III.

of their philosophy, which would tend so much to the CHAP. credit of it, and as contemptuously reject what they found irreconcilable with the dictates of their philosophy. Now what an unreasonable thing is it, when, whatever was noble and excellent in the heathen philosophy, was derivative from the Scriptures, as the sacred fountain of it, that the meeting with such things should in the least redound to the prejudice of the Scriptures, from whence it was originally derived? When on the other side it should be a great confirmation to our faith, as to the Scriptures, that they, who were professed philosophers and admirers only of reason, did so readily embrace some of those grand truths which are contained in the word of God.

For which we need no other instance than that before us concerning the origin of evil; the making out of which will tend to the clearing the last thing mentioned concerning it, which was, that the most material things in it are attested by the heathens themselves. And this honey which is gained out of the lion's mouth, must needs taste sweeter than any other doth. For it is a weak and groundless mistake on the other side, which is the second, (which ariseth from meeting things consonant to the Scriptures in the writings of philosophers,) presently to conclude from such things that they were Christians (as it is said. some have lately done in the behalf of Hierocles). For there being such clear accounts given in Scripture of the grand difficulties and perplexities which the minds of men were troubled with, when these came to the knowledge of such who were of philosophic and inquisitive heads, we cannot but think they would meet with acceptation among them, especially if they might be made consistent with their former speculations: thus it was in our present case concerning the origin

XIV.

III.

BOOK of evil. We have already beheld the lamentable perplexities the ancient philosophers were in about it, what meanders they were lost in for want of a clue to guide them through them: now it pleased God, after the coming of Christ in the flesh, to declare to the world the only way for the recovery of souls, and their eternal salvation; the news of which being spread so far that it soon got among the philosophers, could not but make them more inquisitive concerning the state and condition of their souls; and when they had searched what the philosophers had formerly discovered of it, their curiosity would presently prompt them to see what account of things, concerning the souls of men, was delivered by the preachers of this new doctrine. By this they could not but presently understand that they declared all men's souls to be in a most degenerate and low condition, by being so continually under the power of the most unreasonable and unruly passions, that they were estranged from God, and prone to fix on things very unsuitable to their nature; as to all which, their own inward sense and experience could not but tell them, that these things were notoriously true; and therefore they inquire further how these things came to be so; which they receive a full account of in Scripture: that man's soul was at first created pure and holy, and in perfect friendship with God: that God dealt bountifully and favourably with man; only expected obedience to his laws that man being a free agent, did abuse his liberty, and disobeyed his Maker: and thence came the true Teρoppinois, the feathers of the soul, whereby it soared up to heaven, moulted away, and the soul sunk below itself into a degenerate and apostate condition; out of which it is impossible to be recovered without some extraordinary expression of Divine fa

III.

vour. Now what is there in all this account, but what CHAP. is hugely suitable to principles of reason, and to the general experience of the world, as to those things which were capable of being tried by it? And those philosophers who were any thing ingenuous, and lovers of truth, could not but confess the truth of those things which we are now speaking of, viz. That men's souls are in a very degenerate condition; that the most rational account of it is, that man, by the act of his own will, brought himself into it; and that, in order to the happiness of men's souls, there was a necessity of recovery out of this condition.

As to the degeneracy of the souls of men; this was the common complaint of those philosophers who minded the government of themselves, and the practice of virtue; especially of the Platonists and Stoics. Seneca, in all his moral discourses, especially in his Epistles, may speak sufficiently in behalf of the Stoics, how much they lamented the degeneracy of the world. And the Platonists all complain of the slavery of the soul in the body, and that it is here by way of punishment for something which was done before; which makes me somewhat inclinable to think that Plato knew more of the lapse of mankind than he would openly discover, and for that end disguised it, after his usual manner, in that hypothesis of preexistence, which, taking it cabalistically, (for I rather think the opinion of preexistence is so to be taken than the history of the fall of man,) may import only this, That men's souls might be justly supposed to be created happy; but by reason of the apostasy of man's soul from God, all souls came now into their bodies as into a kind of prison, they being enslaved to the brutish part within them; there having been such a true πτepoppúŋσis, the soul being now deprived of her chiefest

XV.

I.

BOOK perfections in this her low and degenerate condition. III. And it seems far more rational to me to interpret

those persons' opinions to a cabalistical or an allegorical sense, who are known to have written designedly in a way obscure and ambiguous, than to force those men's expressions to cabalas, who profess to write a plain history, and that with the greatest simplicity and perspicuity. But it cannot but seem very strange, that an hypothesis capable of being reconciled to the plain literal sense of the Scriptures (delivered by a person who useth great artifice and cunning to disguise his opinions, and such a person withal, who (by such persons themselves who make use of this opinion to that end) is supposed to have been very conversant with the writings of Moses) should be taken in its literal sense, as it really imports preexistence of each particular soul in the grossest manner; and this should be made to be a part of the philosophic cabala of the writings of such a person, who useth not the least artifice to disguise his sense, nor gives us any where the least intimation that he left behind him such plaited pictures in his history of the beginning of the world, that if you look straight forward, you may see a literal cabala; on the one side a philosophical, and on the other a moral. But now if we remove the cabala from Moses to Plato, we may find no incongruity or repugnancy at all, either as to Plato's way of writing, or the consonancy of the opinion so interpreted to the plain genuine sense of Moses; if by Plato's opinion of the preexistence and descent of souls be understood, by the former, the happy state of the soul of man in conjunction with God, and by the latter, the low and degenerate condition which the soul is in after apostasy from him; which the latter Platonists are so large and eloquent in expressing. Porphyry, where he speaks of

III.

Porphyr. de

l.iii. sect. 2.

Pythag.

p. 261.

some things he counsels men to do, hath these words: CHAP. But if we cannot do them, let us at least do that which was so much lamented of old, Τὸ θρηνούμενον πρὸς τῶν πα- Abstinent. λαιῶν, which is, ὡς τοίων ἔκτ ̓ ἐρίδων, ἔκτε νεικέων γενόμεθα, ὅτι τὸ θεῖον καὶ ἀκήρατον, καὶ ἐν πᾶσιν ἀβλαβὲς σώζειν οὐ δυνάμεθα. Let us at the least join with our forefathers in lamenting this, that we are compounded of such disagreeing and contrary principles, that we are not able to preserve divine, pure, and unspotted innocency. And Hierocles fully expresseth his sense of the dege- Hieroc. in neracy of mankind in these words; Οἱ γὰρ πλεῖστοι κακοί, Carm. καὶ τῆς προσπαθείας ἥττους, καὶ φρενοβλαβεῖς ὑπὸ τῆς εἰς γῆν a. Loud. νεύσεως γενόμενοι· ὡς καὶ τοῦτο παρ ̓ ἑαυτῶν τὸ κακὸν ἔχειν, διὰ τὸ βουληθῆναι φυγεῖν ἀπὸ Θεοῦ, καὶ ἀπομερίσαι αὑτοὺς τῆς τού του ὁμιλίας, ἧς εὐτύχουν ἐν αὐγῇ καθαρᾷ διάγοντες· τὸν γὰρ ἀπὸ Θεοῦ χωρισμὸν βλάπτοντα τὰς φρένας ἡ πρὸς γῆν νεῦσις δηλοῖ. The most of men in the world are bad, and under the command of their passions, and grown impotent through their propensity to earth; which great evil they have brought upon themselves by their wilful apostasy from God, and withdrawing themselves from that society with him which they once enjoyed in pure light; which departure of men's souls from God, which is so hurtful to the minds of men, is evident by their strong inclination to the things of this world. The same author mentions, with much approbation, that speech of Heraclitus, speaking of those souls which are ἄπτωτοι εἰς κακίαν, which I cannot better render than undeclinably good; he saith, ὅτι ζῶμεν τὸν ἐκείνων θάνατον, τεθνήκαμεν δὲ τὸν ἐκείνων βίον We live their death, and die Ibid. p. 253. their life: κάτεισι γὰρ καὶ ἀποπίπτει τῆς εὐδαίμονος χώρας ὁ ἄνθρωπος. For man is now fallen down from that blessed region, and as Empedocles the Pythagorean speaks,

Φυγὰς θεόθεν καὶ ἀλήτης

Νείκει μαινομένῳ πίσυνος.

Ibid. p. 254.