carrieth such a Majesty that makes us all exactly obedient to his commands Nor though he bear no arms himself was ther ever heard of any Rebellion amongst us against our lawfull Prince as is so frequent amongst Mankind It being a principle from the very instinct of nature amongst us that it is both detestable and damnable for Subjects to rise up against their supream Governour and go about to right themselfs by Arms I say that in this state we have a very regular Government we have a King we have privy Counsellors we have Commanders in the War and gregarian Soldiers We keep close in Winter and have then our Centinells We go not abroad till Beans do blossom and then if the weather permit ther 's never a day passeth in idlenesse We first build our Cells and Combs then make Hony and then engender We make our Wax and Hony of the freshest and most fragrant flowers and abhor withered or stinking vegetalls When the flowers are spent in one place we have our harbingers abroad to find out another being surprised by night in our expeditions we sleep in a supine posture with our bellies upward to preserve our wings from the falling dew Betimes in the morning we are awakned by our Drummer who punctually performs his office that way Then if the day be mild we fally forth in a great body and we have an instinct to foresee winds tempests and rain which makes us keep often within When we go abroad to work every one hath his task and the younger are put to the hardest while the elder labour within dores We all feed together and if we be surprised abroad with a sudden wind we take up a stone 'twixt our feet to give weight to our bodies that they may not be blown away Ther is among us a Censor of manners and som Officers that watch those which are slothfull who are afterwards punish'd with death and for the Drones which are a spurious kind of brood we quite banish them Ther 's not the least foulnes seen in our Alvearies or Hives for we abhor all immundicities and sordidnes When 't is towards night our hummings lessen by degrees till an Officer fly about and command silence and sleep which is instantly done We first build houses for our Workmen and Plebeans and then palaces for the Nobles and the King We punish sloth without mercy we faithfully obey our King being always about him like a guard and He in the midst When the peeple are at work He goes about and cherisheth them He onely being exempt from labour He hath always his Officers ready to punish Delinquents When He goes forth the whole Swarm attends him if He chance to be weary we bear him upon our sholders Whersoever He rests there the generall Randevous is Wasps Hornets and Swallows are enemies to us We bury our dead with great solemnity At the Kings death ther is a generall mourning and fasting with a cessation from labour and we use to go about his body with a sad murmur for many daies When we are sick we have attendants appointed us and the symptoms when we be sick are infallible according to the honest plain Poet If Bees be sick for all that live must die That may be known by signes most certainly Their bodies are discoloured and their face Looks wan which shews that death comes on apace They carry forth their dead and do lament Hanging o' th' dore or in their Hives are pent Hunger and cold consumes them you shall find They buzz as doth t'th ' woods the Southern wind Or as the Sea when as the waves return Or fire clos'd up in vaults with noise doth burn Nor are we profitable onely in our life 's unto Mankind by that pretious Hony we confect for their use which though for the rare vertues and sweetnes therof som held to be the gelly of the Starrs others the sweat of the Hevens others the quintessence of the Air though really it be but our Chylus at the third digestion I say that we are not onely in our lifes beneficiall to mankind who receives the fruits of our labours but after death also Our bodies pounded and drunck with wine or any other diareticall thing cures the Dropsie Stone and Strangury The hony scrapt off our dead bodies is extraordinary good against divers diseases Moreover we have a kind of transmigration among us one into the other Out of our brains marrow and chine-bones Kings and Nobles are bred out of the rest of our bodies ordinary Bees Pererius Gentle Bee you have spoken as much as can be for the advantage of your condition yet nevertheles you are but fleshles poor sensitive Insects onely of a short and a kind of ephemeran subsistence You want that spark of Immortality the noble Rational Soul wherby the human Creture goes as far beyond you as an Angel goes beyond him Bee I remember when I was a Nun I heard many characters given of the Rational Soul as were somwhat transcendent if not presumptuous The Theolog or Divine call'd her The Image of God Almighty The Philosopher call'd her The Queen of Forms And you call her now A Spark of Immortality Yet you know not how nor where this Spark enters into you nor where it resides in any particular place above other Souls nor are you agreed whether she enters into you by divine infusion or by traduction from the parentall seeds Pererius I shall endeavour to satisfie you touching these particulars It must be consider'd that Man may be call'd the great Amphybium of nature First he is a confus'd lump of dead matter lying as it were upon the lees in the womb where the vegetable Soul enters first making it capable of extension and growth Then the Sensitive Soul follows who by the plasticall vertu falls a forming the members or the organs Then comes the noblest of all the three the Rationall Soul who swayes o're the other two and is Divinae particula aurae she is breath'd from the Creator himself and which no other creture in Heven or earth can say she is capable of a spirituall Regeneration afterwards as the Body is of a Resurrection At last when she hath shaken off the slough of flesh she becomes a Spirit either good or bad she becomes a Saint or a Devill and so receives eternall beatitude or torments By these degrees observable it is that Man hath potentially in himself all created natures first or last both in Heven Earth and Hell All which may be compris'd in this Poem which though short containeth the whole story of Mankind from first to last Man is that great Amphybium in whom lye Three distinct Souls by way of trigony He runs through all creations by degrees First He is onely Matter on the lees Whence he proceeds to be a Vegetal Next Sensitive and so Organical Then by divine infusion a third Soul The Rational doth the two first controul But when this Soul comes in and
Garter-like of hot candent steel I was told that they were design'd for the perjur'd Knights of that Order in Gheriona to wear upon their legs when they com thither for breaking in the late war the solemn Oath they had taken at their Installment to defend the Honour and Quarrells the Rights and Dignities of their Soverain c. Nere unto them I might see brasse hoops glowing with fire and they were Scarfs-like I was told they were ordained for those Knights of the Bath to wear for Ribbands next their skins when they came thither for infringing that sacred Sacramentall Oath they took at their election which was To love their Soverain above all earthly creture and for his Right and Dignity to live and die A little beyond I saw a Copper-table with chairs of the same all candent hot I was told that those were for perjur'd Privy-Councellors who had broke their Oath to their King which obliged them to be tru and faithfull servants unto him and if they knew or understood any manner of thing to be attempted done or spoken against his Majestie 's Person Honour Crown or Dignity they swore to lett and withstand the same to the uttermost of their power and cause it to be revealed either to Himself or any other of his Privy Councill Hard by I saw a little Furnace so glowing hot that it lookt of the colour of a Ruby or Carbuncle I was told that it was to clap in the Master of a King's Jewell-house when he comes thither for being so perfidious and perjurious to his Master Not far off I might see a huge brasse Caudron full of molten lead with som Brewers cruelly tormented therein for setting their own Country on fire I was curious to know whether ther were any other infernall tortures besides those of fire Yes I was answered for to speak of fire to a peeple habituated to a cold Climat were not onely to make them slight Hell but to have a mind to go thither So my Spirit brought me a little Northward and shewed me a huge Lough where ther were frosted Mountains up and down and I might discover amongst them a world of Blew-caps lying in beds of yce with their noses and toes nipt the isicles stuck to their fingers ends like horns and a bleak hispid wind blew incessantly upon them they made the most pitteous noise that me-thought I had heard in all Hell for they wawl'd screech'd and howl'd out ever and anon this dismall note Wea is me wea is me that ever I betraid my gid King Among all those damned souls I desired to see what punishment an Atheist had my Spirit was ready to answer me that ther were no Atheists in Hell at all 't is tru they were so upon Earth before they came hither but here they sensibly find and acknowledge ther is a God by his justice and judgments for ther is here poena sensûs and poena damni ther is inward and outward torture The outward torments you behold are nothing so grievous as the inward regrets and agonies the souls have to have lost Heven wherof they were once capable and to be eternally forsaken by their Creator the Lord of Light their chiefest Good Add hereunto that they know these torments to be endlesse easelesse and remedilesse Besides these qualities which are incident to the damned souls they have neither patience towards themselfs in their own suffrances nor any pitty towards others but their natures is so accursed that they wish their neighbours torments were still greter then their own Moreover their torments never lessen or have any mitigation by tract of time or degrees of sense but they persevere alwaies in the same heighth they are still fresh and the soul made stronger to bear them I saw that everlasting Villain who committed one of the first sacriledges we read of by burning the Temple of Diana whose torments were so fresh and cruciatory upon him as they were the first day he was hurl'd in thither Iudas was in the same degree and strength of torture as he was the first moment he fell thither Iack Cade Wat Tyler Iack Straw and Ket the Tanner did fry as fresh as they did that very instant they were tumbled down thither Amongst whom it made my heart to melt within me when I saw som of their new-com'd Country-men amongst them wherof I knew divers And though society is wont to be some solace to men in misery yet they conceived no comfort at all by these fresh companions It is high time for us now said my good guiding Spirit to be gone to the other world so we directed our cours towards the Ferry upon Styx But Lord what a nomber of lurid and ugly squalid countenances did I behold as I pass'd There was one sort of torment I had not seen before ther were divers that hung by their toungs upon posts up and down I asked what they were answer was made that they were prick-ear'd Preachmen Iudges and Lawyers who against their knowledg as well as against their consciences did seduce the ignorant peeple of Gheriona and Carboncia and incite them to war And ther was a new tenter-hook provided for one gran Villain who pronounced Sentence of death against his own Soverain Prince whose Subject he was and whom by a sacred Oath of Allegiance he was tyed to obey A little further I might see multitudes of Committee-men and others slopping up drops of molten lead in lieu of French Barly-broth with a rabble of Apprentices sweeping the gutters of Hell with brooms tufted with ugly Adders and Snakes because they running into the Wars and leaving their wares had therby broke their Indentures with their Masters and their Oaths of Allegiance to their lawfull Prince Passing then along towards the Ferry a world of hideous shapes presented themselfs unto my sight There I saw corroding cares pannick fears pining griefs ugly rebellion revengefull malice snaky discord oppression tyranny disobedience perjury sacriledge and spirituall pride the sin that first peepled Hell put to exquisit torments Couches of Toads Scorpions Asps and Serpents were in a corner hard by I asked for whom they were prepared I was answered for som Evangelizing Gherionian Ladies which did egg on their husbands to War So having as I thought by a miraculous providence charm'd three-headed Cerberus by pointing at him with the signe of the Crosse upon my fingers we passed quietly by to the Ferry where being com I found tru what Pluto had said before that ther were divers Gherionian Tarpalins entertain'd by Charon but they were in most cruell tortures for their bodies were covered all over very thick and close with canvases pitch'd and tarr'd which continually burnt and flam'd round about them Herewith I got awake again about the dawning of the day and it was high time to do so For lo the golden Orientall gate Of gray-fac'd Heven 'gan to open fair And Phoebus like a Bridegroom to his Mate Came dancing forth shaking his
dewy hair And hurls his glittring beams through gloomy air So Rest to Motion Night to Day doth yield Silence to Noise the Starrs do quit the field My Cinq-ports all fly ope the phantasy Gives way to outward objects Ear and eye Resume their office so doth hand and lip I hear the Carrmans wheel the Coachmans whip The prentice with my sense his shop unlocks The milkmaid seeks her pail porters their frocks All cries and sounds return except one thing I heard no bell for Mattens toll or ring Being thus awak'd and staring on the Light Which silverd all my face and glaring sight I clos'd my eyes again to recollect What I had dreamt make my thoughts reflect Upon themselfs I say that having after such a long noctivagation and variety of horrid visions return'd to my perfect expergefaction I began by a serious recollection of my self to recall to my thoughts by way of reminiscence those dismall and dreadfull objects that had appeerd unto me for though I was in Hell yet I did not taste of Lethe all the while insomuch that I did not forget any thing which I had seen All the said objects presented themselfs unto me so reall that if I had bin transported with that opinion wherof many great Clerks have bin viz. That Devills are nothing els but the ill affections the exorbitant passions and perturbances of the minde I say if I had bin plac'd in such an opinion this trance wold have convinc'd me You may easily imagin what apprehensions of horror these Apparitions left in my brain behind them just as a River when by an inundation she hath swel'd out of her wonted channell doth use to leave along the neighbouring medowes seggs and other weeds with much riffraff stuff behind her upon her return to her former bed so did this Vision after that deluge of objects wherwith my brain was overwhelm'd for the time leave behind them black sudds and many a ghastly thought within me which after some ruminations wrought in me a perfect change and detestation of those mimicall giddy opinions wherwith I was carried away before but while I delayed the time of declaring my self that way I was suddenly surprized and justly transmuted to this shape and species Pererius You may perceive by the effects of this visional Dream the excellency and high prerogatives of the Human Soul who by the ministry of the Imagination can make such sallies abroad that leaving the grosse tabernacle of the body she can at plesure climb up to the skies and make a Scale of the stars to conduct her to the Empyrean Heven she can also descend in a trice to the great Abysse and take a survey of the kingdom of darknes And though it be a common Maxim that ab Orco nulla redemptio ther is no returning from Hell the passage thence being irremeable yet the Rational soul while she informs the body hath this priviledg that she can make egresses and regresses she can enter and come off clear from Hell it self when she list and all this in an instant Wherin she may be said to participat of that admired quality which is inhaerent in that most comfortable of all cretures the Light which is held the Souverain of all sensible qualities by the Philosophers and to com neerest to the nature of a Spirit for Light requires but an instantaneous moment or point of time to perform its office of illumination and to dilate it self from one Pole to the other throughout the whole Hemisphere whence some infer that Light is incorporeal because 't is an unquestion'd principle among the Naturalists that all bodies require a succession of time in their motion which Light needs not But ther is this difference 'twixt the Imagination of a human soul and Light that ther besom places wherinto Light cannot enter but ther is no part of the Universe so impervious where the Imagination may not make his accesses and recesses at plesure as appeers by yours while you made that progresse during the time of that extasy And now me-thinks that these and other excellencies of the Rational soul should incite you to shake off that brutish nature which hath no other idaea or object of happines but what sense exposeth for the present time to corporeall things onely I say the contemplation of what I said before shold move you to becom Man again Ape Man Truly Sir I am sorry the shape I now bear resembleth Man so much I could wish it were far more unlike for the horrid and unheard-of sacrileges and perjuries of my own Nation makes me abhor the very name of Man much more his nature For I dare confidently assert that ther were never since the Devill had power to possesse poor Mortalls such Heteroclites in Religion such a Bedlam of Sectaries who to exalt the Kingdom of Christ wold heave it up on Beelzebub's back for 't is the Devill 's Reformation to turn order to confusion and certainties to incertitudes as they have done But these Refiners of Government will prove Quack-salvers at last for in lieu of raising up a Common-wealth they have pull'd down the two main Pillars which use to support all States viz. Religion and Iustice making both Arbitrary and tumbling all things into a horrid disorder and hurliburly insomuch that it may be truly said these new sorts of Recusants did more hurt than ever the old could have don if the subterranean plot of Nitre had taken effect For that had onely destroyed som few of the Royall Race of the Prelates and Peers then in being but these hell-hounds have wholly extinguished and blown up all the three to perpetuity and all this onely by the stench of their pestiferous breath Nor have they offered violence to Religion onely but they have affronted Reson it self nay they have baffled Common sense And for all this we may thank Carboncia and Polihaima that rotten-hearted City who like a fat cheese is so full of Maggots And indeed what could be expected else from these pseudopolitians but disorder confusion and ataxy considering how their first reach of policy was to throw the ball of discord 'twixt the Subject and his Souvrain whom yet they had vowed to make the best belovedst Prince that ever was Insomuch that darknesse it self is no more opposit to light as their actions were diametricall to their words oaths and protestations Pererius Truly they are stupendous things that you have told me but touching the difference you speak of that they did put 'twixt Prince and Peeple it was the most compendious way to bring all things to confusion and ruine to which purpose I shall relate unto you an Apolog Ther hapned a shreud commotion and distemper in the Body Naturall 'twixt the Head and the Members not onely the noble parts many of them but the common inferiour organs banded against Him in a high way of presumption The heart which is the source of life with the pericardium about it did swell against
where she dwells Distinct from others no Dissector tells And which no creture else can say that state Enables her to be Regenerat She then becomes a Spirit and at last A Saint or Devill when that she hath cast The clogg of flesh which yet she takes again To perfect her beatitude or pain Thus Man is first or last allied to all Cretures in Heven in Earth or Hells black Hall Bee Whereas you alledg that the Intellectuall or Rationall Soul enters by Divine infusion I remember when I was a Nun that divers learned men were of opinion that she was like the other two Souls viz. the vegetal and the Sensitive propagated and traduc'd by the seed and sperm of the parents and that this was done by the hereditary vertu of that gran universall Benediction pronounced by God himself to all his cretures Encrease and multiply Then they proceeded to urge the common Axiom that like begets the like Now the great God of Nature did constitut all other species perfect in their own kinds with a procreative power to beget their like by a compleat generation And why shold Man in whom the ideas of all other created natures are collectively resplendent Why shold he I say com short of this perfection and priviledge for without it he may be ranck'd among those mutilat defective cretures who are destitut of power to procreat an Individuum like themselfs Pererius This shews the eminency of the human Soul above others in point of extraction for if she were made of such poor frail ingredients as the seeds of the parents she wold be perishable with the Body wheras the is created to be heir of Eternity Bee I remember the reply to this That the excellency of the human Soul is not to be derived from her creation and first materialls but from the Fiat or eternall Decree and particular blessing of the Creator who endowed her from the beginning with such a prerogative out of his free will and plesure to be capable of eternity But wheras you aver that the parentall feeds are too grosse ingredients to produce so noble a Soul I remember ther are great modern Doctors and Physitians who hold that neither the seed of mother or father go to the impregnation but that the Female conceives onely by a virtuall contact as the Loadstone draws Iron and that she is made pregnant by conceiving the generall Idaea without matter To make this new assertion good they compare the womb to the brain and that what the phantasma or appetit is in the brain the same phantasma or its analogy is excited in the womb for both of them are call'd Conceptions Pererius This is a wild extravagant opinion for one may believe with more reson that the Tumontian Mares are impregnated and made to conceive by the South-west winds Bee I remember another argument that was urged for the traducible generation of the human Soul which was that the Rationall Soul begins to operat in the prolificall seed the very first moment of conception as soon as the prolificall emissions of both sexes are blended by mutuall fermentation for then the conformative and proper operations of the Rational Soul begin upon the Embryo who proceeds to majoration and augmentation accordingly And it is no lesse then an absurdity to think that the Infant after conception shold be majorated by the influence of any other Soul then that from whom he received his formation Now that this formation begins instantly after the conception appeers by the early activity of nature which hath bin sensibly discover'd in abortive Embryo's by autopicall observations wherby it hath bin visibly found that a Septenary Slip put into clear water a subtle Inspector through a magnifying Glasse may discern all the rudiments of the organicall parts Ther may be seen there the generall conformative faculty in the seed wherin will visibly appeer three small bubling conglobations which are the materialls of the noblest parts viz. the Brain the Heart and the Liver ther will appeer also two small black Orbs or atomicall points which are the rudiments of the Eyes Whence may be strongly inferred that if organization and the conformation of the Infant begins in the very punctillio or first moment of the conception that the Rationall Soul then works in the seed as being the most vigorous part of it From hence it follows that Man doth absolutely procreat Man which could not be if the Genitor did not communicat the Human Soul unto his Issue For since Man is compos'd of Soul and Body if the parent cannot cannot impart both to his ofspring he may be said to be inferiour to Beasts who have intrinsic active principles and power in themselfs to propagat and beget Individiums of their own species without the concurrence of extrinsecall causes Pererius These are neotericall fancies and derogatory to the noblenes of the Rational Soul who hath a far more sublime and spirituall extraction Bee But to let passe this Quaere how and when the Rational Soul informs and actuats the Embryo ther have bin great researches and indagations made whether this Soul being so distinct from the Vegetal and Sensitive in her operations whether I say she hath any particular domicile or cell within the human body for her own residence Pererius It was never found yet by any inspections which the Naturalists and Anatomisers have made that the Rationall Soul hath any peculiar lodging proper onely to her self and differing from other Animals But being indivisible inextensive and without parts she is tota in toto tota in qualibet parte she is all in the whole and whole in every part of the compositum she is diffus'd up and down the whole masse or fabric of flesh ther being no movement at all without her For as the beams or light of the Sun displayeth it self every where through the whole Hemisphere yet hath it no particular mansion in any place more then another so the Rationall Soul which is a beam of Immortality diffuseth her self through the whole Microcosm of Man to quicken it yet she hath no particular residence in any part 'T is tru that she is radically in the heart and principally in the brain which is as it were her Capitol and the seat of the Animal-spirits Thence she issueth forth her commands and dividing her Empire into a Triarchy she governs by three Viceroys the three Faculties who though they are absolutely distinct by their Commissions and keep their Courts in severall Regions yet are they united by so indissoluble a league and sympathetic alliance that the prosperitie of one enlargeth the principalities of the other and the detriment of each threatens the integrity of the whole The Natural or Vegetal Faculty claims superiority of time in order of procreation as being Governesse of our Minority commanding the third part of our lises The Vital hath preheminence in order of necessity keeping her Court chiefly in the Heart which is the first part that lives
and the last that dies thence she transmits a souvrain and conservatory influence through all the members without which the whole Man must in the fleetest article of time be but a Cadaver The Animal Faculty challengeth supermacy in order of eminence as regulating the sublimer actions as Sense and Motion togegether with the Memory Understanding and Imagination to which as to their perfection the two former are design'd Therefore gentle Bees think speedily on the free proposall I have made and of the fair opportunity you have offered you to be reinform'd with Rational Souls and to return to the Religious Convent you came from where being wean'd from the frail world together with the cares and encumbrances therof Where by the constant practise of holy duties night and day you may act the parts of Angels upon earth and afterwards of tru Angels in the land of Eternity Therfore shake off this despicable poor humming condition and go again to sing Hymns and Halleluiahs to your Creator Bee Know Sir that we have also a Religion as well as so exact a Government among us here Our Hummings you speak of are as so many Hymns to the great God of Nature And ther is a miraculous example in Caesarius Cisterniensis how som of the holy Eucharist being let fall in a medow by a Priest as he was returning from visiting a sick body a Swarm of Bees being hard by took it up and in a solemn kind of procession carried it to their Hive and there erected an Altar of the purest Wax for it where it was found in that form and untouch'd But whereas you spoke of Angels how do the separated Souls of good men when they are exalted to Heven differ from the Angels Pererius As they agree so they differ in many things Angels and separated Souls agree in that both of them are Spirits Both of them are Intellectuall and Eternall Cretures They both behold the beatificall Vision Both of them are Courtiers of Heven and act meerly by the understanding c. Lastly They both are Parishioners of the Church Triumphant Now as the blessed Angels and Souls separat do thus agree So they differ in many things They differ in their Essentialls for the principles of Angels are meerly Metaphysicall viz. Essence and Existence but a separated Soul continues still part of that Compositum which formerly consisted of matter and form and is still apt to be reunited therunto Till then she is not absolutely completed for all that while she changeth not her nature but her state of life Moreover they differ in the exercise of the Understanding and manner of knowledge for a Soul separat knows still by discours and ratiotination which an Angell doth not but by Intuition They also differ in dignity of Nature for Angels have larger Illuminations At the first instant of their Creation they beheld the Beatific Vision the summe of all happines yet separated Souls are capable to mount up to such a height of glory by degrees as to be like them in all things both in point of Vision Adhaesion and Fruition Bee Now Sir that you speak of Angels what degrees are ther of them in the Celestiall Hierarchy Pererius They are divided into three Hierarchies and in every Hierarchy ther are three Orders The first consists of Seraphims the second of Cherubims the third of Thrones The second consists of Dominations of Vertues and Powers The third consists of Principalities of Angells and Archangells Now those of the supremest Hierarchy partake of divine Illuminations in a greter mesure And you were all born gentle Bees to be members of any of these glorious Hierarchies Bee I remember when I was a Nun that som presumptuous spirits would preach that Angels were created for Man and that Man was of so high a creation that he was little inferiour unto them if not their equall and that their chief ministeriall function was to guard Him c. Pererius They were presumptuous indeed and in a high degree of prophanenes as you shall find in these Stanza's of comparison though som of them are familiar and too low for so high a subject 1. Such as the meanest Star in Sky Is to the Sun in Majesty What a Monk's Cell is to high Noon Or a new Cheese unto the Moon No more is Man if one should dare Unto an Angel Him compare 2. What to the Eagle is a Gnat Or to Leviathan a Sprat What to the Elephant a Mouse Or Shepherd's Cott to Caesar's House No more is Man if one should dare Unto an Angell Him compare 3. What to a Pearl a peeble Stone Or Cobler's Shop unto a Throne What to the Oak the basest Shrub Or to Noah's Ark a Brewer's Tub No more is Man if one shold dare Unto an Angel Him compare 4. Then let not Man half child of night Compare with any Hevenly Wight He will appeer on that account A Mole-hill to Olympus Mount Yet let this still his comfort be He hath a capability To be of Heven Himself but on this score If he doth not make Earth his Heven before Bee Noble Prince you pleas'd to give divers touches of the Immortality of the human Soul I pray be pleas'd to illuminat and rectifie our understandings touching that point Pererius Concerning the immortality and incorruptiblenes of the Rational Soul in the World to com not onely Christian Divines but the best of Pagan Philosophers Poets and Orators have done her that right as is evident in their works Moreover the Intellectuall Human Soul doth prove her self to be immortall both by her desires her apprehensions and her operations Touching the first Her desires are infinit we know and never satisfied in this world Now it is a Maxim among the School-men That ther is no naturall passion given to any finit creture to be frustraneous Secondly Her apprehensions or longings after eternall Truths which are her chiefest employments and most adaequat objects declare her Immortall Thirdly from her operations 't is known that all corruption comes from matter and from the clashing of contraries Now when the Soul is sever'd from the Body she is elevated beyond the sphere of matter therfore no causes of mortality can reach her wherby her state and operations pronounce her immortall which operations she doth exercise without the ministery of corporeall organs for they were us'd to be a clog to her Add hereunto that she useth to spiritualize materiall things in the Intellect to abstract Idaeas from Individualls She can apprehend negations and privations she can frame collective notions all which actings conclude her immateriality and as 't was pointed at before where no matter is found ther 's no corruption and where ther 's no corruption ther 's no mortality Now her prime operations being without the ministery of Matter she may be concluded immortall by that common principle Modus operandi sequitur modum essendi Operations are according to the essence of every thing Now in the World to com the
Ape I remember when I had a human shape I was much addicted to the reading of History which is a profitable knowledge for the observation of former actions may serve to regulat the future I took notice of a world of examples that the two nefandous crimes of Sacrilege and Perjury never went unpunished without some signall judgments Among divers other these two do reign and rage in Gheriona more then they ever did in any Country under the cope of Heven and must she not then expect the vialls of a just vengeance to fall down upon Her from above But that you may better understand the state of that calamitous Country that Country of confusion I will recount to you what befell me before my transmutation Perertus You will oblige me beyond measure if you impart unto me what you intend and I shall listen unto you with much patience and no lesse contentment Asse It chanc'd one night I had a strange unusuall Dream I had fallen into so sound a sleep as if the Cinq-ports my five outward senses had been trebly lockt up My Animula vagula blandula my little wandring soul made a sally out of Morpheus Horn-gate as she uses to do often and fetch vagaries apart to practise how she may live by her self after our dissolution when she is separated from the Body and becom a Spirit I had all night long a world of visions and strange objects appeerd unto me which return now fresh into my memory During the said time I thought I was transported to the remotest place and of the greatest distance that possibly could be from Heven me thought I was in the Infernall pit in the kingdom of darknesse in Hell it self among the devills and damned spirits I had neither that golden branch nor the help of a Sybilla Cumana to conduct me up and down as the Trojan Prince had but a spirit did lead me gently and softly all along untill I came to Pluto's Palace where a speciall Councell was held to take a strict examination what service the three infernall Furies Alecto Tisyphone and Megaera with other inferiour Fiends that were their assistants had done upon earth towards the advancement of the kingdom of darknesse since their last mission thither which was presently upon the appeerance of the last blazing Star 1618. Pluto vouchsafed to be present at this solemn Councell and to be President or Chair-man himself to which purpose he had a strong Legion of Cacodaemons for his gard but the busines was prepar'd and facilitated for his hearing before hand by a speciall Committee appointed of purpose for that end whence I observed that Committees were first hatch'd in Hell The three gastly Daughters of Night appeered with fiery conntenances before the Stygian King in lieu of air they evaporated huge flakes of fire which they took in and let out with the accents of their words huge bunches of Vipers hung dangling and wavring about their heads having their tayls rooted in their sculls A furious clash fell betwixt them who should be Prolocutrix but in regard that Alecto and Tisyphone had given account of their former missions the one of the League in Artonia the other of the Revolt of the Hydraulian which was about the appearance of the Comet in the tayl of Cassiopaea it came now in due turn that Megaera should have the priority of speech So the youngest of the Tartarean girls began as followeth May it please your high phlegetontic Majesty to understand that since the last happy Comet Anno 1618. which by the parallax was found to be in the Heven it self above the Elementary world we have for forty years together been more active and eager in your Majesty's service than ever we were We have stirred the humors of the foolish Inhabitants of the earth to insurrections to warr and praeliation To effect which our practise hath been to bring on the beggarliest and toughest peeple upon the nicest and softest we brought the Cuprinian upon the Aetonian and the Zoundanian the Tarragon and Cinqfoyl upon the Tumontian the Tartar upon the Chinois the Selenian upon the Marcopolist the Cosaque upon the Pole the Carboneian upon the Gherionian We have continued a bloody lingring Warr in the bowells of Artonia for thirty years together we have thrust divers Princes out of their antient Inheritances among others the Duke of Laroni and Rhinarchos we brought two gran Selenian Emperours to be strangled by their own slaves we have often puzzled Vinalia we have made the Kings of Artonia and Tumontia to bandy so fiercely one against the other as if the one had been an Infidell the other a Iew though each of them had one another's sister abed with him every night But may it please your Acherontic Majesty to be inform'd that the most advantageous and signall services we have done have bin in the lsles of Gheriona and Hebrinia for whereas we divided our selfs before and went singly among other peeple we went joyntly thither all three and brought a Regiment of fiery red-coated Cacodaemons to guard us because we might be sure to bring our great work home to your Majesty's aime The Nation fittest for our turn at first were the Carboncian who have bin so obedient to their Kings that of above a hundred they brag of scarce two parts of three died in their beds but were made away violently We did incite them first against their own Country-man and Native King and to appear in a daring high hostile manner before him upon the borders At which time it cost us a great deal of artifice so to besot the Gherioniams and to abase their courage so to entangle them with Factions having sure Confidents to that end among them that they durst not present Battle to the Carboncian at that time And this Sir was an important piece of service for had they fought then or had they bin sensible afterwards of the dishonour they received at that time their King being then amongst them in person with the flower of his Nobility and Gentry and consequently had they stuck to him afterwards to have vindicated that rebellious affront all those we have fomented since might have bin prevented We shortly after transmitted the same spirit of Insurrection into Hebrinia who being encouraged by the good successes of the Carboneian who got then what tearms he listed yet could he not sit quiet and the Hebrinian Commissioners being but harshly entertain'd by the great Councell of Gheriona who intended to send them over a Governour that should pinch them more than they were before in their consciences and for divers other provocations we caus'd the Hebrinian also to rise in blood which he did to som purpose Then came we to work upon the Gherionian whom we found as fit to receive our impression as flax is to receive fire in regard of their long Furseit of peace and plenty We broke up one great Assembly upon a suddain because the members therof were not for
ameine au gibet War makes the Thief and peace brings him to the gallows Therfore he prefers rather to passe his life peaceably under your Government than to be in Cuprinia where of late years men are so press'd for the Warrs to serve the ambition of their Kings that the whole Country is so drain'd that ther 's scarce any left but women old men and children Therfore he is very well pleas'd with this lycanthropy But Madame I spy a bearded Animal nibling upon the brow of that crag I desire by your favour to have som discours with him for by his long beard he shold have bin som Philosopher and so have more wit in him than other animals Morphandra You shall very willingly but I will tell you what he was before He was an Orosian born and I transform'd him to that shape for being a Mountaineer and for having aspiring thoughts with other resons Pererius I 'le go and accost him Sir will you please to come down hither into the plain for I have very good news to impart unto you that will make you skip for joy Goat I pray excuse me it is against my nature to descend if I did I should haply prove more foolish than the Goat in the Fable who being invited and perswaded by the fair speeches of the Lion to come down and feed in the medow where he was being come down the hungry Lion devoured him presently Pererius You need not apprehend any such fears here but I will come to you Queen Morphandra tells me that you were an Orosian born a very antient and noble Nation Have you a disposition to return thither to resume the shape of Man and to be again the child of Reson Goat What do you mean by Reson I think the shape and species I now am in are capable of Reson for we can distinguish 'twixt good and bad 'twixt what is noxious or profitable for us we have also the same organs the same cells and receptacles in the brain as man hath for to lodg Reson and the celestiall bodies pour the same influences upon us as they use to do upon the human Creture Pererius It cannot be denied but you have an Instinct that acts according to Reson and it may be call'd Instinctive Reson But the Reson that Beasts have is limited to corporeall objects to the necessities onely of life to find out food and shelter and bring up their young ones it s onely direct Reson that 's capable of Singulars it s restrain'd to an opinionative faculty it s a meer shadow of ours much like the objects that our fancy represents to us in sleep And this Instinct in Beasts is as much inferiour to Reson in Man as Reson in man is inferiour to Intelligence and Intuitions in the blessed Angells Goat Yet Sir it must be granted that actions whose successes are so well ordered actions which have so well regulated a progresse and concatenation so exactly tying the Mediums to the End must needs be performed by the guidance and light of tru Reson and such actions you know sensitive cretures daily perform With what art do Birds build their nests the Fox his hole the Badger his chamber with what caution do they preserve their young ones and fence them from the injury of the Hevens how punctually do they keep their haunts But what do you think of Pliny's Elephant repeating his Lesson at Moon-shine or of Ptolomey's Stagg that understood Greek of Plutarch's Dogg who could counterfeit the very convulsions of death of the Ape that could play at Chesse and another that had learnt som touches on the Guittern What think you of Caligula's Horse who was made Consul had not he Reson in him What think you of the Asse who being us'd to carry burdens of Salt over a Foord was us'd to stumble and fall constantly in such a place that therby the salt melting away into water his burden might be the lighter but his Master lading him with a tadd of Wool he fell at his usuall place but being helped up again and he feeling the pack of wool heavier in regard of the water that got in he never stumbled any more in the Foord after that time What think you of the Crow that in the time of a great drowth finding water in the bottom of a barrell and being fearfull to go down carried so many stones in her beak that letting them fall down they forc'd the water to rise upwards towards the top and so she dranck safely and at ease I pray were not all these not onely Instinctive but Discoursive Resons Pererius I confesse that he who denies a kind of Reson and Resoning also to brute Animals may be questiond whether he be master of Reson himself yet this Reson and Resoning looks upon present and particular notions onely But human Reson extendeth to universall notions out of the reach of sense which cannot be without abstractions and som reflections it hath on it self which Beasts cannot attain This Reson that is conversant with Universalls is the tru specificall difference 'twixt Man and Beasts It is the portion and property of Man alone whereby he hath the Soverainty over all over his fellow-cretures throughout all the Elementary World Ther is Intuitive ther is Discoursive and ther is Instinctive Reson the first is proper to Angels the last to Brute Animals and the second to Man who can contemplat and discourse of generalls and things absent And these three differ in excellency as the three degrees of Comparison Goat Yet though you excell us as you say in this kind of Reson ther 's many of us that surpasse you in strength and quicknesse of sense as the Eagle in seeing for he can look upon the Sun in the Meridian with full open eyes and not be dazzled the Hare can hear better and the Dogg goes far beyond you in smelling as also the Stagg therefore when he is removed from one Park to another you use to muzzle him and carry him in close Carts that he may not smell the way back again And there be examples to admiration of this kind Pererius Though som Beasts smelling be beyond ours in respect of celerity and way of reception yet in point of dijudication differencing the variety of smels which proceeds from the Rationall Soul we surpasse them Therfore though we cannot see as Eagles nor hear as Hares nor smel as well as Doggs yet Hands Speech and Reson makes amends for all The composition also of the body being Erect is advantagious the caus of which Erection after the beholding of Heven is the exercise Arts which cannot be done in another figure Mans body is likewise the most copious of organs and though born naked yet this nakednesse cuts out work for Reson It abounds also more with Animal spirits and heat it hath long feet that the body might be more steedy and his head is built upward like a Castle or Watch-tower in the upper Region Goat This
Soul shall be in a state of pure independent Beeing for ther will be neither action or passion in that state Whence may be inferr'd she shall never perish in regard that all corruption comes from the action of another thing upon that which is corruptible therfore that thing must be capable to be made better or worse Now if a separat Soul be plac'd in her ultimat and utmost state that she can be made neither it follows that she can never lose the Beeing she hath Besides since the egress out of the body doth not alter her nature but onely her condition it must be granted that she was of the same nature while she continued incorporated though in that kind of imprisonment she was subject to be forg'd as it were by the hammer of materiall objects beating upon her yet so as she was still of her self what she was Therefore when she goes out of the passible ore wherein she suffer'd by reson of the foulnes and impurity of that ore she immediately becomes impassible and a fix'd subject of her own nature viz. a simple pure Beeing Both which as a most noble Knight Sir K. D. hath it may be illustrated in some mesure by what we find passeth in the coppilling of a fixed metall which as long as any lead or drosse or any allay remains with it continueth still melting flowing and in motion under the muffle but as soon as they are parted from it and that 't is become pure defaecated without mixture and single of it self it contracts it self to a narrower room and instantly ceaseth from all motion it grows hard permanent and resistent to all force of fire admitting no change or diminution in its substance by any externall violence In like manner it may be said when the Rational Soul departs from the drossy ore of the Body and comes to be her single self she is like exalted Gold and reduc'd to the utmost perfection She can be no more liable to any diminution to action or passion or any kind of alteration but continues fix'd for ever in the full fruition of unconceivable blisse and glory Bee Excellent Prince these are high abstracted notions transcending the reach of vulgar capacities But you were pleased to reflect somwhat upon the blisfulnes and joys of the human Soul in the other world I pray be pleas'd to enlarge your self upon this Theme Pererius These joys as they are beyond expression so they are beyond all imagination That vast Ocean of Felicity which the separat Soul is capable to receive cannot flow into her untill those banks of earth viz. the corporeall walls of flesh be removed Those infinit joys which the human Soul shall be ravish'd withall in Heven are unmeasurable and beyond any mathematicall reaches They have length without points breadth without lines depth without surface They are even and uninterrupted joys but to go about to expresse them in their perfection were the same task as to go about to measure the Ocean in Cockle-shells or compute the nomber of the sands with peeble stones Touching these faint and fading plesures among the Elements we use to desire them when we need them and when we have them the desire presently languisheth in the fruition Moreover we use to love earthly things most when we want them and lesse when we have them The daintiest meats and drinks nauseat after fulness Carnall delights cause sadnes after the enjoyment All plesures breed not onely a satiety but a disgust and the contentment terminats with the act 'T is otherwise with Celestiall things they are most lov'd when they are enjoy'd and most coveted when they are had They are always full of what is desir'd and the desire still lasteth but it is a co-ordinat desire of complacency and continuance not an appetit after more because they are perfect of themselfs Yet ther is still a Desire and a Satiety but the one finds no want nor can the other breed a surfet The higher the plesure is the more full and intense is the fruition and the oftner 'tis repeted the more the appetit encreaseth Whence this conclusion follows that ther can be no proportion at all betwixt the joys of a separat Soul and those of a Soul embodyed For the least dram of the spirituall joyes in Heven is more than the whole Ocean of fleshly contentments One drop of those abstracted those pure permanent immarcescible delights is infinitly more sweet than all those mix'd and muddy streams of corporeall and mundan plesures then all those no other then Utopian delights of this transitory world were they all cast into a Limbeck and the very Elixir of them distill'd into one vessell Bee Incomparable Prince you have conquer'd us with such strong Herculean Resons you have raised our spirits with such high raptures and so illuminated our understandings that by the gracious Fiat of the great God of Nature and the favour of Queen Morphandra his handmaid in this particular we are willing to resume our first shapes and so return to our dear Country and Cloysters where the remembrance of this transfiguration we hope will turn to our advantage In the interim we render you most humble and hearty thanks in the highest degree that can be imagin'd for your flexanimous and hevenly perswasions which we found so melting and sweet that we may justly think Bees sat upon your lips as they did upon Plato's in your cradle or that you might be nurs'd with Hony in lieu of Milk as Pindarus the Prince of Lyricks was And because Poesie is the gretest light whereby the Rational Soul may be discerned to be a Ray of Divinity we will conclude with som Enthusiasms to blissfull Heven and the Hierarchies therof in this graduall Hymn beginning with our Creator Natures great God the Cause of causes be Ador'd and prais'd to all Eternity That supream Good that quintessentiall Light Which quickens all that 's hidden or in sight Who breaths in Man the Intellectuall Soul Therby to rule all Cretures and controul What Water Earth or Air c. 1. O holy Souls O heavenly Saints Who from corruption and the taints Of flesh and blood from pain and tears From pining cares and panting fears And from all passions except Love Which onely reigns with you above Are now exempt and made in endlesse Blisse Free Denizons and Heirs of Paradis 2. O glorious Angels who behold The Lord of Light from Thrones of Gold Yet do vouchsafe to look on Man To be his Guide and Guardian Praying always that He may be Partner of your felicity O blisfull Saints and Angells may yee still The Court of Heven with Halleluiahs fill 3. Seraphick Powers Cherubs Thrones Vertues and Dominations Supernall principalities Glories and Intelligencies Who guide the cours of Starrs in sky And what in their vast Concaves lye May ye for ever great Jehovah's will And His commands throughout the world fulfill 4. Archangels who the most sublime degree Do hold in the Triumphant