Church Militant to be most like the Church Triumphant for in Heaven which is nothing els but one great Temple ther is among the Angels which are compounded of Essence and Existence as you and I are of matter and form ther is I say a most exact order They are divided to three Hierarchies 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 Archangels and Angels Now those of the supremest Hierarchy partake of Divine illuminations in a greater measure then of the inferior and they one to another in respective manner who are subordinat unto them you and I are created in a capacity to dwell in that Temple of Eternity you after the Resurrection and I as soon as I part with you to see the face of my Creator and converse with those holy Angels by thoughts and looks Body 'T is hard for flesh and blood to beleeve that considering the immense distance which is twixt this ball of earth and 〈◊〉 Empyrean Heaven you should so instantaneously arrive thither to behold the beatificall vision For the lowest neighbour to earth of all the celestiall bodies which is the Moon is by the opinion of the best Astronomers computed to be 52. Semidiameters distant from the earth every diameter containing nere upon 3500. miles so that put case one could fly thither and mount 100. miles an hour yet he would be above four months in his journey moreover from the first sphere the primum mobile put case a millstone should descend thence to the centre it would be 60. yeers a coming down though it make 40. miles every hour as the prime of Astronomer averrs therfore under favor how is it possible that you should immediatly upon your separation from me post up with such inexcogitable speed up to Heaven and behold the blissfull vision Soul Touching the operations the movements and conveyancies of Spirits you must know that they are instantaneous and so wonderfull that the speculation thereof strikes Philosophy dumb They need no succession of Time or place as bodies require in their motions they meet with no stop or resistance at all in their passage Now if Light which is nothing els but dilated fire to the utmost tenuity that can be and comes neerest to the nature of a spirit of any corporeal creature if light I say doth exercise its function with such an admirable agility and suddennes as to expand it self from East to West over the whole surface of the Hemisphere what shall we think of Spirits that are far fuller of activity But you must understand that when I am devested of you the wall of partition that interposition is instantly taken away which stood 'twixt me and my Creator who is the Son of the Invisible world as that in the Firmament which you see with the sensitive optiques here is of this Materiall therefore I shall immediatly behold that infinitly more glorious Sun the veyl of flesh being taken away I shall be instantly within the Temple of glory wherof every Corner is fill'd with the light of his countenance insomuch that who is once in it can never be able to go again out of it Therefore though the blessed Angels are employed up and down the world upon his service yet they are alwayes within the verge of the Beatificall vision Body Let it not be held a petulant or impertinent curiosity in me if I covet to know since you now speak of Angels what degrees of difference ther may betwixt Them and separated souls in Heaven Soul As they agree in many things so they also differ in many Angels and separated souls agree in that both of them are spirits both of them are intellectual and eternal Cretures They behold the blissful vision They are Courtiers of Heaven and act meerly by the understanding The merits of Christ was beneficiall to both it made the one capable of the state of glory and it confirm'd the other in it that they can never be Apostats hereafter besides as som hold at the day of judgment they are to receive augmentation of bliss by being freed from further employment cares and solicitings for men and continue in an uninterrupted rest Now as the blessed Angels and separated souls do thus agree so they differ also in sundry things They differ in their very Essentialls for the principles of Angels are meerly metaphysicall viz. Essence and existence but a separated soul continueth still a part of that compositum which formerly consisted of matter and form and is still apt to be reunited to the body till then she is not absolutly completed for all that while she changeth not her nature but her state moreover they differ in the Exercise of the understanding and manner of knowledg for a separated soul knowes still by discours and ratiocination which an Angel doth not They also differ in dignity of nature for Angels have larger illuminations and at the first instant of their Creation they beheld the beatificall vision yet separated souls are capable to mount up to such a height of glory as to bee like them in all things both in point of vision adhaesion and fruitio◠Body But when you are setled in that state of blissfulness how can I expect that you will desire to bee united again to re-efform so frail and foul a thing as this body of mine why may not I think rather that you will assume some body of a nobler and more refined matter according to the speculation of him who imagin'd that rationall soules be they never so pious and pure mount not up presently after their separation from the corrupt mass of flesh to enjoy the Beatificall vision which is the height of all celestiall happiness but first they are carried to the body of the Moon or som other Star according to their degrees of piety and goodness in this life where they enter into and actuar som bodies of a purer mould and being refin'd then they reascend to som higher Star and so to som higher then that till at last they be made capable to behold the lustre of so glorious a Majesty in whose sight no impurity can stand which fancy may be illustrated by this comparison that if a prisoner as I touch elswhere after he hath bin kept close in a dark dungeon for many yeers should bee taken out and brought suddenly to look upon the Sun in the Meridian it would endanger him to bee struck stark blind So no humane polluted soul sallying out of a dark dirty prison as the body is would be possibly able to appear before the incomprehensible Majesty of God or be susceptible of the fulgor of his all-glorious countenance unless he be sitted before hand by certain degrees thereunto which might be done by passing from one Star to another who we are told in a good Text differ one from the other
THE VISION OR A Dialog between the Soul and the Bodie Fancied in a Morning-Dream Svmbolum Auth. Senesco non segnesco LONDON Printed for William Hope at the Blue â—â—chor on the North side of the Royaâ— Exchange Anno Dom. 1651. To the knowing Reader MAn is the Worlds Abridgement who enrouls Within himself a Trinitie of souls 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 where she dwels Distinct from others no Dissector tells And which no creture else can say that state Enables her to be Regenerate She then becomes a Spirit and at last A Devil or a Saint when she hath cast That clog 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 Earth or Hells blackhall This Vision may conduce to let us know Our present baseness and our future bliss If it make any gentle souls to glow And mend their pace that way I have my wish JAM HOVVELL TO The Right Honourable the Ladie ELISABETH DIGBYE c. Madame COuld the Rational soul whom Philosophy calls the Queen of forms and Divinity the Image of the Allmighty be seen by the outward eye of sense she would as Plato sometimes spoke of Virtue were she so visible rayse in us a world of admiration We should be so ravish'd with her beauty and so struck in love that we would leave all things else to win her favour An odd Humorist vapouring once that Women had no souls was answered by a modest Lady 〈◊〉 Sir you are deceiv'd for I can pâ—â—duce a good Text to the contrary My soul doth magnifie the Lord and it was a woman that spoke it No less humorous was He who would maintain that the salique Law was in force in Heaven as well as in France which excluded women from raigning But much more civil was a farewell that the Count of Lemos took of the Dutchess of Pastrana who having invited him to see a new Palace that she had built with a stately Chappell annex'd at his departure said Madam I see your body is fairly Housd but I find that your soul is far better Housd than your Body Madam I have the happiness to know your L shp many years near upon 4. lifes in the law and truly I never knew any whose soul was better lodgd and furnishd with more virtues and graces which makes me resolv'd to live and die Your Lshps most humble and dutifull servant JAM HOVVELL The PROEM IT was about the Summer solstice when the Measurer of Time that glorious Luminarie of Heven allowed but little above three hours night to cover this part of the Hemisphere That after my sleep a second stole gently upon me which happend about the dawnings of the day when those grosser sort of soporiferous fumes that are wont to ascend from the stomack to lock up the outward senses for their natural repose being dissipated and spent the purest kind of subtil rarified vapours rise up to the Region of the brain which use to represent more plain and even objects to the Imagination and make the storie and circumstances of dreams more coherent and cleer though the â—ost lucid fancies that appear uâ—â—â—â—s in sleep be but as stars in a cloudie night or the branches of trees in a thick standing pool I say it was about the break of day that I had an unusual Dream or Vision rather For me thought a little airie or rather an aethereal kind of spark did hover up and down about my bodie It seemed to have a shape yet it had none but a kind of reflexion it was me thought within me and it was not but at such a distance and in that posture as if it lay Centinel At last I found it was my Soul which useth to make sollices in time of sleep and fetch vagaries abroad to practise how she can live apart after the dissolution when she is separated from the bodie and becomes a spirit Afterwards the fantasma varying she took a shape and the nearest resemblance I could make of it was to a veild Nunn with a flaming cross on the left side of her breast who in dolefull tones and thrâ—â—â—â—g accents broke out into these queâ—â—â—ous ejaculations A DIALOG between the SOUL and the BODIE Soul OMe how much reason have I to rue the time that ever I was cloistered up among those walls of clay What cause have I to repent that ever I was thrown into that dungeon that corrupt mass of flesh For when I first entered I bore the image of my Creatour in somâ— lustre but since that time 't is scarce discernable on me in regard of those soul leprous spots and taintures which I have contracted from those frail corporeal organs which have so pitifully disfigured and transformed me that I cannot be called the same Thing I was at first the Character of my Creatour being almost quite lost in me Bodie Dear Soul how comes it to pass that you are in so much anxietie how comes it that you are so discomposed and transported with passion imputing the cause of your indispositions to me Alas you know well that I am but an unwieldie lump of earth a meer passive thing of my self It is you that actuats and animats me otherwise I could neither think speak or do any thing nay without your impulss I could have no motion at all you are the Pilot that steers â—his frail Bark you fit in the box of the Chariot I am but the organ you are the breath you are the intelligence that governs and enlightens this dark orb of mine so that all my motions are derived from the poles of your commands it is you that denominates me a man therefore if any thing be amiss 't is I that have more reason to complain in regard that being but a meer unwieldie trunk of my self I am quickened altogether by you whether you be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a continual motion as some Philosophers would have you to be or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the perfection from whence all motion proceeds as others term you therefore because I am liable also to future punishment as well as you 't is I that have more cause of complaint and to repent me of that syneresis and union which is betwixt us For it had been less danger for me to have been an inanimate thing and to have had neither vegetal sensitive or rational Soul either by traduction or infusion cast into me for then I had been free from those numberless incommodities which all three are liable unto The First being subject to excess of moisture and drought to blastings and the furie of the Meteors The Second to hunger and thirst with multitudes of
alteration but continueth fix'd for ever Add hereunto that every humane Soul is still breath'd and immediatly created by God Almighty himself for though the sacred Code tells us that he rested from all his works the sixth day yet touching Rational souls he may be said to be still a perpetuall Agent touching their creation not any creture els to concurr in that work as he useth to do in the production of mortall and corruptible cretures Therfore ther are none but they whose souls sâ—ar no higher then their senses but may feel within them an immortall essence the apprehension whereof is as irksome to the reprobat as it is comfortable to the Elect. Body Let me not be held too bold a sceptic if I desire to know whether you carry with you to the other world the knowledg you had here and reserve it still Soul Yes I shall bring along with me the habit of all the science and intelligible species that I had here and get an infinit addition of more for I shall not arrive to the full use of my understanding till then I shall retain also the habit though not the operations of the Vegetall and sensitive soules as I did in the time of information when I was embodyed I shall still know things by Ratiocination and discourse which Angels use not to do I shall become an indivisible substance exempt from place and time yet present to both my activity shall require no application to either of them but I shall be mistresse of both comprehending all quantity whatsoever in an indivisible apprehension ranking all the parts of motion in their compleat order and knowing at once what is to happen in every one of them wheras when I was immers'd in the body and confin'd to the use of exterior senses I could look but upon one definit place or time at once needing a long chain of various discourses to comprehend the circumstances of any one singular action My capacity shall not bee confin'd to the small multitude of objects which division and time gives way unto I shall bee a selfe Activity an essence free from all encombrances oftime For to bee subject to Time or comprehended in Time is to be one of those moveables whose Being consisting in motion taketh up part of Time and useth to be measur'd by Time which belongs to Bodies But when I shall become a Spirit and have my operations entire as being nothing but my selfe I shall bee absolutely free from Place and Time though both do glide by me and under me Insomuch that all wch I shal know or do I shal do it at once with one Act of the understanding therfore I shall not need time to manage and order my thoughts as when I was affix'd to that orb of yours nor shall I need any extrinsecall mover or the work of fancy or any previous speculations residing in the memory I shall be a simple and self-subsisting form a cement and miroir to my self Body These high abstracted notions do far transcend the short reach of of my sensitive faculty but under favour you speak only of your activity and encrease of knowledge in the life to come I would bee glad to hear somthing of the joyes and blissefulnes thereof Soul These as they are beyond expression so are they beyond all imagination that vast sea of felicity which I am capable to receive cannot flow into me till those banks of earth be removed The joyes of Heaven have length without points breadth without lines depth without surface they are even and uninterrupted joyes and to endeavour to relate them in their perfection were the same task as to go about to measure the Ocean in Cockle shels or compute the number of the sands with pebble stones Touching these faint and fading earthly pleasures wee covet them when we need them and the desire languisheth in the fruition moreover worldly things when wee want them wee use to love them most but lesse when we have them meats and drinks they nauseat after fulness carnall delights cause sadnesse after the enjoyment all pleasures breed not only 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 alwaiesful of what is desir'd and the desire still lasteth but it is a desire of complacency and continuance not an appetite of more because they are perfect of themselves Yet there is still a desire and satiety but the one findes no want nor can the other breed a surfet The higher the pleasure is the more intense is the fruition and the oftner repeated the greater the appetite will be whence this inference may be made that ther can be no proportion at all' twixt the delights of a separate and an embodyed Soul But it must not bee forgotten that as good Soules being become purely spirituall and beatified as soon as they are separate from the body do by their simplicity and acutenesse apprehend and enjoy the blisses of Heaven in their true nature beyond the extent of quantity and above all conceit of fancy So a damned Soul being a simple Act also and nothing but Spirit doth apprehend and endure the torments of Hell with all the activity subtlenesse and energy that can bee still receiving new strength and vigor to bee able to lie under the said torments And as the assurance of a succeeding eternity delights the one so it doth torture the other Moreover as the greatest straines of anguish which torments the one is to have lost Heaven so one of the highest conceptions of joy to the other is to have escap'd Hell Insomuch that Heaven in som sort may be called the Hell of the damned and Hell the Heaven of the Blessed Body Let it not be term'd a presumption in me if I desire to bee rectified in one point that considering the humane creature is finite and temporary and that all which proceeds from him is so how can it stand with the justice of Allmighty God whose will is the Rule of Justice and equity who also is the source and sea of mercy how can it stand I say with his goodnes that ther should be such a disproportion betwixt the offence the punishment as to punish his poor frail finit creature with infinit and eternall torment Soul This hath bin a quaere much scann'd discuss'd in the very infancy of the Church which made one of the Originall Fathers therof out of excesse of charity to thinke that the damned soules and Devils should be sav'd at the day of Judgement But you must consider that though humane transgressions are finite yet they are committed against an infinite and eternall Majesty and had the sinner who committed them liv'd eternally hee would have sinn'd eternally Besides the reward which is reserved for humane soules is infinite and eternall therefore it is just the forfaiture therof should be so to
the forfaiture of Heaven one dram of whose happinesse is more then the whole masse of all earthly contentments One drop of whose abstracted pure permanent and immarcessible delights is infinitely more sweet then all those mixt and muddy streames of corporeall and mundane pleasures then all those no other then Vtopian pleasures of this transitory world were they all cast into a liâ—beck and the very Elixir of them distill'd into one vessell Body Me thinks I feel that small triangle of flesh which beats towards the left side of my brest dilated with excess of joy to hear this discours touching your immortality being so infinitly happy that I have so precious a guest within me specially when I look upon the former discours you made touching the Resurrection and that I shall be also fitted to be reunited unto you in the Region of Eternity moreover these patheticall expressions of yours have fill'd me with thoughts of Mortification whereof I shall endeavour to shew som future symptomes A salad or posie gather'd in a Church-yard shall be more pleasing to me and that my shirt be dried ther hereafter rather then in a garden therefore I desire that you would joyn with the rest of the separated souls in Heaven that the time of my reunion with you may be hastned And so good morrow to my soul Vpon this the Nun vanish'd into me I know nor how and diffus'd Her self through all the cells of my brain and through the whole mass of blood among the spirits Now it is observ'd that it is the practice of Humane souls in time of sleep and the silent listning night to go oftentimes abroad and exercise their abstracted notions as also to try here as it was touch'd before how they can live separate hereafter by these noctivagations It is recorded of Iulius Casar that he dream't to have layn one night with his Mother and I may be said to have layn with my Soul By his mother was interpreted the Earth the common parent of all and it was presag'd of him by that Dream that he should be Conqueror of the world which prov'd true so I hope this dream may foretell that I shall conquer this little world of mine For both Divines and Philosophers make every Man a Microcosm or little world of himself And now 't was high time for me to awake which I did For lo the golden Orientall gate Sp. Of gray-fac'd Heaven 'gan to open fair And Phaebus like a Bridegroom to his mate Came dancing forth shaking his dewy hair And hurles his glitt'ring beams through gloomy Air So Rest to Motion Night to Day doth yeeld Silence to Noise the Stars do quit the Field My Cinque Ports all fly ope the Phantasie 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 milk maid seeks her pail porters their frocks All crys and sounds return except one thing I hear no bell for Mattins toll or ring Being thus awak'd and staring on the light Which silver'd all my face and sight I clos'd my Eyes again to recollect What I had dream't and make my thoughts reflect Vpon themselfs which here I do expose To every knowing soul And may all those Whose brains Apollo with his gentle ray Hath moulded of a more refined clay That read this Dream therby such profit reap As I did plesure Then they have it cheap Est sensibilium simia somnium I. H. FINIS The Ingredients whereof this Discours is compounded are 1. Divinity 2. Metaphysic 3. Philosophy 4. Poesie c. The principall points it handleth are The Faculties functions of the soul The generations and frailties of the Body The Influxes and operations of the stars The wayes of knowing God Almighty The Heavenly Hierarchies and their degrees The Resurrection Of walking Spirits of the old Philosophers Of the state of Souls after this life 〈◊〉 the joyes of Heven 〈◊〉 he torments of Hell 〈◊〉 sceptiques and Critiques 〈◊〉 Sundâ—y sorts of Christians throughout the world with many emergencies of new matter 〈◊〉 The prose goeth interwoven with sompeeces of poesie and History all along Sir K.D.
and there cannot be a better gift than praise with expressions of thankfulness and with admiration of his longanimity and love of his preservation and providence of his power and greatness yet prayer should have a longer preparation than praise in regard by it we make our addresses immediatly to God in the second person and familiarly speaks to him as it were face to face whereas oblations of praise are commonly in the third person Therefore under favour I do not much approve of their custom who before and after meat when their brains are ful of worldly thoughts and tied to civil compliances do rush rashly into a speech with him in the second person having no time for a fitting praemeditation At such times a short ejaculation expressed in the third person though it be only mental if the case requiers may be more acceptable and freer from presumption than a long grace For among those innumerable sins which man is subject unto the sin in prayer though least thought upon is one of the greatest when without trembling precogitations God Almightie is spoken unto and thou'd in the Vocative case Now those Benedictions and strains of prayses which are utterd in the Nominative and other Cases have a larger scope of boldness and a greater latitude of notion they keep at a further distance and consequently require not so much reverence and recollection of the thoughts beforehand but may be extemporal 'T is one thing to say God be praisd another thing to say O God I praise thee the latter requires much more premeditation for one presupposeth he is as it were locally and presentially before him though the first may have as much of the heart be as effectual as the other This makes me to take some paines when I invoke God in the second person by my orison to obstract my self from all commerce with you for the present and elevat my self upon the wings of Faith in the sublimest posture I can towards Heven taking the choicest affections and ideas with me along where I figure to my self a huge mountain of most pure and inexpressible light wherein me thinks I discern a glorious majesty but the more I look upon him the more he dazles mine eyes that I cannot make him a fix'd object or discover any shape in him in regard of the refulgencie of his glory during this action I endeavour to mingle with that light for true love is nothing else but an appetit of Vnion and if I hold my self to be a spark or part of that light from the beginning and to be dart thence into that body of yours and made a soul may be no extravagant speculation Now touching this last Notion and the other concerning extemporall Prayer it is not utter'd to give the least occasion of scandal to any other soul but onely to intimat that there are for Acts of Devotion as well as for all things else fit places and times where there may be a greater opportunitie for one to summon his spirits to marshall his irregular thoughts and raise his affections towards that glorious object to whom Prayer is directed Bodie Dear soul my spirits are raised to an exceeding great height of comfort that in the first part of this last discours you are pleas'd with the method of my Devotions and carriage towards Heaven that I reserve my purest and most intense Affections for my Creator which I shall be most carefull ever to do dum spiritus hos regit artus He being my sole soverain good and truly I must tell you that when by my lubricities as by too free a genius in the fruition of a friend or otherwise I chance to have offended him I can never be friends with my self till I am reconcil'd to him and that I conceive his countenance to be turn'd again towards me yet I had once a long fit of dejection of Spirit that made me break out into these complaints which you may well remember for they were Emanations from you Early and late both night and day By moon-shine and the Sun's bright ray When spangling starrs emboss'd the skie And deck'd the World's vast canopy I sought the Lord of life light But oh my Lord kept out of sight As at all times so every place I made my Church to seek his face In Forrests Chaces Parks and Woods On Mountains Meadowes Fields and Flouds I sought the Lord of life and light But still my Lord kept out of sight On Neptun's back when I could see But few pitch'd planks 'twixt death and mee In freedom in bondage long With grones crys with Pray'r and song I sought the Lord of life light But still my Lord kept out of sight In chamber closet swoln with tears I sent up vowes for my arrears In Chappel Church and Sacrament The soul's Ambrosian nourishment I sought the Lord of life and light But still my Lord kept out of sight What! is mild Heven turn'd to brass That neither sigh nor sob can pass Is all commerce 'twixt earth and sky Cut off from Adam's Progeny That thus the Lord of life light Shold so so long keep out of sight Such Passions did my mind assail Such terrors did my spirits quail When lo a beam of Grace shot out Through the dark clowds of sin and doubt Which did such quickning sparkles dart That pierc'd the Centre of my heart O how my spirits come again How ev'ry cranny of my brain Was fill'd with heat and wonderment With joy and ravishing content When thus the Lord of life light Did re-appeer unto my sight Learn sinners hence 't is ne're too late To knock and cry at Hevens gate That Begger 's bless'd who doth not faint But re-inforceth still his plaint The longer that the Lord doth hide his face More brighter wil be his afterbeams of Grace Thus at last I made mythridat of that Viper which me thought had gnaw'd so long upon my Conscience which prompted me all the while of my dangerous condition and exhibited me my Quietus est at last Soul I like it very well that you make the Conscience your Guide and that you use to listen to his counsell for he is my Dictator may be said to have a coordinat Power with God himself Therefore it is the chiefest part of a wise Christian to take his Conscience for his Admonisher here least he become his Accuser hereafter He is Fraenum and Flagrum he is a bridle before but a Scourge after sin But I hope those turbid intervalls of grief and gripings bettered you afterward for confession and sorrow without amendment as one truely said is like the pumping of a Ship without stopping the leaks It is a pithy and ponderous advice that an ancient Father gives Commissa dole dolenda non committe repent of things committed and commit not things to be repented there is another saying that administreth both comfort and caution that if sins present do not delight thee
nostile way and slain together with his two Sons in open field by â— common vassall of his who had â—aised military forces against him â—nd so made himself chief of that â—ncient and vast Empire of Ethioâ—ia The wild Tartar rush'd through that four hundred miâ—es huge wall which fever's China from Tartary and so piercing the very bowels of that luxurious and most delicate continent as far as Quinzâ—y the celestiall City as they call her and besieging the very palace of that most Eastern Monarch he caus'd him to set it all on fire and to do away himselâ— violently with his thirty Wiveâ— and Children rather then he would become an inglorious Captisâ— The great Ottoman Emperour anâ— head of the Musulmans was strangled by his own slaves in the Seraglio The Knez orgâ—an Dukâ— of Moscovia had some of his primâ— Nobles and principall Officer hack'd to pieces before his facâ— and their heads being thrown intâ— vessels of strong water they werâ— fixed upon poles and made tâ— burn before his Court gate Iâ—Naples a bare-footed Fishermaâ— made himself the head of an Army in lesse then four daies of 50000 men and rendred himself as absolute as any Monark Two Provinciall Kingdoms revolted quite from Spain viz. Catalonia on the one side and Portugall on the other renouncing all obedience unto him The Republic of Venice soly with her own strength of tresure hath wrastled seven yeers together with the great Turk A King of Great Britain the Defendor of the Faith and Head of the Church had his head chop'd off in a Juridicall way I live in a time that Englands chiefest Temples are turn'd to stables and sterâ—oraries that dogs have bin christened at the Font and horses â—ed on the Communion Table with sundry other spectacles then which if I should live a thousand yeers longer I think I shold not see more strange and stupendous Soul All this that you say is too true but ther is nothing to be wondred at now adaies It is a good while since that I have given over wondring at anything And the greatest wonder is that peeple have bin so habituated to see such strange things of late yeers that they have quite lost their wondring But it is the pleasure and permission of the great Architect of the world in whose sight the vastest Monarchies are but as so many mole-hils hee who transvolves Empires and tumbles down Diadems as he lifteth that things should be so nor is all this and what daily happeneth but the effects of that branch of our daily prayer Thy will be done Moreover when I seriously contemplat the frame of this frail inferior world and find man to be the principall'st part of it when as I have touch'd else where I consider that fluxible stuffe which goes to make him up and that the humors within him according to the elements are in perpetuall agitation man will be man still hee will be subject to changes and innovation As long as the Moon shines above his head and hath that dominion over him that he cannot cut a corn or hair or lop his tree without seeking into her age I say as long as that instable Planet makes impressions upon his brain and those sluces of blood that run up and down his body he will bee ever covetous of novelty and gaping after mutation specially the common fort of peeple who will find som time or other to shew what they are now touching the Moon they that pry into the influxes and operations of heavenly bodies do observe that she hath a greater power over this Island then upon others which causeth the Brittish seas to swell up above fourscore cubits high in some places Besides daily experience shews that Empires Common-wealths and Kingdomes with all kind of civill bodies as well as naturall are subject to distempers to hot feavers to fits of convulsions and vertigoes They have also their degrees of growth they have their consistences declinings and Catastrophes And indeed the world it self which som held to be a great Animal as well as its parts hath the like which is now come to its decrepit Age the Infancy whereof may be said to have bin from Adam to Noah the Childhood from Noah to Abraham the Youth from Abraham to David the Manhood from David to Christ the old Age from Christ to the Consummation Insomuch that the older the world growes the more subject the parts therof are to distempers so that it is not to be wondred at that men grow worse that charity growes colder that morosity and peevish inconstant humors reign more then ever wherunto all revolutions quarrels and preliâ—tions may be attributed wherby peeple becom active and eager oftentimes in the pursuits of their own ruine and in liâ—u of those Feathers which they cryed out before were such grievous burdens unto them they draw sows of lead upon their backs Body To this the Pagan Poet hath long since alluded when he sung Hoc placet O superi vobis cum vertere cuncta Propositum nostris erroribus addere crimen Thus O yee Gods when yee intend to frame New Governments our errors bear the blame This make some cry out that the times are such that they are able to turne one to an Epicurean who was not such an Atheist as to think there was no God but that the sublunary things of this lower world were too mean for him to take care of Whereat another Poet glanced when he said Non vacat exiguis rebus adesse lovi Soul 'T is true ther are some sort of crying black sins that raign now adaies which are able to eclipse the Sun it self and obscure the whole face of Heaven therefore I cannot be much blam'd of being weary of your consortship and that I desire to be enfranchiz'd from that flesh and made free Denison in a better world Body I confesse my dear soul that you have little comfort to sojourn in me and I as littâ—e to sojourn in the world as I said before yet though I am not so happy here as I desire I am not so wretched as I deserve Ther are many odd extravagant humors that raigne now adaies which make men to wander in the wildernes of their own exorbitant fancies and leave the beaten road now the vialls of the Almighty's vengeance are various but the sowrest and sorest are those which fall upon the brain when the ill spirit is permitted to intoxicat the understanding wherby som in searching after the the Truth do over-reach it as far as others com far short of it The world was never so full of fancy not only in dâ—vine notions but philosophicall also as now it is Some presumptuous over-weening Sciolists to raise the tarrasse of Reson wold ruine the battlements of Faith they wold make the miracles of Holy Scripture to proceed from naturall causes they wold make som asptaltique bituminous matter to be the cause of the burning of Sodom and Gomorra They wold impute the drowning of
you and to partake with you of that knowledge and blissfullness which so far surpass all my senses and your Imagination I believe as yet Soul I do not say you shall rise but you shall be raised for solus Christus resurrexit alii suscitati Christ only did rise again by the power of his Godhead all others shall be raised that same body of yours shall be rais'd the same in substance not in quality for it will be made purer and freer from Corruption as I during the time of my separation on I shall not change my nature but my state I may be said to have no integrity but remain as a part of you till our reconjunction wherunto I shall still incline and propend because you were the instrument wherby I became first a soul which may be the cause that all the Saints in Heaven do so much long after the day of Judgement because they may bee reunited to their bodies and by that consortship have a fuller fruition of bliss Those eyes of yours shall then receive their reward for their liftings up to Heaven those hands of yours for being instruments of charity those eares of yours for their attention to holy duties those knees of yours for their bendings in Gods holy house that mouth of yours for receiving the blessed Sacrament in such humiliation that tongue heart and brain of yours for their praises and ejaculations and all other parts of yours that were the interpreters of your piety shall all then receive their reward in the Temple of Eternity Body But after your recesse and separation from me let it not bee esteem'd a too overbold curiosity if I desire to know whether you will give then a finall farewell to Earth and bee seen no more in the Elementary world because ther be so many stories told of spirits that walk to discover hidden tresures to detect murthers c. As also that they have appear'd in Churchyards and Charnell houses Soul Touching this speculation and doctrine of walking of Spirits it hath gravel'd the highest wits both in Divinity and Philosophy they are all put to a nonplus concerning the latter they would produce naturall reasons why in Cimitiers and other places they somtimes appeer and one is by the example of a vegetall body which being burnt and reduc'd into ashes the form of the same numericall plant by a curious Artist may be reviv'd visibly to the eye of the beholder and made to start up out of those ashes being shut uâ— in a glasse and heated in the botâ—tome in regard that the fixed faâ— though much of the volatil hatâ— flown away remaines there still so a humane body or cadaver beinâ— reduced to ashes in the grave bâ— the heat which the penetrating beams of the sun insuseth therinto the shape of the said body may be exhal'd up and made to appeer in the air Now touching the Theologues the common opinion is that it pleaseth God Almighty to give the Devil a priviledg and permit him to assume any shape that of man not excepted wherby he deludes and makes compacts with the weaker sort of peeple to destroy their souls for ther is no Creture that the Devil maligneth and hates more then mankind in regard he succeedes him in the beatitude that he lost which makes som Divines hold that when that number of Angels which fell and were tumbled down to Hell is filled up by humane souls the day of judgment will come But as I said before the ill spirit hath power by Gods permission to transform himself to sundry shapes and to transfer that power to his petty cacodaemons and imps to beguile and inveagle the simplest sort of mankind and most commonly women the weaker vessels who somtimes out of a desire of revenge and to wreck their malice somtimes for lucre and som petty supplies of money use to indent and make pactions with him though alwayes without a witness And hereof these times affoord more instances then ever any age did therefore whosoever denieth ther are such kind of actuall delusions and ill spirits sheweth that he himself as was said elswhere is possessed with the spirit of contradiction and obstinacy For ther are no nations new or old but have published laws against such who adoperat and make use of the devil for the ends afore mentioned as also for other curiosities and predictions 〈…〉 against them Ther are Edicts in France and Acts of Parlement in England against such who invoke ill spirits make any contracts with them wherof the very instrument and deed hath bin discover'd in divers places with the Devils claw for his signature together with the injunctions that he layed upon them before hand which in the Romish Countreys are that they must first renounce Christ and the extended woman meaning the blessed virgin they must contemn the Sacraments tread on the Cross spit at the Eucharist c. As I have noted els where Therefore without any controversy ther are airy spirits that hover up down perpetually about us But when I shall become a spirit which will be immediatly upon my dissolution from that body of yours I hope I shall appeer no more in this Elementary world till I attend my Saviour at the day of judgment to fetch you up also to Heaven as soon as we part from one another here you shall return to earth whence you first came and I to God that gave me you to your common Mother and I to the Father of lights whence as a beam of immortality I was sent to quicken organize and inform that body of yours and make it capable of heavenly beatitude in time being refin'd and fitted first for that purpose I thank my Saviour I have that within me which assures me hereof I am not left to such incertitudes anxietie that have any thing of despair in them such that an Italian Prince expressed when being upon his death bed and comforted by his friends touching the joyes of the other world whereunto he was going he fetch'd a deep grone said Oh I know what 's pass'd but I know not what 's to come much like another in the same condition who said Dubius vixi anxius morior quò vadam nescio I liv'd doubting I die anxious I know not whither I go To these may be added an odd speech of a French Baron not long since who meeting two capuchins going barefoot in cold frosty weather with their scrips upon their backs a begging knowing them to be gentlemen of a good family He said How grosly are these men cosen'd if ther be no Heaven That of Rablais was not so bad as this who being upon his death bed and the extreme unction applied unto him a friend of his who had come to visit him among other passages of consolation wish'd him good speed for he was upon his journey to a good Countrey viz. to heaven He answer'd so it seems that I am upon a journey for you see they are
lickering my boots already to that purpose but that which is father'd upon Paul the third is beyond all these when he said upon his death bed that shortly he should be resolved of two things whether ther be a God and Devil or whether ther were a Heaven and Hell Therefore Earth may be said to be worse then Hell in one respect because it bear's Atheists which Hell doth not but rather converts them in regard they feel God ther by his judgments and begin to have an historicall faith of him which here they had not Nor am I of that drowsie opinion to think that I shall sleep all the while among the common mass of souls in som receptacles ordain'd I know not where for that purpose till I be rejoyn'd unto you Nor doth the Religion I am of admit of any suburbs in hell as purgatory and other places where I must be purified some yeers before I ascend to heaven As Fray Iulian of Alcala doth averr upon record which is made authentique producing other spectators besides himself that he visibly saw the soul of Philip the second going up to Heaven in two ruddy clouds some two yeers after his death at such an hour of the night Body Let not my Soul bee offended if I bee curious to know somthing touching that most comfortable point of the immortality of the Soul and this curiosity doth not arise out of any doubt but a desire to be further confirm'd therein because there be some busie Spirits that stumble at it alledging that it is but a new tenet of Christian Faith not establish'd in the Church till the latter Lateran Councell and pumping out other quaeres and cavils concerning this Article Soul It is in Divinity as in Philosophy for as it was said long since that in this an impertinent Sceptic may blurt out a question which all the Sages of Greece were they alive could not answer So in Divinity an irresolute inconformable stubborn spirit may raise doubts that the whole Academy of Christian learning cannot solve such Pyrrhonians and perverse spirits have bin in all Ages ther are no principles can tie them their braines may bee said to bee like a skein of thrumb'd small threed any thing will entangle them and their thoughts like a bush of thornes that takes hold of any thing they are never satisfied either in points of faith or the operations of nature like him who would have found somthing to shear off upon an egge This may be cal'd one of the truest sorts of superstitions whose etymologie is super stare to stand too precisely and peremptorily upon a thing specially things indifferent and to bee over hot either in the abolition or maintenance of them to the destruction of whole Nations as also in recerches after supererogatory knowledg and interpretations of Scriptures wherby they would make the Holy Spirit speak what he never meant whereas the moderat and submiss sober minded he or she are the best proficients in the school of Divine knowledg But wheras you say that you desire to be strengthned and illuminated further touching the imateriality and consequently the incorruptibleness and immortality of the Rational Soul Let me tell you that not only Christian Divines but the best of Pagan writers both Poets Philosophers and Orators have done Her that right One calls Her Divinae particulam aurae Another sings Igneus est olli vigor coelestis imago Another Mens infusa Deo mortalis nescia sortis And Cicero among other hath a remarkable saying to this purpose si erro credendo Animam esse Immortalem libenter erro If I err in beleeving the soul to be immortall I willingly erre Moreover the Intellectuall humane soul doth prove Her self to be immortall both by her desires her apprehensions and operations Her desires are infinit and still longing after eternity now ther is no naturall passion given to any finit Creture to bee frustraneous Her apprehending of notions of Eternall truth which are her chiefest employment and most adaequat objects declare her immortall Al corruption comes from matter and from the clashing of contraries now when the soul is sever'd from the body she is beyond the sphere of matter therefore no causes of mortality can reach her ther is nothing in her that can tend to a not being Her operations also pronounce her immortall which she doth exercise without the ministery of corporeall organs for they are rather a clogg to Her she doth use to spiritualize materiall things in the understanding to abstract ideas from all Individuals she is an engin that can apprehend negations and privations she can frame collective notions all which conclude her immateriality and where no matter is found ther 's no corruption and wher ther is no corruptibleness ther must be an immortality now her prime operations being without any concurrence of matter she may be concluded immortall by that common principle Modus operandi sequitur modum essendi for in the world to come the state of the soul shall be a state of pure Being nor will ther be either 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 of being made better or worse now if a separate soul be in her utmost final estate that she can be made neither it follows she can never lose the being she hath Moreover since the egress out of the body doth not alter her Nature but only her condition it must be granted that she was of the same nature while shee continued incorporated though in that imprisonment of hers she was subject to be forg'd as it were by the hammers of materiall objects beating upon her yet so as she was still of her self what she was Therfore when she goes out of the passible ore wherin she suffers by reason of the foulness and impurity of that ore she immediatly becomes impassible and a fix'd subject of her own nature that is a simple pure Being Both which states of the soul may be illustrated in som measure by what we find passeth in the coppelling of a fix'd mettall for as long as any lead or dross or any allay remains with it it continueth melting flowing and in motion under the muffle but as soon as they are parted from it and that it is become pure without mixture and single of it self it contracteth it self to a narrower room and at that instant ceaseth from all motion it grows hard permanent and resistent to all operations of the fire and admitteth no change or diminution in it 's subject by any extern violence so the Rational Soul when she departs from the drossy ore of the body and comes be her single self she becomes as it were exalted gold to be perfectly by her self she can never be liable any more to diminution to action passion or any kind of