viz. Three Men stood by him 18 Gen. 2. Behold two Men stood by them in shining Garments 24 Luke 4. And there came two Angels to Sodom and Lot went out to meet them 19 Gen. 1. And the Angel of the Lord found her by a Fountain of water 16 Gen. 7. And the Angel of the Lord called unto him viz. Abraham 22 Gen. 11. And Jacob went on his way and the Angel of the Lord met him 32 Gen. 1. The Angel of the Lord went out c. and smote in the Camp of the Assyrians 185 Thousand 2 Kings 19. 31. And there died c. 70 Thousand And when the Angel of the Lord stretched forth his hand upon Jerusalem the Lord said to the Angel Hold now thine hand 2 Sam. 24. 15 16. You shall see the Heavens opened and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man 1 John 51. I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God and am sent to speak to thee 1 Luke 19. And the Angel ministred unto him 1 Luke 13. And the Angel of the Lord came down from Heaven and rolled away the Stone c. 28 Matth. 2. He knew of a surety that God had sent his Angel Acts 12 11. Who received the Law by the Disposition of Angels 7 Acts 53. Are they not ministring Spirits for the good of c. 11 Hebrews Ejaculation King of Kings and Lord of Lords about whose Throne are always attending Thousands of Thousands and ten Thousand times ten Thousand blessed Angels be graciously pleased to give Charge to some of those ministring Spirits to guide and conduct me throughout my whole Pilgrimage in this Valâ—y of Tears and at last to convey my departing Soul to the place of Everlasting Rest and Happiness What were and are the fatal Consequences of the Disobedience of our First Parents we too well know and find by woful Experience And had not their heavy Sentence been allayed with a happy Promise of a Messias both their and our Condition had been altogether hopeless But what had been the Consequences in case they had remain'd in that purity in which they were created As namely to what Numbers they had increased and multiplied in what parts of the World they had inhabited And if in colder Climates their Bodies had required Covering and Vestments Whether Flesh had been allowed them for Food as well as Fruits and Herbs And the Earth brought forth its Encrease without any Labour or Tillage And lastly if they had never died but after a certain Term of Years had been Translated from Earth to Heaven as Righteous Enoch was and afterwards Elias Are all Questions more curious than necessary as the Case now stands with us And such as I believe the wisest Man living had he all imaginable Helps of Humane Learning and acquired Knowledge would never be able with any certainty to determine Thus much we may reasonably believe and safely conclude That as they were at first created by the wonderful Contrivance and Mechany of the blessed Trinity and made after G O D's own Image and Likeness they were truly Noble and Excellent Creatures Of their Bodies we have a Specimen by the Dissection of one of our own they being undoubtedly the same with ours as to the Figure Number and Uses as well of their Exterior as their Interior parts though extreamly different in Perfection and Durahoâ— those lasting more than twice as many Hundreds as ours do now Scores of Years even after they were mortified by their Fall and were Condemned by G O D himself the one to daily Labour and Tillage and to eat his Bread by the sweat of his Brows and the other to be subject to the Laws and Will of a Husband to struggle with the sharp Pains and Throws of Child-bed and to have her Griefs and Sorrows greatly multiplied In the Dissection of Humane Bodies what thinking Men can take a serious view of the Skin the Membranes the Flesh the Fibers the Veins the Arteries the Nerves the Ligaments the Cartilages and the Bones as likewise of the three Cavities or Venters of the Trunk namely the Abdomen the Chest and the Head with all things therein contained as also the Arms Thighs and Legs with their different Positions Compositions and admirable Use without being struck with great Wonder and Astonishment and crying out with good King David Behold I am fearfully and wonderfully made When he considers how closely the Stomach with the help of its Fibers embraces the Meat that is chewed in the Mouth and the Drink that is received in and swallowed down and mixeth therewith specifick fermentatious Juices bred in its inner Coat and impregnated by the Saliva till the finer parts by a convenient heat become a white milky Cream after which together with the thicker Mass with which they are as yet involved by the Constriction of the Stomach they pass down to the Guts where by the mixture of the Bile and the pancreatick Juice they are by another manner of Fermentation quite separated from the thicker Mass and so received of the Lacteal Vessels as the thicker is ejected by the Stool When he rightly considers the Figure and Motion of that admirable Machine the Heart and how it is suspended in the Body by the Vessels that go in and out of it and that as an ordinary Forcing-Engine being placed in the middle of a City or Town draws the Water of an adjoining Source or Fountain into its own Bowels by one Motion or stroak of the hand and the help of a Valve to keep it from returning back again and then thrusts or forces out the same Water by another stroke of that hand and the help of another Valve into another Pipe which is afterwards distributed into smaller Branches to supply the Uses of the several and respective Houses So the Heart receives the Blood out of the Vena Cava into its Ventricles by a Djastole or Dilatation and then thrusts or forces it out again by a Systole or Contraction into the Arteries and out of these into the parts that are to be nourished from whence it is to be resolved by the Capillary Veins which conduct it back through the larger Veins into the Vena Cava again and this by the help of divers Semi-lunar or Semi-circular Valves curiously and conveniently placed in the aforementioned Vessels and Passages and thus is made the admirable Circulation of the Blood But how or by what secret Power the Heart receives its Motion and makes its constant pulses is known to God alone the Maker and Searcher of all Hearts We are apt to admire the Skill of an Artist who can make us a Pendulum-Clock of the choicest Brass and Iron to vibrate with a just and equal Motion for the space but of one Year and that with the help of a suspended Weight What shall we then think of a Movement composed of fleshy Muscles and Fibers suspended in Methusalem's body and continuing its Pulses without
Earth and carry their Bodies as upright towards Heaven as any of us and that showres of Hail and Rain in calm Weather fall upon any part of this Terrestial Globe directly towards the Center in a straight line He might very easily have judged that this Globe of Earth hanging in the expanse by nothing but the Almighties Word and Power has its own proper Center as all other Bodies of the same or greater Magnitude have and consequently that if underneath there were a great Cavity and that Cavity filled with a fluid body of Fire and Brimstone the convex Superficies of that globular fiery Lake would in every part of it be the uppermost and the parts adjoining to its Center would be the lowest and probably the Bodies of damned Reprobates being thrown into this Lake would sometimes float upon it and sometimes plunge to and fro in it But forasmuch as the Center of this globular Lake would be but an imaginary point those Bodies would plunge and move to and fro within it in Saecula Saeculorum without finding any solid Fulcrum or firm Bottom neither could the most learned Philosophers or skilful Geometricians in the whole World be ever able by contemplating all their Lives the Dimensions of that fiery Lake and its Center of Gravity to make any other thing of it then truly and properly a Bottomless-pit And if those learned Men should allow in that case the shell of this Terrestial Globe to be no more then 17 or 18 hundred Yards in thickness and then compute how many cubick Yards and Feet would be contained within its concave Superficies they would perhaps find room enough and to spare for all the Bodies of Human Reprobates from the first Creation to this present time and for some Thousands of Years to come As for the Devil and his Angels if above six Thousand of them were crowded into the body of one Gadarene a few thousands of cubick yards might very probably contain all his Infernal Legions And as for the Bodies of Human Reprobates they being once Spiritualiz'd may for ought any Man knows be pressed into a much less compass than ours that are of a grosser substance Besides all this who knows whether the Confinement of both Devils and Reprobates within a small compass and narrow space may not rather augment and encrease than any way lessen or diminish their everlasting Torments Ejaculation From being shut up with the Devil and his Angels in that dreadfull and bottomless pit and from so near a conjunction with those infernal Finds and Furies in the Blackness of Darkness Good Lord deliver us And methinks our Saviour's making so often mention of a Lake of Fire and Brimstone should strike all Atheists and Libertines with as great a dread and fear as the Hand-writing on the Wall did of old Belshazzar When they do but consider what vast quantities of sulphureous Matters have been cast out of the gaping Orifices of Mount Aetna and Vesuvius in Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples and what horrid Noises as Travellers report have been sometimes heard out of those burning fiery Furnaces like the howlings and skreeches of some miserable living Creatures Especially that prodigious Lake of burning Brimstone which a few Years since if we may believe Gazettes was vomited out of one of those Mountains and like a mighty Torrent run along upon the ground and so into the Sea a whole League in length before it was extinguished For my own particular if it were lawfull to make Conjectures in matters of that consequence I should be apt to believe that the Sun were a Body much more convenient for that purpose forasmuch as First It is a Body greater than the Body of the Earth by many Degrees as is plainly demonstrable by Ecclipses Secondly We have reason to believe from Sacred Writ that at the End of the World there will be no further use of the Sun 's light Thirdly According to the Opinion of the best and most accurate Astronomers of latter Ages the Sun is placed in the very Center of the World however in the Holy Scriptures that are written as is supposed ad captum vulgi it is expressed otherwise And therefore must be of all other Bodies the most infernal and then one would think that place is most likely to be Hell which is furthest off from Heaven Fourthly If the Rays of the Sun which are sent out from its lucid body at a vast distance being contracted here below and with the help of parabolical and eliptical Figures become in their Focus much hotter and sooner melt down Gold and Silver than any Culinar or indeed any chymical Fire How great must we then imagine the heat of that fiery Globe to be in its own proper body especially if the Sun were darkned and its glowing Rays turned inwards and those few Spots which we discern on its supersicies were multiplied till they should become an entire Cover and be made the Blackness of Darkness for ever and the body of the Sun made a fluid and eternal Fire by God's Almighty Power And now if all these things should be so the History of Abraham Dives and Lazarus would not be extream difficult to be explained by Interpreters If Telescopes help us to discover unknown Stars of different Lights If speaking-Trumpets or close Pipes may be so made as to conveigh Words several Leagues And if Stephen's mortal Eyes could look from Earth into Heaven and there see Jesus standing at the distance of no Man knows how many mvriads of Miles how easy had it been for the Maker of all things by his Almighty Power first to translate the Bodies of Dives and Lazarus after they were dead and buried as well as those of Enoch and Elias before they were interr'd the one to Heaven and the other to Hell And afterwards so to clear up all the Mediums between Heaven and the Center of the World as that the immortaliz'd Eyes of Abraham and Dives might plainly see one another's Persons and Postures and their Ears might hear each other's Voices at as great a distance as the length of the Semidiameter of the whole Universe But here I must put the Reader in mind that in truth all these things are meer Conjectures And far be it from such a poor Worm as I am to be the Broacher of new Opinions in Matters so far above the reach of my own Understanding and Conception For I must ingenuously confess once more That I am lost in a Labyrinth of Thoughts and should I go on further but a few steps I should lose both my Reason and Senses and never be able to finish this small Treatise And therefore all I shall here add is to beseech all Libertines to take heed and beware how they turn plain Scriptures into meer Metaphors or make a derision of the true Tophet or Vally of Hinnon least one day they hear the dreadful Voice Go ye Cursed into the place of Torments where the Worm of Conscience never
Repentance with a stedfast and firm Resolution to reform and amend our Lives Bless us in our going out and our coming in when we are upon the Way when we lay us down and when we rise up When we are in our private Closets lend an Ear to our Prayers and answer the Desires of our Souls When we are employed about our Lawful Callings give success to our honest Labours and Endeavours When we are conversing with others let us behave our selves with all humility and meekness in all our Words and Actions esteeming others better than our selves and doing to others what we would be willing they should do unto us Being patient gentle and easy to be entreated slow to wrath and ready to forgive all those who have trespassed against us until seventy seven times Loving our Enemies doing good and shewing kindness as we have opportunities to those who hate persecute and despitefully use us Living in humble Obedience to and heartily praying for Him who hath the supreme Power over us together with all those who are related to Him or who are in Authority under Him Being no Busy-bodies in other Men's Matters no Whisperers Tale-bearers Slanderers or Back-biters No Deceivers or Covenant-breakers but sincere and upright in all our Dealings and Transactions No lovers of Earthly Treasure no Worshippers of Gold or Silver or greedy of filthy Lucre. With all chearfulness and alacrity dealing our Bread to the Hungry giving Drink to the Thirsty Clothing the Naked visiting the Sick relieving Prisoners redeeming Captives helping the Fatherless and Widows comforting and assisting the Desolate and Oppressed and never shutting up the Bowels of our Compassion from any who want our Help or Assistance And forasmuch as we are here but Strangers and Pilgrims let thy good Spirit guide and conduct us in our Way to our long Homes through the vast and wide Wilderness of this sinful World where there are so many Turnings and Windings Cross-ways and By-paths Thorns and Briars Pits and Precipices Traps and Snares laid for us by the Devil and his Emissaries to entice us to Sin and Wickedness and then to plunge us into endless Woe and Miseries Where there is no true content or Satisfaction to be found and where the most refined of Human Pleasures and Delights are allayed with the mixture of Cares and Troubles Fears and Jealousies Sicknesses and Diseases Crosses and Disappointments where Love and Kindness is often repaid with Hatred and Malice and the most bountiful Actions with ungrateful Returns Where the Poor are oppressed by Men of Power and innocent Lambs made a prey to ravenous Wolves where our Eyes are too often entertained with doleful Spectacles and our Ears filled with Sighs and Groans and bitter Lamentations And therefore Gracious FATHER be thou pleased to give us such a measure of Faith Hope and Patience as may bear us up in all the Changes and Chances of this Mortal Life and enable us in whatever State or Condition we are therewith to be content as well to be abased as to be exalted to want as to abound to have nothing as to possess all things And though the Fig-tree should be withered and no Fruit be found on the Vine the labour of the Olive fail and the Field yield no increase though there should be no Sheep in the Fold or Herd in the Stall no Cattel in the pasture or Stores in the Garner no Water in the Bottle or Oil in the Cruce yet still to trust in that GOD who feeds the Ravens and the young Lions when they call upon him who can make Rivers to flow out of hard Rocks and furnish a Table in the Wilderness With whom the very Hairs of our heads are all numbred and in whom none ever trusted and were confounded That so having finished our Course and run our Race and lived the Life of the Righteous our last END may be like unto his And whenever these Houses of Clay shall be dissolved our Souls may be safely conveyed by some blessed Guardian Angels to the place appointed for the Spirits of GOD's Elect there to wait with patience for a joyful Re-union with their respective Bodies at the Resurrection and second coming of CHRIST in Glory with all his holy Angels in whose Name and Words we farther desire to call upon Thee Saying Our Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy NAME thy Kingdom come thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this Day our daily Bread and forgive us our Trespasses as we forgive them that Trespass against us and lead us not into Temptation but deliver us from Evil for thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen AN EVENING-PRAYER FOR Every Day in the Week MOST Glorious LORD GOD and merciful Father in Christ Jesus who inhabitest the highest Heavens and yet art pleased to dwell in the lowest Hearts and hast graciously promised That where-ever Two or Three are gathered together in thy Name and Fear Thou wilt be there in the midst of them Look down in mercy upon us who are now before Thee and dare not give sleep to our Eyes or slumber to our Eye-lids till we have renewed our Covenant with the GOD and FATHER of Mercies and have humbly offered unto Him our Selves our Souls and Bodies as a reasonable service Be therefore pleased O Lord to forgive all the Sins of our past Lives particularly the Omissions and Commissions of this Day for which alone shouldst Thou enter into Judgment with us Thou mightst justly condemn us to the lowest Hell and give ns our portion with Hypocrites in utter Darkness Blessed LORD we desire from the bottom of our Hearts to be sensible of our manifold Frailties and Infirmities and of that Law in our Members that is always Warring against the Law of our Minds so that whenever we would do Good Evil is present with us and intermingles with our very Prayers and disturbs our most religious Duties and Performances And therefore it is that utterly renouncing our own Righteousness as Dung â—nd Dross we fly to Him who is our Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous to wash away our Sins with his own precious Blood and to present us unto Thee our GOD pure and spotless And for his sake we humbly beseech Thee O LORD to lighten our Darkness and by thy great mercy to defend us from all perils and dangers this Night giving us a moderate and refreshing Rest free from frightful Dreams and sinful Imaginations which are the evil Effects of our corrupt Natures When we awake let our Souls be filled with heavenly Thoughts and pious Meditations always remembring That we are in the presence of a God who knows our down-sitting and our up-rising who understands our Thoughts a farr off and is acquainted with all our ways If we should be so vain and foolish to believe that the Darkness would cover us the Night shall be light about us the Darkness hideth not from Thee but
that it was but to Sow in the Morning and Reap at Night That the same Angel taught Adam to plant and sow and all other necessary Sciences Moreover That the same Angel made the Seven lower Spheres the least whereof reaches to the Center of the World in the same manner as the Heavens do all continued one within another and that all these Spheres are of different Mettals That next the Center of Iron the Second of Lead the Third of Brass the Fourth of Laten the Fifth of Silver the Sixth of Gold and the Seventh of Earth which contains all the rest They believe that over every Heaven there is Water and that the Sun swims in a Ship upon that Water and that the Mast of that Ship is a Cross and that there are a great number of Boys and Girls to guide the Ships of both Sun and Moon Besides they have the picture of a Bark which they say belonged to the Angel Bachan whom God sends to visit the Sun and Moon to see whether they move exactly and keep close to their Duty In reference to the other World and Life to come They believe there is no other World but where Angels and Divels together with the Souls of Good and Bad reside That in that World there are Cities Houses and Churches and likewise that the Evil Spirits have their Churches where they pray singing and rejoycing upon Instruments and feasting as in this World That when any one lies at the point of Death three hundred and sixty Demons come and carry his Soul to a place full of Serpents Dogs Lions Tigers and Devils who if it be the Soul of a wicked Man tear it in pieces but if it be the Soul of a just Man it creeps under the Bellies of those Creatures into the presence of God who sits in his Seat of Majesty to judge the World That there are also Angels who weigh the Souls of Men in a Ballance and those who are thought worthy are immediately admitted into Glory That Angels and Devils are Male and Female and beget Children and that the Angel Gabriel has a Daughter called Sâ—â—ret who has two Sons That the Angel Gabriel has several Legions of Demons under him who are instead of Souldiers and others that are his Officers of Justice whom he sends from Town to Town and from City to City to punish the wicked They hold that Christ left 12 Apostles to preach to the Nations That the Virgin Mary is not dead but lives somewhere in the World though no body knows where and that next to her St. John is to be the chiefest Saint in Heaven and next to them Zacharias and Elizabeth of whom they recount several Miracles and Apocryphal Tales That when St. John came to be of Age his Father and Mother married him and also that he had four Sons which he begat upon the Waters of Jordan and not upon the Body of his Wife That he died a natural Death but commanded his Disciples to Crucify him after his death that he might be like Christ and lastly that he died in the City of Fuster and was buried in a chrystal Tomb brought to that City by a Miracle and that this Sepulchre was in a certain House near the River Jordan They highly adore the Cross because say they we have a Book wherein it is written That every Day early in the Morning the Angels take the Cross and put it in the middle of the Sun which receives its Light from it as the Moon does also hers And that without these Crosses neither Sunnor Moon would give any Light and the Ships they were in would suffer Shipwrack Their Festivals are Three the one is in Winter that lasts three Days in memory of our First Parent and the Creation of the World The Second in August and called the Feast of St John The Third lasts five Days in June during which time they are all Re-baptized On Sunday they do no work They neither Fast nor do any Penance They have no Canonical Books but a great number of others that treat of nothing but Witchcraft in which they believe their Priests to be very crafty and that the Devils are at their beck They suffer no Women to go to Church nor any of the Laity to kill a Hen or any Fowl They eat of nothing drest by the Turks and after a Turk has drunk in one of their Cups they break it to pieces and picture Mahomet and four of his Parents as shut up in Hell and say That all Turks are carried to the same place to be devoured by wild Beasts They all pretend to Salvation by a Promise made by God to Gabriel on their behalf when he framed the World They have a great Antipathy against the blew Colour called Indigo which they will not so much as touch For say they certain Jews dreaming that their Laws should be abolished by St. John told it their Country-men which they understanding and seeing that St. John prepared to baptize Christ in a great rage fetch a vast quantity of Indigo in their Language Nill and flung it into Jordan which continued unclean for some time and had hindred the Baptism of Christ had not God sent his Angels with a large Vessel of Water which he caused them to fill out of Jordan before the Jews had defiled it with Indigo and that for the foresaid bold Attempt to defile the River God particularly cursed that Colour Ejaculation How long O Lord Holy and True wilt thou cease to be avenged of that Prince of Darkness for tyrannizing and triumphing over the poor Heathens and beguiling them with his Sorceries Witchcrafts and Enchantments for so many thousand Years How long wilt thou suffer that Enemy of Souls secretly to divert and please himself by seeing such vast numbers of his Slaves and Vassals to take more pains undergo more hardships and to endure more exquisite bodily Torments in travelling along the Broad way and passing through the wide Gate that leads to endless Woes and Miseries than thou sufferest a great number of thine own Elect and chosen Servants to meet with in the Narrow Way and in their passage through the straight Gate that leads to Eternal Life But to return to my Observations of the Devil's practices When God had covenanted with Abraham that his Seed should be multiplied as the Stars of Heaven and inherit the Promised Land What Stone did Satan leave unturn'd Or what Opportunities did he ever lose of attempting to frustrate God's gracious Designs His first Atchievement was to exasperate Esaâ— to murder his Brother Jacob upon whose individual Person his aged Father had so lately fixt a Blessing and out of whose Loyns were to come forth 12 Tribes whose Posterity were to be as innumerable as the Sands of the Sea hoping that he being once removed the blessed Effects of all God's promises would be utterly vacated and disappointed When Jacob's Family were kindly received by K. Pharaoh and the Egyptians How
Projector 's doom and then he sits down in great sadness and melancholly to lament his Ignorance and Folly I have in former days been visited by several of those Mathematical Enthusiasts some of whom were near Neighbours others came as I remember 60 or 80 Miles from their Habitations with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in their mouths desiring me to join with them in Praise and Thanksgiving to Almighty God for hiding those Mysteries from the learned Philosophers of the World and revealing them to such ignorant and unskilful Persons as they acknowledged themselves to be and of so mean Capacities As likewise to enter into Indentures with them for their Assigning over to me a large proportion of their endless and unknown Gains and Profits and this usually happened at such times when the Sun was got up to the Summer solstice and the Worm of vain Imagination wrought within the Dura and Pia Mater of those poor Engineers till such time as having revealed to me their Secret of Secrets I had prevailed with them by evincing Arguments and Ocular Demonstrations having had my self sufficient Experience of such vain Attempts to quit their Pretensions of doing Wonders and to repair to their own Homes and follow their several respective Occupations Another Caution concerning the Philosopher's STONE THE Well-wisher to Chimistry has no sooner pawn'd the best part of his small Substance to purchase his Glasses Melting-pots and other Utensils and built up his Chymical Furnace but he boldly undertakes without fear or wit the Transmutation of Mettals and hopes by safe and regular steps and degrees to come in due time to proâ—ection But after a tedious progress the poor Philosopher finds he has been rolling Sysiphus his Stone and instead of turning his brass Pots and copper Saucepans into Golden Vessels he has only made an unlucky Transmutation of his silver Tankard and gilt Cup into a wooden Can and earthen Pipkin and out of a new Suit of Cloths extracted an old thread-bare Coat and Breeches pieced and patcht and torn all to rags The Religious and Moral Hypocrite with the temporizing Turn-coat propose to themselves great Content and Happiness and value themselves extreamly by their skillful Addresses in winnowing with every Wind and sailing with every point of the Compass and which is yet more they very much please themselves in deceiving and abusing Persons of all Qualities Ages and Sexes as well the Great and Wise as the Ignorant and Foolish looking upon this as a noble practice and worthy of Men of Learning and Parts And thus they appear a long time in Masquerade and Disguise till by some Accident they are discovered and then they become to all Parties more hateful and odious than Toads or Serpents The Rich Glutton whose God is his Belly and thinks there 's no other Heaven than his Pantry and Kitchin does very seldom leave off to gorge his Paunch with dainty Dishes and costly Meats the Expence whereof would satisfy many hungry Souls till by his Intemperance a Surfeit ends his Days and his loathsom Carkass becomes a Feast for the greedy Worms The Drunkard no sooner sits down in a Tavern or Ale-house with his boon Companions but thinks himself in Paradise O how he hugs and blesses himself to see his beloved Nectar poured out and sparkle in the Glass And thus he goes on from Morning till Midnight till the Wine enflame him but in the end he often finds that it bites him like an Adder and stings him like a Scorpion The Voluptuous Man makes bold Adventures fights desperate Duels and compasses Sea and Land to gain a few Prostitutes which for a time he esteems as Birds of Paradise and every fresh Beauty a Phoenix till he learns by woful experience that they are indeed much worse than fading Flowers And yet notwithstanding all hazards being once infected with the Plague and Leprosy of Fornication and Adultery unless it pleases God to open his Eyes and convince him of his folly and madness he seldom forbears hunting after his accursed pleasure till rottenness enter into his Bones and a dart strike him through the Liver The Theif and Robber is not without his Designs to repair his broken Fortune or at least to better his Condition and at last to live with great content and happiness with his wicked Associates and lewd Strumpets This Person upon his first admittance into the Brother-hood no sooner meets with a few lucky Hits and rich Prizes but thinks himself a great Prince and all the Inhabitants of the neighbouring Counties his Subjects and Vassals and bound by their Allegiance to supply him with what Gold Silver and Jewels he pleases to call for in his progress But alass how often do we see this bright Sun suffer a total Eâ—clipse at high Noon and the miserable Wretch hous'd in a loathsom Prison fast bound with Fetters massy Chains and manicles of Iron and having received his just Sentence of Condemnation from the mouth of the Judge see him to be dragg'd from his subterraneous Dungeon to the dreadful place of Execution The Extortioner that Antropophagus swallows like a Cormorant and digests like an Ostritch the Pawns and Pledges which he so greedily snatches out of the hands and sometimes pull'd from off the Backs of Necessitous and indigent Persons This is he who drives away the Widows Ox and the Ass of the Fatherless And being attended with his respective Officers puts in execution his fatal Judgments and at one Morcel devours Cottages and Enclosures together with the Bodies of the Owners Farms Fields and Pastures with all their Stocks and Effects Tenements and Lordships with Gardens Orchards Coach-Houses Stables Barns Out-houses and all their Appurtenances always watching for the Windfalls of prodigal Heirs and decayed Fortunes as Eagles do after the dead Carkasses of broken Armies never considering That unless God have mercy upon his Soul he does but heap up Treasures against the Day of Wrath and Vengeance There is yet behind another Generation of Men who promise themselves above all others to please their sensual Appetites with the true Gusto of Worldly Pleasures having hardned each other in their Opinions and Belief That there is no God Angels or Spirits or any Real Subsistences of Departed Souls No Heaven to reward the Righteous nor a Hell to punish Sinners The Fools of old Times said only in their Hearts There is no God and so kept their Opinion to themselves but the Fools of this last Age are more bold and pronounce it openly with their Mouths O foolish Atheists Who has bewitch't you to outdo the Pagans Turks and Infidels Yea and the very Devils themselves who believe and tremble while you make merry and turn all to Ridicule by denying the Divine Existence of which the Heaven above and the Earth beneath with the Sea and all that therein is to the least Mite or Grain of Sand that can possibly be discerned by the best of Microscopes do bear evident testimony Would you but
dies where the Fire that burns is never to be quenched nor the Body that is burning never consumed THE Third Question Q. What art thou now doing Answer I hope through God's great Goodness and Mercy That one Thing necessary For having wandred up and down and made many weary steps in the wide Wilderness of a vain and sinfull World I was at last very desirous to return home to my self but must freely confess some Truths which to my Readers at first sight may seem Paradoxes or Riddles viz. I could never truly get into my self before I was got out of and had wholly left my self My wavering Mind was never rightly composed till it was extreamly disturbed I had no ease till I was in pain nor Peace and quietness till I was in trouble and distress I could enjoy nothing till I was dispossest of all things I was unable to stand up till I was fallen down to make the least progress till I was struck with Lameness or to see my Way till I had lost both my Eyes Ejaculation and Prayer Father of Mercies I do sincerely and with all my Soul bless and praise Thee for all the Changes and Chances the Disgrace and Misfortunes the Crosses and Disappointments and the bodily pains and Torments that have followed one another like Job's messengers and so closely attended this last Scene of my Life and Evening of my Days As really believing that they were all Marks and Tokens of thy favour and loving Kindness and that the great Physician of Soul and Body never does administer those bitter Pills to his Sick Patients but for blessed Ends and Purposes Lord I believe all this help my unbelief and graciously grant that thy poor distressed Servant may at last come out of the Furnace of Affliction and Troubles like Gold and Silver that has been tried in the fire and purified seven times Let others imbarque and hazard their immortal Souls in what false Bottoms they please Let the Ambitious-Man glory in his Honors and Preferments Let the Covetous Man's trust and confidence be his worldly Wealth and Mammon of Unrighteousness Let the Voluptuous Man's Paradise be his Dalilahs and sensual Pleasures But Christian Reader let you and I in this our Day and while we have Time and Opportunity make Provision for Eternity In order to this there are some things which we either do or may know by the Light of Nature and those Principles which we brought into the World with us the visible things of the Creation naturally leading us to the knowledge of one God Almighty Maker and Governor of all things and the Law of Nature that is written in our hearts prompting us to worship that God to be just in our Dealings to honour our Parents and the like And when on the one hand we faithfully perform or on the other hand do any thing contrary to what the Light of Nature dictates to us we have Consciences within us that do either accuse or else excuse our Actions and Behaviours and thus far go the Heathens But now there are other things which more nearly concern us Christians and these are revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures which Scriptures we are to esteem and reverence as undoubted and unquestionable Truths both as to the historical part of them and also the Precepts Promises and Threats contained in them and that for the Reasons alledged in a foregoing part of this Treatise 1. In these Scriptures we are taught and commanded to acknowledge the Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity Three Persons and one God who is an infinitely glorious Spirit that was from Everlasting without Beginning and shall be to Everlasting without End That he is no bodily Substance such as our Eyes behold but Spiritual and Invisible whom no Man hath seen or can see who comprehends all things and is only Immense not to be comprehended by any who can never be defined by any Words nor conceived by the Mind That He is infinitely Great and Excellent beyond all that we can possibly imagine That He has received his Being from none and gives Being to all things 2. To acknowledge His Divine excellencies and glorious Attributes as namely His All-sufficiency and admirable Providence in Disposing Governing and preserving all things his Omnipotence Omniscience and Omnipresence his Eternal Truth and Justice his transcendent Purity and Holiness and his infinite Mercy and Goodness 3. To love this God with all our Hearts and Souls as He is the Fountain of all Goodness and Excellency in himself and as He is infinitely kind and merciful towards us both in respect of our Souls and Bodies in giving us a Being in the World in forming and framing us wonderfully in our Mother's wombs in breathing into us the Breath of Life and enduing us with reasonable Souls after his own Image and Likeness in giving us our Birth within the Pale of the Church and not among Heathens Turks or Infidels in leaving us so many pious Examples of the blessed Patriarchs Prophets Apostles and Martyrs who are gone before us and with their own Blood have traced out for us the true way to Life and Happiness But above all that unparallell'd Pattern of Piety and Goodness in the Life of the Holy Jesus who so freely gave up himself as an Offering to save lost Sinners and to open the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers in giving us Food and Rayment and all the good Things of this Life and preserving us from sudden Deaths and Dangers ever since we hung upon our Mother's breasts To answer all which Love and Kindness of God to us we must express our Love to him by our hearty and honest Endeavours to please him in all things which we can never do without a sincere Repentance and a firm Resolution to amend our Lives and never to harbour in our Bosoms any secret Lust or live in any known Sin or Sins as likewise by taking all Opportunities of conversing with him as well in our private Closets as in the publick Assemblies by Prayer Fasting and Meditation by reading and hearing his Word and receiving the blessed Sacrament and lastly by our earnest and longing Desire whenever we shall put off these fleshly Tabernacles to enjoy him by Beatifick Vision amongst blessed Saints and Angels in the highest Heavens 4. To fear him not only with an awful fear from the consideration of his Power and Justice he being a God of purer Eyes than to behold Iniquity and also when provoked by our Impieties able to cast both Body and Soul into everlasting Flames which is infinitely more than either Men or Devils can do against us but also with a Filial fear as an obedient and dutiful Child truly fears to offend or displease a loving and tender Father 5. To trust in Him and to depend upon Him at all times and in all Conditions as well in regard of our Spiritual as our Temporal Concerns If we are assaulted by Temptations we are to rely upon him either
presence of a most righteous and impartial Judge give a strict Accompt to the value of two Mites as well of all their Disbursements as their Receipts But now in another sense there is no problematick Question has ever been proposed to poor Mortals neither in former nor latter Ages that has given them greater Difficulties or begot in the Minds of Thinking-Men more anxious and doubtful Thoughts Whither art thou going is an Interrogative to which neither the learnedst Philosopher nor the wisest Senator in the whole World has ever been able as yet or as I presume ever will be to make a direct positive or categorick Answer Forasmuch as we have never received any News from the Dead since the World was created of which we can be infallibly assured or Letters of Intelligence from any One of those innumerable Thousands of departed Souls that have gone before us St. Paul was caught up into the Third Heaven but at his coming down again he gives no other Description of the Place or of the Dwellers in those upper Regions than by meer Negatives Lazarus was dead and buried four days but where his wandring Soul had its Abode in that interval of Time I do not believe there is left upon Record an Account or so much as the least mention in any History whether Sacred or Prophane If a young Traveller quitting his Native Soil to visit some remoter Parts of the habitable Earth be extreamly surprized when he meets with Climates much hotter or colder than his own with longer and shorter Days and Nights with Persons of different Complexions and Humours with variety of Customs and Manners of foreign Nations with Sea-monsters strange wild Beasts and creeping Things of divers kinds How much more must the Soul of a dying Man be infinitely surprized in the critical Moment of its passage into the Regions of the other World and sudden stepping from off the Bank of Time and Mortality and taking its flight into the wide Expanse and vast Abyss of Eternity where shortly it expects to meet with innumerable Myriads of incorporeal Beings with which it had never before the least Converse or Acquaintance Upon this Bank or Shoar must Kings and Emperours leave behind them their Crowns and Scepters Prelates and Judges their Mitres and Scarlet Robes Rich-men their Houses and Lands the Covetous their Heaps of Gold and Worldly Treasures and the Voluptuous their Dalilahs and all their sensual Delights O Eternity Eternity It is a vast Ocean of which the Depth can never be fathomed by any humane Artifice Eternity Is a round Figure of which cannever be found either by Algebraist or Geometer the Area or superficial measure of which the Diameter is a long Line neither terminated by Points nor divisible into any Number of Parts Let us suppose with Archimedes of Syracuse that Prince of Mathematicians a Globe of Sand of such a Magnitude Ut Diametrum habeat centum Myriadas Myriadum Stadiorum Or which is somewhat less Let us suppose a Globe of Sand equal in Magnitude to the Sphere of the Fixed Stars according to the Opinion of Aristarchus and the number of Grains contained in that Globe to be as great as the said Archimedes has Calculated and Computed it in his Arenarius And let us suppose one single Grain of that vast Globe to be removed or taken away at the end of every Thousandth Year What a prodigious Length of Time would be expired before that great Mass or Globe of Sand would be removed And yet when all this Time shall be expired the Damned in Hell will be as far from an End of their Miseries as they were the first Hour or Moment they were thrown into that dreadful place of Torment There is yet a third Sense in which this Question Whither art thou going nearly concerns all good Christians and should every Morning and Evening of their Lives be seriously proposed to and cautiously answered by their own private Consciences Now what has been said in the two foregoing Senses serves only to inform and to help us to make suitable and timely Reflections This last concerns the Duties of a Christian's life and his daily practice which have been laid down already in the foregoing Discourse Our blessed Saviour informs us of Two very different ways a Broad and a Narrow in which all the Sons and Daughters of Adam in their several Generations from time to time have travelled and conversed as they now do travel and converse and so will do to the end of the World As likewise of a Wide and a Strait Gate through which they sooner or later have heretofore passed and so must pass both now and in after Ages so long as the Sun and Moon endure The one of these Ways and Gates leads to Eternal Life and Happiness the other to endless Miseries and Torments with the Devil and his Angels Ejaculation O blessed Saviour It is the Narrow Way that I choose and the Strait Gate through which I would fain get a safe passage I am going But as Travellers use when they are going long Journeys into far Countries and are uncertain of their Returns to take their solemn Leaves of all their Acquaintance So do I being a Stranger and Sojourner here and engaged in a much longer Journey than any that can be made upon this Terrestrial Globe namely to a City situated in the upper Regions think my self obliged in Honour and Conscience to take my final Leave of all sublunary Things Away then yee worldly Pomps and Lying Vanities yee Blazing-stars and short-liv'd Meteors yee golden Dreams and visionary Phantasms yee False Gods and airy Goddesses yee fine spun-Cobwebs and gawdy Peacocks Tails yee fickle and inconstant Weather-cocks and wavering half-toucht Magnetick-needles yee pleasing Troubles fading Flowers and deceitful Pleasures that make as false Representations of true Content and Happiness as the shadows of Human Bodies that are cast at different hours when the Sun shines give false measures of their respective Statures being sometimes of such prodigious Lengths as though they were the Bodies of Giants or Sons of the Anakims and at other times so extream short as though they were Dwarfs or Pigmies What advantage is it now to me or what addition does it make to my inward Peace to have seen in my youthful Days the Riches Glory and Magnificence of King's Courts with their numerous Guards and Royal Attendance What have I gotten in my riper and more mature Age by turning aside out of my way to gaze about and to observe how the Balls of Honour Interest and Power have been tost and banded to and fro and struck from hand to hand with the Rackets of Fas Nefas and alternatively rebounded from Kingdoms to States as from the Walls of Tennis Courts by the World 's Great Hero's Master-Players and skilfull Gamesters What satisfaction have I now Or What pleasure can any reasonable Man think I take in calling to remembrance how many Balls and Banquets Plays and
I have yet one question to ask of certain Persons who are rightly stiled Modern Sadduces and that is For what Reason they deny the Resurrection Or why they should at all doubt God's Omnipotence Or once imagine That He who made all things out of nothing should not be able when ever he pleases out of something to make any thing How many Emblems of the Resurrection have we frequently before our Eyes The Night lies down and the Day arises again The Day departs and the Night comes on The Year that dies in Autumn has a Resurrection in the Spring The seed of Herbs Corn and Fruit-Trees first suffer a Dissolution in the Earth some for a few Days others for a few Weeks and then by the Power of the Almighty Maker of all things have a new Body given them of the same Kind or Species If that be true which some have related of the Phoenix a thing I would rather believe than undertake to disprove since there are so many strange things to be found among the Works of the Creation It is a wonderful Type of the Resurrection In Arabia say they there is a certain Bird called a Phoenix of which there is but one at a time and that one lives 500 Years and when the time draws near that it must die it makes it self a Nest of Frankincense and Myrrh and other Spices into which when its time is fulfilled it enters and dies but its Flesh putrifying breeds a certain Worm which being nourished by the Juice of the dead Carcass brings forth a new Phoenix and when it is grown to a perfect Age it takes up the Nest in which the Bones of its Parent lie and carries it from Arabia into Egypt to a City called Heliopolis and flying in open Day in the sight of all Men lays it on the Altar of the Sun and so returns into the Country from whence it came This done the Priests make search into the Records of Time and find that it returneth at the end of 500 Years Whether this Report be true or no sure I am that nothing can be too hard for the Almighty Let us suppose in two or three Instances things that are within the reach of our apprehensions viz. First a Mariner in a Sea-fight to be shot to death and thrown over-board and afterwards the Flesh of his Body to be eaten up by a great number of small Fishes and these Fishes to be taken in Nets and eaten by hundreds of Men Women and Children of different places and abodes and some of them to be drowned in the Sea and devoured by other Fishes and some to be cast into the Earth and eaten up by Worms In the next place Let us suppose a Man to die in a wide Forest or Wilderness and part of his Carcass to be devoured by wild Beasts part by the Fowls of the Air and part by Flies and creeping Things and again those Beasts and Fowls and creeping things to die and part of them to be eaten up by other Creatures Lastly Let us suppose a Man-Child born into the World and as 't is believed the Flesh of that Infant in a few Years to be evaporated and new Flesh grown up in the room of the other and let us suppose this Body to live and change for the space of threescore or fourscore years and then be buried in the Sands as is practised in some very hot Countries and there remain a Thousand or fifteen Hundred Years till such time as it is grown perfectly dry and fit to be made use of for Mummie and this Mummie to be distributed into the hands of several hundreds of Apothecaries and each of these Apothecaries to make use of it in their physical Doses Potions or otherwise and to administer it to as many hundreds of their Patients and each of those Patients to void the same or any part of it by stool and those stools to be carried away by the Scavengers into some common place and there mingled with the Ordours of ten Thousand other Persons and from that place taken up by the Salt-Peter Men and converted into Gun-powder and that Powder shot away into the Air. Give me leave to tell those unbelieving Sadduces my life for theirs that the Almighty God and Maker of Heaven and Earth is able to recall every Particle Dust or Atom of a Human Body in any of the aforesaid Instances to its Original and proper Mass and to form that Mass into its first Original and infant Body As also to give that infant Body its full stature and perfect Dimensions and this done from a Natural and Corruptible to change it into a Spiritual and incorruptible Substance And lastly to reunite it to its own proper and immortal soul and all this in a moment in the twinkling of an Eye at the last Trump and the Voice of the Arch-angel calling for the Dead to arise and come to Judgment I must needs acknowledge That the Disbelief of a future Resurrection is no small encouragement to either Atheist or Libertine to go on in his sin with great presumption For if the Dead rise not our Faith is altogether vain And if this Corruptible shall never put on Incorruption nor this Mortal Immortality then go to Let us Eat Drink and be Merry for to Morrow we die There are some who satisfie themselves that God is so merciful and so just in his Judgments that he will never punish finite Sins with everlasting Punishments but such Men little think how miserably they deceive themselves while they ascribe less Power to the Almighty Maker over his Creatures than an ordinary Potter has over his Clay and earthen Vessels Besides that in the Gospel Dispensation there are propos'd to Fallen Man two things which very well counterballance one the other both as to Time and Measure namely on the one side Eternal and inexpreslible Happiness and on the other endless and unspeakable Miseries Now if the Sinner do voluntarily and with deliberation choose the last of these Volent non fit Injuria he has his choise and desire and has no reason in the World to complain of any hardship much less of any Injury done to him it being a greater Mercy to grant Eternal Life upon a bare Repentance and Believing during our earthly pilgrimage than it is a Severity to inflict eternal Torment for continuing in actual Sin for the very same term of time The Author of Leviathan will by no means admit of a Local Hell or indeed of a Local Heaven For the first of which he has no better Reason than this trusting to his own skill in Geometry and Staticks that it cannot be either in the Cavity of the Earth or any other body of the like magnitude hanging in the expanse forasmuch as in any circumscribed Bodies there cannot be included a Bottomless-Pit which in sacred Stile is sometimes called Hell Whereas if he had considered that our Antipodes tread as heavy on the superficies of the