MOREOVER, God form’d and made all other Things for the sake of Man, but Him he made for his own sake, and therefore like unto Himself; for which reason, he was pleas’d to agglutinate Immortality to Mortality, and Divinity to Humanity: By which Means, the divine Nature incorporates, as it were, with the human, and the human is united to the divine.
HENCE we may clearly see how marvellously God has been affected towards us from the Beginning; how much he delighted in us, and desired the entire Fruition and full Enjoyment of our perpetual Familiarity, and eternal Fellowship; which Truth Christ[[7]] (the Wisdom of the Father) confirms by his own Testimony.
AND such is still the great Love and Propension of God towards Man, that all Things (thro’ his Grace) are communicated to him by his only SON;[[8]] and that more especially because we are conditional Sharers, equal Inheritors, and Joint-Heirs with him, agreeable to the[[9]] Apostles Phrase; and whatever is express’d in CHRIST, may also be in Man: Since as he is eternal, and lives for ever, so Man (by his Grace and Merits) does the same; for he having sufficiently bruised Satan’s Head, led Captivity Captive, and conquer’d Death, rose again, and became the Prince and Captain of so glorious a VICTORY, that all Men, by virtue of that Triumph, might be raised up again at the Last Day, and that to participate of an Immortality of Welfare or Woe.
CHAP. V.
Of the Faculties of the SOUL.
Plato, Alcinous, and many other learned Men, do agree, that the heavenly Spirit’s Composition, mixing Fire, Air, Earth, and Water, made of them all, put together, one Body; which they subjected to the Service of the SOUL, assigning the several Provinces of the one, to the sundry Faculties of the other: To the meaner of them, mean and low Places; as to Anger, the Midriff; to Lust, the Womb, &c: but to the more noble Senses, the HEAD, as the Tower of the whole Body.
AS they divide these Senses into external and internal; so they subdivide the external Senses into five: To which are allotted as many proper Organs or Subjects, being so order’d, that they which are placed in the more eminent Parts of the Body, have the greater Degree of Purity.
FOR the Eyes, placed in the uppermost part, are the most pure, and have an Affinity with the Nature of Fire and Light. The Ears have the second Order of Place and Purity, and are compar’d to the Air. The Nostrils take the third Order, and have a middle Nature betwixt Air and Water. Then the Organ of Tasting, which is grosser, and most like to the Nature of Water. And, lastly, Touching being diffus’d through the whole Body, is compar’d to the Grossness of Earth.
AND of these, the more pure SENSES, are those which perceive their Objects farthest off; as first Seeing, then Hearing, then Smelling, which are all more pure than Taste, which doth not perceive but what is nigh: whereas the Touch perceives both Ways; it perceives Bodies nigh: And as Sight discerns by the Medium of the Air; so the Touch perceives, by the Medium of a Pole, Bodies hard, soft, dry, moist, &c.
NOW this Sense of Touching, is common indeed to all Animals: However, ’tis certain that Man, in this, as well as in the Sense of Tasting, excels all others: whereas, in the other three, he is exceeded by some Brutes, as by a Dog, which hears, sees, and smells much more acutely than Man. Besides, the Lynx, and Eagle, see more acutely than Man, or any other Creature in the World.