. . . Again, the souls choose their particular ways of living, according to their former dignity and disposition; but still, the behaving themselves well or ill in each of these ways, is left in their own power. Upon this account, we see many, who have chosen a way of trade, and business, and great temptation, yet continue very honest and good men in it; and many who profess philosophy, and the improvement of wisdom and virtue, are yet of very loose conversation, notwithstanding all the advantages of such an employment.
For the different methods of life, as that of husbandry, or merchandise, or music, or the like, are chosen by the soul according to her former disposition; and men’s station in the world is assigned them, suitable to their dignity and deserts: but the management of themselves, in any of these callings, is the choice and work of the soul afterwards; and we do not so much blame or commend men for their callings themselves, as for their different behavior in them.
Farther yet: this fatal position or revolution does never (as some men too boldly affirm it does) cause anything of wickedness in us, so as to make it necessary, that men born under it should be knaves and cheats, adulterous, or addicted to beastly and unnatural lusts. For, though the casters of nativities sometimes say true, when they foretell these things; yet this only happens, according as we receive particular qualities or impressions; which is done, sometimes in a moderate, and sometimes in an immoderate degree.
And it is not the influence of the stars, but the corruption of the mind, that makes men knavish, or lascivious, or unnatural and brutish. Those that receive these influences moderately, and do not assist them by their own depravity, are cautious and wary, correct the heat of youth, and use it virtuously; but those that receive them immoderately, that is, give way to them, and promote them, debase and prostitute themselves to all manner of wickedness.
And what reflection upon nature can this be? For, even that, which is most beneficial to us, may turn to our prejudice by a perverse use of it. The sun gives us light; it both makes things visible, and enables us to see them; And yet, if a man will be so foolish, as to take too much of it, to gaze upon his rays when they shine in their full strength, he may lose his eyesight by his folly. But then, that folly, and not the brightness of the sun, is to be blamed; if that, which is the author of light to all the world, be the occasion of blindness and darkness to him.
Now, when the astrologers have (as they think) formed to themselves certain marks and rules, whereby to know, who will receive these impressions in a due measure, and who in a vicious excess; then they pronounce some men wise, and others subtle and knavish accordingly. Those, after all, I very much doubt, whether the erecting of any schemes can furnish them with such marks of distinction, or no: some things indeed are so manifest, that all the world must allow them; as, that when the sun is in Cancer, our bodies feel excessive heat; but some again are exceedingly dark and doubtful, and such as none, but those who have made themselves masters of astrology, can make anything of.
Now, that those things which act constantly according to the design and directions of nature, preserve the original constitution given them at first by their great creator, and are endued with the greatest power and strength, that such things, I say, always act upon a good design, and properly speaking, are never the cause of any evil, seems to me very plain.
For all evil is occasioned, not by the excess, but by the want of power; and if it were not so, power ought not to be reckoned among those things that are good. And yet it is as plain that even good things in excess oftentimes prove hurtful to us; but then, that hurt is not owing to the things, but to ourselves. And thus much may suffice, in answer to them who deny the freedom of the will, upon the pretense of any fatality from the motion or position of the heavens.
But indeed, to all who deny this liberty, upon any argument whatsoever, it may be replied in general, that those who go about to destroy it, do by no means consider or understand the nature of the soul, but overthrow its very original constitution, without seeming to be sensible of it. For they take away all principle of internal and self-motion, in which the essence of the soul chiefly consists. For it must be either moved of its own accord, and then it is excited by a cause within itself to its appetites and affections, and not thrust forward and dragged along, as bodies are; or else it is moved by an external force, and then it is purely mechanical.
Again, They who will not allow us to have our actions at our own disposal, do not attend to, nor are able to account for, the vital energy of the soul, and its assenting and dissenting, accepting or rejecting power. Now this is what experience and common sense teaches every man; that he has a power of consenting and refusing, embracing and declining, agreeing to or denying; and it is to no purpose to argue against that, which we feel and find every moment. But now all these are internal motions, begun in the soul itself; and not violent impulses and attractions from things without us, such as inanimate creatures must be moved by.
For this is the difference between animate and inanimate bodies, that the one sort are moved by an internal principle, and the other are not. Now, according to this distinction, that which puts the inanimate into motion, must have a principle of motion of its own, and cannot itself be moved mechanically. For if this also derived its motion from something else, the body (as was urged before) is not moved by this, but by that other cause, from whence the motion is at first imparted to this; and so the body, being moved no longer from within, but by some forcible impression from without, as all other inanimate creatures are, must itself be concluded inanimate.
Once more, by denying that we have power over our actions, and a liberty of willing or not willing, of considering, comparing, choosing, desiring, declining, and the like, all moral distinctions are lost and gone, and virtue and vice are utterly confounded. There is no longer any just ground left for praise or dispraise, applause or reproach, rewards or punishments.
The laws of God and man instituted for those purposes, and enforced by these sanctions, are evacuated; and the very foundations of them all torn up, and quite overturned. And then, do but consider, how dismal the consequences must be. For when once we are come to this pass, all order and society must needs be lost; and nothing left us, but a life of rapine and violence, of misery and confusion; a life, not of civilized men, but of ravenous and wild beasts. . . .
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