this was well expressed by Proclus:-'All souls are children of gods, but yet do not all of them know their own god; but such as know him and live like to him, are called children of gods'.'

CHAPTER IX.

AN APPENDIX CONCERNING THE REASON OF POSITIVE LAWS.

BUT here, as an appendix to the two former deductions,

it may be of good use to inquire into the reason of such laws as we call positive, to which God hath, in all times, as is commonly supposed, enjoined obedience; which are not the eternal dictates and decretals of the Divine nature communicating itself to immortal spirits, but rather deduce their original from the free will and pleasure of God.

To solve this difficulty, that of St Paul may seem a fit medium, who tells us, 'The law was added because of transgression;' though I doubt not but he means thereby the moral law, as well as any other. The true intent and scope of these positive laws, (and it may be of such an external promulgation of the moral) seems to be nothing else but this to secure the eternal law of righteousness from transgression. As the Jews say of their decreta sapientum, that they were 'a hedge to the law;' so we may say of these divine decretals, they were but cautionary and preventive of disobedience to that higher law and therefore St Paul tells us why the moral law was made such a political business by an external promulgation, &c., not so much because of righteous men,

1 πᾶσαι μὲν οὖν ψυχαὶ θεῶν παῖδες, ἀλλ' οὐ πᾶσαι τὸν ἑαυτῶν ἐπέγνωσαν θεόν αἱ δὲ ἐπιγνοῦσαι καὶ τὴν ὁμοίαν ἑλόμεναι ζωὴν, καλοῦνται παῖδες θεῶν.—Procl. in

Plat. Tim. 288 E.

• Τῶν παραβάσεων χάριν προσετέθη. Gal. iii. 19.

3

גֶדֶר לְתוֹרָה

in whom the law of nature lives, who perform Tà TOU róuov without any outward law; but it was given "for the lawless and disobedient'.' And, therefore, I doubt not but we may safely conclude, that God gave not those positive laws merely pro imperio, if I may use that expression: it was not merely to manifest His absolute dominion and sovereignty, as some think, but for the good of those that were enjoined to obey; and Moses endeavours almost throughout the whole book of Deuteronomy to strengthen the Israelites in this belief: and, therefore, God was so ready upon all occasions to dispense with these laws, and to require the Jews to omit the observance of them, when they might seem to justle with any other law of moral duty or human necessity—as may be observed in many instances in Scripture.

But, for a more distinct unfolding of this point, we may take notice of this difference in the notion of good and evil, as we are to converse with them. Some things are so absolutely, and some things are so only relatively. That which is absolutely good, is every way superior to us, and we ought always to be commanded by it, because we are made under it: but that which is relatively good to us, may sometime be commanded by us. Eternal truth and righteousness are in themselves perfectly and absolutely good, and the more we conform ourselves to them, the better we are. But those things that are good only relatively and in order to us, we may say of them, that they are so much the better, by how much the more they are conformed to us; I mean, by how much the more they are accommodated and fitted to our estate and condition, and may be fit means to help and promote us in our pursuit of some higher good: and such, indeed, is the matter of all positive laws, and the symbolical or ritual part of religion. And, as we are made for the former,

1 δικαίῳ νόμος οὐ κεῖται, ἀνόμοις δὲ καὶ ἀνυποτάκτοις, κ.τ.λ. Tim. i. 9.

M

viz. what is absolutely good, to serve that; so are these latter made for us, as our Saviour hath taught us, when He tells us that "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath':" and, as sincere and real Christians grow up towards true perfection, the less need have they of positive precepts or external helps. Yet, I doubt, it is nothing else but a wanton fastus and proud temper of spirit in our times, that makes so many talk of being above ordinances, who, if their own arrogance and presumption would give them leave to lay aside the flattering glass of their own self-love, would find themselves to have most need of them.

What I have observed concerning the things absolutely good, I conceive to be included in the expression, 'everlasting righteousness,'—which the prophet saith should be 'brought in' and advanced by the Messiah2: this dialoσúvn aivios is the righteousness which is of an eternal and immutable nature, as being a conformity with eternal and unchangeable truth. For there is a righteousness which thus is not eternal, but positive, and at the pleasure of God that dictates it: and such was the righteousness which Christ said it became Him to fulfil' when He was baptized3; there was no necessity that any such thing should become due. But the foundation of this everlasting righteousness is something unalterable. To speak more particularly. That the highest good should be loved in the highest degree; that dependent creatures, that borrow all they have from God, should never glory in themselves, or admire themselves, but ever admire and adore that unbounded goodness which is the source of their being, and all the good they partake of; that we should always do that which is just and right, according

1 τὸ σάββατον διὰ τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἐγένετο, οὐχ ὁ ἄνθρωπος διὰ τὸ σάββατον. Mark ii. 27.

.24 .Dan. ix צֶדֶק עוֹלָמִים 2

8 οὕτω γὰρ πρέπον ἐστὶν ἡμῖν πληρῶσαι πασαν δικαιοσύνην.—Matt. iii. 15.

to the measure we would others should do with us: these, and some other things which a rectified reason will easily supply, are immutably true and righteous; so that it never was, nor can be, true, that they are unnecessary. And whoso hath his heart moulded into a delight in such a righteousness and the practice thereof, hath this eternal righteousness brought into his soul; which righteousness is also true and real, not like that imaginary external righteousness of the law, in which the Pharisees boasted.

CHAPTER X.

The conclusion of this treatise, concerning the existence and nature of God, showing how our knowledge of God comes to be so imperfect in this state, while we are here in this terrestrial body. Two ways observed by Plotinus, whereby this body does prejudice the soul in her operations. That the better philosophers and more contemplative Jews did not deny the existence of all kinds of body in the other state. What is meant by Zoroaster's εἴδωλον ψυχῆς. What kind of knowledge of God cannot be attained to in this life. What is meant by flesh and blood, 1 Cor. xv. 20.

OR the concluding of this discourse, as a mantissa to

FOR

what hath been said, we shall a little consider how inconsistent a thing a perfect knowledge of God is with this mundane and corporeal state in which we are here. 'While we are in the body, we are absent from the Lord',' as St Paul speaks, and that, I think, without a mystery: such bodies as ours are, being fitted for an animal state, and pieces of this whole machina of sensible matter, are perpetually drawing down our souls, when they would raise up themselves by contemplation of the Deity; and the caring more or less for the things of this body so exercises the soul in this state, that it cannot attend upon

God ἀπερισπάστως—without distraction. In the ancient metaphysics, such a body as this which we carry about us, is called ἄντρον, σπήλαιον, &c.—the dark den and sepulchre in which souls are imprisoned and entombed,'—with many other expressions of the like import; and Proclus tells us that the commoration of the soul in such a body as this, is, according to the common vote of antiquity, nothing else but κατασκήνωσις ἐν πεδίῳ λήθης,— a dwelling, or pitching its tabernacle, in the valley of oblivion and death'.' But Plotinus seems not to be easily satisfied with allegorical descriptions, and, therefore, searching more strictly into this business, tells his own and their meaning in plainer terms, that this body is an occasion of evil to the soul two ways; first, as it hinders its mental operations, presenting its idola specûs continually to it: and secondly, as it calls forth its advertency to its own passions, which while it exerciseth itself about too earnestly, it falls into a sinful inordinacy2.

Yet did not the Platonists, nor the more contemplative Jews, deny the existence of all kind of body in the other state, as if there should be nothing residing there but naked souls, totally divested of all corporeal essence; for they held that the soul should, in the other world, be united with a body-not such a one as it did act in here, which was not without disturbance-but such as should

1 Τὴν ψυχὴν τῷ σώματι συνῆψεν ἀμέσ σως, πάντα τὰ περὶ καθόδου ψυχῆς ὑπεκτεμὼν προβλήματα, τὸν προφήτην, τοὺς κλήρους, τοὺς βίους, τὰς αἱρέσεις, τὸν δαίμονα, τὴν ἐν τῷ πεδίῳ τῆς λήθης και τασκήνωσιν, τοὺς ὕπνους, τὸ πόμα τῆς λήθης, τὰς βροντὰς καὶ πάντα, ὅσα ὁ ἐν Πολιτείᾳ μῦθος διεξῆλθεν. Ἀλλ ̓ οὐδὲ τὰ μετὰ τὴν ἔξοδον αὐτῆς ἐν τούτοις παραδώ σει, τὰ δείματα, τοὺς ποταμούς, τὸν Τάρταρον, τοὺς ἀγρίους ἐκείνους καὶ διαπύρους δαίμονας, τοὺς ἀσπαλάθους, τὸ στόμιον, τὴν τρίοδον, τοὺς δικαστάς, περὶ ὧν ὅ τε ἐν Πολιτείᾳ καὶ ὁ ἐν Γοργίᾳ καὶ ὁ ἐν Φαίδωνι

μῦθος ἀνεδίδαξαν. Τίς οὖν, φαίης ἂν, αἰτία τῆς τούτων παραλείψεως; ὅτι, φήσω, τὸ πρέπον διασώζει τῇ τοῦ διαλόγου προθέσει καὶ τῆς περὶ ψυχῆς θεωρίας ὅσον φυσικὸν ἐν τούτοις παραλαμβάνει, τὴν πρὸς τὸ σῶμα τῆς ψυχῆς ὁμιλίαν παραδιδούς. Ο δὴ καὶ Αριστοτέλης, κ.τ.λ. Procl. in Plat. Tim. 338 c.

2 δι ̓ ἃ δυσχεραίνεται ἡ ψυχῆς πρὸς σώ ματα κοινωνία, ὅτι τε ἐμπόδιον πρὸς τὰς νοήσεις γίγνεται, καὶ ὅτι ἡδονῶν καὶ ἐπιθυ· μιῶν καὶ λυπῶν πίμπλησιν αὐτὴν, κ.τ.λ. Enn. IV. 8. 2.