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
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
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
see as to enjoy them and so enjoy them as that he shall never intermit their sight and fruition to all eternity SECT. IV. Of the knowledge of the glorified AS concerning all other matters what the knowledge is of our souls separated and glorified we shall then know when ours come to be such in the mean time we can much less know their thougths then they can know ours sure we are they do not know in such manner as they did when they were in our bosomes by the help of senses and phantasms by the discursive inferences of ratiocination but as they are elevated to a condition suitable to the blessed Angels so they know like them though not by the meanes of a naturall knowledge as they yet by that supernaturall light of intimation which they receive by their glorified estate Whether by vertue of this divine illumination they know the particular occurrences which we meet with here below he were bold that would determine Only this we may confidently affirme that they do clearly know al those things which do any way appertain to their estate of blessednesse Amongst which whether the knowledge of each other in that region of happinesse may justly be ranked is not unworthy of our disquisition Doubtlesse as in God there is all perfection eminently and transcendently so in the sight and fruition of God there cannot be but full and absolute felicity yet this is so farre from excluding the knowledge of those things which derive their goodnesse and excellency from him as that it compriseth and supposeth it Like as it is also in our affections we love God only as the chief good yet so as that we love other things in order to God Charity is no more subject to losse then knowledge both these shall accompany our souls to and in that other world As then we shall perfectly love God and his Saints in him so shall we know both and though it be a sufficient motive of our love in heaven thâ—t we know them to be Saints yet it seems to be no small addition to our happinesse to know that those Saints were once ours And if it be a just joy to a parent here on earth to see his child gracious how much more acession shall it be to his joy above to see the fruits of his loines glorious when both his love is more pure and their improvement absolute Can we make any doubt that the blessed Angels know each other how senselesse were it to grant that no knowledge is hid from them but of themselves Or can we imagine that those Angelicall spirits do not take speciall notice of those souls which they have guarded here and conducted to their glory If they do so and if the knowledge of our beatified souls shall be like to theirs why should we abridg our selves more then them of the comfort of our interknowing Surely our dissolution shall abate nothing of our naturall faculties our glory shal advance them so as what we once knew we shall know better and if our souls can then perfectly know themselves why should they be denied the knowledge of others Doubt not then O my soul but thou shalt once see besides the face of thy God whose glory fils heaven and earth the blessed spirits of the ancient Patriarchs and Prophets the holy Apostles and Evangelists the glorious Martyrs and Confessors those eminent Saints whose holiness thou wert wont to magnifie and amongst them those in whom nature and grace have especially interessed thee thou shalt see them and enjoy their joy and they thine How oft have I measured a long and foul journey to see some good friend and digested the tediousnesse of the way with the expectation of a kind entertainment and the thought of that complacency which I should take in so dear presence and yet perhaps when I have arrived I have found the house disordered one sick another disquieted my selfe indisposed with what cheerfull resolution should I undertake this my last voyage where I shal meet with my best friends and find them perfectly happy and my selfe with them SECT. V. Of the glory of heaven injoyed by blessed Souls HOw often have I begged of my God that it would please him to shew me some little glimpse of the glory of his Saints It is not for me to wish the sight as yet of the face of that divine Majesty This was two much for a Moses to sue for my ambition only is that I might if but as it were through some cranie or key-hole of the gate of heaven see the happy condition of his glorious servants I know what hinders me my miserable unworthinesse my spiritual blindnesse O God if thou please to wash off my clay with the waters of thy Siloam I shall have eyes and if thou anoint them with thy precious eye-salve those eyes shall be clear and enabled to behold those glories which shall ravish my soul And now Lord what pure and resplendent light is this wherein thy blessed ones dwel How justly did thine Ecstatical Apostle call it the inheritance of the Saints in light light unexpressible light unconceivable light inaccessible Lo thou that hast prepared such a light to this inferiour world for the use and comfort of us mortall creatures as the glorious Sun which can both inlighten and dazle the eyes of all beholders hast proportionally ordained a light to that higher world so much more excellent then the Sun as heaven is above earth immortality above corruption And if wise Solomon could say truly the light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to see the Sun how infinitely delectable is it in thy light to see such light as may make the Sun in comparison thereof darknesse In thy presence is the fulness of joy and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore What can be wished more where there is fulness of joy and behold thy presence O Lord yeelds it Could I neither see Saint nor Angell in that whole Empyreall heaven none but thine infinite self thy self alone were happiness for me more then enough But as thou in whom here below we live and move and have our beeing detractest nothing from thine all-sufficiency but addest rather to the praise of thy bounty in that thou furnishest us with variety of means of our life and subsistence so here it is the praise of thy wonderfull mercies which thou allowest us besides thine immediate presence the Society of thy blessed Angels and Saints wherein we may also enjoy thee And if the view of any of those single glories be enough to fil my soul with wonder and contentment how must it needs run over at the sight of those worlds of beauty and excellency which are here met and united Lo here the blessed Hâ—erarchy of innumerable Angels there the glorious company of the Apostles here the goodly fellowship of the Patriarchs and Prophets there the noble Army of Mâ—rtyrs here the troops of laborious Pastors
The INVISIBLE WORLD Discovered to Spirituall Eyes and reduced to usefull Meditation IN THREE BOOKS Also the Great MYSTERY of GODLINESS Laid forth by way of affectuous and feeling MEDITATION With the Apostolicall Institution of imposition of Hands for Confirmation of Children setting forth the Divine Ground End and Use of that too much neglected Institution and now published as an excellent Expedient to Truth and Peace By JOS. HALL D.D.B. Norwich London Printed by E. Cotes for John Place at Furnivals Inne-gate 1659 To all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity Grace and Peace Dear Brethren IF I have in a sort taken my leave of the world already yet not of you whom God hath chosen out of the world and endeared to me by a closer interest so as ye may justly expect from me a more speciall valediction which I do now in all Christian affection tender unto you And as dear friends upon a long parting are wont to leave behind them some tokens of remembrance where they most affect so have I thought good before my setting forth on my last journey to recomend unto you these my two finall Meditations then which I suppose nothing could be more proper for me to give or more likely to merit your acceptation For if we were half way in heaven already what can be a more seasonable imployment of our thoughts then the great Mysterie of Godlinesse which the Angels desire to look into And now when our bâ—dily eyes are glutted with the view of the things that are seen a prospect which can afford us nothing but vanity and vexation what can be more meet then to feed our spirituall eyes with the light of Invisible glories Make your use of them both to the edifying of your selves in your most holy faith and aspire with me towards that happiness which is laid up above for all those that love the appearance of our Lord Jesus Withall as the last words of friends are wont to bear the greatest weight and to make the deepest impression so let these lines of holy advise wherewith after many well-meant discourses I shall close up the mouth of the Presse find the like respect from you Oh that I might in the first place effectually recommend to you the full recovery of that precious Legacy of our blessed Saviour Peace peace with God Peace with men next to Grace the best of all blessings Yet wo is me too too long banished from the Christian world with such animosity as if it were the worst of enemies and meet to be adjudged to a perpetuall mitrnatition Oh for a fountain of tears to bewaile the stain of Gods people in all the coasts of the Earth How is Christendome become an universall Aceldama How is the earth every where drenched with humane bloud poured out not by the hands of cruell Infidels but of brethren Men need not go so farre as Euphrates for the execution of Turks and Pagans Christians can make up an Armageddon with their own mutuall slaughter Enough my dear brethren enough yea more then too much hath been the effusion of that bloud for which our Saviour hath shed his Let us now at the last dry up these deadly issues which we have made and with soveraigne balms bind up the wounds we have given Let us now be not more sparing of our tears to wash off the memory of these our unbrotherly dimications and to ppease the anger of that God whose offended justice hath raised war out of our own bowels As our enmity so our peace begins at heaven Had we not provoked our long-suffering God we had not thus bled and we cannot but know and beleeve him that said When a mans wayes please the Lord he maketh his enemies to be at peace with him Oh that we could throughly reconcile our selves to that great and holy God whom we have irritated by our crying sins how soon would he who is the commander of all hearts make up our breaches and calme and compose our spirits to an happy peace and concord In the next place give me leave earnestly to exhort you that as we have been heretofore palpably faulty in abusing the mercies of our God for which we have soundly smarted so that now we should be so much the more carefull to improve the judgments of God to our effectuall reformation we have felt the heavie hand of the Almighty upon us to purpose Oh that our amendment could be no lesse sensible then our sufferings But alas my brethren are our wayes any whit holyer our obedience more exact our sins less and fewer then before we were thus heavily afflicted may not our God too justly take up that complaint which he made once by his Prophet Jeremiah Ye have transgressed against me saith the Lord In vain have I smitten your children they received no correction Far be it from us that after so many sad and solemne mournings of our Land any accuser should be able to charge us as the Prophet Hosea did his Israel By swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adulterie they break out and blood toucheth bloud Wo be to us if after so many veins opened the blood remaining should not be the purer Let me have leave in the third place to excite you to the practise of Christian charity in the mutuall constructions of each others persons and actions which I must tell you we have heedlesly violated in the heat of our holy intentions whiles those which have varied from us in matter of opinion concerning some appendances of Religion and outward forms of administration we have been apt to look upon with such disregard as if they had herein forfeit 〈◊〉 their Christian profession and were utter aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel though in the mean time sound at the heart and endeavouring to walk close with God in all their wayes whereas the father of all mercies allows a gracious latitude to his children in all not-forbidden paths and in every nation and condition of men he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him Beware we my dear brethren lest whiles we follow the chase of Zeal we out-run charity without which piety it self would be but unwelcome As for matter of opinion in the differences of Religion wherewith the whole known world not of Christians only but of men is wofully distracted to the great prejudice of millions of souls let this be our sure rule Whosoever he be that holds the faith which was once delivered to the Saints agreeing therefore with us in all fundamentall Truths let him be received as a brothâ—r For thâ—re is but one Lord one Faith one Baptism And other foundation can no man lay then that which is laid which is Jesus Christ Let those which will be a devising a new Creed look for a new Saviour and hope for another heaven for us we know whom we have beleeved If any man be faulty in the doctrines
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
to which our faith obliges us not In these cases we go not by eye-sight but we are well assured the soul of Lazarus was by these glorious spirits carried up into the bosome of Abraham neither was this any priviledge of his above all other the Saints of God all which as they land in one common harbour of blessednesse so they all participate of one happy means of portage SECT. IX The respects which we owe to the Angels SUch are the respects of good Angels to us now what is ours to them It was not amisse said of one that the life of Angels is politicall full of intercourse with themselves and with us What they return to each other in the course of their Theophanies is not for us to determine but since their good offices are thus assiduous unto us it is meet we do inquire what duties are requirable from us to them Devout Bernard is but too liberall in his decision that we owe to these beneficient spirits reverence for their presence devotion for their love and trust for their custody Doubtlesse we ought to be willing to give unto them so much as they will be willing to take from us if we go beyond these bounds we offend and alienate them to derogate from them is not so hainous in their account as to overhoâ—our them S. John proffers an humble geniculation to the Angell and is put off with a See thou do it not I am thy fellow servant The excesses of respects to them have turned to abominable impiety which howsoever Hierome sems to impute to the Jews eveâ— since the Prophets time yet Simon Magus was the first that we finde guilty of this impious flattery of the Angels who fondly holding that the world was made by them could not â—hink fit to present them with lesse then divine honour Hâ— cursed cholar Menander whose errour Prateolus wrongfully fathers upon Aristotle succeeding him in that wicked heresie as Eusebius tels us left behind him Saturnius not inferiour to him in this frenzie who as Tertullian and Philastrius report him fancied together with his mad fellows that seven Angels made the world not acquainting God with their work What should I name blasphemous Cerinthus who durst disparage Christ in comparison with Angels Not altogether so bad were those hereticks though bad enough which took their ancient denomination from the Angels who professing true Christianity and detestation of Idolatry as having learned that God only is to be worshipped properly yet reserved a certain kind of adoration to the blessed Angels Against this opinion and practice the great Doctour of the Gentiles seems to bend his style in his Epistle to the Colossians forbidding a voluntary humility in worshipping of Angels whether grounded upon the superstition of ancient Jews as Hierom and Anselm or upon the Ethnick Philosophie of some Platonick as Estius and Cornelâ—us à Lapide imagine or upon the damnable conceits of the Simonians and Cerinthians as Tertullian we need not much to inquire nothing is more clear then the Apostles inhibition afterward seconded by the Synod of Laodicea whereto yet Theodorets noted Commentary would seem to give more light who tels us that upon the ill use made of the giving of the â—aw by the hands of Angels there was an errour of old maintained of Angel-worship which still continued in Phrygia and Pisidia so that a Sinod was hereupon assembled at Laodicea the chief City of Phrygia which by a direct Canon forbad praying to Angels a practice saith he so setled amongst them that even to this day there are to be seen amongst them and their neighbours the Oratories of S. Miâ—hael Here then was this mishumility that they thought it too much boldnesse to come â—mmediately to God but that we must first make way to his favour by the mediation of Angels a testimony so pregnant that I wonder not if Caranza flee into corners and all the fautors of Angel-worship be driven to hard shifts to avoid it But what do I with controversies This devotion we do gladly professe to owe to good Angels that though we do not pray unto them yet we do pray to God for the favour of their assistance and protection and praise God for the protection that we have from them That faithfull Patriarch of whom the whole Church of God receives denomination knew well what he said when he gave this blessing to his Grand-children The Angell that redeemed me from all evill blesse the children whether this were an interpretative kind of imploration as Becanus and Lorichius contend or whether as is no lesse probable this Angel were not any created power but the great Angell of the Covenant the same which Jacob wrestled with before for a blessing upon himself as Athanasius and Cyril well conceive it I will not here dispute sure I am that if it were an implicit prayer and the Angell mentioned a creature yet the intention was no other then to terminate that prayer in God who blesseth us by his Angel Yet further we come short of our dutie to these blessed Spirits if we entertain not in our hearts an high and venerable conceit of their wonderfull majesty glory and greatnesse and an awfull acknowledgment and reverentiall awe of their presence an holy joy and confident assurance of their care and protection and lastly a fear to doe ought that might cause them to turn away their faces in dislike from us All these dispositions are copulative for certainly if we have conceived so high an opinion of their excellency and goodnesse as we ought we cannot but be bold upon their mutuall interest and be afraid to displease them Nothing in the world but our sins can distaste them They look upon our natural infirmities deformities loathsomnesses without any offence or nauseation but our spirituall indispositions are odious to them as those which are opposite to their pure natures The story is famous of the Angell and the Hermite walking together in the way there lay an il-sented and poisonous carrion the Hermite stopt his nose and turned away his head hasting out of that offensive air the Angell held on his pace without any shew of dislik straightway they met with a proud man gaily dressed strongly perfumed looking high walking stately the Angell turned away his head and stopt his nosthrils whiles the Hermite passed on not without reverence to so great a person and gave this reason that the stench of pride was more loathsome to God and his Angels then that of the carcass could be to him I blush to think O ye glorious spirits how often I have done that whereof ye have been ashamed for me I abhor my self to recount your just dislikes and do willingly professe how unworthy I shall be of such friends if I be not hereafter jealous of your just offence Neither can I without much regret thinke of those many and horrible nuisances which you find every moment
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
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
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