for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Which shews sufficiently that he hath some respect to the day of the full Revelation of our Salvation but that which follows of the destruction of this earthly Tabernacle can it be understood otherwise than of the dissolution of the body That which he writes immediately afterwards that as long as we are lodged in this body we are absent and as it were strangers from our Lord but that through the assurance that we have of our Salvation we desire rather to be strangers from the body and be with the Lord can it be understood of the blessed Resurrection Shall we be then absent and strangers from our bodies or rather will not our Spirits have thereon eternal Habitations I therefore think that the Apostle in that place opposes the time in which we are in this life to that in which we shall be in it no more and that he says that as long as we are in this life we are absent from the Lord but when we are dislodged we are present with him and because although this future time consist of two parts the one wherein we are stripped of our bodies by death the other wherein we are reinvested in them by the Resurrection it is to that in the one and the other our condition must always be the enjoyment of the presence of Jesus Christ he considers it not but as one and the same tract of time in the first part whereof our happiness begins and is compleated in the second which excites our desires and affections to be now stripped of these bodies that we may enter on the possession of those happy beginnings till the time of full and compleat perfection shall come Now this is marvellously far from the opinion of those that take from the Souls of believers all sense and perception whatsoever even that of their proper faculties and essence St. Luke reports that St. Stephen being about to die recommended his Spirit to our Lord Christ saying Lord Jesus into thy hands I commend my Spirit and our Lord himself commended his to his Father on the Cross To what purpose was this then It was not without doubt to secure it from perishing and being reduced to nothing For the substance of the Soul contains nothing of matter nor of the mixture of the Elements 't is of its nature incorruptible and imperishable as are the Angels Was it then to be protected from the Temptations and assaults of the Devil or to be put into the fruition of happiness and glory As to the first it can have no place if the Spirits of the faithful remain swallowed of a sleep so deep that they absolutely lose all use of their understandings For the Temptations of the Devil consist either in an Artificial external presenting to our senses such objects as are proper to move our desires and appetites or in this that internally he forms in our Phantasy such Images of things as may stir and provoke us and in favouring with his efficacy such as are already there or in moving our humours and by our humours soliciting the appetites and passions of our Souls what can these attempts do upon substances which are not at all subject to the motion of humours which in death have lost the faculty of imagination which have no Corporeal senses seeing they are not Bodies and all whose Spiritual capacities are so fettered in the excercise of their powers that neither exteriour objects can by any means touch them nor visions from within be get the least thought there As to the second there is neither felicity nor glory can happen to Spirits without the exercise of their understanding and will There is not a person to whom we say that the Spirits of the faithful gone hence are happy and glorious which doth not immediately conceive that they are so far from being swallowed up in a profound drousiness or sleep that on the contrary they have a very lively and notable sense of their happiness and glory I am much of the opinion of those that think that in the words of our Saviour John 11. 26. and John 5. 24. he that believeth in me shall never see death He is passed from death to life There is a particular Emphasis which makes much to our present purpose I very well know that in divers places it seems probable that what interprets these words by that promise I will raise him up at the last day Nevertheless if since the time wherein he spake those words believers that are departed hence have slept unto this day and must yet sleep till the consummation of Ages without any bodily or mental sense of their condition or essence I am not able to comprehend how the hopes of the Resurrection can perfectly satisfy and compleat the sense and magnificence of the words Although the body sleep after that manner if the principal part of man and that whereof the Scriptures sometimes speaks as if it were the man and the body nothing but its Habitation live and be awake and perceive and exercise with content and joy such operations as are worthy the dignity of his nature death is not properly death nor doth it seem to deserve a name so terrible and odious 'T is much rather a sleep as the Scripture sometimes speaks wherein man entertains himself with visions very pleasant and delightful But if the perception of the Soul and body both be equally extinct and that not only for a little time but for I know not how many Ages how comes it to pass that it is not called death but a passing from death to life And it will appear yet much more strange if we apply it to the Fathers and Patriarchs that lived in the first Ages Such as were Adam Noah Seth and Abraham For since the Apostle Heb. 11. Attributes unto them one and the same faith with us although the things which faith embraces were not so plainly revealed to them as to us yet they ought to produce one and the same effect with respect to them and us Jesus Christ being the same yesterday and to day and for ever Are those then passed from death to life who from before the deluge and soon after were as to their bodies reduced to dust and as to their Souls carried in a profound sleep and total insensibility Truly it seems manifest that they had other hopes and expectations When Jacob after too many afflictions and irksom and troubleous Pilgrimages comforted himself with this that he hoped for the Salvation of God Gen. 49. 18. If he had no hope but that of losing the sense of all good and evil for so long a succession of Ages he would have had more occasion to be afflicted than to rejoyce to fear death than to draw comfort from the near approach and prospect of it besides 't is here very considerable that as he was at a greater distance from the day of judgment
nature hath indued with qualities that fall under their observation but in like sort if the Body do neither see nor tast nor smell nor in a word apprehend any thing that is sensible Without doubt the Intellect of the Soul will remain without motion and languish without action by default of matter whereon to apply and exercise its thoughts and as a Lute cannot sound unless there be some person to touch it nor a humane body move if there be no Soul to give it Action So it seems at first that as the Lutenist cannot perform the Office of his Art without a Lute furnished with its strings the Soul cannot reason without a well tempered and well disposed Body in short it it appears that as long as the Soul is in the Body it reasons on the Images of things which occur to it from Corporeal things which are formed in the Phantasy and there depurated and subtilised and made so thin small and luminous that they are capable of applying themselves to the Intellect to the end that it may compound divide and compare them one with the other and there make such reflections as are necessary for its ratiocinations in such sort that when the Soul is separate from the Body having no longer any Corporeal Senses to receive sensible things nor any faculty of imagination which is a Corporeal power to polish these Images and make them capable of being presented to the Intellect it seems that it hath lost the use of that understanding by which it is naturally adapted to contemplate on all such objects Nevertheless if we attentively examine these Reasons we shall find that they are by no means concluding For touching the first that which makes that among things without understanding such as are generally all Animals except men incompleat natures perform no Actions is not properly and precisely because they are incompleat but because they have no faculties for them the form being reduced to nothing when it is separated from the matter as doth the Soul of a Horse when it dies it loses its faculties necessarily with its being it being impossible that what is not should have any power of Action As to the matter 't is true it subsists after the form the body of the Horse remains after he is dead but simply under the notion of Matter it hath no power to perform any operations all the power that it had before came necessarily from its Form 't is the Soul of the Horse that gives action and motion to his body the matter therefore having not the form which it had before cannot act as it was wont to do And if it comes to be assisted or reinvested or informed with some new form as if Wasps or any other insects be ingendred out of the body of the Horse as it will have its faculties from thence its operations also will be conformable to the new Being that it shall receive from its new Soul to that instead of marching and doing like a Horse as before the matter whereof it was formed will it may be fly or creep and crawl after the manner of Caterpillars and Worms In man the case is not at all thus For the Body loses indeed its Actions because they depended upon the Soul which is no more there but the Soul is presupposed to retain those faculties which were truly proper and natural to it so that nothing remains but to enquire whether it use them at that time yea or no. I say then for a second Reason that although we should suppose that which neither is nor can be that the Soul of a Horse subsists after its separation from the body the reason why it will not be able to exercise its actions will not be at all agreeable to that of a Man For 't is without doubt very true that the Soul furnisheth motion to the body of the Horse but so it is that this motion is Corporeal and cannot be found in any Being which is not Corporeal and Material they are the Legs of the Horse which are moved and all the parts of his body which are turned and wheeled according to the inclinations of him that Rides and governs him according to his will So that if his Soul were some Thing so distinct from the body that it were not at all Corporeal it self it were impossible that it should exercise such actions apart and by it self alone but as to the actions of the Soul of man whereof we speak at this time they are altogether of another kind and are found in Beings never joyned or united to any bodies For to understand and will and to receive pleasure or discontent from things that are understood willed or refused is a thing that is found in the nature of Angels Although then it be true that the Soul as long as it is in the body makes no use of its reasonable faculties but with the aid and by the mediation of Corporal Organs So it is that these Actions are not themselves Corporeal seeing they are found in Beings that have no Allyance or Communication with Body so that though it be very certain that the Soul of a Horse cannot all alone do the part of a Horse although it should subsist after the body And although the Soul of a man do not use any of his powers without the Organs of the Body whilst 't is lodged there it will in no wise therefore follow that it hath unavoidable need of them to exercise those powers when 't is lodged there no more And by the same method of discourse it may be proved that the comparison of the Lute and the Lutenist do not at all accord to this matter for 't is very true that the Lute cannot sound without the Lutenist nor the Lutenist play without his Lute because to play is to cause by the occurrence of the fingers and the strings of the Lute a certain harmonious sound which as it is Corporeal so it cannot proceed otherwise than from something Corporeal But as the Player on the Lute though he can produce no sound effectively because he hath no instrument proper for it doth not cease the ability of reasoning in his mind upon the measures the accords and diversities of sounds of which the harmony is made when he plays and in like manner on the structure of the Lute and composition of its parts so the Soul although it actually exercise not bodily actions because it is no longer there it is not disabled from discoursing and making speculations on the nature of the humane Body upon the use of its faculties and on all other objects which offer themselves to its consideration It cannot then cause the Body to be nourished or that it move from place to place or that it use its Senses but from thence it will not follow that it cannot make pleasant Contemplations upon the manner of perceiving the Images of things in the Senses upon the marvelous activity of those springs in the Body
that serve for the local motion of its members and on the incomparable disposition that nature hath established among the parts which are to digest distribute receive and appropriate that which is necessary for their nourishment To conclude the last reason hath no more force than the precedent For seeing Angels which are as I have said Beings totally separate from Matter or Body have nevertheless certain means which in truth we cannot easily comprehend but yet certainly believe of knowing things sensible and Corporeal and forming excellent discourses upon them whereof the Scripture furnishes us with indubitable proofs wherefore the Soul being a substance well nigh like that of Angels should it not be capable of the same operations let us imagin that by the power of God an Angel should be incarnate in such manner that he become the form of a humane Body and that he animate it after the manner of a reasonable Soul without doubt whiles he lodges there he will see and perceive things Corporeal by the Organs of sense and reason upon the Images which are brought from and perfected in the Phantasy as we now do And if actually he become the Soul of this body it will be as much subject to the use of its Organs for the exercise of his understanding as our Soul is at this time for the exercise of its most excellent faculties but if after this it should please God to disintangle it from the bonds of of the Body will it lose the use of those powers wherewith he served himself so advantageously without the use of Organs before it was made to serve there But there is something more 't is a constant truth and all the World assent to it that there is nothing in the understanding which was not in some manner first in the sense but this which is so indubitable to speak generally is not without difficulty when it comes to be explained because it may be taken in this sense viz. that universally we can have no other Idea's of things in our minds than such as have proceeded from things material and which our eyes or our ears or our other senses have been capable of receiving and again it may be so explained that although these be in our mind Idea's purely intellectual and which retain nothing of the nature of Body yet so it is that they are not formed but by occasion of the Images of Corporeal things which are received in the Phantasy upon which the Intellect makes its first Reflections And I think that if a man make but little use of his reason he shall find that 't is in this second manner but the aforesaid truth must be understood For to say nothing of our passing from Physicks or natural Philosophy to that of Metaphysicks or which is above nature by the means of certain obstructions which conduct the Spirit of a man from the Contemplation of Bodies to that of Spirits and things Immaterial I think Religion puts the thing out of all controversy and doubt For 't is indeed by the interposition of our Senses that we see the Heavens and the Earth and that we hear the word of God Preached and 't is upon the Idea's which the exercise of our senses introduce upon our Phantasy that we put our selves upon reasoning concerning the Deity But 't is a thing known by our proper experience that when we have sometimes seriously applied our selves thereunto from the consideration of things sensible which have given us the first notions or knowledg thereof we ascend to speculations concerning the nature of God and his properties which are entirely and absolutely separated from the qualities and matter of Bodies Although then our minds produce no operations whereof things Corporeal have not presented them the occasions as Saint Paul says Rom. 1. that from the workmanship of the World we come to the knowledg of the eternal power and goodness of the Divinity or Godhead nevertheless there are some actions of our minds which are purely Spiritual and which in no wise depend on Bodies any further than that Corporeal objects do furnish us with occasions to produce them by discourse now if there be any of the actions of our minds which to speak properly have nothing in common with Bodies even during the time that they inhabit there and are in some kind fastened and bound to their instruments why should they not be capable of producing them without the service of the Senses then when they are altogether losened from the bonds that have joyned and united them if then we can have any proofs from the Scripture that Souls use their faculties after the death of the Body that Divine Revelation ought not only to have sufficient Authority to impress this belief upon our minds notwithstanding the contradiction of the pretended discourses of our reason but these difficulties which some persons think to be in the thing it self ought not to leave in our minds the least hesitation or suspition Let us see then what the word of God doth teach concerning it Those Divines which have attempted to derive a proof of this verity from the Parable of the wicked Dives and Lazarus have received this contradiction on the part of those who believe that the Soul loses the use of its faculties in death viz. that what our Saviour says there is no History but only a Parable and that it is an impertinence to endeavour to make such discourses pass for narrations of things effectively accomplished And thereupon there is much and great Contestation because on one hand there is no other Parable in the Scripture where the persons that are there introduced are designed by their names and represented exactly by many circumstances as Lazarus is described in that place or Paragraph and on the other hand the discourse which our Saviour reports that Abraham and the Rich man had the one with the other or cross the great Gulph or Abyss hath no appearance or likeness of an Historical narration to commend it to acceptance as a real truth Wherefore seeing it may be in part an History and in part a Parable let us examine it briefly under this last Consideration in all the Parables which our Saviour makes use of in the Gospel we must have regard to the end whereunto it tends and also to what he says that he may come to it as to what concerns the end of this Parable 't is sufficiently apparent by its Conclusion that our Lord had in design to shew that the obstinacy of mans mind in opposition to things proposed unto him on the part of God is so great that neither Revelations made by the word of God nor Miracle laid open before our eyes is capable of moving or affecting us In such sort that although the dead themselves should rise we should give no more credit to their Testimony than we do to the writings of Moses and the Prophets if God touch us not inwardly by his Spirit All the rest
here below and that they shall obtain the reward that is promised them above by a manner of speech frequent in the Scripture where that which goes before is put for that which follows he makes no scruple to name one for the other Now the gratuitous reward of good works consists not in a privation of all perception but in the possession of Contentment and glory In the same Book the Souls of those that had been Martyred for the word of God are represented crying how long Lord just and true wilt thou not judge and avenge our blood on those that dwell on the earth which is a proof that there is in them memory and apprehension And it cannot be said here that this cry is attributed to them as in the eighth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans sighs and groans and desires are ascribed to the whole frame of Heaven and Earth or as the cry of vengeance is attributed to the blood of Abel by a kind of Prosopopeia or ficttion of personality because it being notorious that the Heavens and the Earth and the blood of a man have no knowledg or preception there is no danger that such manner of figurative expressions should beget erroneous opinions in the mind of any one the nature of the thing gives sufficient notice that necessarily there must be some figure in the enunciation or discourse but where 't is said of the Souls of men which we see during the time that they are in the body endued with lively and excellent perception supposing that they were extinct or at least wholly asleep after death who can hinder himself by Reading these words from drawing opinions of a quite contrary nature Now to the end that no man may doubt of the meaning of this Text it is appointed them to rest and expect a little while Now although by a kind of Prosopopeia or fiction of person we may attribute such voices to things void of all perception who ever saw God introduced making answer to them or any one for him forming a Dialogue in the manner with things without all understanding To conclude there is given unto them white garments which can signifie nothing less than some great light of knowledg and some great purity of holiness or perfection of sanctification Now neither the one nor the other can subsist without a perfect use of the understanding faculty and all the affections of the Soul And although these white Robes should signify either the grace of justification or the hope of happiness and glory because sometimes white Robes were the marks of those that aspired to the most eminent Offices in the Roman Common Wealth yet that cannot be without some perception and affection For if it be the first in as much as these Souls are represented in a place whether they could have had no admission if they had not been justified and their sins pardoned it is not properly justification which they have already which is given to them 't is the Taste and Sense of it whereof the fulness is bestowed on them whereas here below we have nothing but the foretasts of it in the peace and joy of our Souls and if it be the second that can represent nothing but the desire of their full and perfect glorification accompanied with assurance and by consequence with incredible contentment which cannot be reconciled with the sleep of the Soul and the extinction of all its powers The Apostle writing to the Philippians saith that he was ballanced or in a strait between two thoughts whether he ought to desire death or to continue a longer time in the World Because if he had regard to the Edification that his Ministry might give to the Church and the profit that it might draw from hence he ought much rather to chuse a longer life but if he had regard to his own particular good death was more desirable to him than life I pray if he had believed that all the powers of his Soul as well as those of the body had remained at death benummed for so long a time would he have thought that death would have been more advantageous to him I do acknowledge that he had endured many evils for the confirmation of the truth that he Preached from which a death such as those against whom I dispute do represent it drousie and void of all understanding would have secured him but so it is that the knowledg he had of our Lord Jesus whilst alive the marvellous Revelations that had been made unto him the Joy and Consolation that came unto him from the sense of the love and peace of God and the exercise of so many excellent Virtues wherewithal he was endued were in my opinion things of such importance that they should rather cause him to prefer life in which he retained the possession of them though accompanied with many afflictions than to embrace death which what ever it might be otherwise deprived him of the enjoyment of them But the reason that he adds wherefore he ought to chuse death if he had no regard but to his own person that it is much better to be with Christ cuts off all occasion of doubting concerning the mind of St. Paul in this matter For those without doubt are not with Christ which sleep without perception and without any knowledg of their felicity though they were received into the most holy and most illustrious place of his glory Otherwise those might be said to live and dwell with Kings which are interred in the Chappels of their Palaces whether the least ray of the glory that compasses them about cannot enter That other passage seems not to me less express 2 Cor. 5. 1 2 3. where the Apostle explains himself in these words we know that if the earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens wherefore we groan desiring earnestly to be clothed with our house that is from Heaven For is there any probability that he should desire with so much vehemency to be stripped of this Tabernacle of earth to be clothed with that which is from Heaven if he not only got nothing new but lost all the knowledg of things that he had in this life totally and altogether Now that he intends to speak there of the change that was to betide him before the Resurrection is a thing clear and manifest by the whole issue of the discourse 't is true he had said before that he knew that he that raised up the Lord Jesus would raise us up also by Jesus and cause us to appear in his presence and 't is for that reason that he testifies that he fainted not in his Tribulations and adds that though our outward man grew into decay nevertheless the inward man was renewed day by day going on from strength to strength and if we are exposed to several afflictions he says that our light affliction that is but
face of God but even the memory of ever having seen him or learned any thing of him either in the Tabernacle or in the World If he understands by seeing the face of God seeing him as he is seen in Heaven how could David make this wish or holy aspiration if he were of this opinion that sleep should lock up the eyes of his understanding for so long a time Certainly this was not the opinion of David nor any of the faithful of that time or age their common opinion was that which is plainly expressed in the Book of Ecclesiastes That when man dies the body returns to the dust from whence 't was taken and the Soul returns to God that gave it Now to believe that the Spirits of the faithful can be with God without having any knowledg of his presence or enjoying one beam of his happiness is a thing altogether without reason or probability At such times as God promises some particular assistance to his faithful ones he says I will be with you And 't is also their common and ordinary wish for those to whom they wish grace and benediction the Lord be with you If God then cannot be with any person without giving him some taste of his favours how can our spirits be with God without enjoying some gracious effect of his presence Certainly though we had no other proof of the state of the faithful after death than those words of our Saviour to the Thief that was Converted upon the Cross this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise they would be sufficient unless we were willingly blind to assure us that they are at rest but 't is such a rest as is accompanied with much content and joy For that the word to day ought to be taken in the ordinary and common sense to signify the time that was immediately to follow the death of our Lord whilst his Soul remained separate from his body is a thing that cannot be doubted unless by those that out of jocundness of humours abuse their reason In what place of the New Testament doth our Saviour or any one else use it in any other sense And although the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews having met with it in Psal 95. 7 8. to day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts Understands it of the time of the Preaching of the Gospel of Salvation is there any probability that in imitation of him we should expound those words of Jesus Christ after this manner Verily verily I say unto thee that in the day of the Resurrection I will receive thee to a participation of my own glory in Paradise If such comments be allowed will there be any thing certain either in the word of God or Language of men Doth it not plainly appear that our Lord seeing this Thief in anguish of Spirit through the fear of the judgment of God the execution whereof he expected according to the common sense and apprehension of Conscience immediately after death was willing to comfort him by the assurance of the pardon of his sins and hope of happiness which his Soul should enjoy assoon as it was separated from his Body Either the Spirit of Christ being dislodged from the body ascended into Paradise or not If it did not ascend thither our Lord promised nothing but that the Soul of this person should on that very day be present with his Deity in Heaven Now though our Lord were God blessed for ever there is no probability that he had any regard to his Deity in the speaking of those words For besides that his Divinity was not then so clearly Revealed as that from thence he should begin to give knowledg of what he was to that man who can doubt but that seeing both their Bodies in one and the same condemnation he was willing to raise the hope of this Wretch who in the midst of his anguish discovered some faith and expectation from him by the assurance that he gave him that within a few moments their spirits should be well near in the same Condition in a place of bliss and happiness But let it be granted that he understands his Divinity So it is in my opinion that it cannot come into a sound mind that Christ should promise to the Soul of this person to give it from that same hour the enjoyment of Paradise and yet notwithstanding it should have no knowledg of the glory thereof or the happiness that doth attend it Moreover it had been much more to the purpose to have been content to have consented to be mindful of him when he came into his Kingdom as he desired then by great words to give him occasion to hope for content and happiness near at hand and afterwards fill this Soul which he had made so desirous of happiness with nothing but darkness and forgetfulness If the spirit of our Lord ascended into Paradise doubtless it was not to sleep there for the little time of its separation from the body but to receive inexpressible Consolations in the bosom of his Father Otherwise to what purpose was it to transport it on high Had it not been more to the purpose to leave it buried in the same Tomb with the Body to the end that it might be there united again when the time should come Now if the Soul of Christ could be sensible of some Contentments after death ours may be sensible of them also And no inconsistance will be found between their separation from the Organs of their Bodies and the use of their Powers and Capacities But what need is there of so many Texts and of so much discourse in a case so plain that nature it self seems to have taught it us For certainly it is not more generally believed among men that their Souls are immortal and subsist after the Body than it is generally acknowledged that they subsist with knowledg and sense either of some felicity for those that lived in the practice of Piety and Vertue or of some punishment for those that have given up themselves to Impiety and Vice From thence comes the hopes of the Elysian fields among the Pagans and the fear of the Torments of Hell From thence is preserved among the Jews the expectation of Paradise and the fear of the bottomless Pit Thence is produced among the Turks the opinion of their Paradise and the fear of an infernal state and that without attending the Resurrection immediately after the dissolution of the Body and the separation of the Soul Lastly thence comes among Christians to some a belief of Purgatory to others a hope of a better life than this and to others dreadful frights concerning what will betide them after death when they are not in their Consciences assured of the forgiveness of their sins I say that nature it self teaches it Because things that are so universal and concerning which there is no controversy among Nations whose inclinations are divers whose professions are different and
no more They are at this time corruptible and mortal then they shall be incorruptible and immortal They are now heavy by reason of the Earth that doth predominate in them there they shall be agile beyond all imagination they are at this time capable of being wearied there they shall be indefatigable they are at this time dark then they shall be bright and shining to that degree that the Holy Scripture compares them to the Sun they are at this time perpetually subject to repletion and excretion then they shall be in a Constitution perpetually uniform they are at this time defective in their conformation many ways then the proportion of their parts shall surpass all the measures of nature and art Here they are troubled with the ill taste of their pleasures there their contentments being perfectly pure they will have always a Savour exquisite and eternally agreeable They are now a burthen and hinderance to our minds then they will assist to the vigour and quickness of their Operations In a word they are at this time marvellously earthly then they shall be altogether Heavenly As to what concerns the Operations of the senses and the motions of the affections which as we have said above have their seat in the Body forasmuch as it respects rather the Estate of the Soul when it shall at some time be reunited there and doth not respect the qualities of the body it self I shall speak but one word of it here and 't is this the objects that are perfectly well proportioned to them do indeed delight them but others do offend them so that light it self which in its own nature is so lovely and agreeable offends the eyes if it be but a little too lively and sparkling Instead whereof then the constitution of our senses will be such that they will be impassible and unalterable by grief whatever be the nature of the Objects that do occur unto them and that is it that the Apostle would teach us when he says there is a natural and there is a Spiritual Body For by Spiritual he doth not understand that which is entirely separate from matter otherwise since he calls it matter his words would imply a contradiction but he understands that which although it be matter hath notwithstanding those qualities that follow the nature of Spirits such as are to be immortal incorruptible and impassible When the wife of Lot became a Pillar of Salt if this change were made by degrees and by little and little she was marvellously astonished to see all the colour of her skin and all the substance of her body change and yet more when she perceived all her members to grow stiff in that manner that at last the obduration proceeded even to her very bowels If a while after she had seen her natural constitution to return little by little her Body to become soft and supple her skin return to its former colour and her members retake their precident pliableness in proportion to the horrour that she had of her self in her change in the same proportion will she have experience of ravishment and joy But if immediately after she had seen her self re-established in her first Estate she had begun to perceive an extraordinary strength in her person an Angelical beauty in all her Fabrick and Composition a vigour unknown before in all the Organs of her senses a nimbleness more agile than that of Birds in all her motions and that Majestick aspect that we suppose to have been in the female Hero's of time past implanted in all the comportment of her Body and on all the lines and stroaks of her countenance neither the word joy nor that of ravishment are capable of representing the emotions that she would have thereupon in her Soul Now the change that happens in our Bodies by death is much worse than a Transformation into a pillar of Salt and the condition into which they will be re-established in the Resurrection incomparably more Excellent than all that at this time can be imagined concerning it From whence 't is easy to conjecture in some manner what a spectacle so marvellous will produce in us Concerning the Soul and the condition wherein it will be found then when it shall be reunited to the Body if from these goodly lights wherewithall it is filled and encompassed in the Heavens it should be brought back into a Body incommodated with the trouble and confusion that is found in the affections and Organs of ours at present without doubt it would receive much disadvantage thereby this would be well nigh as if you should recal an excellent Philosopher from the top of an high Mountain where he did contemplate the Heavens and the Stars which are there and saw the Clouds and Fogs under his feet and make him descend to the bottom of it where he can contemplate nothing but through the darkness of the Clouds But the thing that happens to the Body will place it in such a condition as will in no wise incommodate the actions and Operations of the Soul Let the nature thereof be what it will 't is necessary that besides the Operations of understanding and reason that it now attend to the Conservation of the three faculties which we have in common with beasts The vital the natural and the animal As to the vital faculty our Soul will then so animate our Body that it will no longer hold it fast unto it self by the bond of that Coelestial heat and those Spirits that continually beat in our hearts it will be there even as light is in the Body of the Sun and will not keep it self there by any other bonds than it self the Body such as we now have is too far removed from the nature of Spiritual substances to be capable of being joined with them so closely unless it be by the means of something more subtil and less Earthy but the qualities wherewithall it will be reclothed by the Resurrection will purify and subtilize it in such manner that it will be further removed then from the gross qualities which we observe therein than now are those little Bodies which we call by the name of Spirits which serve as a bond and medium between our Bodies and Souls As to the natural faculty our Soul will be neither imployed in the Concoction as they call it nor in the assimilation of nourishment as now it is obliged to do to preserve unto the parts of the Body their just vigour and stature For in the frame wherein the power of God shall place them at first they shall remain for ever without any need of reparation in their substance or in their powers Such well near as is the nature of the Stars according to the Peripateticks whose matter is so pure or form so perfect or the bond that joins the matter to the form so strict and indissoluble that they can never suffer any alteration according to the opinion of those Philosophers As to the Animal
or sense After he had sufficiently considered them he demands if he believed that those bones could revive about which as it seems he found himself perplext and suspended between the impossibility that appeared to be in the thing it self and the consideration of the power of God with whom nothing is impossible and for that reason he answers doubtfully and modestly Lord thou knowest being unwilling to determine any thing thereupon God commands him to prophecy upon those bones and to say unto them as if they had been endowed with understanding and sense Yea dry bones hear the word of the Lord thus saith the Lord behold I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live I will lay sinews upon you and I will bring up flesh upon you and cover you with skin and put breath into you and ye shall live and know that I am the Lord the Prophet having pronounced these words in vision there was immediately a sound accompanied with a general motion of these bones which began to draw one after the other and to approach each unto that wherewith it was to be joyned to make the just and perfect skeleton of a Body immediately after the sinews began to be extended and the muscles to be formed and the flesh to cover all their protuberancies and to fill up all their cavities and last of all the skin warps up altogether in such manner that all the Organs and all the members being perfectly composed there remained nothing but the wind to give them life and motion Which was done then when God commanded the Prophet to Prophesy towards the wind it self and to call it crying thus saith the Lord come from the four winds and breath upon these slain that they may live Which being punctually executed every one of these Bodies was enlivened and stood up upon their feet and the number was found so great that it seemed an Army arranged for the Battel Now if the sole reading of this vision doth seize our Spirits with some admiration it cannot be doubted but the vision it self did fill that of the Prophet with much more of wonder be it that the thing were actually represented to the Corporeal senses be it that it were only drawn within by the Spirit of God upon the imagination the impression thereof without doubt was much more illustrious and vehement than that which we can impress upon our selves by the Idea that we can form of it Therefore it must also be that the emotions of his mind concerning it be in proportion much more great as well for the astonishment that he received from a spectacle so strong and unusual as for the joy that the hope of the miraculous re-establishment of the people of Israel foretold by this vision did give unto him and for which the Prophet had extraordinary desires and passions Nevertheless what is this in Comparison of what we shall see then when not men but Angels and the sound of the Trumpet of God shall effectually command the Earth that it open its Graves and the Sea that it give up its dead and to all the other Elements that they restore what each of them do possess and that from the dust of the grave and the bottom of the Sea shall come forth the matter of our Bodies to be re-establisht in life And how much will the subject of admiration yet increase when we shall see that the power of God will form them neither of bones or nerves or muscles or skin like to what we now have but of a Fabrick so new that excepting the humane shape which it will give us and that lovely conformation wherein we must express the image of our Lord in the Resurrection 't is likely that they are not humane Bodies but Millions of Stars Illustrious and Shining which are produced of all sides and born out of the very bowels of the Earth The second thing which will be presented to our eyes will be the change and transmutation of those that will remain alive which will not be less wonderful than the former For we see what are the divers infirmities wherewithal humane Bodies are incommoded Some are Dwarfs and others are of a prodigious and Gigantick greatness some want some member and others have too many one hath some part of a monstrous shape another is maimed in some of those senses which we usually call natural one hath the bone of his back bowed like an Arch another crooked like a Serpent and another bended inward and another hath some other fault in the Fabrick of his neck or head generally all have some imperfection in the constitution of their Bodies and if any be seen in which there is none he is a kind of Miracle But although there were less by many of the infirmities of that nature which I have mentioned we have always those that nature necessarily draws after it which are very great and considerable in themselves When therefore by this marvellous power which will be displayed at the time of the coming of our Lord we shall see in one day all these incommodities corrected and the Bodies of the living changed so of a sudden that there shall not be found one in that numberless number which shall not have obtained as in the twinkling of an eye I will not say all the perfections that can be desired or imagined in what concerns stature and beauty but all the splendour and incorruption that is in the Heavenly Bodies themselves what will be the Transport in which our Spirits will be sound at the aspect of a change so strange and wonderful Many here enquire whether we shall then know each other and as the love we bear to each other and the sensible and deep regret which we have on the loss of our Friends do encline us extreamly to desire it so in like manner they make us very willing to believe it and truly forasmuch as God promised the enjoyment of a happiness so perfect that nothing shall be wanting to its compleating nor to the perfection of the joy and content that we shall receive from thence we may be assured that if it will minister any thing to the accomplishment of our felicity we shall enjoy the Consolation of mutually knowing each other at that day But nevertheless I think here may be place for some considerations First of all knowledge consists in the memory of what we have seen before and as I have said above there are in us two sorts of Memories the one consists in this that the images of sensible things remain impressed upon our Memories with all their circumstances and particularities and the other in this that our understandings remain imbred with the general Idea's of things intellectual and which consist in discourse Now as to what concerns this first sort of memory I have said already that forasmuch as the faculty of memory in which the images of things sensible are laid in reserve is either wholly or in great
what the condition of the Body to which it shall be rejoined Lastly what will be the quality of its happiness then when it shall be received into Heaven with its Body there to live an eternal and glorious Life Whether the SOUL OF A BELIEVER Be indued With Perception after Death The First Discourse THat I may come to the Resolution of the first of these Questions whether the Soul of a believer be indued with perception after death I desire that I may be pardoned if at first I enter upon considerations a little Philosophical which nevertheless I shall endeavour to explain as briefly and intelligibly as I am able I lay down therefore as a foundation a thing which remains indisputable among Christians viz. that the Soul and Body are two substances in their natures marvelously differing and in like manner endowed with faculties altogether various for the Body is in its nature material and taken from the Earth and the other Elements the Soul is a spiritual substance almost of the same kind with those intelligences separate from Matter which we usually call by the name of Angels The Body hath indeed certain Organs as they are called by the mediation whereof it is capable of receiving the Images of sensible things and to judge of their qualities the Hearing the Seeing the Smelling and those other things which we name Senses are without doubt Corporeal powers in us and appointed to judge of Colours sounds odours and other qualities which attend and accompany material objects nevertheless 't is the Soul that Comunicates to the Body the power of using its own Organs and imploying its self in the use of those Senses and this appears manifestly because as soon as the Soul is separate from it all the powers of these Organs are extinct and there remains not the least shadow of their Operations moreover the body seems likewise to be the seat of certain appetites and passions For Choler and lust do very much affect and trouble it when they are moved and the part that the temperament of the Body hath in their motions is a proof sufficiently certain that they also are powers naturally bound and fastened with it the Cholerick would not be naturally subject to anger the Sanguin of good humor and mercy the Melancholick soure and sad the Flegmatick slow and little affected on the accurance of troublesome objects if this mixture of humors out of which the temper of the Body arises had not a marvelous power to give the byass and inclinations to the motions of the Soul But so it is that these passions are not moved but by means of some external object that touches the Phantasy and by the Phantasy moves the affections For 't is offence which awakens Choler and 't is the occurence of objects pleasant and agreeable which makes the bud of joy that lies latent in the blood to put forth bloom now 't is the Soul that gives assistance to the Phantasy to receive the Images as external things which either offend or charm our passions variously according to the difference of our humors and that which is more 't is the Soul that reasons with understanding upon those things that are presented to it by the interposition of the bodily Senses and which bestirs it self either to embrace or reject that whereof it hath endeavoured to know the nature and qualities by its reasonings in such sort that although objects have a great Connexion with our humors and our humors a great power to give a tendency to our motions the Soul nevertheless ought to be the Mistress of them and to put bounds to the efficacy of objects and to the motion of our humors and passions And that which I have already said of the Senses viz. that the Body destitute of the Soul utterly loses them experience obliges me to say also of all those passions which Philosophers comprehend under those two general names of the Irascible and Concupiscible that the separation of the Soul doth equally abolish them Whereof the discourses of reason do easily discover the Cause For be the Constitution of the Organs of the Body what it will be it for the use of the external senses upon the qualities of things sensible be it for the Operation of the internal senses as is the imagination so it is that seeing they cannot Act any further than the Soul moves them as when the main spring in a Watch foiles all the other movements stand in a moment it must necessarily be that when the Soul withdraws all the actions of the Organs cease so that both reason and experience with one consent teach us what we ought to think of the faculties of our bodies Touching the Soul we have no experiences visible and ordinary of what it doth or doth not after death and if we consult the discourses of our reason concerning it we find there difficulties great beyond comparison For first of all every one makes here this consideration which appears to them of no small consideration And 't is this though the Body and Soul be two substances very different nevertheless they are so united in man that they make but one subject so that neither Body apart nor Soul apart do constitute as they say any perfect Being or any compleat Nature neither the Body makes the Man nor the Soul but both together go to his Composition and when they are separated the Body holds no place among the particular kinds of Beings that exist absolutely without dependance on each other nor the Soul neither Of the one we say 't is the body of a man and of the other 't is in like manner his Soul of both if they come to be united we say and that properly 't is the man to whom they have this respective Relation Now it seems that imperfect natures produce no operations Every thing that you observe in nature be they such as have Souls forms which do inform and animate their matter as are Plants and Animals be they such as have only a form which in some sort supplies to them the place of a Soul as are Minerals and Metals if you imagin that after their dissolution the Form subsist a while so as the Matter do not exercise the functions of the whole Composition nor will the Form exercise them neither That is to say as the body of a dead Horse hath no motion his Soul if you imagin it to subsist some time after its separation will be as great a stranger to Horse-like actions and operations moreover as it is true that as long as the Soul of a man is in his Body it gives activity to his Senses so on the other hand it seems that it hath absolutely need of its presence and the mediation of its Organs for the forming of its own discourses and ratiocinations 't is the Soul that gives unto the Body the virtue of Seeing Tasting and Smelling and generally of knowing by the operation of the Senses those things that