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
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
suddainnesse or circumvent us with subtlety let them not spare to use their advantage But oh ye tutelar spirits ye well know our weaknesse and their strength our sillinesse and their craft their deadly machinations and our miserable obnoxiousnesse neither is your love to markinde and fidelity to your maker any whit lesse then your knowledge so as your charge can no more miscarry under your hands and eyes then your selves As you do alwayes enjoy the beatifical vision of your maker so your eye is never off from his little ones your blessednesse is no more separable from our safety then you from your blessednesse SECT. VI The imployments and operations of Angels EVen while we see you not O ye blessed spirits we know what ye do He that made you hath told us your task As there are many millions of you attending the all-glorious throne of your Creator and singing perpetual Hallelujahs to him in the highest heavens so there are innumerable numbers of you imployed in governing and ordering the creature in guarding the elect in executing the commands which ye receive from the Almighty what variety is here of your assistance One while ye lead us in our way as ye did Israel another while ye instruct us as ye did Daniel one while ye fight for us as ye did for Joshua and Judas Maccabaeus another while ye purvey for us as for Elias one while ye fit us to our holy vocation as ye did to Esay another while ye dispose of the opportunities of our calling for good as ye did of Philips to the Eunuch one while ye foretell our danger as to Lot to Joseph and Mary another while ye comfort our affliction as to Hagar one while ye oppose evil projects against us as to Balaam another while ye will be striven with for a blessing as with Jacob one while ye resist our offensive courses as to Moses another while ye incourage us in our devotions as ye did Paul and Silas and Cornelius one while ye deliver from durance as Peter another while ye preserve us from danger and death as the three children one while ye are ready to restrain our presumption as the Cherub before the gate of Paradise another while to excite our courage as to Elias and Theodosius one while to refresh and chear us in our sufferings as to the Apostles another while to prevent our sufferings as to Jacob in the pursuit of Laban and Esau to the Sages in the pursuit of Herod one while ye cure our bodies as at the pool of Bethesda another while ye carry up our souls to glory as ye did to Lazarus It were endlesse to instance in all the gracious offices which ye perform Certainly there are many thousand events wherein common eyes see nothing but nature which yet are effected by the ministration of Angels when Abraham sent his servant to procure a wife for his son from amongst his own cognation the messenger saw nothing but men like himself but Abraham saw an Angel fore-contriving the work God saith he shal send his Angel before thee that thou mayest take a wife thence when the Israelites forcibly by dint of sword expelled the Canaanites and Amorites and the other branded nations nothing appeared but their own arms but the Lord of hosts could say I will send mine Angel before thee by whom I shall drive them thence Balaam saw his Asse disorderly starting in the path he that formerly had seen Visions now sees nothing but a wall and a way but in the mean time his Asse who for the present had more of the Prophet then his Master could see an Angel and a sword The Sodomites went groping in the street for Lots door and misse it they thought of nothing but some suddain dizzinesse of brain that disappointed them we know it was an Angel that stroke them with blindenesse Nothing appeared when the Egyptian first-born were struck dead in one night the Astrologers would perhaps say they were Planet-struck we know it was done by the hand of an Angel Nothing was seen at the pool of Bethesda but a moved water when the suddain cures were wrought which perhaps might be attributed to some beneficiall constellation we know that an Angel descended and made the water thus sanative Gâ—hezi saw his master strangely preserved from the Aramite troops but had not his eyes been opened by the Prophets prayers he had not seen whence that aid came Neither is it otherwise in the frequent experiments of our life Have we been raised up from deadly sicknesses when all naturall helps have given us up Gods Angels have been our secret Physitians Have we had instinctive intimations of the death of some absent friends which no humane intelligence hath bidden us to suspect who but our Angels hath wrought it have we been preserved from mortall dangers which we could not tell how by our providence to have evaded our invisible Guardians have done it I see no reason to dislike that observation of Gerson Whence is it saith he that little children are conserved from so many perils of their infancy fire water falls suffocations but by the agency of Angels Surely where we find a probability of second causes in nature we are apt to confine our thoughts from looking higher yet even there many times are unseen hands had we seen the house fall upon the heads of Jobs children we should perhaps have attributed it to the natural force of a vehement blast when now we know it was the work of a spirit Had we seen those thousands of Israel falling dead of the plague we should have complain'd of some strange infection in the air when David saw the Angel of God acting in that mortality Humane reason is apt to be injuriously saucie in ascribing those things to an ordinary course of natural causes which the God of nature doth by supernatural agents A master of Philosophy travelling with others on the way when a fearfull thunder-storm arose checked the fear of his fellows and discoursed to them of the naturall reasons of that uprore in the clouds and those suddain flashes wherewith they seemed out of the ignorances of causes to be too much affrighted in the midst of his philosophicall discourse he was strucken dead with that dreadfull eruption which he sleighted what could this be but the finger of that God who will have his works rather entertained with wonder and trembling then with curious scanning Neither is it otherwise in those violent Huracans devouring earthquakes and more then ordinary tempests and fiery apparitions which we have seen and heard of for however there be natural causes given of the usual events of this kinde yet nothing hinders but that the Almighty for the manifestation of his power and justice may set spirits whether good or evil on work to do the same things sometimes with more state and magnificence of horrour like as we see Frogs bred ordinarily both out of putrefaction and generation and yet
partner in the dissolution then it is now desirous to meet him again as well knowing in how much happier condition they shall meet then they formerly parted Before this drossie piece was cumbersome and hindred the free operations of this active spirit now that by a blessed glorification it is spiritualized it is every way become pliable to his renued partner the Soul and both of them to their infinitely glorious Creatour SECT. VIII The reunion of the body to the soul both glorified LO then so happy a reunion as this materiall world is not capable of till the last fire have refined it of a blessed soul met with a glorified body for the peopling of the new heaven who can but rejoyce in spirit to foresee such a glorious communion of perfected Saints to see their bodies with a clear brightness without all earthly opacity with agility without all dulnesse with subtility without grosness with impassibility without the reach of annoyance or corruption There and then shalt thou O my soul looking through clarified eyes see and rejoyce to see that glorious body of thy dear God and Savior which he assumed here below and wherein he wrought out the great work of thy redemption there shalt thou see the radiant bodies of all those eminent Saints whose graces thou hadst wont to wonder at and weakly wish to imitate There shall I meet with the visible partners of the same unspeakeable glory my once dear parents children friends and if there can be roome for any more joy in the soul that is taken up with God shall both communicate and appropriate our mutuall joyes There shall we indissolubly with all the chore of heaven passe our eviternity of blisse in lauding and praising the incomprehensibly-glorious Majesty of our Creatour Redeemer Sanctifier in perpetuall Hallelujahs to him that sits upon the Throne And canst thou O my soul in the expectation of this happinesse be unwilling to take leave of this flesh for a minute of separation How well art thou contented to give way to this body to shut up the windows of thy senses and to retire it self after the toil of the day to a nightly rest whence yet thou knowest it is not sure to rise or if it do yet it shall rise but such as it lay down some little fresher no whit better and art thou so loath to bid a cheerfull good-night to this piece of my selfe which shall more surely rise then lye down and not more surely rise then rise glorious Away with this weak and wretched infidelity without which the hope of my change would be my present happinesse and the issue of it mine eternull glory Even so Lord Jesus come quickly THE INVISIBLE WORLD The Third BOOK SECT. I. Of the Evill Angels Of their first sin and fall HITHERTO our thoughts have walked through the lightsome and glorious regions of the spirituall world now it is no lesse requisite to cast some glances towards those dreadful and darksome parts of it where nothing dwels but horror and torment Of the former it concerns us to take notice for our comfort of these latter for terrour caution resistance I read it reported by an ancient Travailer Haytonus of the Order of the Premonstratensis and cousin as he saith to the then-King of Armenia that he saw a country in the Kingdome of Georgia which he would not have believed except his eyes had seen it caldel Hamsen of three dayes journey about covered over with palpable darknesse wherein some desolate people dwell for those which inhabit upon the borders of it might hear the neighing of horses and crowing of cocks and howling of dogs and other noises but no man could go in to them without losse of himselfe Surely this may seem some sleight representation of the condition of Apostate Angels and reprobate souls Their region is the kingdom of darkness they have onely light enough to see themselves eternally miserable neither are capable of the least glimpse of comfort or mitigation But as it fals out with those which in a dark night bear their own light that they are easily discerned by an enemy that waits for them and good aim may be taken at them even whiles that enemy lurks unseen of them so it is with us in these spirituall ambushes of the infernall powers their darknesse and our light gives them no smal advantage against us The same power that clears and strengthens the eyes of our soul to see those over-excelling glories of the good Angels can also enable us to pierce thorough that hellish obscurity and to descrie so much of the natures and condition of those evill spirits as may render us both wary and thankful In their first creation there were no Angels but of light that any of them should bring evill with him from the moment of his first beeing is the exploded heresie of a Manes a man fit for his name and if Prateolus may be beleeved of the Trinitâ—â—ians yea blasphemy rather casting mire in the face of the most pure and holy Deity For from an absolute goodnesse what can proceed but good And if any then of those spirits could have been originally evil whence could he pretend to fetch it Either three must be a predominant principle of evill or a derivation of it from the fountain of infinite goodness either of which were very monsters of impiety All were once glorious spirits sin changed their hue and made many of them ugly Devils Now straight I am apt to think Lord how should sin come into the world how into Angels God made all things good sin could be no work of his How should the good that he made produce the evill which he hates Even this curiosity must receive an answer The great God when he would make his noblest creature found it fit to produce him in the nearest likenesse to himself and therefore to indue him with perfection of understanding and freedome of will either of which being wanting there could have been no excellency in that which was intended for the best such therefore did he make his Angels Their will being made free had power of their own inclinations those free inclinations of some of them swayed them awry from that highest end which they should have solely aimed at to a faulty respect unto oblique ends of their own Hence was the beginning of sin for as it fals out in causes efficient that when the secondary agent swarves from the order and direction of the principal straight waies a fault thereupon ensues as when the leg by reason of crookednesse fails of the performance of that motion which the appetitive power injoined an halting immediately follows so it is in finall causes also as Aquinas acutely when the secondary end is not kept in under the order of the principall and highest end there grows a sin of the will whose object is ever good but if a supposed self respective good be suffer'd to take the wall of the best
is the fulnesse of joy what can it be lesse then fulnesse of torment But alas this is farre from a meer absence The very sin of the damned is no small part of their hell for as all their powers parts faculties are as so many subjects of their insupportable pain and torture so out of that insufferable extremity they conceive a desperate indignation and hatred against God not as he is in himself infinitely good for goodness can be no object of hate but as he is to them a severe though most just avenger of sin to which is ever added a will obstinately fixed in evill whiles they were in their way they were in a possibility of reclamation now that they are in termino they can be no other then they are As therefore the glorified souls are in a condition like to the Angels of heaven so the damned are in the state of Devils not more capable of avoiding torment then sin equally reserved in everlasting chains of darkness to the judgement of the great day When wo is me that which seemed little lesse then infinite shall yet receive a further aggravation of pain and misery when the addition of the body shall give a further extent to this wofull cruâ—lation without all possibility of release for ever Alas what anguish do I feel in my self to see the body of a malefactour flaming at a stake and yet this is but the act of a few minutes for the air so vehemently incended instantly stops the passage of that free breath which should maintain life and the flesh by apposition of that combustible matter which encompasses it is soon turned into dead cinders but I could conceive of a body frying a whole day in a continued flame Lord how should I be affected with the sad compassion of that intolerable torment burn inwardly with the sense of anothers pain but to think of a whole years broyling in such a fire how can it but turn our bowels within us What then Oh what is it to conceive of lying in a fire more intense then nature can kindle for hundreds thousands millions yea millions of millions of years yea further beyond these then these are beyond a minute of time to all eternity where besides the indurance every thing that makes towards the mitigation of other pains addes to these Here is society of tortures but such as tortureth more Those perpetuall howlings and shriekings and wailings of so many millions of the damned were enough to make the place an hell even to him that should be exempted from those sufferings Here is some glimpse of knowledge of the blessed estate of glorified souls enough to heighten their envie enough to perfect their torment even as meat is set before that man which is doomed to famish Shortly here is exquisite disconsolateness gloomy darknesse extreme horror pain insufferable hideous ejulations utter hopelesness vexing indignation furious blasphemies infinite dolour and anguish without relaxation without pity without possibility of remedy or ease or end How can it be otherwise O God if thy mercy have prepared such an heaven for thy poor servants whose very best works for their great imperfection deserve nothing but punishment what an hell hath thy justice provided for those enemies of thine that wilfully despight thee and offend of malicious wickedness How infinitely art thou more just then sinners can be miserable But it is enough O my soul to have lookt into the pit enough to make thee lament the wofull condition of those that are there shut up enough to warne thee to avoid those sinfull wayes that lead downe to these chambers of death enough to make thee think no tears can be sufficient to bewail the desperate carelesnesse of wretched sinners that run on in a known course of wickednesse without any regard of an insuing damnation Alas so as they are bewitched they have not the grace to pity themselves and to foresee the danger of their own utter perdition which if they could but look into they would be ready to run mad with horrour Poor souls could they but recover their reason they would then think if a thousand daies pleasure cannot weigh with one hours torment what do I buy one hours pleasure with the torment of more then ten thousand ages how do I dare to dance for a few minutes upon the mouth of hell with the peril of an everlasting burning Surely if Infidelity had not rob'd men of their wits they could not resolve to purchase the momentany pleasures of sin with so dreadfull and eternall damnation SECT. XI A Recapitulation of the whole discourse ANd now what is to be done Surely as some Traveller that hath with many weary steps passed through divers Kingdoms and Countries being now returned to his quiet home is wont to solace his leasure by recalling to his thoughts a short mentall landskip of those regions through which he hath journyed here conceiving a large Plain there a Lake here a track of Mountains there a Wood here a Fen there a City here a Sea there a Desert so do thou O my soul upon this voyage of thine through the great invisible World bethink thy self of what thou hast seen and so abridge this large Prospect to thy self as that it may never be out of thine eye Think first that whatsoever thou seest thou canst not look besides the invisible majesty of thy God all this materiall world is his he is in all rather all is in him who so comprehends this Universe that he is infinitely without it think of him as with thee as in thee as every where Do thou therefore ever acknowledge him ever adore him ever enjoy him ever be approved of him see him from whom thou canst not be hid relye on him without whom thon canst not subsist glorifie him without whom thou canst not be happy Next as those that have their celestial life and being by from and in him wonder at the glorious Hierarchy of the heavenly Angels blesse him in their pure and spirituall nature in their innumerable numbers in their mighty power in their excellent knowledge blesse him in their comely orders in their divine offices in their beneficiall imployments in their gracious care and love of mankind And so far as weak flesh and bloud may with pure and majestical spirits converse with them daily entertaine them so thou knowest they are present with awfull observances with spirituall allocutions ask of thy self how pleasing thine actions are to them receive from them their holy injections return to them under thy God thy thankful acknowledgments expect from them a gracious tuition here and an happy transportation to thy glory After these represent to thy self the blessed society of the late charge and now partners of those heavenly Angels the glorified Spirits of the just see the certainty of their immortall being in the state of their separation see them in the very instant of their parting blessed with the vision with the fruition of
their God see how they now bathe themselves in that celestiall blisse as being so fully sated with joy and happiness that they cannot so much as desire more see them in a mutuall interknowledge enjoying each others blessednesse see the happy communion which they hold with their warfaring brother-hood here upon earth whose victory and consummation they do in a generality sue for to the throne of Grace Foresee them lastly after a longing desire of meeting with their old and never forgotten partner joyfully reunited to their now-glorified bodies and imploying their eternity of life in continuall Hallelujahs to him that sits upon the throne Take up thy rest here O my soul for ever but do not as yet thus end thy prospect it is good for thee to know worse things If in Paradise the Tree of the knowledge of good and evill were forbidden to our first parents the act of the knowledge of both is not forbidden to us Even to know evill in speculation may avoid the knowledge of it in a wofull experience See then O my soul the best creature falling from good into evill in choosing it see him by misinclining his own will apostatizing from his infinite Creatour and hurled down headlong from the height of heavenly glory to the bottome of the nethermost hell see the irrecoverable condition and dreadfull numbers of those precipitated Angels see their formidable power their implacable malice their marvailous knowledge craft skill to do mâ—schief their perpetuall machinations of our destruction especially in their last assaults see their counterfaisance in their glorious and seemingly-holy apparitions for a spirituall advantage and when thou hast recollected thy self to a resolution of defiance and unweariable resistance câ—st thine eye upon the deplorable condition of those damned souls whom they have either betrayed by their fraud or by their violence mastered and whiles thou doest blesse and magnifie the divine Justice in their deserved torment spend thy tears upon those who would needs spend their eternity of beeing in weeping wailing and gnashing And lastly rouz up thy self in this moment of thy remaining life unto all carefull and fervent indeavours to save thy self and to rescue others from this fearfull damnation SECT. XII The Comparison of both worlds how our thoughts and affections should be taken up with the Invisible World NOw then having taken a view of both worlds of the materiall world by the eys of sense and reason of the Invisible by the eyes of reason and faith I cannot but admire God in both and both of them in God but the Invisible so much more as it is infinitely beyond the other For God himself is the world of this world whom whiles in the materiall world we admire in his creatures in this immaterial we admire in himself Now himself must needs be infinitely more wonderfull then many worlds if such there were of those Creations that should proceed from him As for the parts of the created but Invisible world it must neods be said that the lightsome part of it hath more glory then any piece of the materiall world can be capable of on the contrary the dark and privative region of the Invisible world hath infinitely more horror then the other for what is the worst and most disconsolate darknesse of this visible world but a privation of the light of the Sun which yet can never be so absolute as to exclude all imperfect diffusion of those in sensible glimmerings whereas the darknesse of this spirituall world is an utter privation of the sight of God joined with an unconceiveable anguish Even in nature spirituall essences must needs be more excellent then bodily and earthly and of onely spirits it is that the Invisible world consisteth Besides what vanity and inconstancy do we find every where in this materiall and elementary world what creature is there which doth not exchange life for death being for dissolution sanity for corruption what uproars do we find in the air what â—ommotions and turbulencies upon earth the best state of things is an uncertain vicissitude the worst certain desolation and destruction whereas the Invisible world is setlted in a firm and steady immutability the blessed Angels and souls of the Saints being so fixed in their glory that they are now no more capable of alteration Shortly he that saw both worlds shuts up all in one word The things that are seen are temporal the things that are not seen eternal As then I can never open my bodily eyes but I shall see the material world and I hope I shall never see it but I shall praise the power and wisdome and goodnesse of the infinite Creatour of it so shall it be one of the main cares of my life to blesse the eyes of my soul with the perpetuall view of the spirituall and Invisible world Every action every occurrent shall mind me of those hidden and better things and I shall so admit of all materiall objects as if they were so altogether transparent that through them I might see the wonderful prospects of another world And certainly if we shall be able so to withdraw our selves from our senses that we shall see not what we see but what we thinke as it uses to be in the strong intentions of the mind and shall make earthly things not as Lunets to shut up our sight but Spectacles to transmit it to spirituall objects we shall lead a life as far remâ—ved from those beasts which we see as near approaching to those Angels whom we converse with and see not Neither shall it be enough for us to know an Invisible world as to consider that all we see is the least part of what we see not unlesse we bee so affected to the unseen world as we ought It is our knowledg that must shew us how to be Christians but it is our affection that must make us so In the acknowledgment therefore of an Invisible glory and infinitenesse our hearts must be ever taken up with a continuall awe and reverence If some great Prince shall vouchsafe to let me be seen of him although he please to keep himself unseen of me and shall only according to the state of some great Eastern Monarchs speak to me behind a Vail or Traverse or as the great Prete of the South had wont to grace Ambassadours shew me only some part of his leg so as that I may understand him to be present I should thinke it concerned me to carry my self in no lesse seemly fashion towards him then if I saw his face for his sight of me cals for a due regard from me not my sight of him Since therefore we have so certain demonstrations of the undoubted presence of God and his holy Angels ever with us though not discernible by our bodily eyes with what fear and trembling with what reverence and devotion should wee alwayes stand or walk before them making it our main care to be approved of them to whom we lye no
lesse open then they are hid to us As for the glorified Saints of God who are gone before us to our home with what spirituall joy should we be ravished at the consideration of their blessed condition who now have attained to the end of their hopes glory and bliss without end ever seeing ever enjoying him at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore how should we blesse God for their blessedness and long for our own Lastly how should our joy be seasoned with a cautious fear when we cast our eyes upon those objects of dread and horrour the principalities and powers of darkness not so confined to their hell as to leave us untempted and increasing their sin and torment by our temptation How should our hearts bleed with sorrow and commiseration of those wretched souls which we see daily intangled in the snares of the Devill and captived by him at his will here on earth and frying under his everlasting torments in the pit of hell How should our hearts be pre-possessed with a most earnest and vigilant care to resist all the dangerous assaults of those wicked spirits and to prevent the perill of our own like-wofull destruction If we i shall make this use of our beeing in this visible world happy are we that ever we came into it more happy in our going out of it for having thus used it as if we used it not we shall so enjoy the other as those that shall ever enjoy it and in it all glory honour immortality Lo then O my soul the glorious world which thou art now aspiring unto yea whereinto thou art now entring There there fix thy self never to be removed Look down upon these inferiour things with an overly contempt forget what is past as if it had never been Bid a willing farewel to this visible world wherein as thy Creatour hath a just interest of glory for that the substance of it is the wondrous workmanship of his hands so Satan styled he Prince of it claimeth no small share in regard of its sinfull depravation Farewell then ye frivolous and windy honours whose management is ever wont to be in others hands not in our own which have ever been no lesse fickle then the breath ye have depended upon whose chief use hath been for temptation to puffe up the heart with a proud conceit of eminence above others not requiting in the mean while the danger with any solid contentment Farewell ye deceitfull Riches which when we have we cannot hold and even while we hold we cannot enjoy and if we offer and affect to enjoy is it not with our spirituall losse for what love we yeeld to cast away upon you we abate to him that is the true and all-sufficient good More then for necessary use we are never the better for you often times the worse your load is more uneasie then your worth is precious Farewell pleasures if I ever knew what ye were which have alwayes wont to afford more sting then honey whose onely scope hath professedly been under a pretence of delectation to debauch and emasculate the mind and to dis-relish all spirituall comforts where your expectation hath been somewhat delightfull your fruition hath been unsatisfiingâ— your loose displeasing your remembrance irksome Farewell friends some of whose unsteadinesse and unfaithfulnesse hath helpt to adde to my load which the fidelity of others had not power to ease whose love might be apt to condole my shipwrack but could not spare me a plank to swim to the shore Shortly whose common misery may be more ready to receive then give comfort The honour that I now reach at is no lesse then a crown and that no fading and corruptible as all these earthly Diadems are but immarcescibly eternall a crown of righteousnesse a crown of glory The riches that I am now for are not such as are digged out of the base entrails of the earth obnoxious to spoil and plunder but treasures laid up in heaven The pleasures that I now affect are the fulnesse of joy at the right hand of the Almighty for eve more The friends that I ambitiously sue for are those that shall receive me into everlasting habitation Lastly farewell vanishing life and welcome blessed eaernity Even so Lord Jesu come quickly FINIS THE CONTENTS THE FIRST BOOK Of God and his Angels THe Preface 1. That there is an Invisible world 2. The distribution of the Invisible world 3. Of the Angels of heaven Their Numbers 4. The power of Angels 5. The knowledg of Angels 6. The Imployment and operations of Angels 7. The Degrees and Orders of Angels 8. The Apparitions of Angels 9. The respects which we owe to the Angels The Second Book Of the souls of blessed men 1 Of their Separation and Immortality 2. Of the present vision of God upon the egression of the soul 3. Of the perpetuall vigilance of the soul and its fruition of God 4. Of the knowledge of the glorified 5. Of the glory of heaven enjoyed by blessed souls 6. Wherein the glory of the Saints above consisteth and how they are imployed 7. In what terms the departed Saints stand to us and what respects they bear us 8. The re-union of the body to the soul and both glorified The third Book Of the Devils and damned Souls 1. Of the evill Angels Of their first sin and fall 2. Of the number of Apostate Spirits 3. Of the power of Devils 4. Of the knowledge and malice of wicked Spirits 5. Of the variety of the spirituall assaults of evill Spirits 6. Of the apparitions and shapes assumed of the evill Spirits 7. The vehemence of Satans last conflicts 8. Of our carriage towards wicked Spirits 9. How we are to proceed against evill Spirits 10. Of the wofull estate of the damned souls 11 A recapitulation of the whole discourse 12. The comparison of both worlds And how our thoughts and affections should be taken up with the Invisible world FINIS COURTEOUS READER These Books following are Printed for John Place and are to be sold at his Shop at Furnivalls-Inn Gate in Holborn Books in Folio 1. THe History of the World by Sir VValter Raleigh Knight 2. Things new and old or a Store-house of Similies Sentence Allegories Addages Apologies Divine Morall and Politicall by John Spencer of Sion Colledge 3. Observations on Caesars Commentaries by Sir Clement Edmunds Kt. 4. Shepparts Epitomy of the Law 5. The Reports of the learned Judge Popham sometime Lord chief Justice of England 6. The Reports of the learned Judge Owen chief Justice of the Common Pleas 7. Londinopolis or a History of the Cities of London and Westminster by James Howell 8. The History of Swedes Gothes and Vandals by Olaus Magnus Bishop of Vpsall 9. The Reports of the learned Serjeant Bridgman 10. Cowells Interpreter of hard words in the Law c. 11. Maximes of Reason or the Reason of the Common Law by Edward VVingat Esq late one of the Benchers of Grays-Inn 12. The