BOOK were lost out of sight, and sunk in the shipwreck of hu1. man nature. That saying of Plato, That all knowledge is remembrance, and all ignorance forgetfulness, is a certain and undoubted truth; if by forgetfulness be meant the loss, and by remembrance the recovery, of those notions and conceptions of things, which the mind of man once had in its pure and primitive state, wherein the understanding was the truest microcosm, in which all the beings of the inferior world were faithfully represented according to their true, native, and genuine perfections. God created the soul of man not only capable of finding out the truth of things, but furnished him with a sufficient xgirpov, or touchstone, to discover truth from falsehood, by a light set up in his understanding, which if he had attended to, he might have secured himself from all impostures and deceits. As all other beings were created in the full possession of the agreeable perfections of their several natures, so was man too; else God would have Gen. i. 31. never closed the work of creation with those words, And God saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good; that is, endued with all those perfections which were suitable to their several beings; which man had been most defective in, if his understanding had not been endowed with a large stock of intellectual knowledge, which is the most natural and genuine perfection belonging to his rational being. For reason being the most raised faculty of human nature, if that had been defective in its discoveries of truth, which is its proper object, it would have argued the greatest maim and imperfection in the being itself. For if it belongs to the perfection of the sensitive faculties, to discern what is pleasant from what is hurtful, it must needs be the perfection of the rational, to find out the difference of truth from falsehood: not as though the soul could then have had, any more than now, an actual notion of all the beings in the world coexisting at the same time, but that it would have been free from all deceit in its conceptions of things, which were not caused through inadvertency. H. Which will appear from the several aspects man's knowledge hath, which are either upwards towards his Maker, or abroad on his fellow-creatures. If we consider that contemplation of the soul which fixes itself on that infinite Being which was the cause of it, and is properly Jewgia, it will be found necessary for the soul to be created in a clear and distinct knowledge of him, because of man's immediate obligation to obedience unto him; which I. must necessarily suppose the knowledge of him, whose CHAP. will must be his rule: for if man were not fully convinced, in the first moment after his creation, of the being of him whom he was to obey, his first work and duty would not have been actual obedience, but a search whether there was any supreme, infinite, and eternal Being or no ; and whereon his duty to him was founded, and what might be sufficient declaration of his will and laws, according to which he must regulate his obedience. The taking off all which doubts and scruples from the soul of man, must suppose him fully satisfied, upon the first free use of reason, that there was an infinite Power and Being, which produced him, and on that account had a right to command him in whatsoever he pleased; and that those commands of his were declared to him in so certain a way, that he could not be deceived in the judging of them. The clear knowledge of God will further appear most necessary to man in his first creation, if we consider that God created him for this end and purpose, to enjoy converse and an humble familiarity with himself; he had then ἔμφυτον πρὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν κοινωνίαν, in the language of Clemens Clemens Alexandrinus, converse with God was as natural Protrept. to him as his being was. For man, as he came first out of P. 15. Ed. Sylburg. God's hands, was the reflection of God himself on a dark p. 21. Ed. cloud, the iris of the Deity; the similitude was the same, but the substance different: thence he is said to be created after the image of God. His knowledge then had been more intellectual than discursive; not so much employing his faculties in the operose deductions of reason, (the pleasant toil of the rational faculties since the fall,) but had immediately employed them about the sublimest objects; not about quiddities and formalities, but about him who was the fountain of his being, and the centre of his happiness. There was not then so vast a difference between the angelical and human life: the angels and men both fed on the same dainties; all the difference was, they were in the upwov, the upper room in heaven, and man in the summer parlour in paradise. If we take a view of man's knowledge as it respects his fellow-creatures, we shall find these were so fully known to him on his first creation, that he needed not to go to school to the wide world, to gather up his conceptions of them. For the right exercise of that dominion which he was instated in over the inferior world, doth imply a particular knowledge of the nature, being, and properties of those things which he was to make use of; Oxon. Potteri. Gen. i. 26. Plato in BOOK without which he could not have improved them for 1. their peculiar ends. And from this knowledge did proceed the giving the creatures those proper and peculiar names which were expressive of their several natures. For as Plato tell us, & πάντα δημιεργρὸν ὀνομάτων εἶναι, ἀλλὰ μόνον ἐκεῖνον τὸν ἀποβλέποντα εἰς τὸ τῇ φύσει ὄνομα ὂν ἑκάσῳ, the imposition of names on things belongs not to every one, but only to him that hath a full prospect into their several natures. For it is most agreeable to reason, that names should carry in them a suitableness to the things they express; for words being for no other end but to express our conceptions of things, and our conceptions being but εἰκόνες καὶ ὁμοιώματα payμáтw, as the same philosopher speaks, the resemblances and representations of the things, it must needs follow, that, where there was a true knowledge, the conceptions must agree with the things; and words being to express our conceptions, none are so fit to do it as those which are expressive of the several natures of the things they are used to represent; for otherwise all the use of words is to be a mere vocabulary to the understanding, and an index to memory, and of no further use in the pursuit of knowledge, than to let us know what words men are agreed to call things by. But something further seems to be intended Mercerus in in their first imposition; whence the Jews call it Gen. ii. 19. 7, as Mercer tells us, a separation and distinction of the several kinds of things: and Kircher thus paraphrases the words of Moses; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof: i. e. saith he, fuerunt illis vera et germana nomina, et rerum naturis propriè accommodata. But however this be, we have this further evidence of that height of knowledge which must be supposed in the first man, that as he was the first in his kind, so he was to be the standard and measure of all that followed, and therefore could not want any thing of the due perfections of human nature. And as the shekel of the sanctuary was, if not double to others, (as men ordinarily mistake,) yet of a full and exact weight, because it was to be the standard for all other weights, (which was the cause of its being kept in the temple,) so if the first man had not double the proportion and measure of knowledge which his posterity hath, if it was not running over in regard of abundance, yet it must be pressed down and shaken together in regard of weight; else he would be a very unfit standard for us to judge by, concerning the due and suitable perfections of human nature. Kircher tom. ii. IV. But we need not have run so far back as the first man, 1. to evince the knowledge of truth to be the most natural CHAP. perfection of the soul of man; for even among the present ruins of human nature, we may find some such noble and generous spirits, that discern so much beauty in the face of truth, that to such as should enquire what they find so attractive in it, their answer would be the same with Aristotle's in a like case, it was rupa gτnua, the question of those who never saw it. For so pleasing is the enquiry, and so satisfactory the finding of truth after the search, that the relish of it doth far exceed the greatest epicurism of Apicius, or the most costly entertainments of Cleopatra; there being no gust so exquisite as that of the mind, nor any jewels to be compared with truth. Nor do any persons certainly better deserve the name of men, than such who allow their reason a full employment, and think not the erectness of man's stature a sufficient distinction of him from brutes. Of which those may be accounted only a higher species, who can patiently suffer the imprisonment of their intellectuals in a dungeon of ignorance, and know themselves to be men only by those characters, by which Alexander knew himself not to be a God, by their proneness to intemperance and sleep. So strange a metempsychosis may there be without any change of bodies; and Euphorbus's soul might become a brute, without ever removing its lodging into the body of an ass. So much will the soul degenerate from itself, if not improved; and in a kind of sullenness scarce appear to be what it is, because it is not improved to what it may be. But you will say, if this knowledge of truth be so great, so natural, so valuable a perfection of human nature, whence comes so much of the world to be overrun with ignorance and barbarism? whence come so many pretenders to knowledge, to court a cloud instead of Juno? to pretend a love to truth, and yet to fall down and worship error? If there were so great a sympathy between the soul and truth, there would be an impatient desire after it, and a most ready embracing and closing with it. We see the magnet doth not draw the iron with greater force, than it seems to run with impatience into its closest embraces. If there had been formerly so intimate an acquaintance between the soul and truth, as Socrates fancied of friends in the other world, there would be an harmonious closure upon the first appearance, and no divorce to be after made between them. V. BOOK I. VI. (1.) True; but then we must consider there is an intermediate state between the former acquaintance and the renewal of it, wherein all those remaining characters of mutual knowledge are sunk so deep, and lie so hid, that there needs a new fire to be kindled, to bring forth those latent figures, and make them again appear legible. And when once those tokens are produced of the former friendship, there are not more impatient longings, nor more close embraces between the touched needle and the magnet, than there are between the understanding and discovered truth. But then withal, we are to consider, that they are but few whose souls are awakened out of that lethargy they are fallen into in this degenerate condition: the most are so pleased with their sleep, that they are loth to disturb their rest; and set a higher price upon a lazy ignorance, than upon a restless knowledge. And even of those whose souls are, as it were, between sleeping and waking, what by reason of the remaining confusion of the species in their brains, what by the present dimness of their sight, and the hovering uncertain light they are to judge by, there are few that can put a difference between a mere phantasm and a real truth. Of which these rational accounts may be given, viz. why so few pretenders to knowledge do light on truth. First, Want of an impartial diligence in the search of it. Truth now must be sought, and that with care and diligence, before we find it. Jewels do not use to lie upon the surface of the earth: highways are seldom paved with gold; what is most worth our finding, calls for the greatest search. If one that walks the streets should find some inestimable jewel, or one that travels the road meet with a bag of gold, it would be but a silly design of any to walk the street, or travel the road, in hopes to meet with such a purchase to make them rich. If some have happily light on some valuable truths, when they minded nothing less than them, must this render a diligence useless in enquiries after such? No: Truth, though she be so fair and pleasing as to draw our affections, is yet so modest as to admit of being courted; and, it may be, deny the first suit, to heighten our importunity. And certainly nothing hath oftener forbid the banns between the understanding and truth enquired after, than partiality and preoccupation of judgment, which makes men enquire more diligently after the dowry than the beauty of truth; its correspondency to their interests, than its evidence to their understandings. An useful error hath often |