REverend Sir , I have presumed upon your goodnesse and long acquaintance , you being a lover of truth , and of all those that love it , to designe this day to wait upon you , and to give you the trouble to satisfie some questions whereby my mind may be established in this wavering world , wherein severall societies of Christians do all lay claime to truth as theirs only , with as great fervency as the two women pleaded before King Solomon for the child , which could not possibly have two mothers : So surely there is but one truth , and but one right and true profession of it .

I hope your Religion is not now to seek ?

Not altogether , but I confess I would be glad to find satisfaction more fully about that religion in which I was born and bred , that so I may not beleeve implicitly , as because my parents were of this or that religion , but that I may be able to render a reason of mine own faith .

Your endeavour is good , but I fear you are troubled with the staggers or vertigo , a braine giddinesse bred by the inordinate motion of spirits in the ventricle of the brain ; so I beleeve your mind is made light and frothy by some evil notions unwarily received , or by a multitude of good notions not wel disposed , like unto good meat that being not well digested will breed a disease as well as vicious diet ; this may be some cause of your wavering .

I think , Sir , you say right . For I confesse to you that I have met with some spirits that have made me in such a maze , and brought me into such a labyrinth , that I have turned Seeker of what I had , and a Shaker in what I held ; yet I find my first tenets in the Protestant Religion to be the best , but I want confirmation : For some tell me that I cannot prove there is a God , or that man hath a soule immortall more then other creatures , and that it comes only by generation , and hath no existence after death : And when I endeavour to confute them by Scripture , they bid me prove the Scriture to be the word of God ; when I seek to prove that by Scripture , they say it cannot bear witness to its selfe , for that is to prove the same by the same : If I flie to the tradition of the Church , they aske me what Church is the true Church : Or if I offer them the sence of Scripture to prove what they demand , then they ask me who shall be judge whether that be the true sense or no : If I say our Church of England , Gabr. à porta . Bi●l . in can . miss. lect. 23. they deny her to be true : If I say the Church of Rome , others prove her and her Pope too Hereticall : If I say the reformed Churches of Geneva , Helvetia , or Scotland , they tell me they are schismaticall ; so that I am in a great straight with Job , to know where wisdome is to be found , Job 28.12 . or where is the place of understanding ?

You need not seek far , the word is neer thee from whence such reasons may be deduced , that will answer all these opinions : But if men will not hear these reasons , I must tell them they have no faith , but either humane or divelish , not divine faith which beleeves that there is a word of God , and beleeves God upon that word . But I will not anticipate ; tell me therefore what was the first thing which troubled you .

Even the same with which I troubled my selfe being a child , or something else troubled me by casting into my mind , what that God was , of whom my parents had told me ? whether he was before the world ? what he did then before he made it ? And I have met with some of as little wit as I my selfe then had , or else of deeper reach , either to bring us into some form , which yet we have not had , or else to bring us all to confusion , and then out of that chaos to raise up a Church of their own framing , and boast of it as did Nebuchadnezzer , Is not this great Babel which I have built ?

As these thoughts came into your mind for want of knowledge of God at first , so do these scrupulous queries come into it , for want of subjecting your selfe to that knowledge which God hath offered to you of himselfe : For the soul of man being rational and discoursive , will run into many vagaries , and grow extravagant without rule , and so misse God , wherein standeth mans eternall happinesse .

Is there a way then for a man to attain eternall happinesse ? Quest. 1

Yes . First , if there were no eternall happinesse , God had made man in vain with so vast a mind , which no finite thing can satisfie ; and then there must be a way to this happinesse , or else that happinesse is ordained in vain also for man .

Some think it is not necessary to know any more happiness then nature sheweth and dictates to us .

Nature sheweth in part , that felicity which is necessary for man to know , but not fully , but as in the wrong end of an optick glass , which makes things appear farther off , or lesse then they are , or else sheweth us a false felicity , as in a magnifying or multiplying glasse , wherein it appeareth bigger or more then it is ; all which sheweth there is an happinesse , though nature mistakes it , or cannot perfectly shew it , though it be necessary for us to know it .

How prove you it is necessary for us to know it ?

1. Because I have a soule capable of such a knowledge , nor is an industrious soule quiet till it find either it or something like it , wherein it may find a rest and content : Therefore the spirit of a man is the candle of God to search hidden secrets , Pro. 20.27 . yea , even the things of God , 1 Cor. 2.10 . and by desire a man having separated himselfe , seeks and intermedleth with all wisedome . Pro. 18.1 . 2. Because man is made for it , God intended him for happinesse : For as the world was made that God might be revealed , so God was revealed that man might know him , which is felicity . God sought to bring man to it first by obedience , wherein he failing , thereby shewing the mutability of created nature , God next set before him the object of beleeving ( viz. ) his promise of Christ , to know whom in God is life eternall , John 17.3 . and felicity . 3. Because man is a future , not only a present creature ; for he hath a soul which will be existent after death in joy or sorrow , and therefore necessary for him to know felicity , and to avoid misery .

How prove you that he hath such a soule .

From our immortall desires to live either in memory or posterity for ever , which argueth the immortall nature of the soule , though it be deceived in the choise of it by placing immortality where it is not . So Absalom set up his monumentall pillar , 2 Sam. 18.18 . and some call their lands after their own names , Psa. 49.12 . and men desire tombs , which argueth a desire of perpetuall life . No creature hath this desire but man , for things without life desire to preserve themselves in their particular being , Secundum numerum pronunc . Vid. Scor. Dist. 94. and beasts desire the continuance of their kind only for the present time , but man desires a perpetuall being included in no bounds .

2. Because it hath a kind of infinit apprehension ; comprehending singular things , and universall things , and the kinds of all things , which argueth an immortall nature .

3. Because God hath made a perpetuall covenant with man , Numb. 18.19 . and therefore the soul hath a continuall being in or out of the body , else is the Covenant ended . But , God is not the God of the dead , Mat. 22.32.33 . but of the living , for all do live to him , therefore he cals himselfe the God of the Patriarchs after their death , Exod. 3.6 . so some in scripture are said to be gathered to their fathers in peace , though slaine , as 2 Chron. 35. as good Josiah . But it is meant to the spirit of the Fathers which were at rest and peace with God , bound up in the bundle of life , 2 Sam. 25.29 . among the spirits of just men made perfect , Heb. 12.23 .

4. Because men undergo losse and crosse , and death without cause joifully , which were madnesse if the soule were not immortall , and expected after death some felicity to enjoy , 1 Cor. 15.19 . But many love not their lives that they may find them hereafter , Mar. 8.35 .

5. Because God in the last judgement may shew himselfe just , as Gen. 18.23 . for in this world good men suffer , and evill men flourish , Psal. 37. Psal. 71.2 , 3. so Jer. 12.1 . yet it is but to fat them for the slaughter , Jer. 12.3 . Therefore the soule is immortall that every man may find the justice of God at last .

6. The learned heathen did acknowledge this , Arist. Cic. Tusc. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . calling the soul the first motion , as if it were the beginning of motion ; so by their letting an Eagle flie aloft when the bodies of their Heroes were put into the funerall fires . It is true , that the Scripture saith , the soul that sinneth , that shall die , but the meaning is , not that the soul shall be dissolved in his essentiall life , but in the relative life to God-ward , by whose goodness and mercy it obtaineth an eternall felicity .

But how can I prove that it hath any existence after the death of the body ?

Because it is distinguished in this by all wise men from the souls or life of bruits ; for the spirit of a man goeth upward , and the spirit of a beast goeth downward , Eccles. 3.21 . And again , Eccles. 12.7 . the dust shall return to the earth , and the spirit to God that gave it ; which returning to God signifies the souls immortality , Psallus . that is , as God alwaies is , so the soule is subsisting with God ; for if the soule be immortall it cannot wax old , Phocylid . but must live ever ; so that you must denie the soule to be immortall , or else grant that it never dieth . But the old Chaldeans and Egyptians shall rise against such Christians , whose precept was , that a man should make haste to the light and splendors of the Father , and to seek Paradise , which is the splendid and cleer region of the soule . Trismegistus confirms the perpetuall being of the soul ; Cic. Tusc. Pythagoras saith as much , and Tully from him . Epictetus saith , we are the kinsmen of God , and return from whence we came . Plat. in Phaed. Comment. Mor. Zill . Hisp . in Plat. Plato is more clear then any : And St Paul himselfe makes use of Aratus in the Acts , saying , We are Gods off-spring , Acts 17.28 .

But beside , Christ gives us greater light in the point , John 3.36 . saying , He that beleeveth in me hath life eternall , and to the thief he said , This day thou shalt be with me , when as that day both their bodies were dead . 2 Cor. 5.1 . So St Paul saith , We know when this earthly house is dissolved , we have a building of God in the heavens : He doth not say when this house shall be repaired as at the resurrection , but so soon as it is dissolved . So in the fifth verse , saith he , When we are at home in the body , we are absent from the Lord , and therefore are willing to be absent from the body , to be present with the Lord , therefore he desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ . And St Stephen praieth God to receive his spirit . But beside all this , if we beleeve that any who were raised from death in Scripture , were truly dead , then their soule upon departure from the body , had a subsisting , or else were dissolved into nothing , and if dissolved into nothing , then they were newly created , rather then reunited , and so cannot properly be said to be raised , but the soule was re-created , and re-infused , and so being a new something brought out of nothing , into which it was dissolved , we shall doubt whether they had their own souls again . And again , if the soul were dissolved at death , in vain did Christ warn us not to feare them that kill the body , or him that can damn the soul ; For what damnum or damage can there be to him , that after death hath no soul to feel either sorrow of losse , or pain of sense .

I pray , Sir , what think you of the soul , and how come we by it , and then let me know what principles are left to lead it to felicity ?

You propound too fast , one of these three is enough at once , and especially the first to know what the soul is , since Christ saith , it hath been with us ever since we were born , and yet we know not what it is . But I suppose he meaneth that we know it not by any perfect knowledge we have of the essence thereof ; for it is hard to know that by which we know any thing , yet we may know it by its operation ; for no doubt it is an immateriall or spiritual substance , which gives man ( next to God ) life , sense , motion , and understanding . How we came by this soule at first in our first parents , must be understood from God , who gives beginning to all things ; but how we have them since , may be a question ; for though he made our first parents by creation , yet he makes us mediately by generation of our parents ; but whether soule and body , is a question too , and yet we say one man begets another , and if the whole man , then body and soule , but if the body only , then is but halfe the man begotten by the parents : Some think all souls were at first created , Plato . and are reserved as in a treasury , I know not where , and infused at mans generation , or when the body is apt to receive them , but then it is not the form of man , nor doth work in the forming of mans body from his conception if it be not infused till the body be apt for it , which they count forty daies after the conception : Others , Hilary . that God creates it of nothing , ex tempore , upon every occasion of the females conception ; but then say others , God is put to a new creation every day : Zanchius . Some say that God gives it essence and substance , but the parents give it a beginning of being and existence . Many , or most of the Fathers did judge that it was created of God immediatly , and infused , yet Saint Augustine makes a stand at it , Aug. in epist. act Hieron . 28. de orig. peccato . because he finds not how originall sin can be conveied , if the soul come not by the parents to the child by propagation ; for if the body come only from them , meer matter is not capable of sin , neither is the body alone a person , and so no person of man is tainted with originall sin in conception , as Psal. 51. In sin my mother conceived ( not my body only ) but me ; and if God make the soule of nothing and then infuseth it , then it being of it selfe pure by his creation , how can it stand with Gods justice to pour it into a tainted body ; and if the body as meer matter cannot be sinfull , nor the soule neither being newly set out of Gods hand , then meer uniting cannot make them so , and then we shall find no originall sin at all . These opinions being not plainly concluded by the Scripture nor the * * Yet in Saint Hieromes time the Western Church was much inclined this way . Church ; therefore as we are to hold that which Scripture , reason , or experience holdeth forth to us most evidently ; so where such evidence is not , we are to hold that which is most probable , which if we will not do , I see no reason but we must be content without reason . Now the Scriptures do not plainly evidence that the soule is immediately created of God , and so infused , but rather offers it as a thing not altogether from God , nor altogether from man , as you may see by divers phrases in Scripture , as in Gen. 1.27 . Be fruitfull , and multiply , and fill the earth ( viz. ) that is , with mankind , and persons of men as other creatures were to do , ver. 22. of that Chapter , or else Gods word is not so effectuall in man the more excellent creature , as it is in the beasts , all which he intended by his resting from creating , that they should ever persist of themselves , and multiply their kinds : Of which God gave the first instance when he framed Eve the first woman out of the first man ; and yet is not said to breath into her as into Adam , a breath of life , silently arguing , that by his power concurring , her whole substance was taken from Adam , upon whom he had first and originally breathed * * Spiraculum animarum . the breath of souls , as the originall text reads it ; yet other texts shew us also that God hath an especiall hand in it , as Job 10.8 , 10. and Psal. 139.13 , 15. Thy hands have made me : Thou hast covered me in my mothers womb . And Jeremy brings in God asserting , that he formed him in the womb , and Zach. 12.1 . It is said God formeth the spirit of a man within him ; he doth not say creates it of nothing , but he brings that into act , which was there in the seed , Arist. but potentially , as Aristotle held not much amisse , though he leaves it doubtfull whether it be mortall or immortall ; so that we see both God and man hath an hand in the generation of the whole man together .

I pray make that a little more plain ?

The Philosophers say that the Sun and man begets man ; so we may say God and man do propagate mans soule ; God so far as to make it immortall , and man so far as to make it sinfull ; not that there is any separation in their generation , as if the body , of the body , and the soule of the soule , but the whole of the whole , through the special and meer immediat act of Gods providence , then any in other creatures generation ; for generation in man sure is of persons , not of parts : Of which persons God in regard of the soule is the outward efficient , and makes parents the procreating cause ; the materiall cause is spirituall matter of the parents souls , which God blowing upon by his power , lighteth one flame by another , without any division or diminution of that spirituall lamp , which is fed with the oile of animall spirits . And thus it may be as well propagated as united , God concurring in his spirituall power upon the soule , to which at first he gave being , and making man the instrument to produce it in the seed .

I pray give some places of Scripture to prove the production , and some reasons drawn from thence , for many places seem against it .

Some seem against it , but are not so , as Exod. 21.22 , &c. that a man if he hurt a woman with child , and her fruit depart from her , and yet mischief or death follow not , i. upon the mother , then the punishment shal be but a fine or mulct ; but if mischiefe or death follow , then he shall pay life for life . Now if this mischiefe or death be understood of the woman , this place argueth nothing to the souls production by propagation . If it be meant of the child , then it must have life , and how a reasonable creature can have life without the form of it , viz. a reasonable soule , I know not ; therefore the judgement surely was to be made upon the child quickning , and so life was to answer for life ; but whether the soule be not infused before , even at the conception , is still questionable . So Numb. 27.16 . he is called the God of spirits , yet is he not also the God of our bodies ? yes sure , as 1 Cor. 6.20 . Glorifie God in your bodies , for they are Gods . But Eccles. 12.7 . seemeth to make a greater difference , for the body is said there to return to the dust , but the spirit to God that gave it ; yet this proves only the soules immortall estate after death , not any immediate creation of it , except he relates to Adam , whose creation was immediate of dust , and his soule immediate from God , but our bodies are not so , and the question still remains , whether the soule be not conveied by Gods speciall concurrence in propagation . So Isa. 57.16 . it is said of God , I will not alwaies contend , lest the soules that I have made , faile before me ; but that is meant by the generall life of all creatures : Beside , who knoweth not that God makes us , we teach our children so to answer us in their Catechisme , because God did it originally , and doth it still by his benediction of parentall seed , yet we know also that the parents beget the children . So Ezek. 18. it is said , all souls are mine ; but that is , all persons . So Zach. 12.1 . It is said , God formeth the spirit of man within him , which no man will deny ; but the question is still of what , whether of nothing , or of the parents substance corporall and spirituall : Indeed that place of Zachary intends the first mans forming , as we see by his alledging Gods stretching forth of the heavens , and laying the foundation of the earth , which was at the creation ; or if he meaneth the souls of men since the creation , then by forming cannot ●e understood creating of nothing . But you will say that God is called the Father of Spirits , in opposition to the fathers of our flesh ; but the opposition is not made there between God and man , or soule and body , but between naturall life , and casuall correction , and spirituall ; but be it meant of God and naturall parents , yet it proves nothing to the souls production , for he is the God of our body , as well as of our spirits .