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The eighteenth Treatise. Of a mixt sort, or of Neutral Solitude; Divided into three Sections. (Book 18)
§. I.
Explaining this term, by exhibiting the state of Mans Will in his elections.
NOw I have, as I conceive, rather paid my Devotion in this Saintly life of Solitude, then contributed any thing by my testimony to the beatification of it, I shall descend to the other two, which are more terrestial, and of my familiar, acquaintance. Wherefore I may hope to give some more pertinent information of the nature of them; for as I may truly say, I have neither learnt wisdom, * 1.1 nor have I the knowledge of the Saints; so I may also own, That I have seen many things by erring, and going astray, whereby I have found, that the sensitive part hath often an equal voyce with the rational, in the election of this second state of Solitude, which I have stated as Neutral, and so will treat of it in the middle, between those two I have termed Voluntary and Violent, as mixed and partaking of them both.
What hath been said of the great Patron of Solitude, John Baptist, may, in my conceit, sort well with this parti∣cular I now describe; to wit, That he was the Horizon of the Law and the Gospel, his state being a kinde of middle Circle that did divide those two Haemispheres, touching upon each of them: Such a position doth this Neutral Solitude seem