The Freedom of the Will, Part 1 · Subpart 1 · Argument 7
7. Argument.
The seventh Argument is the causality of God. The celebrated Argument of the Philosopher, by which he asserts the Divine Being, is the necessity of one first mover. For, if the causes of motion did not terminate in some one first mover, but did proceed to an infiniteness of successions, all things will be at a stand, motion will universally cease. For an infinite succession of causes could never be past through, nor arrive at any effect.
This determinates the truth of a God, and the Nature of a true God, that He is the first Mover, the first Cause.
The force and dignity of this first Cause declareth it self to us in these following Maxims, which stand fixed in the eternal Reason of things, as in their proper root, and shine clearly in the evidence of their own Light, and have their Truth sealed by an universal Testimony.
1. The first Cause is the universal Cause. All things, all causes and effects, all causalities and efficacies, all order and connexion of things, are virtually and eminently comprehended in the first Cause, from which, according to their proper places, and eternal patterns, they flow.
2. The first Cause is most of all, most truly and most fully, most properly and most powerfully the cause of every effect.
3. The first Cause is more intimate to every effect than any second Cause. It is most intimate to every effect, with an intimateness of presence and power, it is immediately omnipotent with an immediateness of Person and of Virtue, of Operation and of Efficacy.
4. Every second Cause hath its causality, acteth and produceth its effect, in the virtue of the first Cause. Therefore Philosophers and Divines have taught us, that all Causes and Effects, in their orders and connexions, are onelyonly explications or modifications of the first Cause.
5. That which is the Cause of the Cause, is also the Cause of its Effects. The Operation of each thing followeth its Essence. All Operations, which are second Acts, are folded up in the first Act, which is the Essence, and flow forth from it, as that unfolds it self in them, within the compass of its own proper Orb and Sphere.
All these Maxims reign with an universal Soveraignty of Truth and Power through all orders of things, over all minds. They seem to be unmoveably established upon the Basis or Foundation of that Principle, That which is the first in any kind of things, is the universal Root, Rule, Truth, and Life, to all things of the same kind. That alone is such by it self. All other things of the same kind are such in the force and virtue of that, by its presence and power in them.
Let us now bring this down to the particular Subject of our Discourse. If God be the first Cause, if the Will be a second Cause, if the Acts of the Will, and the determination of the Will in these Acts, be the effects of the Will, then is God the universal cause of all these, then is he more truly and effectually the cause of each act and determination of the Will, than the Will it self, then is he in the immediateness of his Person, Power and Operation, more intimate to each act and determination of the Will, than the Will it self, then doth the Will, with all its acts and determinations, in their several Orders, Connexions and Circumstances, lie virtually and eminently in the Divine Will, as in their first Cause, from which, in their proper seasons and places, they flow distinctly forth, as that first Will, which is one pure eternal Act, unfoldeth it self into them.
A great Philosopher and Divine representeth all Births and Productions, those of Flowers and Trees in Gardens, of Beasts in the Fields, of Fishes in the Sea, of Birds in the Air, of Celestial Light, of Men and Angels, as so many Songs of Praise celebrating the first Birth and Production, the eternal Generation of the Son from the Father in the Trinity. For, saith he, all other Productions or Births spring up and stand, in the virtue of this.
All causes and effects in like manner are so many Divine Songs, sounding forth through the whole Heavens and Earth the Praises, the Power, the Efficacy of the first Cause. For in the womb of that, as they all immediately fall in the bosome of that, they lie together in its virtue and presence, they spring and flourish, its sacred Image and Impression they all bear divinely engraven upon them. I have now finished my Arguments drawn from the first Head, the Nature of God.
Gentle Reader, Perhaps I may seem to thee to have drawn out to a great length, and to have made frequent large Digressions upon this Head of the Deity. I have indeed willingly taken every fair occasio…, as I have past along through this Land of Life and Bliss, amidst the Gardens of true Adonis, the eternal Son, to stay thy self and me some moments, upon the contemplation of the charming Prospect, as also to gather and present thee with some of the Paradisical Flowers and Fruits which grow so plentifully here. I have endeavoured in my way, according to the narrow measure of my weak capacity, far below the Glories of this Object, if not to open, yet to point out to thee the Excellencies of the Godhead, as they lie in their first and fairest ground of eternal life.
Two Reasons have moved me to this,
1. God is the first and fairest Ground, the clearest and sweetest Light of Truth. The Philosopher hath taught us, That demonstration is only by first and immediate Principles. The first and immediate Principle is that, which hath the Light of Truth immediately seated and shining in it self, which receiveth not its evidence from any Superior Medium or Argument, which immediately displayeth its beams from its own face on the eye of the Understanding, without the interposal of any inferior Medium or Argument. This is the only Principle of Demonstration, and this is God alone. He is the Father of Lights, the Intellectual Sun, God unvailing Himself in our Spirits, setting Himself, as the golden Seal of purest Light, upon our Spirits. Thus, by his immediate embraces, he impregnateth them with the Divine forms of truth. In this sense St. Paul saith, That our Faith is in the demonstration of God. Accordingly he describeth the truly Evangelical or Spiritual Knowledge, to be the shining of God in our hearts, unto the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.
He, that in a clear Evening fixeth his eye on the Firmament above him, beholdeth by degrees innumerable Stars, with springing lights sparkling forth upon him. If God lift up a little of his Vail, and by the least glimpses of his naked Face enlighten and attract the eye of our Soul to a fixed view of Himself, with what Divine Raptures do we see the eternal Truths of things, in their sweetest Lights, springing and sparkling upon us, besetting us round in that Firmament of the Divine Essence, as a Crown of incorruptible Glory?
The heavenly Bridegroom in the Canticles singeth thus, I am come into my Garden, my Sister, my Spouse, I have drunk my Milk with my Wine, I have eaten my Honey with my Honey-comb. If this lovely Bridegroom lead our Souls, his Bride, into the Celestial Gardens of the Divine Mind, in the eternal Spirit, then they with a pleasure unexpressible sit and sing in those Gardens. Now we drink in the Christal Streams of all Truth, now we drink in the Light, as warm Milk, most sweet and lively, from the warm and living Breasts of Truth, now we eat the living Honey of Divine Wisdome, as it drops and distills upon our Lips, from the Honey-comb it self of the Divine Nature.
2. God is the Pleasantest, the only pleasure of all Objects. He alone is the proper Object, the true and perfect Pleasure of all Faculties, of the Understanding and of the Will, the only sweet Rest, the only and full Feast of them both. God, as He is the Light, which hath no Darkness in it, so is He Love without any allay. He is that Love, which is Goodness it self, Beauty it self, Sweetness it self, all alone, unmixt, at the utmost heighth of purity, sweetness and simplicity, all in all of Him, and all one in Him. This is that Trinity, which is the fulness and majesty of the Divine Essence, out of which all the Attributes, Properties, and Perfections arise to our Understanding, and into which, in the clearest Light, they most clearly resolve themselves.
Goodness here is Beauty and Sweetness in their spring. Beauty is Goodness in its proper native and compleat form. Sweetness is Goodness and Beauty flowing or in motion, or goodness, as it springs up into beauty, and in the delicious bosome of that beauty, multiplies it self endlesly into innumerable births and forms. Goodness is the ever flourishing, ever youthful Father and Bridegroom, Beauty the most lovely Daughter and Bride, Sweetness the Marriage of these two.
Goodness, as it is the spring of all Beauty and Sweetness, is power in the abstract, in as much as Evil, the only opposite to Goodness, is the weakest of all things, weakness it self. Beauty, being the essential and full form of Goodness, being the abstract and exemplar of Harmony, is Wisdome it self, the only Intellectual Beauty, of which all the inferior Beauties of sense are only shadowy impressions and foot-steps. The Divine Sweetness being Goodness and Beauty in motion, is upon this account the first and highest Activity.
The Fowler draws the soaring Larks to his Net, by the reflection of Heavens Light, from a piece of glass upon the Earth. Thus the best Spirits, whose Musick and Flight excited or directed by no earthly Interest, no force of Flesh, mount upward to Heaven and eternity, are most properly, most powerfully drawn to any Opinion, when it appears, as the pure unmixt reflections of the Divine Beauties falling from their heights of eternal Glory upon any Understanding, and from thence diffusing themselves to enlighten the darkness of this inferior Region.
The first Beauty, and the first Truth, are one Being, both the first Form or Image, in which the Godhead represents it self to it self, in the most full and entire Harmony of all Perfections, at their utmost heights, as they rise up immediate and fresh in their eternal spring, and of it self with it self, as the first Image with the first Original. Thus every Truth in all its descents, springing from the first Truth, is also a Divine Beauty, in the Face of which the Divine Goodness shineth, smileth, and poureth forth it self in the most charming and attractive sweetness. If then it were rightly represented and rightly seen, it would by irresistible Charms draw at once the Understanding and the Will of every Spirit into its embraces.
We easily believe that which we desire. Reader, Set before the eyes of thy Spirit a God, whose Essence is Love. Represent to thy self a Love, which subsisteth in a Trinity of Beauty, Goodness, and Sweetness, all three raised to the uttermost heighth of Purity and Holiness, that being altogether without any mixture or allay, they are also without any bounds, all three so absolute and unbounded in Perfection, that they mutually unfold one another, most compleatly and most clearly, all three, so heightned to the supream Point of Intellectual, or rather Superintellectual Life, that as they are Love, the band of all Perfection and Pleasantness, and so every Perfection in the Abstract and Unity, they are also in like manner compleat, living, and immortal Persons. When thou hast thus represented God to thy self most perfectly, most universally amiable in all Lights of Nature and Grace, in every posture, in every glance, dost thou not at once most ardently desire this God to fill all, to be all in all, in this work? The work of some excellent Painter is known by this, that it is a finisht piece. Every part, every point hath its just and full proportions, as from a spring of life opening it self there, as if Nature her self were a vital sense. This gives the life, the beauty, the sweetning to the whole piece, a living form to the Workman. Can we then think, that God, who is beauty and sweetness it self, who works immediately and alone, by beauty and sweetness in the highest Perfection, in as much as he works only and immediately by his Essence, which is one and the same with its Operations, will leave any point of his work without the sweetning touch from his own hand? Can we think that God, whose Beauty is his Wisdome, whose Goodness is his Power, whose Sweetness is his Life, his Joy, his Glory, will leave this piece, his Creation, which he hath drawn from Himself, to be in the whole a Divine Picture of Himself, unfinish'd? Will he suffer any part of it to pass without its just and full proportions, in an inviolable order to the whole and to the parts, upon which the life, the beauty, the sweetness of the whole depends?
We read in the Canticles, That the heavenly Image of God, that new Creation which is the spiritual Bride in a Saint, the joynts of the thighs are like Jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. Cunning in Hebrew is there properly word for word, trusty and faithful. It implies a truth of skill and care in the workman, by which he exactly answereth the relation in which he stands to his work, the trust in him, the dependance upon him, and expectation from him. Motion is the chiefest part of Beauty, in as much as it is the most proper expression of Life, and the spring of Variety. This first Creation, the work of Nature taken together in its invisible and visible parts, from its beginning to its end, is a living Image of God, his Daughter and Bride, although it be a shadow only of the heavenly Image, or the heavenly Image in a shadow. Are not the Wills of Intellectual Spirits here, the joynts of the Thigh of this Image, the manifest and most principal Instruments of motion, by which it ascends or descends, it turns it self about, and moves every way? Shall not then the faithful Creator, whose Truth, whose Goodness, whose Skill is the Idea of all Beauty in Himself, infinitely transcends all trust, all expectation, make these Joynts, Jewels? Shall he not here express the most beautiful Ideas of his Skill and Wisdome? Shall he not here lay on the greatest Riches of his Divine Goodness? Shall he not stamp on these the most glorious Seal of his Truth, his Faithfulness to the work of his hands? Shall he not give the most heightned life and sweetning to this Seal of his Goodness, Truth and Skill? Doth not he understand, that the perfection of the whole work lies, that the praise and glory of the Workman depends, principally if not entirely, upon these Joynts, on which the motion of the whole in so high a degree depends?
I will briefly conclude this part of my Discourse. Reader, think of God as Sweetness it self, all pure, unmixt, unconfined. Think of God, as the Spirit of Love, Beauty, Joy, all in one, in their most abstracted Essences, in their highest Exaltation, in their greatest amplitude, in their most potent vigour, incorruptible, eternal. Think of God, as the purest and richest Spring, without beginning or end; as the clearest Sea, without bottom or bounds, of all Perfections, in the highest degree of Pleasantness, of all Pleasantness in the highest Perfection. Think of all things together with thy self in this God, the Unchangeable Original of all, according to their first and truest forms, according to their eternal Truths, one Goodness and Sweetness together with this goodness and sweetness it self, one Spirit with this Spirit of all Loves, Beauties and Joys, in Divine figures, divinely distinct, as the first and fullest Variety, in the first and entirest Unity.
When thou hast thought thus of God, now think whether all things within thee do not with the fullest concurrence meet in this one only most passionate desire, that this God may alone conduct his whole Work, the whole course of all things, that he may be present, may act, may appear alone, in every part, in every motion of it, as filling so many figures and shadows of Himself. After all, consider whether that ground, in which is founded the desire of this, as the most perfect good, the Object of all desires, be not as firm a foundation for the belief of this, no less agreeable Truth to the Understanding, than it is of good to the Will. Can Goodness and Truth be separated, when Truth is Goodness in its essential Image, in its fullest, fairest reflection? Shall not the most perfect Workman bring forth the most perfect Work; the best from the best? Shall not the highest God, the most true of Himself thus do, who is the supream Good, whose Will is Goodness it self, where (as Ficinus upon Plato speaks) the highest Voluntariness, and the highest Necessity, most beautifully and most pleasantly meet, in the most inviolable band of the most true, the most perfect Good.