thine essence separable thy continuance eviternall But what do we call in reason and nature to this parle where faith by which Christianity teacheth us to be regulated finds so full and pregnant demonstrations No lesse then halfe our Creed sounds this way either by expression or inference where in whiles we professe to believe that Christ our Saviour rose from the dead and ascended we implie that his body was â—ot more dead then his soul living and active That was whereof he said Father into thy hands I commend my spirit now we cannot imagine one life of the head and another of the body his state therefore is ours every way are we conform to him as our bodies then shall be once like to his glorious so our souls cannot be but as his severed by death crowned with immortality and if he shall come to judge both the quick and the dead those dead whom he shall judge must be living for as our Saviour said in the like case God is not the Judge of the dead as dead but the Judge of the living that were dead and therefore living in death and after death And whereof doth the Church Catholick consist but of some members warfaring on earth others triumphant in heaven and what doth that triumph suppose but both a beeing and a beeing glorious What communion were there of Saints if the departed souls were not and the soul when it begins to be perfect should cease to be to what purpose were the resurrection of the body but to meet with his old partner the soul and that meeting only implies both a separation and existence Lastly what life can there be properly but of the soul and how can that life be everlasting which is not continued or that continued that is not If then he may be a man certainly a Christian he cannot be who is more assured that he hath a soul in his body then that his soul shall once have a being without his body Death may tyrannize over our earthly parts the worst he can do to the spirituall is to free it from a friendly bondage Chear up thy self therefore O my soul against all the fears of thy dissolution thy departure is not more certain then thy advantage thy being shall not be lesse sure but more free and absolute Is it such a trouble to thee to be rid of a clog or art thou so loath to take leave of a miserable companion for a while on condition that he shall ere long meet thee happy SECT. II. Of the instant vision of God upon the egression of the soul and the present condition till then BUt if in the mean while we shall let fall our eyes upon the present condition of the soul it will appear how apt we are to misknow our selves and that which gives us the being of men The most men how ever they conceive they have a soul within them by which they receive their animation yet they entertain but dull and gloomy thoughts concerning it as if it were no lesse void of light and activity then it is of materiality and shape not apprehending the spirituall agility and clearly-lightsome nature of that whereby they are enlived wherein it will not a little availe us to have our judgements thoroughly rectified and to know that as God is light so the soul of man which comes immediately from him and bears his image is justly even here dignified with that glorious title I speâ—k not only of the regenerate soul illuminated by divine inspirations and supernaturall knowledge but also even of that rationall soul which every man bears in his bosome The spirit of man saith wise Solomon is the candle of the Lord Prov. 20.27 searching all the inward parts of the belly And the dear Apostle In him was life and the life was the light of men Joh. 1.4 and more fully soon after That light was the true light that lightneth every man that cometh into the world v. 9. No man can be so fondly charitable as to think every man that comes into the world illightned by the spirit of regeneration It is then that intellectuall light of common nature which the great illuminator of the world beams forth into every soul in such proportion as he finds agreeable to the capacity of every subject Know thy self therefore O man and know thy maker God hath not put into thee a dark soul or shut up thy inward powers in a dungeon of comfortlesse obscuritie but he hath set up a bright shining Lamp in thy breast whereby thou maiest sufficiently discern naturall and morall truths the principles and conclusions whether of nature or art herein advancing thee above all other visible Creatures whom he hath confined at the best to a mere opacity of outward and common sense But if our naturall light shall through the blessing of God be so happily improved as freely to give place to the spirituall reason to faith so that the soul can now attain to see him that is invisible and in his light to see light now even whiles it is over-shaded with the interposition of this earth it is already entered within the verge of glorie But so soon as this vaâ—â— oâ— wretched mortality is done away now it enjoyes a clear heaven for ever and sees as it is seen Amongst many heavenly thoughts wherewith my everdear and most honoured and now blessed friend the late Edward Earl of Norwich had wont to animate himself against the encounter with our last enemy Death this was one not of the meanest that in the very instant of his souls departing out of his body it should immediately enjoy the vâ—sion of God And certainly so it is The spirits of just men need not stand upon dâ—stances of place or space of time for this beatificall sight but so soon as ever they are out of their clay lodging they are in their spirituâ—ll heaven even whiles they are happily conveying to the locall for since nothing hindred them from that happy sight but the interposition of this earth which we carry about us the spirit being once free from that impediment sees as it is seen being instantly passed into a condition like unto the Angels wel therefore are these coupled together by the blessed Apostle who in his divine rapture had seen them both Ye are come saith he unto Mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels and to the spirits of just men made perfect As then the Angels of God wheresoever they are though imployed about the affairs of this lower world yet do still see and enjoy the vision of God so do the souls of the righteous when they are once eased of this earthly load Doubtlesse as they passed through degrees of Grace whiles they took up with these homely lodgings of clay so they may passe through degrees of blisse when they are once severed And if as some great
from sinfull mankind Wo is me what odious sents arise to you perpetually from those bloody murders beastly uncleannesses cruell oppressions noisome disgorgings of surfeits and drunkennesses abominable Idolatries and all manner of detestable wickednesses presumptuously committed every where enough to make you abhorre the presence and protection of debauched and deplored mortality But for us that are better principled and know what it is to be over-lookt by holy and glorious spirits we desire and care to be more tender of your offence then of a world of visible spectatours And if the Apostle found it requisite to give such charge for but the observation of an outward decencie not much beyond the lists of indifferencie because of the Angels what should our care be in relation to those blessed spirits of our deportment in matter of morality and religion Surely O ye invisible Guardians it is not my sense that shall make the difference it shall be my desire to be no lesse carefull of displeasing you then if I saw you present by me cloathed in flesh Neither shall I rest lesse assured of your gracious presence and tuition and the expectation of all spirituall offices from you which may tend towards my blessednesse then I am now sensible of the â—nimation of my own soul THE INVISIBLE WORLD The Second BOOK SECT. I. Of the Souls of Men Of their separation and Immortality NExt to these Angelicall Essences the souls of men whether in the body or severed â—rom it are those spirits which people the invisible world â—exâ— to them I say not the sâ—me with them not bettâ—r Those of the ancient which have thought that the ruine of Angels is to be supplyed by â—lessed souls spake doubtless without the book for he that is the truth it self hath said they be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} like not the same And justly are those â—xploded whether Pythagoâ—eans or Stoicks or Gnostâ—cks or Manichees or Almaâ—icus or if Lactantius himself were in that errour as Ludovicus Vives construes him who falsly dreamed that the souls of â—en were of the substance of that God which inspired them These errours are more â—it for Ellebore then for Theologicall conviction spirituall substances doubtlesse they â—re and such as have no lesse distant originall from the body then heaven is from earth Galen was not a better Physiâ—â—an then an ill Divine whiles â—e determines the soul to be the complexion and temperament of the prime qualities no other then that harmony which the elder Naturalists dreamed of an opinion no lesse brutish then such a soul For how can temperamet be the cause of any progressive motion much lesse of a rationall discourse Here is no materiality no physicall composition in this inmate of ours nothing but a substantiall act an active spirit a spirituall form of the king of all visible creatures But as for the Essence originall derivation powers faculties operations of this humane soul as it is lodged in this clay I leave them to the disquisition of the great Secretaries of Nature my way lyes higher leading me from the common consideration of this spirit as it is clogged with flesh unto the meditation of it as it is devested of this earthly case and clothed with an eternity whether of joy or torment We will begin with happinesse our fruition whereof I hope shall never end if first we shall have spent some thoughts upon the generall condition of this separation That the soul after separation from the body hath an independent life of its owne is so clear a truth that the very heathen Philosophers by the dimme light of nature have determined it for irrefragable In so much as Aristotle himself who is wont to hear ill for his opinion of the soules mortality is confidently reported to have written a book of the Soul Separate which Thomas Aquinas in his so late age professes to have seen Sure I am that his Master Plato and that heathen Martyr Socrates related by him are full of divine discourses of this kind In so much as this latter when Crito was asking him how he would be buried I perceive said he I have lost much labour for I have not yet perswaded my Crito that I shall flye clear away and leave nothing behind me meaning that the soul is the man and would be ever it self when his body should have no being And in Xenophon as Cicero cites him Cyprus is brought in saying thus Nolite arbitrari c. Think not my dear sons that when I shall depart from you I shall then cease to have any being for even whiles I was with you ye saw not that soul which I had but yet ye well saw by those things which I did that there was a soul within this body Beleeve ye therefore that though ye shall see no soul of mine yet that it still shall have a being Shortly all but an hatefull Epicurus have astipulated to this truth And if some have faâ—cied a transmigration of souls into other bodies others a passage to the stars which formerly governed them others to I know not what Elysian fields all have pitched upon a separate condition And indeed not Divinity only but true natural reason will necessarily evince it For the intellective soul being a more spirituall substance and therefore having in it no composition at all and by consequence nothing that may tend towards a not-being can be no other supposing the will and concurrence of the infinite Creator then immortall Besides as our best way of judgging ought is wont to be by the effects certainly all operations are from the forms of things and all things do so work as they are Now the body can do nothing at all without the help of the soul but the soul hath actions of its own as the acts of understanding thinking judging remembring ratiocination wherof if whiles it is within us it receives the first occasions by our senses and phantasms yet it doth perfect and accomplish the said operations by the inward powers of its own faculties much more and also more exactly can it do all these things when it is meerly it self since the clog that the body brings with it cannot but pregravate and trouble the soul in all her performances in the mean time they do justly passe for mentall actions neither do so much as receive a denomination from the body we walk move speak see feel and do other humane acts the power that doth them is from the soul the means or instrument whereby they are done is the body no man will say the soul walks or sees but the body by it but we can no more say that the soul understands or thinks by the aid of the body then we can say the body thinks or understands by means of the soule These therefore being distinct and proper actions do necessarily evince an independing and self-subsisting agent O my soul thou couldst not be thy self unless thou knew'st thine originall heavenly
Divines have supposed the Angels themselves shall receive an augmentation of happinesse at the day of the last judgement when they shall be freed from all their charge and imployments since the perfection of blessedness consists in rest which is the end of all motion how much more shal the Saints of God then receive an enlargment of their felicity but in the mean time they are entered into the lists of their essential beatitude over the threshold of their heaven How full and comfortable is that profession of the great Apostle who when he had sweetly diverted the thoughts of himself and his Corinthians from their light afflictions to an eternall weight of excelling glory from things temporall which are seen to those everlasting which are not seen addes For we know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle be dissolved we have a building not made with hands eternall in the heavens more then implying that our eye is no sooner off from the temporall things then it is taken up with eternall objects and that the instant of the disâ—olution of these clay cottages is the livery and seisin of a glorious and everlasting mansion â—n heaven Canst thou believe this O my soul and yet recoil â—t the thought of thy departure wert thou appointed afâ—er a dolorous dissolution to spend some hundreds of years at the fore-gates of glory though in a painless expectation of a late happinesse even this hope were a pain alone but if sense of pain were also added to the delay this were more then enough to make the condition justly dreadfull But now that one minute shuts our eyes and opens them to a clear sight of God determines our misery and begins our blessednesse Oh the cowardise of our unbeleefe if we shrinke at so momentany a purchase of eternity How many have we known that for a false reputation of honour have rushed into the jawes of Death when we are sure they could not come back to enjoy it and do I tremble at a minutes pain that shall feoffe me in that glory which I cannot but for ever enjoy How am I ashamed to hear an heathen Socrates encouraging himselfe against the feares of Death from his resolution of meeting with some fmous persons in that other world and to feel my self shrugging at a short brunt of pain that shall put me into the blisse-making presence of the All-glorious God into the sight of the glorified humanity of my dear Redeemer into the Society of all the Angels and Saints of heaven SECT. III. Of the Souls perpetual vigilancy and fruition of God IT is no other then a frantick dream of those erroneous spirits that have fancied the sleep of the soul and that so long and deep a sleep as from the evening of the dissolution till the morning of the resurrection So as all that while the soul hath no vision of God no touch of joy or pain An errour wickedly rak't up out of the ashes of those Arabick Hereticks whom Origen is said to have reclaimed and since that time taken up if they be not slandered by the Armenians and Fratricelli and once countenanced and abetted by Pope John the 22. as Pope Adrian witnesseth yea so inforced by him upon the University of Paris as that all accesse to degrees was barred to any whosoever refused to subscribe and swear to that damnable position The Minorites began to finde relish in that poison which no doubt had proceeded to further mischief had not the interposition of Philip the-then-French king happily quelled that uncomfortable and pernicious doctrine so as we might have hoped it should never have dared more to look into the light But wo is me these prodigious times amongst a world of other uncouth heresies have not stuck to fetch even this also wel-worsed back from that region of darknesse whither it was sent Indeed who can but wonder that any Christian can possibly give entertainment to so absurd a thought whiles he hears his Saviour say Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am and that not in a safe sleep they may behold my glory which thou hast given me Behold it yea but when at last perhaps when the body shall be resumed Nay to choak this cavill the blisse is present even already possessed The glory which thou gavest me I have given to them It was accordingly his gracious word to the penitent theef This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise How clear is that of the chosen vessell opposing our present condition to the succeeding For now we see through a glasse darkly but then that is upon our dissolution face to face the face of the soul to the face of God The infinit amiableness whereof was that which inflamed the longing desire of the blessed Apostle to depart and to be with Christ as knowing these two inseparable the instant of his departure and his presence with Christ else the departure were no lesse worthy of fear as the utmost of evils then now it is of wishing for as our entrance into blessednesse Away then with that impious frenzie of the souls whether mortality or sleep in death No my soul thou doest then begin to live thou doest not awake till then now whiles thou art in the bed of this living clay thine eyes are shut thy spirituall senses are tyed up thou art apt to sâ—ort in a sinfull security thou dreamest of earthly vanities then only then are thine eyes opened thy spirituall faculties freed all thy powers quickned and thou art perpetually presented with objects of eternall glory And if at any time during this pilgrimage thine eye-lids have been some little raised by divine Meditations yet how narrowly how dimly art thou wont to see now thine eies shall be so broadly and fully opened that thou shalt see whole heaven at once yea which is more the face of that God whose presence makes it heaven Oh glorious sight O most blessed condition Wise Solomon could truly observe that the eye is not satisfied with seeing neither indeed can it be here below nothing is so great a glutton as the eye for when we have seen all that we can we shall still wish to see more and that more is nothing if it be lesse their all but this infinite object which is more then all shall so fill and satisfie our eyes that we cannot desire the sight of any other nor ever be glutted with the sight of this Old Simeon when once he had lived to see the Lord of life cloathed in flesh could say â—ord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation if he were so full of the sight of his Saviour in the weaknesse of humane flesh and in the form of a servant how is he more then fated with the perfection of joy and heavenly detestation to see that Saviour clothed with majesty to see his all glorious Godhead and so to
the Christian Church for which what good soul doth not mourn in secret the danger whereof ye shall happily avoid if ye shall keep close to the written word of our God which is only able to make you wise to salvation As our Saviour repelled the Devill so do ye the fanatick spirits of these brain-sick men with It is written Let those who would be wiser then God justly perish in their presumption My soul for yours if ye keep you to S. Pauls guard not to be wise above that which is written I could easily out of the exuberance of my Christian love overcharg you with multiplicity of holy counâ—ses but I would not take a tedious farewell May the God of heaven bless these and all other wholesom admonitions to the furtherance of your souls in grace and may his good spirit ever lead guide us in all such wayes as may be pleasing to him till we happily meet in the participation of that incomprehensible glory which he hath prepared for all his Saints till when Farewel from your fellow-pilgrim in this vale of tears Jos. Hall HIGHAM neer NORWICH Nov. 3. 1651. THE INVISIBLE WORLD Discovered to spiritual Eyes AND Reduced to usefull Meditation In three Books By JOS. HALL D.D.B.N. London Printed by E. Cotes for John Place at Furnivals Inne-gate 1659 The PREFACE AS those that flit from their old home and betake themselves to dwell in another countrey where they are sure to settle are wont to forget the faces and fashions whereto they were formerly inured and to apply themselves to the knowledge and acquaintance of those with whom they shall afterwards converse So it is here with me being to remove from my earthly Tabernacle wherein I have worn out the few and evil dayes of my pilgrimage to an abiding City above I have desired to acquaint my self with that Invisible world to which I am going to enter-know my good God and his blessed Angels and Saints with whom I hope to passe an happy eternity And if by often and serious meditation I have attained through Gods mercy to any measure of lightsome apprehension of them and their blisseful condition I thought it could be no other then profitable to my fellow-pilgrims to have it imparted unto them And as knowing we can never be sensible enough of our happinesse unlesse we know our own dangers and the woful mis-carriages of others nor so fully blesse our eyes with the sight of heaven if we cast not some glances upon hell I have held it requisite to bestow some thoughts upon that dreadfull region of darknesse and confusion that by the former of these our desires may be whetted to the fruition of their blessednesse and by the other we may be stirred up to a care of avoiding those paths that lead down to that second death and to a continual thankfulnesse unto that mercifull God whose infinite goodnesse hath delivered us from that pit of horrour and perdition THE INVISIBLE WORLD The First BOOK SECT. I. That there is an invisible world WHo can think other but that the great God of heaven loseth much glory by our ignorance For how can we give him the honour due to his name whiles we conceive too narrowly of him and his works To know him as he is is past the capacity of our finite understanding we must have other eyes to discern that incomprehensible essence but to see him in his divine emanations and marvailous works which are the back parts of that glorious majesty is that whereof we may be capable and should be ambitious Neither is there any thing in this world that can so much import us For wherefore serves the eye of sense but to view the goodly frame and furniture of the Creation wherefore serves the eye of reason and faith but to see that lively and invisible power which governs and comprehends it Even this sensible and materiall world if we could conceive aright of it is enough to amaze the most inlightned reason for if this globe of earth in regard of the immense greatnesse of it is wont not unjustly to be accounted a World what shall we say of so many thousand stars that are for the most part bigger then it how can we but admire so many thousand worlds of light rolling continually over our heads all made by the omnipotent power all regularly guided by the infinite providence of the great God How poorly must that man needs think of the workmanship of the Almighty that looks upon all these but as so many Torches set up in the firmament every evening only so big as they seem and with what awfull respects must he needs be carried to his Creator that knowes the vastnesse and perpetually-constant movings of those lightsom bodies ruled and upheld only by the mighty word that made them There is store of wonders in the visible but the spirituall and intelligible world is that which is more worthy to take up our hearts both as we are men indued with reason and as regenerate inlightned by faith being so much more excellent then the other by how much more it is removed from all earthly means of apprehension Brute creatures may behold these visible things perhaps with sharper eyes then we but spirituall objects are so utterly out of their reach as if they had no being Nearest therefore to beasts are those men who suffer themselves to be so altogether led by their senses as to believe nothing but what is suggested by that purblind and unfaithfull informer Let such men doubt whether they have a soul in their body because their eye never met with it or that there are any stars in the firmament at noon-day because they appear not or that there is any air wherein they breath because nothing appears to them but an insensible vacuity Of all other the Sadduces had been the most dull and sottish hereticks that ever were if as some have construed them they had utterly denyed the very being of any Spirits Sure as learned Cameron pleads for them they could not be so senselesse for beleeving the books of Moses and being conscious of their own animation their bosomes must needs convince them of their spiritual inmate and what but a spirit could inable them to argue against spirits and how could they hold a God and no Spirit it was bad enough that they denyed the immortality and constant subsistence of those Angelical immaterial substances an opinion long since hissed out not of the School of Christianity only but of the very stalls and styes of the most brutish Paganisme although not very long since as is reported by Hosius and Prateolus that cursed Glazier of Gaunt David George durst wickedly rake it out of the dust and of late some Scepticks of our own have let fall some suspicious glances this way Surely all that know they have souls must needs beleeve a world of spirits which they see not if from no other grounds yet out of that analogy
which they cannot but finde betwixt this lesser and that greater world for as this little world Man consists of an outward visible body and an inward spiritual soul which gives life and motion to that organicall frame so possessing all parts that it is wholly in all and in each part wholly So must it also be in this great Universe the sensible and materiall part whereof hath being and moving from those spiritual powers both supreme and subordinate which dwell in it and fill and actuate it Every illuminated soul therefore looks about him with no other then S. Pauls eyes whose profession it is We look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporall but the things which are not seen are eternall SECT. II. The distribution of the Invisible world I Cannot quite mislike the conceit of Reuchlin and his â—abala seconded by Galatinus that as in an egge the yelk lies in the middest encompassed round with the white and that again by a film and shell so the sensible world is enclosed within the intelligible but withall I must adde that here is not a meer involution only but a spirituall permeation and inexistence yet without all mixture without all confusion for those pure and simple natures are not capable of mingling with grosse materiall substances and the God of Order hath given them their own separate essences offices operations as for the managing of their own spiritual Common-wealth within themselves so for the disposing governing and moving of this sensible world As therefore we shall foully misconceive of a man if we shall think him to be nothing but a body because our eyes see no more so we shall no lesse grossely erre if beholding this outward fabrick we shall conceive of nothing to be in this vast Universe but the meer lifelesse substance of the heavens and elements which runs into our sight those lively and active powers that dwell in them could not be such if they were not purely spirituall Here then above and beyond all worlds and in this materiall and intelligible world our illuminated eyes meet first with the God of Spirits the DEITIE incomprehensible the fountain of all life and being the infinite and self-existing Essence one most pure simple eternal Act the absolute omnipotent omnipresent Spirit who in himself is more then a world of worlds filling comprehending both the spiritual sensible world in comparison of whom this All is nothing and but from him had been and were nothing Upon this blessed object O my soul may thy thoughts ever dwell where the more they are fixed the more shall they finde themselves ravished from the regard of all sensible things and swallowed up with an admiration of that which they are still further off from comprehending Next to this All-glorious and infinite spirit they meet with those immateriall and invisible powers who receive their originall and continuance their natures and offices from that King of glory Each one whereof is so mighty as to make up a world of power alone each one so knowing as to contain a world of wisdom and all of them so innumerably many that their number is next to infinite and all this numberlesse number so perfectly united in one celestial politie that their entire communion under the laws and government of their soverain Creator makes them a compleat world of Spirits invisibly living and moving both within and above this visible globe of the materiall world After these meet we with the glorified souls of the Just who now let loose from this prison of clay enjoy the full liberty of heaven and being at last reunited to their then immortall bodies and to their most glorious head both are and possesse a world of everlasting blisse Last of all may thy thoughts fall upon those infernall powers of darknesse the spirituall wickednesses in heavenly places whose number might combination makes up a dreadfull world of evil Angels conflicting where they prevail not and tormenting where they overcome These together with the reprobate souls whom they have captived are the most horrible and wofull prospects of mischief and misery which either world is subject unto Now all and every of these however in respect of largenesse they may well passe for so many severall worlds yet as we are wont to account the whole globe of heaven and earth and the other inclosed elements though vast in their severall extents to make up but one sensible world so shall we in a desire to reduce all to unity consider all the intire specifications of spirits but as ranked in so many regions of one immateriall and intelligible world Wherefore let us first silently adore that mundum archetypum that one transcendent self-being and infinite essence in three most glorious persons the blessed Deity which filleth heaven and earth with the majesty of his glory as vailed with the beams of infinitenesse and hid in an inaccessible light and let us turn our eyes to the spiritual guard the invisible attendants of that divine Majesty without the knowledge and right apprehension whereof we shall never attain to conceive of their God and ours as we ought But O ye blessed immortal glorious spirits who can know you but he that is of you alas this soul of mine knows not it self how shall it know you Surely no more can our minds conceive of you then our eyes can see you Only since he that made you hath given us some little glimpse of your subdivine natures properties operations let us weakly as we may recount them to his glory in yours SECT. III. The Angels of heaven Their numbers THe good Lord forgive me for that amongst my other offences I have suffered my self so much to forget as his divine presence so the presence of his holy Angels It is I confesse my great sin that I have filled mine eyes with other objects and have been slack in returning praises to my God for the continual assistance of those blessed and beneficent spirits which have ever graciously attended me without intermission from the first hour of my conception to this present moment neither shall ever I hope absent themselves from my tutelage and protection till they shall have presented my poor soul to her final glory Oh that the dust and clay were so washed out of my eyes that I might behold together with the presence the numbers the beauties and excellencies of those my ever-present guardians When we are convinced of the wonderfull magnitude of those goodly stars which we see moving in the firmament we cannot but acknowledge that if God had made but one of them he could never have been enough magnified in his power but when our sense joyns with our reason to force upon us withall an acknowledgement of the infinite numbers of those great luminaries now we are so far to seek of due admiration that we are utterly lost in the amazement at this
that the elâ—er the â—ch grew the more rare was the use of these apparitions as of other miraculous actions and events Not that the arm of our God is shortned or his care and love to his beloved ones any whit abated but for that his Church is now in this long processe of time setled through his gracious providence in an ordinary way Like as it was with his Israelites who whiles they were in their longsome passage were miraculously preserved and protected but when they came once to be fixed in the land of promise their Angelical sustenance ceased they then must purvey for their own food and either till or famish Now then in these later ages of the Church to have the visible apparition of a good Angell it is a thing so geason and uncouth that it is enough for all the world to wonder at Some few instances our times have been known to yield Amongst others that is memorable which Philip Melanchton as an eye-witnesse reports Simon Grynaeus a learned and holy man coming from Heidelburg to Spire was desirous to hear a certain Preacher in that City who in his Sermon it seems did then let fall-some erroneous propositions of Popish doctrine much derogatory from the majesty and truth of the Son of God wherewith Grynaeus being not a little offended craved speedy conference with the Preacher and laying before him the falshood and danger of his doctrines exhorted him to an abandoning and retractation of those mis-opinions the Preacher gave good words and fair semblance to Grynaeus desiring further and more particular conference with him each imparted to other their names and lodgings yet inwardly as being stung with that just reproof he resolved a revenge by procuring the imprisonment and if he â—ight the death of so sharp a censurer Grynaeus misdoubting nothing upon his return to his lodging reports the passages of the late conference to those who sate at the Table with him amongst whom Melancthon being one was called out of the Room to speak with a stranger newly come into the house going forth accordingly he finds a grave old man of a goodly countenance seemly and richly attired who in a friendly and grave manner tells him that within one hour there would come to their Inne certain Officers as from the King of the Romans to attach Grynaeus and to carry him to prison willing him to charge Grynaeus with all possible speed to flee out of Spires and requiring Melancthon to see that this advantage were not neglected which said the old man vanished out of his sight Instantly Melancthon returning to his companions recounted unto them the words of this strange Monitor and hastned the departure of Grynaeus accordingly who had no sooner boated himself on the Rhine then he was eagerly searcht for at his said lodging That worthy Divine in his Commentary upon Daniel both relates the story and acknowledges Gods fatherly providence in sending this Angell of his for the rescue of his faithfull servant Others though not many of this kinde are reported by Simon Goulartius in his collection of admirable and memorable histories of our time whither for brevity sake I refer my Reader But more often hath it faln out that evill spirits have visibly presented themselves in the glorious forms of good Angels as to Simeon Stylites to Pachomius to Valens the Monk to Rathodus Duke of Freezland to Macarius to Gertrude in Westphalia with many others as we finde in the reports of Ruffinus Vincentius Caesarius Palladius and the like delusions may still be set on foot whiles Satan who loves to transform himself into an Angell of Light laboureth by these means to noursle silly souls in superstition too many whereof have swallowed the bait though others have descried the book Amongst the rest I like well the humility of that Hermite into whose Cell when the Divel presented himself in a goodly and glittering form and told him that he was an Angell sent to him from God the Hermite turned him off with this plain answer See thou whence thou comest for me I am not worthy to be visited with such a guest as an Angel But the trade that we have with good spirits is not now driven by the eye but is like to themselves spiritual Yet not so but that even in bodily occasions we have many times insensible helps from them in such manner as that by the effects we can boldly say Here hath been an Angel though we saw him not Of this kind was that no less then miraculous cure which at S. Madernes in Cornwall was wrought upon a poor Cripple * whereof besides the attestation of many hundreds of the neighbours I took a strict and personall examination in that * last visitation which I either did or ever shall hold This man that for sixteen years together was fain to walk upon his hands by reason of the close contraction of the sinews of his legs was upon three monitions in his dream to wash in that well suddainly so restored to his limbs that I saw him able both to walk and to get his own maintenance I found here was neither art nor collusion the thing done the Author invisible The like may we say of John Spangenberge Pastour of Northeuse no sooner was that man stept out of his house with his family to go to the Bayns then the house fell right down in the place Our own experience at home is able to furnish us with divers such instances How many have we known that have faln from very high towers and into deep pits past the naturall possibility of hope who yet have been preserved not from death only but from hurt whence could these things be but by the secret aid of those invisible helpers It were easie to fill Volumes with particulars of these kinds but the main care and most officious endeavours of these blessed spirits are employed about the better part the soul in the instilling of good motions enlightning the understanding repelling of temptations furthering our opportunities of good preventing occasions of sin comforting our sorrows quickning our dulnesse incouraging our weaknesse and lastly after all carefull attendance here below conveying the souls of their charge to their glory and presenting them to the hands of their faithfull Creator It is somewhat too hard to beleeve that there have been ocular witnesses of these happy Convoys Who lists may credit that which Hierom tells us that Antony the Hermit saw the soul of his partner in that solitude Paul carried up by them to heaven that Severinus Bishop of Colein saw the soul of S. Martin thus transported as Gregory reports in his Dialogues That Benedict saw the soul of Germanus in the form of a fiery globe thus conveyed What should I speak of the souls of the holy martyrs Tiburtius Valerian Maximus Marcellinus Justus Quintinus Severus and others we may if we please we need not unlesse we list give way to these reports
and some Judaizing Chiliasts who have placed happinesse in the full feed of their sensual appetite inverting the words of the Epicurean in the Gospell He could say Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall dye they Let us dye for we shall eat and drinke men whose belly is their God their kitchen their heaven The soul that hath had the least smack how sweet the Lord is in the weak apprehension of Grace here below easily contemns these dunghil-felicities cannot but long after those true and satisfying delights above in comparison whereof all the pleasures of the paunch and palate are but either savorless or noisome Feast thou thy self onwards O my soul with the joyful hope of this blessed vision adhesion fruition Alas here thy dim eyes see thy God through clouds and vapours and not without manifold diversions here thou cleavest imperfectly to that absolute goodnesse but with many frail interceptions every prevalent temptation looseth thy hold and makes thy God and thee strangers here thou enjoyest him sometimes in his favours seldome in himselfe and when thou doest so how easily art thou robb'd of him by the interpositions of a crafty and bewitching world There thou shalt so see him as that thou shalt never look off so adhere to him as never to be severed so enjoy him that he shall ever be all in all to thee even the soul of thy soul thy happiness is then essentiall thy joy as inseparable as thy being SECT. VII In what terms the departed Saints stand to us and what respects they bear to us Such is the felicity wherein the separate soules of Gods elect ones are feoffed for ever But in the mean time what terms do they stand in to their once-partners these humane bodies to these the forlorn companions of their pilgrimage and warfare Do they despise these houses of clay wherein they once dwelt or have they with Pharaohs Courtier forgotten their fellow-prisoner Far be it from us to entertain so injurious thoughts of those spirits whose charity is no less exalted then their knowledge Some graces they do necessarily leave behinde them There is no room for faith where there is present vision no room for hope where is full fruition no room for patience where is no possibility of suffering but charity can never be out of date charity both to God and man As the head and body mystical are undivided so is our love to both we cannot love the head and not the body we cannot love some limbs of the body and not others The triumphant part of the Church then which is above doth not more truly love each other glorified then they love the warfaring part beneath neither can their love be idle and fruitlesse they cannot but wish well therefore to those they love That the glorified Saints then above in a generality wish for the good estate and happy consummation of their conflicting brethren here on earth is a truth not more void of scruple then full of comfort It was not so much revenge which the souls under the Alter pray for upon their murderers as the accomplishment of that happy resurrection in which that revenge shall be perfectly acted The prayer in Zachary and Saints are herein parallel is O Lord of hosts how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the Cities of Judah against which thou hast had indignation we do not use to joy but in that which we wish for There is joy in heaven in the presence of the Angels for sinners repenting In the presence of the Angels therefore on the part of the Saints none but they dwell together Oh ye blessed Saints we praise God for you for your happy departure for your crown of immortalitie Ye do in common sue to God for us as your poore fellow-members for our happy eluctation out of those miseries and tentations wherewith we are continually conflicted here below and for our Societie with you in your blessedness Other terms of communion we know none As for any local presence or particular correspondence that ye may have with any of us as we cannot come to know it so if we would we should have no reason to disclaim it Johannes á Jesu-Maria a modern Carmelite writing the life of Theresia Sainted lately by Gregory 15. tels us that as she was a vigilant overseer of her votaries in her life so in and after death she would not be drawn away from her care and attendance For saith he if any of her sisters did but talk in the set hours of their silence she was wont by three knocks at the doore of the Cell to put them in mind of their enjoyned taciturnity and on a time appearing as she did often in a lightsome brightnesse to a certain Carmelite is said thus to bespeak him Nos coeâ—estes c. We Citizens of heaven and ye exiled pilgrims on earth ought to be linked in a league of love and purity c. Me thinks the reporter should fear this to be too much good fellowship for a Saint I am sure neither Divine nor ancient Story had wont to afford such familiarity And many have mis-doubted the agency of worse where have appeared lesse causes of suspition That this was if any thing an ill spirit under that face I am justly confident neither can any man doubt that looking further into the relation finds him to come with a lye in his mouâ—h For thus he goes on We celestiall ones behold the Deity ye banished ones worship the Eucharist which ye ought to worship with the same affection wherewith we adore the Deity such perfume doth this holy Devill leave behind him The like might be instanced in a thousand apparitions of this kind al worthy of the same entertainment As for the state of the souls of Lazarus of the Widows son of Jairus his daughter and of Tabitha whether there were by divine appointment a suspension of their finall condition for a time their souls awaiting not farre off from their bodies for a further disposition or whether they were for the manifestation of the miraculous power of the Son of God called off from their setled rest some great Divines may dispute none can determine where God is silent let us be willingly ignorant wiâ—h more safety and assurance may we inquire into those respects wherein the separated soul stands to that body which it left behind it for a prey to the worms a captive to death and corruption For certainly though the parts be severed the relations cannot be so God made it intrinsecally naturall to that spirituall part to be the form of man and therefore to animate the body It was in the very infusion of it created and in the creating infused into this coessentiall receptacle wherein it holds it self so interessed as that it knows there can be no full consummation of its glory without the other half It was not therefore more loath to leave this old
of the spirit and above all the shield of faith wherewith we may be able both to quench and beat back the fiery darts of that wicked one These well put on and well managed shall both secure us and foil our adversary But the art of repelling severall â—emptations is a long work and worâ—hy of a just volume How we ought to deal with evill spirits in their bodily apparitions and possessions may be seasonable for our present enquiry Whereas then there is pretended to be only a double way of proceeding for their ejection the one by Pact the other by Command as the former is disclaymed by all faithfull Christians so the other is wont to be challenged and practised by some who lay no small claim to holiness This we call Exorcism or Conjuration a course so well approved of the Churches of the Roman correspondence as that they make this office one of the seven stairs whereby they ascend to their highest Order But so dis-relished by us that we ordinarily place Conjurers in the same rank with Sorcerers and Professors of the Black and damned Arts although indeed upon a strict inquisition we shall finde them far different for Conjuration or Exorcism implyes a kinde of force and violence whereas those that are in league with Satan go on as upon a set match in a way cursedly amicable this latter is hainously sinfull as being directly against the divine law and a professed affront to the majesty of God the former unjustifiable as being without divine warrant It is most true that the Disciples of Christ and their primitive successors ejected Devils by command and could rejoyce to see those evil spirits subjected to their over-ruling charge but withall the same persons healed all diseases were perfect poyson-proof spake divers languages why should any in these latter times challenge a right of succession iâ— one of these and not claim iâ— in the other All these werâ— given with one and the samâ— breath continued by the same power called in and stinted by the same providence with their fellow-miracles And if still this priviledge were ordinarily left in the Church it were not a work for puisnes and novices but for the greatest Masters and the most learned and eminently-holy Doctors which the times can possibly yield And if this were really done as is commonly vaunted by them yet with how much difference from the Apostolick practise and issue With them of old there was no more but a word of command and an instant ejection here what a world of business what sprinkling what censing what blessing of herbs and other ingredients of suffumigation what variety of direfull ceremonies and when all is done the successe shuts up no otherwise then in just suspicion or censure Not that free scope is given in these last times without any check to the tyranny of evill spirits The good providence of the highest hath not left us unfurnished with means of our freedome and deliverance whiles we can pray we cannot be remedilesse when the Disciples power stuck at the dispossession of a Demoniack they heard from our Saviour This kinde goes not out but by fasting and prayer Whence it is plain that as there are severall kinds of Devils one worse and more powerfull then another so the worst of them are to be vanquished by prayer sharpened with abstinence What a difference then there is of times and means at the first it was a greater work to dispossâ—sse Devils by prayer and fasting then by command now it were far greater to do it by a meer command then by prayer and fasting That which was then ordinarily done were now strangely miraculous and that which is the ordinary course now was then rare and unusuall The power of an adjuring command we see ceased the power of fervent prayer can never be out of date This and this only is the remedy of both bodily and mentall possession thus if we resist the Devill he shall flee away from us Upon the ground of this Scripture it was as my self was witnesse that in our age Mr. Dayrel a godly and zealous preacher undertook and accordingly through the blessing of God upon his faithfull devotions performed those famous ejectments of evill spirits both at Nottingham and Lanoashire which exercised the press and raised no small envy from the gain-sayers Shortly all that we have to do concerning malignant spirits is to repay them with hatred to perswade our hearts of their continuall dogging of us for mischief to arm our selves with constant resolutions of resistance diligently to watch the wayes of their tentations to keep the strongest guard upon our weakest parts to fortifie our selves by our faithfull prayers and by the vertue of our faith to make him ours who is able to strengthen us and to make us more then Conquerors SECT. X. Of the wofull estate of the Souls of the damned IT is not for our discourse to sever those whom the divine Justice will have put together Devils and damned Souls There is none of those evill spirits which doth not wheresoever he is carry his hell about him yet doubtlesse there are degrees of their torture Art thou come to torment us before our time said those Devils to our blessed Saviour and how do they beg not to be commanded to the deep Reprobate souls are no lesse partners of their pain then objects of their fury No sooner is this living spirit of ours dislodged from the body then it is presented as in a privy Sessions to her Judge from whom she receives a speedy doom of life or death the Sentence is instantly seconded with an answerable execution The good Angels are glad actors in the happy instalment of the Just in their glory The evill angels seize upon the guilty soul and drag it to their hell As for any third place or condition let them take thought that beleive it For me I must professe I never saw any colour of ground for it in the sacred Oracles of God and shal not easily beleeve that a truth mainly importing us would have been concealed from our eyes Wo is me what a dolefull what a dreadful spectacle is this which is now presented to my soul the burning Tophet the bottomlesse pit the lake of fire brimstone the region of horrour and death wherein there is the perfection of all more then conceiveable anguish the full consummation of the divine vengeance to sinners exquisitenesse eternity of torment despair and impossibility of release or intermission perpetuall dying perpetuall living in a death that can never end How are my thoughts at a losse in this place of confusion whether shall I more tremble O God at the consideration of thy terrible justice or be swallowed up with astonishment of these infinite and intolerable sufferings I should not know thee if I did not with holy Chrysostome beleeve â—hat the utter lâ—sse of thy presence alone is as a thousand hels to be for ever banished from thy sight in which