Christ Visible to us, though the Saints in Heaven have a clea●er Vi●ion of him, seeing him face to face 〈◊〉 as they are seen. This is but a glimpse of that beatifical Vision the glorified bodies have of Christ; hear per aenigma, there fancy revelata, here veiled, there revealed; unde preciosior dicitur faciei visio, quam speculi frequens imaginatio; non enim pari omnino jucunditate sumitur cortex sacramenti & medulla frumenti, fides & species, memoria & praesentia, aeternitas & tempus, speculum & vultus, imago Dei & forma servi?  
My Soul is athirst after Christ my Saviour, O when shall I come and appear before him? Grant (holy Jesus) I may so behold thee (though veiled) here, that when this earthly tabernacle shall be dissolved, when it shall turn to the Lord, and be clothed upon with our horse of immortality and glory, which is from heaven, the veil which to this day is upon my heart may be taken away, and I may with open face behold the glory of my Lord, being changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Amen.  
Christ in the blessed Eucharist is the object of our Ears, speaking unto our hearts, both in secret whisper, and in shriller notes, and holds a familiar conference with us; he is an audible Voice, and a speaking Word, the sound whereof is gone to the ends of the world, that Word which in the beginning was with God, and was God, but was made Flesh and dwelled among us; God made Man, the Son of God the Son of Man, unicus patris, filius hominis, verbum quippe caro factum; this Word incarnate is that Bread of God which cometh down from Heaven, and giveth life unto the World.  
This Word is not only audible to the Ear, but penetrable to the Heart, piercing like a twoedged sword, to the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit, and of the marrow and the joints. Those reverend thoughts and meditations we have of Christ (especially in this Sacrament) are nothing else but so many words of his spoken to our Souls; though all our cogitations are not Christ's locutions, nor all his communications our meditations, cum enim mala in cord versamus nostra cogitatio est, si bona, Dei sermo est; illa cor nostrum dicit, haec audit; our good thoughts are Christ's words, our evil thoughts are our own words: The fool hath said in his heart there is no God, there's our own words; The Lord speaketh peace unto his people, those are Christ's; one is spoke from the heart, the other is to the heart.  
Our own words again are twofold, or have two ways of proceeding, one from Nature's corruption, another from Satan's suggestion; but of all these bitter fruits and sinful effects proceeding from within us, it is a hard matter to assign a proper cause and author, to demonstrate which are the works of the Devil, and which be the fruits of the Flesh; we are not able so exactly to distinguish inter morbum mentis, & morsum serpentis; inter malum innatum, & malum seminatum; inter partum cordis, & seminarium hostis; only we may know they both are evil, and proceed from evil; both in the heart, though not both from the heart; this I know most assuredly, though which to ascribe to my heart, which to Satan, I know not.  
But for my good thoughts (since all our sufficiency is from God) I do undoubtedly believe they are the very words of that very Word, verba verbi Dei, written in my heart by the finger of his blessed Spirit: This is that Word which is not sonans only, but penetrans, non loquax sed efficax, non obstrepens auribus sed blandiens affectibus: Happy art thou (O my Soul) if when thy God calleth, thou answerest with Samuel, Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth; or with holy David repliest, I will hear what the Lord my God will say unto me.  
Christ is the object of our Sense of Olfaction, s●nding forth most sweet perfumes; he is sweet in his Name, Christ Jesus; Christ (i e.) Anointed, so much the name imports; Because of the savour of thy good ointments, thy name is as ointment poured forth; he is sweet in his name jesus, a Saviour; there is no other name given under heaven whereby we shall be saved; neither is there any malady of Mind, any disease of the Soul, which this precious balm and ointment cannot cure; Erit tibi sapor & odor in medicinam salubrem morbos si qui fuerint repellentem, venturosque caventem: He is sweet and pleasant to God the Father r; he is his beloved Son in whom he is well pleased; and the smell of his Son is like the smell of a field whom the Lord hath blessed; he is that Lamb slain from the foundations of the world, whose b●dy and blood being offered as an Holocaust unto God the Father, smelleth a sweet smelling sacrifice unto him; and from whom issueth unto his Spouse the Church, to every particular Member, and to every worthy Communicant partaking of his Body and Blood, such streams of precious ointment, and oil of the Holy Ghost, running down not only to the beard of Aaron, that is (as St Bernard expounds it) to the Apostles and Ministers of Christ, but unto the very skirts of his clothing, that is, to the meanest of his Members, in infima membra Ecclesiae, quae est tanquam Christi vestimentum; that even these vile bodies and souls being offered an oblation, smell also a sweet-smelling sacrifice, to God through Christ holy and acceptable; we are anointed with oil of gladness, but Christ with holy oil, and oil of gladness above all his fellows. It falls first upon Christ the Head, so runs down to his beard, so descends to the skirts of his garments, the meanest member in high Church; the smell of Christ's garment is like the smell of Lebanon; but the smell of his ointments super omnia aromata, is better than all spices.  
Christ is the object of our Spiritual Taste, and that food of Saints and Angels in Heaven, of which it hath pleased God to give a taste to his Saints on earth, feeding them with the bread of Heaven, the food of life which comes from Heaven, that Heavenly Manna and food of Angels the Prophet speaks of, more pleasant and sweet to the taste than honey or the honney-comb.  
But that we might eat Angel's food Christ was Incarnate, the Word was made Flesh, so all are partakers of Christ, the Saints on Earth, as well as Saints and Angels in Heaven, only with this difference, Comedunt Angeli verbum de Deo natum, comedunt homines verbum faenum factum; pane suo vivunt Angeli in caelis & beati sunt, faeno suo vivunt homines in terris & sancti sunt.  
Yet doth not every man taste of the food that partakes of the outward Elements, the Natural man hath no sense or taste, no fruit and benefit of this Sacrament, because it is spiritually discerned; it is food eternal, not temporal, spiritual, not corporal; for supernatural nourishment unto Eternal life, not for physical and natural, which accomplisheth its ends in this life; pereat hic physicale nutrimentum, cibis iste non ventris, sed mentis; we feed on him in our heart by Faith and Thanksgiving.  
My Body is nourished with the outward Elements of Bread and Wine, my Soul is 2nourished with the inward Graces, the Body and Blood of Christ; not with the Bread of Affliction, the corn arising from the earth; but with Consolatory bread, and Angels food, that true Bread descending from Heaven; nor with the Wine of the Grapes of Gomorrha, but of the true Vine Christ jesus, the Lamb, the Head, and Husband of the Church, which at the heavenly Marriage shall be drunk new in the kingdom of Heaven.  
There we drink not of this Wine made of water (as at the Marriage in Cana) but ex botro illo magno terrae promissionis, qui interim in vecte portatur dum secundùm carnem novimus Christum, & hunc crucifixum; which we drink at the Lords table in types & signs here, which are mortal and perishing; but in Heaven at that great Supper of the Lord, really, and truly, immortal, and incorruptible, enduring to eternal life. For in Heaven is no labouring for the meat which perisheth; the Saints glorified use not corruptible food; their food is spiritual and immortal, fitting and suitable to that state of glory; and their taste is accordingly, no carnal relish, no earthly savour; nil quip in his carnale sapit, nil seculare, nil vanum; sed spiritus veritatis & caelestis sapientia est, cujus in utraque suavitas praelibatur.  
He that cometh to the Lords Supper in his old garments, hath not this spiritual relish, nor shall he be thought worthy to be partaker of that great Banquet, the Supper of the Lamb, in Heaven, or taste of that food; as well those that come here unworthily, as those that refuse to come though invited, shall all be excluded hereafter, so saith the Lord of the Feast, I say unto you, none of those men who were called shall taste of my supper: And to the unworthy person it is said also, Friend, how camest thou hither not having thy Wedding-garment? take him, etc.  
And lastly, Christ is the object of our sense of Touching, we receive him into our hands, we take him into our mouths, we feed on him in our hearts, we dwell in him, and he in us; so to every sense is Christ spiritually sensible, tangible by the hand, as visible to the eye, prae manibus, as he is prae oculis.   

CHAP. III.  
Of the Knowledge of the Soul by Intuitive Intellection, or Beatifical Vision.  

Chap. 3. Book 3.  HItherto of the knowledge fetched from External objects by the means of outward senses, the Internal are not without their use (viz.) Phantasie and Memory; but of these sufficient hath been said already.  
Nor yet shall we further treat of that Internal intellectual knowledge which the humane soul in its Glorified estate hath of all Material & Immaterial created substances (viz.) of Angels, and abstracted Forms, & other inferior creatures, which are represented to its knowledge per speciem, by an innate form and similitude, chief and primarily in their universal natures, secundarily in their individuals in one single aspect and intuition, which manner of knowledge is natural and essential to Spirits, and Essences intellectual; for this hath also been elsewhere handled.  
But here we shall principally insist upon that Science of the Soul, or rather Sapience which consists in the sole intuitive Intellection, or Beatifical Vision of the divine Essence and Nature of God himself, which is not per aenigma, as in this life, but fancy revelata, not in his back parts only, but the infinite Essence and Majesty, the very quiddity and being of the great jehovah, as he is in himself (so St. john expresseth it) fully and clearly manifested.  
And the divine Sapience which comes by this Intuition or Intuitive Intellection surpasseth all other manner of knowledge whatsoever; this is not natural to any created Angelical Intellect; comes not by any strength of nature created by God into any finite being; nor can it stand with natural reason, how a finite capacity (for so are all created intelligences) should perfectly and distinctly, clarè & perspicuè cognition perfecta, & non confusa, apprehend, see, and know an infinite Essence as intensively Infinite; this is supra captum humanum, and exceeds all natural power.  
Yet above reason is believed (for so is the Faith of holy Church) that the blessed Saints and Angels in Heaven do clearly and fully see, and know God, do behold him as he is in himself. The Mind and Intellect glorified sees, & the Will enjoys God, its chiefest, and most desirable good, more fully, and more certainly, than any man here enjoys any temporal estate.  
In this Intuitive Vision, and Fruition of God, is Man's eternal felicity, his beatitude, his summum bonum seated; here comes in the fullness of the Promises, here's the consummation of our Hopes, this is the final intrinsical end of Man's Creation, to see God clearly, and to enjoy him fully; our Beatitude consists in this, and is the same beatitude wherewith God himself is blessed; God is most blessed, and therefore most blessed because he always beholds himself as he is, and eternally enjoys himself; he hath made us partakers in hope of the same chiefest good, to be like him in the same felicity, together with all the glorious Saints and Angels, so saith the Apostle, We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  
There were certain Heretics, Armenians, and others (but condemned of old by several Decrees and Councils) who held it impossible for any created Intellect, by any power whatsoever, clearly to see God; and therefore they held further, the Beatitude which is promised by God, and waited for by us, to consist, non in familiari illo quem speramus divine naturae intuitu, sed cujusdam creati fulgoris ab ea manantis.  
And indeed in the eye of Reason it is impossible, & unto Nature altogether repugnant, that any created Intellect, by any strength of it own, should perfectly know the infinite Godhead; but what is impossible with men, is notwithstanding possible with God; Multa fie●i possunt virtute divina, quae naturae creatae viribus fieri non possunt, saith Suarez; nam etsi Deus à nullo intellectu creato clarè cognosci potest viribus naturae, videri tamen clarè, & perspicuè poorest ab iis quorum mentes divina bonitas supra naturae modum illustraverit, & ad quandam divinae natur●e participationem evexerit (saith Fonseca.) This is done by a supernatural power; & fide tenemus quod ratione improbamus.  
Though all power is not excluded from the nature of created Intellection; for an Obediential power is founded in the nature of the Reasonable Soul, even unto acts of divine and supernatural quality, to those supernatural habits of Faith, Hope, Charity, etc. not Acquisite by any intrinsical power of it own, but infused by God, drawn out of the power of the Soul, eductione supernaturali, ad quam non requiritur ex parte subjecti potentia naturalis receptiva, sed obedientialis sufficit; which obediential power is founded in the nature of the Soul, 
Suarez tom. 1 disp. 15. sect. 2.9.  and in that respect is natural and essential to it: In which sense Aquinas is to be understood, saying, 
* 1.2. q. 113. art. 1.  Rationalis anima naturaliter est capax gratiae; and in another place, habilitas animae ad gratiam consequitur naturam ejus, 1 part, q. 48. art. 4. And in the same sense St. Augustine de Praedest. sanct. cap. 5. Posse habere fidem & charitatem naturae est fidelium.  
And in this sense as Grace, so Glory is seated, and is to be found in the Reasonable Soul; the Soul is capable of Grace, there is a capacity also in the Intellect to the light of glory, the clear vision of God, the full enjoyment of him, though not a Natural, properly so called, yet an Obediential, or a Non-repugnant faculty; which power and virtue is not to be found in any other creatures below man.  
Yet is not this full Intuition and Fruition of the Divine Essence a comprehension of his infinity; for it is one thing to have a quidditative knowledge of any substance, another to comprehend it; and therefore though the Souls of the blessed in heaven have this supernatural endowment, fully and clearly to behold God; yet is it not given to any created Intellect fully to comprehend him, because none can understand or perceive his infinite power, or attain to the knowledge of all those infinite number of things possible to the making of which his power doth extend.  
To know all the Individual creatures possible to be made (omnia quomodocunque possibilia) which are infinite; or to know but all the thoughts and cogitations of every man's heart which shall, or may be, is only proper to God, and is not communicable to any created Intellection of Saint or Angel whatsoever; wherefore though Created Intellect by divine assistance is able clearly and fully to apprehend the divine nature, as it is in itself, and that all things (any way possible to be) necessarily and naturally are in God; yet are not all things altogether known which are in his divine Essence; quia cognitio omnium omnino quae à deo effici possunt, dari non potest sine comprehensione divinae essentiae. 
* Ad argumentum quod deus ut speculum est & quod omnia quae fieri possunt in eo resplendet, respondet, Tho. per 1. q. 12. a. 8. ad 2. quod non est necessarium quod videns speculum omnia in speculo videat nis● speculum visu suo comprehendat nemo autem deum cumprebendit.  Of the divine Essence there is a full Intuitive knowledge, which being fully seen, begets the like knowledge of all created beings, all actual existencies of Men, Angels, etc. of their natures, differences, properties, powers, and operations, which are all in him, and flow from him.  
But of all beings possible only, which have no real and actual Existence (omnia omnino) all of these altogether cannot be seen by any created Intellect, by any intuitive Vision or Intellection; for such is (as hath been said) only proper to God, being both a quidditative and a comprehensive knowledge also; & is that perfection of infinite knowledge, than which a perfecter cannot be conceived, which to ascribe to any creature is such an implication of contradiction as falls not within the compass of God's Omnipotency.  
But pass we by the knowledge of all other Existences, and proceed in the declaration of that knowledge of God himself which comes by Intuitive Intellection, which for the excellency of its object is termed Sapience: 
3 ibs 3. dis. 5. b.  Aquinas puts this difference 'twixt Science, Intelligence, and Sapience (viz.) that Science and Intelligence relate to the creatures, and hath them for object, but Sapience only looks upon God, and in that object is delighted; Scientia valet ad rerum temporalium rectam administrationem, & ad bonam inter malos conversationem; intelligentia vero ad creatoris & creaturarum invisibilium speculationem; sapientia vero ad solius aeternae beatitudinis contemplationem & delectationem.  
In this knowledge is all our bliss and joy, the greatest felicity that Man is capable of, for according to the excellency of our knowledge is the greatness of our happiness and delight ever; now the excellency of this divine Sapience is manifested,  
First, by the Faculty and Power.  
Secondly, by the Object suited to that Power.  
Thirdly, by the Union of the Object with the Power.  
And lastly by the Means, Instrument, or Organ of this Union of the Object with the Power.  
First, the Power and Faculty of Knowledge is the Intellect or Mind, which is far more pure, noble, high, and lively, and therefore more apt for knowledge than any or all of the Senses.  
Secondly, the Object is God, a divine Essence, an infinite Being, the highest, and excellentest of all objects either of Body or Mind, because he is summum bonum, omne bonum, infinitum bonum, Truth itself, and Goodness itself.  
Thirdly, the Union of the Intellect with God in this beatifical Vision is an Union so near and close, ut essentia Dei totam mentem videntis penetret & mens ipsa in ipsum Deum quasi in mare magnum tota mergatur & transformetur. Bellar. de aeterna felicitat. lib. 4. cap 2.  
Fourthly, the way and means whereby God is thus united to the Underderstanding, to this Intuitive Intellection, is per lumen gloriae, by this is God conveyed to the souls of the blessed, and to Angelical spirits, and made one with them.  
In this life the Eye of Reason is dark and purblind, and cannot behold God but by the light of Faith, which is but obscurely, per aenigma; hereafter the eyes of our understanding are opened to see God without this light of Faith, but not by its own intellectual light, natural and created; nor by the light of Faith, though it be supernatural; but by a light of Glory unexpressibly supernatural; in a peculiar way and manner flowing from the very Essence of God as a peerless piece of his own uncreated Glory; Lumen gloriae, quod Theologi dicunt infundi beatis, sicut nulli creaturae esse potest connaturale, ita peculiari quodam modo & ratione ab essentia Dei fluit tanquam singularis participatio increati luminis ejus. This light of Glory as it is the means and instrument of conveying the Object to the Soul, the divine Essence to the Mind and Intellect, hath God for its proper Object, and therefore works not as an Organ or Instrument of any created Intelligence to which it is commensurate and adequate, but of an increate and independent Intelligence as a proper instrument of God.  
And now (O my Soul) art thou come to the Mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgha, where though thou mayst (though afar off) take a view of the promised Land, having traveled through the planes of Moab, from the deserts of Arabia, and Wilderness of Zin; from the Rudiments of Philosophy, to the Mysteries of Divinity; thy burblind aeson by the conduct of Faith is in some measure raised to a Revelation and Vision of that Eternal Beatitude, which Naturally thou desirest.  
First then, thy Science of this was Philosophical, drawn from the light of Nature; Reason teacheth thou art Immortal, and capable of everlasting Felicity, which consists in the Vision and Contemplation of God thy chiefest good, and hast an Innate concreate desire thereto; And although the principles of Rational Knowledge are for the most part per se nota, so known by their own light as may force an assent; yet in as much as God who is thy summum bonum is a light inaccessible, such a light as bleareyed Reason can not behold; the full Knowledge of God is not by Rational principle, Natural Science is not a scale large enough to contain, nor a yard long enough to measure out the true Virtue and full force of this divine Essence, but must resolve into principles of a higher nature; here thou must run from the principles of Philosophy to the maxims of Divinity; here thou must submit thy understanding to the rules and articles of Faith.  
Thy Science of God than is Theological, drawn (not from the light of Nature, but) from the revelation of God in the Scriptures; the principles of this Theological science are supernatural, and resolve not into the grounds of natural reason, but into the maxims of divine knowledge supernatural; and of this we have just so much light, and no more, than God hath revealed to us in the Scriptures; which is not so full a light as the prime principles of rational Sciences carry along with them to force reason upon the first sight to yield unto it; such as are these (viz.) Every whole is greater than a part of the whole; and again, The same thing cannot be, and not be, at one and the same time, and in one and the same respect.  
These carry a natural light in them, clear and evident, the Scriptures not so, yet such a light as is of force to breed Faith, though not to make a perfect Knowledge; for though it be life eternal to know God, 
John 17.  and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, yet this knowledge is no more than a belief; since God requires not a demonstrative knowledge of him here, but our Faith in him, and such a knowledge as may fit that, we walk by faith, and not by sight, or perfect knowledge; for Man having sinned by pride, God thought it fittest to humble him at the very root of the tree of knowledge, and make him deny his understanding, and submit to Faith, or hazard his happiness.  
Faith than is a Christians rule, and ground of Science; now the evidence of Faith is not so clear as that of Reason, tum ratione objecti, tum ratione subjecti.  
First, Ratione objecti, God; Faith is the evidence of things not seen.  
Secondly, Ratione subjecti, the Subject that sees, it is but in aegnimate, in a glass, or dark speech. Moreover, Faith is an act of the Will primarily and chief, and not of the Understanding. It is not in this Theological Science as in other Sciences, where voluntas sequitur dictamen intellectus, but contrariwise, intellectus sequitur arbitrium voluntatis. For Faith is a mixed act of the Will and Understanding, and the Will first inclines the Understanding to yield full approbation to that whereof it sees not full proof. Credere enim est actus intellectus vero assentientis, productus ex voluntatis imperio. 
In sent. d. 23. q. 2. a. 1. Tho. 2.2. q. 2. a. 2. ad 3  Biel. And again, Intellectus credentis determinatur ad unum, non per rationem, sed per voluntatem. And Stapleton contra Whittaker. saith, Fides actus est non solius intellectus, sed etiam voluntatis quae cogi non potest; 
Triplic. contra Whittak. cap. 6. p. 64  imo magis voluntatis quam intellectus quatenus illa operationis principium est, & assensum (qui propriè actus fidei est) sola elicit; nec ab intellectu voluntas, sed à voluntate intellectus in actu fidei determinatur.  
And though the principles of Faith (being concealed from our view, and folded up in the un-revealed counsel of God) appear not so evident and manifest unto us as those of Reason, yet they are in themselves much more sure and infallible than they; for they proceed immediately from God that heavenly Wisdom, which being the fountain and original of ours, must needs infinitely precede ours both in nature and excellency: And therefore, though we be far unable to reach the order of their deductions, nor can in this life come to the vision of them, yet we yield as full and firm consent, not only to the articles, but to all the things rightly deduced from them, as we do to the most evident principles of natural reason; so that thou mayst justly say, thy Faith is stronger than thy Reason or Knowledge is, because it goes higher, and so upon a safer principle than thy Reason or Knowledge can in this life attain unto. Hoc intelligendum est, ut scientia certior sit certitudine evidentiae, fides vero certior firmitate adhaesionis; majus lumen in scientia, majus robur in fide, saith Biel in 3 sent. d. 23. q. 3 a. 1. Thus much and more mayst thou find couched, and excellently handled by the most reverend Father in God, William Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, in his book against Fisher, pag. 16.  
And for certainty and assurance in this kind, Faith doth not only exceed all certainty that can proceed from any natural Science be it never so demonstrative, but in a manner equals the very knowledge by Intuitive Vision in the world to come. St Bernard makes it good too, in sermonibus Domini Gilleberti super Cantica Canticorum, cap. 3.  
Intelligentia quidem etsi fidem excedit, non tamen aliud contuetur quam quod fide continetur; in intelligentia quam in fide non major certitudo inest sed serenitas; neutra vel errat vel haesitat, ubi vel error vel haesitatio est, intelligentia non est, ubi haesitatio est fides non est; et si fides admittere posse videtur errorem, non est vera nec Catholica fides, sed erronea credulitas.  
Thus are Reason, Faith and Vision instrumental and necessary one for another; without Reason no Faith, without Faith no Vision; and this is all the difference amongst them, 'tis St Bernard's still, and tightly done, Fides (ut sic dicam) veritatem rectam tenet & possidet, Intelligentia revelatam & nudam contuetur, Ratio conatur revelare, ratio inter fidem intelligentiamque discurrens, ad illam se erigit, sed ista regit; ratio plus aliquid quam credere vult; quid aliud? conspicere; aliud est credere, aliud est cernere; non tamen aliud quam quod fide concipit conspicere conatur: et si nondum sincerè videre potest, quibusdam tamen accommodatis experimentis conjicere tentat, quae jam solida fide concepit; ratio supra fidem conatur, fide tamen nititur, fide cohibetur; in primo devota est, in secundo prudens, in tertio sobria: & (ut sic dicam) fides tenet, tuetur ratio, intelligentia intuetur: bonus iste circuitus in quo mens rationis ductu pervestigando procedit, sed à fide non recedit, instructa à fide & restricta ad fidem.  
Thus have I shown thee (O my Soul) thy spiritual progress, in the search of thy Felicity; this is the circuit and round of the Soul in its Military march to the heavenly Jerusalem, in the search of him who is the dearly beloved of my Soul; these are the streets it compasseth about; bonus quidem rationis circuitus, a happy circuit and progress of the Soul doubtless, when the Soul prosecutes its felicity by rational disquisition; and this search too is bounded and limited by the rules of Faith, walking from Faith to Faith, or from Faith to Vision and Contemplation, till it come to the full fruition of what it so much desireth and loveth.  
And now having brought thee to thy journey's end, to thy harbour and haven of joy and bliss, I will here sing a Requiem to my soul, a nunc dimittis to my Spirit; Lord now lettest thou thy servant departed in peace according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. And since the way to this beatitude lies by the gates of Death, that there must be a separation of Soul and Body, before there be a full Vision and Fruition; I do here desire to set this little house in order, and to make this my last Will and Testament: where I bequeath my Soul into the hands of God that gave it, and my Body to the grave in Christian burial; Earth to Earth, Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes, in hope of a joyful and glorious resurrection unto eternal life, through the merits of Christ my Saviour. Amen.   
FINIS.