Modern philosophers, assisted by the divine oracles, must needs come closer to the mark, and give us a far better account of the
* For to whom is tiie truth known with certainty without God ? or God without Christ? or Christ exploited without the Spirit? or the Spirit vouchsafed without faith I — TertiUlian on the soul.
nature of the soul. Yet I have endeavoured not to cloud this sub- ject with their controversies, or abstruse notions ; remembering what a smart but deserved check, Tertullian gives those, Qui Pla~ tonkum et Aristotelicum Christianismum producunt Christianis. Words are but the servants of matter, I value them as merchants do their ships, not by the gilded head and stern, the neatness of their mould, or curious flags and streamers, but by the soundness of their bottom, largeness of their capacity, and richness of their cargo and loading. The quality of the subject necessitates, in many places, the use of scholastic terms, which will be obscure to the vulgar reader : but apt and proper words must not be rejected for their obscurity, except plainer words could be found that fit the subject as well, and are as fully expressive of the matter. The un- necessary I have avoided, and the rest explained as I could.
The principal fruits I especially aim at, both to my own and the reader's soul, are, That whilst we contemplate the freedom, plea- sure, and satisfaction of that spiritual, incorporeal people, who dwell in the region of light and joy, and are hereby forming to ourselves a true scriptural idea of the blessed state of those disem- bodied spirits, with whom we are to serve and converse in the tem- ple-worship in heaven ; and come more explicitly and distinctly to understand the constitution, order, and delightful employments of those our everlasting associates ; we may answerably feel the sound and inordinate love of this animal life sub-acted and wrought down ; the frightful vizard of death drop off, nd a more pleasing aspect appear ; that no upright soul that shall read these discourses may henceforth be convulsed at the name of death, but cheerfully aspire, and with a pleasant expectation wait for the blessed season of its transportation to that blessed assembly. It is certainly our igno- rance ol the life of heaven, that makes us dote as we do upon the present life. There is a gloom, a thick mist overspreading the next life, and hiding, even from the eyes of believers, the glory that is there. We send forth our thoughts to penetrate this cloud, but they return to us without the desired success. We reinforce them with a sally of new and more vigorous thoughts, but still they come back in confusion and disappointment, as to any perfect account they can bring us from thence ; though the oftener and closer we think, still the more we grow up into acquaintance with these excellent things.
Another benefit I pray for, and expect from these labours, is, that by describing the horrid estate of those souls which go the other way, and shewing to the living the dismal condition of souls departed in their unregenerate state, some may be awakened to a seasonable and effectual consideration of their wretched condi-
tion, whilst they yet continue under the means and among the in- struments of their salvation.
Whatever the fruit of this discourse shall be to others, I have cause to bless God for the advantage it hath already given me. I begin to find more than ever I have done, in the separate state of sanctified souls, all that is capable of attracting an intellectual nature ; and if God will but fix my mind upon this state, and cause my pleased thoughts about it to settle into a steady frame and temper, I hope I shall daily more and more depreciate and despise this common way of existence in a corporeal prison ; and when the blessed season of my departure is at hand, I shall take a cheerful farewell of the greater and lesser elementary world, to which my soul hath been confined, and have an abundant entrance through the broad gate of assurance, unto the blessed, unembodied inhabit- ants of the world to come.
And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living soul.
J. HREE things (saith * Athanasius) are unknown to men " according to their essence, viz. God, angels, and the souls of " men." Of the nature of the divine and high-born soul, we may say, as the learned -f- Whitaker doth of the way of its infection by original sin, " it is easier sought than understood, and better under- " stood than explicated.11 And for its original, the most sagacious and renowned for wisdom amongst the J ancient philosophers under- stood nothing of it. It is said of § Democritus, that " there is " nothing in the whole workmanship of nature of which he did " not write ;" and in a more lofty and swelling hyperbole, they stile their eagle-eyed Aristotle, " the rule, yea, and miracle of nature ; " learning itself, the very son of knowledge :" yet both these are not only said, but proved by Lactantius to be learned ideots. How have the schools of Epicurus, and Aristotle, the Cartesians, and other sects of philosophers abused and troubled the world with a kind of philosophical enthusiasm, and a great many ridiculous fancies about the original of the soul o{ man ! and when all is done
* Tria sunt quee secundum essentiam hominibus sunt ayvu^a, 7tai ctogtsa, Deus, an- gelus, anima hominis. Ath. in Tract, de defin.
f QuceriJ'acilius est quam i?itelligi, et melius i?iteUigitur quam erplicatur.
j Plato doubted, Aristotle denied, and Galen derided the doctrine of the world's creation.
§ Nihil est in toto opificio natures, de quo non scripnt Democritus. And for Aristotle, they stiled him, Regula naturce, Naturee miraculwn, ipsa erudilio, sol scientiarum^ An~ tistes literarum et sapientue. Lactantius, lib. iii. cap. 17, 18.
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAX. 489
three words of God, by the pen of his inspired Moses *, enlight- ens us more than all the subtle notions of the accidential concre- tion of atoms, their materia subtilis, and annua mundi, and the rest of their unintelligible fancies could ever do.
The account Moses gives us in this context, of the origin of the world, and of man the epitome of it, is full of sense, reason, con- gruity, and clearness ; and such as renders all the essays of all the Heathen philosophers to be vain, inevident, self-repugnant, and inexplicable theories.
The inspired penman gives us, in this context, a compendious narrative of the world's creation, relating more generally the rude, inform, and indigested chaos ; and then more particularly the spe- cificating, and diversifying of the various beautiful beings, thence educed by the motion of the Spirit of God upon the face of the waters.