the full measure and complement of happiness where the boundless appetite of that spirit remains compleatly satisfied that it can neither desire addition nor alteration that I think is truly Heaven and this can onely be in the injoyment of that essence whose infinite goodness is able to terminate the desires of it self and the unsatiable wishes of ours wherever God will thus manifest himself there is Heaven though within the circle of this sensible world Thus the Soul of man may be in Heaven any where even within the limits of his own proper body and when it ceaseth to live in the body it may remain in its own soul that is its Creator And thus we may say that St. Paul whether in the body or out of the body was yet in Heaven To place it in the Empyreal or beyond the tenth sphear is to forget the worlds destruction for when this sensible world shall be destroyed all shall then be here as it is now there an Empyreal Heaven a quasi vacuity when to ask where Heaven is is to demand where the Presence of God is or where we have the glory of that happy vision Moses that was bred up in all the learning of the Egyptians committed a gross absurdity in Philosophy when with these eyes of flesh he desired to see God and petitioned his Maker that is truth it self to a contradiction Those that imagine Heaven and Hell neighbours and conceive a vicinity between those two extreams upon consequence of the Parable where Dives discoursed with Lazarus in Abraham's bosome do too grosly conceive of those glorified creatures whose eyes shall easily out-see the Sun and behold without a perspective the extreamest distances for if there shall be in our glorified eyes the faculty of sight and reception of objects I could think the visible species there to be in as unlimitable a way as now the intellectual I grant that two bodies placed beyond the tenth sphear of in a vacuity according to Aristotle's Philosophy could not behold each other because there wants a body or Medium to hand and transport the visible rays of the object unto the sense but when there shall be a general defect of either Medium to convey or light to prepare and dispose that Medium and yet a perfect vision we must suspend the rules of our Philosophy and make all good by a more absolute piece of opticks I cannot tell how to say that fire is the essence of Hell I know not what to make of Purgatory * or conceive a flame that can either prey upon or purifie the substance of a Soul those flames of sulphur mention'd in the Scriptures I take not to be understood of this present Hell but of that to come where fire shall make up the complement of our tortures and have a body or subject wherein to manifest its tyranny Some who have had the honour to be textuary in Divinity are of opinion it shall be the same specifical fire with ours This is hard to conceive yet can I make good how even that may prey upon our bodies and yet not consume us for in this material World there are bodies that persist invincible in the powerfullest flames and though by the action of fire they fall into ignition and liquation yet will they never suffer a destruction I would gladly know how Moses with an actual fire calcin'd or burnt the Golden Calf unto powder for that mystical metal of Gold whose solary and celestial nature I admire exposed unto the violence of fire grows onely hot and liquifies but consumaeth not so when the consumble and volatile pieces of our bodies shall be refined into a more impregnable and fixed temper like Gold though they suffer from the actions of flames they shall never perish but lye immortal in the arms of fire And surely if this frame must suffer onely by the action of this element there will many bodies escape and not onely Heaven but Earth will not be at an end but rather a beginning For at present it is not earth but a composition of fire water earth and air but at that time spoiled of these ingredients it shall appear in a substance more like it self its ashes Philosophers that opinioned the worlds destruction by fire did never dream of annihilation which is beyond the power of sublunary causes for the last action of that element is but vitrification or a reduction of a body into glass and therefore some of our Chymicks facetiously affirm that at the last fire all shall be christallized and reverberated into glass which is the utmost action of that element Nor need we fear this term annihilation or wonder that God will destroy the works of his Creation for man subsisting who is and will then truely appear a Microcosm the world cannot be said to be destroyed For the eyes of God and perhaps also of our glorified selves shall as really behold and contemplate the World in its Epitome or contracted essence as now it doth at large and in its dilated substance in the seed of a Plant to the eyes of God and to the understanding of man there exists though in an invisible way the perfect leaves flowers and fruit thereof for things that are in posse to the sense are actually existent to the understanding Thus God beholds all things who contemplates as fully his works in their Epitome as in their full volume and beheld as amply the whole world in that little compendium of the sixth day as in the scattered and dilated pieces of those five before Sect. 51 Men commonly set forth the torments of Hell by fire and the extremity of corporal afflictions and describe Hell in the same method that Mahomet doth Heaven This indeed makes a noise and drums in popular ears but if this be the terrible piece thereof it is not worthy to stand in diameter with Heaven whose happiness consists in that part that is best able to comprehend it that immortal essence that translated divinity and colony of God the Soul Surely though we place Hell under Earth the Devil's walk and purlue is about it men speak too popularly who place it in those flaming mountains which to grosser apprehensions represent Hell The heart of man is the place the Devils dwell in I feel sometimes a Hell within my self Lucifer keeps his Court in my breast Legion is revived in me * There are as many Hells as Anaxagoras conceited worlds there was more than one Hell in Magdalene when there were seven Devils for every Devil is an Hell unto himself he holds enough of torture in his own ubi and needs not the misery of circumference to afflict him And thus a distracted Conscience here is a shadow or introduction unto Hell hereafter Who can but pity the merciful intention of those hands that do destroy themselves the Devil were it in his power would do the like which being impossible his miseries are endless and he suffers most in that attribute wherein
essential points of happiness wherein we resemble our Maker To wiser desires it is satisfaction enough to deserve though not to enjoy the favours of Fortune let Providence provide for Fools 't is not partiality but equity in God who deals with us but as our natural Parents those that are able of Body and Mind he leaves to their deserts to those of weaker merits he imparts a larger portion and pieces out the defect of one by the access of the other Thus have we no just quarrel with Nature for leaving us naked or to envy the Horns Hoofs Skins and Furs of other Creatures being provided with Reason that can supply them all We need not labour with so many Arguments to confute Judicial Astrology for if there be a truth therein it doth not injure Divinity if to be born under Mercury disposeth us to be witty under Jupiter to be wealthy I do not owe a Knee unto these but unto that merciful Hand that hath ordered my indifferent and uncertain nativity unto such benevolous Aspects Those that hold that all things are governed by Fortune had not erred had they not persisted there The Romans that erected a Temple to Fortune acknowledged therein though in a blinder way somewhat of Divinity for in a wise supputation all things begin and end in the Almighty There is a nearer way to Heaven than Homer's Chain an easie Logick may conjoyn Heaven and Earth in one Argument and with less than a Sorites resolve all things into God Far though we christen effects by their most sensible and nearest Causes yet is God the true and infallible Cause of all whose concourse though it be general yet doth it subdivide it self into the particular Actions of every thing and is that Spirit by which each singular Essence not only subsists but performs its operation Sect. 19 The bad construction and perverse comment on these pair of second Causes or visible hands of God have perverted the Devotion of many unto Atheism who forgetting the honest Advisoes of Faith have listened unto the conspiracy of Passion and Reason I have therefore always endeavoured to compose those Feuds and angry Dissentions between Affection Faith and Reason For there is in our Soul a kind of Triumvirate or triple Government of three Competitors which distract the Peace of this our Common-wealth not less than did that other the State of Rome As Reason is a Rebel unto Faith so Passion unto Reason As the Propositions of Faith seem absurd unto Reason so the Theorems of Reason unto Passion and both unto Reason yet a moderate and peaceable discretion may so state and order the matter that they may be all Kings and yet make but one Monarchy every one exercising his Soveraignty and Prerogative in a due time and place according to the restraint and limit of circumstance There is as in Philosophy so in Divinity sturdy doubts and boisterous Objections wherewith the unhappiness of our knowledge too nearly acquainteth us More of these no man hath known than my self which I confess I conquered not in a martial posture but on my Knees For our endeavours are not only to combat with doubts but always to dispute with the Devil the villany of that Spirit takes a hint of Infidelity from our Studies and by demonstrating a naturality in one way makes us mistrust a miracle in another Thus having perused the Archidoxes and read the secret Sympathies of things he would disswade my belief from the miracle of the Brazen Serpent make me conceit that Image worked by Sympathy and was but an Aegyptian trick to cure their Diseases without a miracle Again having seen some experiments of Bitumen and having read far more of Naphtha he whispered to my curiosity the fire of the Altar might be natural and bid me mistrust a miracle in Elias when he entrenched the Altar round with Water for that inflamable substance yields not easily unto Water but flames in the Arms of its Antagonist And thus would he inveagle my belief to think the combustion of Sodom might be natural and that there was an Asphaltick and Bituminous nature in that Lake before the Fire of Gomorrah I know that Manna is now plentifully gathered in Calabria and Josephus tells me in his days it was as plentiful in Arabia the Devil therefore made the quaere Where was then the miracle in the days of Moses the Israelite saw but that in his time the Natives of those Countries behold in ours Thus the Devil played at Chess with me and yielding a Pawn thought to gain a Queen of me taking advantage of my honest endeavours and whilst I laboured to raise the structure of my Reason he strived to undermine the edifice of my Faith Sect. 20 Neither had these or any other ever such advantage of me as to incline me to any point of Infidelity or desperate positions of Atheism for I have been these many years of opinion there was never any Those that held Religion was the difference of Man from Beasts have spoken probably and proceed upon a principle as inductive as the other That doctrine of Epicurus that denied the Providence of God was no Atheism but a magnificent and high strained conceit of his Majesty which he deemed too sublime to mind the trivial Actions of those inferiour Creatures That fatal necessity of the Stoicks is nothing but the immutable Law of his will Those that heretofore denied the Divinity of the Holy Ghost have been condemned but as Hereticks and those that now deny our Saviour though more than Hereticks are not so much as Atheists for though they deny two persons in the Trinity they hold as we do there is but one God That Villain and Secretary of Hell that composed that miscreant piece of the three Impostors though divided from all Religions and was neither Jew Turk nor Christian was not a positive Atheist I confess every Country hath its Machiavel every Age its Lciuan whereof common Heads must not hear nor more advanced Judgments too rashly venture on It is the Rhetorick of Satan and may pervert a loose or prejudicate belief Sect. 22 I confess I have perused them all and can discover nothing that may startle a discreet belief yet are their heads carried off with the Wind and breath of such motives I remember a Doctor in Physick of Italy who could perfectly believe the immortality of the Soul because Galen seemed to make a doubt thereof With another I was familiarly acquainted in France a Divine and a man of singular parts that on the same point was so plunged and gravelled with three lines of Seneca that all our Antidotes drawn from both Scripture and Philosophy could not expel the poyson of his errour There are a set of Heads that can credit the relations of Mariners yet question the Testimonies of St. Paul and peremptorily maintain the traditions of Aelian or Pliny yet in Histories of Scripture raise Queries and Objections believing no more than they can
I chuse for my devotions but * our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings that they forget the story and can only relate to our awaked souls a confused and broken tale of that that hath passed Aristotle who hath written a singular Tract of Sleep hath not methinks throughly defined it nor yet Galen though he seem to have corrected it for those Noctambuloes and night-walkers though in their sleep do yet injoy the action of their senses we must therefore say that there is something in us that is not in the jurisdiction of Morpheus and that those abstracted and ecstatick souls do walk about in their own corps as spirits with the bodies they assume wherein they seem to hear and feel though indeed the Organs are destitute of sense and their natures of those faculties that should inform them Thus it is observed that men sometimes upon the hour of their departure do speak and reason above themselves For then the soul beginning to be freed from the ligaments of the body begins to reason like her self and to discourse in a strain above mortality Sect. 12 We tearm sleep a death and yet it is waking that kills us and destroys those spirits that are the house of life 'T is indeed a part of life that best expresseth death for every man truely lives so long as he acts his nature or some way makes good the faculties of himself Themistocles therefore that slew his Soldier in his sleep was a merciful Executioner 't is a kind of punishment the mildness of no laws hath invented * I wonder the fancy of Lucan and Seneca did not discover it It is that death by which we may be literally said to dye daily a death which Adam dyed before his mortality a death whereby we live a middle and moderating point between life and death in fine so like death I dare not trust it without my prayers and an half adieu unto the World and take my farewel in a Colloquy with God The night is come like to the day Depart not thou great God away Let not my sins black as the night Eclipse the lustre of thy light Keep still in my Horizon for to me The Sun makes not the day but thee Thou whose nature cannot sleep On my temples centry keep Guard me ' gainst those watchful foes Whose eyes are open while mine close Let no dreams my head infest But such as Jacob''s temples blest While I do rest my Soul advance Make my sleep a holy trance That I may my rest being wrought Awake into some holy thought And with as active vigour run My course as doth the nimble Sun Sleep is a death O make me try By sleeping what it is to die And as gently lay my head On my grave as now my bed Howere I rest great God let me Awake again at least with thee And thus assur'd behold I lie Securely or to awake or die These are my drowsie days in vain I do now wake to sleep again O come that hour when I shall never Sleep again but wake for ever This is the Dormative I take to bedward I need no other Laudanum than this to make me sleep after which I close mine eyes in security content to take my leave of the Sun and sleep unto the resurrection Sect. 13 The method I should use in distributive Justice I often observe in commutative and keep a Geometrical proportion in both whereby becoming equable to others I become unjust to my self and supererogate in that common principle Do unto others as then wouldst he done unto thy self I was not born unto riches neither is it I think my Star to be wealthy or if it were the freedom of my mind and frankness of my disposition were able to contradict and cross my fates For to me avarice seems not so much a vice as a deplorable piece of madness * to conceive our selves Urinals or be perswaded that we are dead is not so ridiculous nor so many degrees beyond the power of Hellebore as this The opinion of Theory and positions of men are not so void of reason as their practised conclusions some have held that Snow is black that the earth moves that the Soul is air fire water but all this is Philosophy and there is no delirium if we do but speculate the folly and indisputable dotage of avarice to that subterraneous Idol and God of the Earth I do confess I am an Atheist I cannot perswade my self to honour that the World adores whatsoever vertue its prepared substance may have within my body it hath no influence nor operation without I would not entertain a base design or an action that should call me villain for the Indies and for this only do I love and honour my own soul and have methinks two arms too few to embrace my self Aristotle is too severe that will not allow us to be truely liberal without wealth and the bountiful hand of Fortune if this be true I must confess I am charitable only in my liberal intentions and bountiful well-wishes But if the example of the Mite be not only an act of wonder but an example of the noblest Charity surely poor men may also build Hospitals and the rich alone have not erected Cathedrals I have a private method which others observe not I take the opportunity of my self to do good I borrow occasion of Charity from mine own necessities and supply the wants of others when I am in most need my self for it is an honest stratagem to make advantage of our selves and so to husband the acts of vertue that where they were defective in one circumstance they may repay their want and multiply their goodness in another I have not Peru in my desires but a competence and ability to perform those good works to which he hath inclined my nature He is rich who hath enough to be charitable and it is hard to be so poor that a noble mind may not find a way to this piece of goodness He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord there is more Rhetorick in that one sentence than in a Library of Sermons and indeed if those Sentences were understood by the Reader with the same Emphasis as they are delivered by the Author we needed not those Volumes of instructions but might be honest by an Epitome Upon this motive only I cannot behold a Beggar without relieving his Necessities with my Purse or his Soul with my Prayers these scenical and accidental differences between us cannot make me forget that common and untoucht part of us both there is under these Cantoes and miserable outsides these mutilate and semi bodies a soul of the same alloy with our own whose Genealogy is Gods as well as ours and is as fair a way to Salvation as our selves Statists that labour to contrive a Common-wealth without our poverty take away the object of charity not understanding only the Common wealth of Christian but
sunt inter Haereticos deputandi Aug. cont Manich. 24. qu. 3. Sect. 9 Pag. 16 The deepest mysteries that ours contains have not only been illustrated but maintained by Syllogism and the Rule of Reason and since this Book was written by Mr. White in his Institutiones Sacrae And when they have seen the Red Sea doubt not of the Miracle Those that have seen it have been better informed than Sir Henry Blount was for he tells us That he desired to view the passage of Moses into the Red Sea not being above three days journey off but the Jews told him the precise place was not known within less than the space of a days journey along the shore wherefore saith he I left that as too uncertain for any Observation In his Voyage into the Levant Sect. 10 Pag. 19 I had as lieve you tell me that Anima est Angelus hominis est corpus Dei as Entelechia Lux est umbra Dei as actus perspoicui Great variety of opinion there hath been amongst the Ancient Philosophers touching the definition of the Soul Thales his was that it is a Nature without Repose Asclepiades that it is an Exercitation of Sense Hesiod that it is a thing composed of Earth and Water Parmenides holds of Earth and Fire Galen that it is Heat Hippocrates that it is a spirit diffused through the body Some others have held it to be Light Plato saith 't is a Substance moving it self and after him cometh Aristotle whom the Author here reproveth and goeth a degree farther and saith it is Entelechia that is that which naturally makes the body to move But this definition is as rigid as any of the other for this tells us not what the essence origine or nature of the soul is hut only marks an effect of it and therefore signifieth no more than if he had said as the Author's Phrase is that it is Angelus hominis or an Intelligence that moveth man as he supposed those other to do the Heavens Now to come to the definition of Light in which the Author is also unsatisfied with the School of Aristotle he saith It satisfieth him no more to tell him that Lux est actus perspicui than if you should tell him that it is umbra Dei The ground of this definition given by the Peripateticks is taken from a passage in Aristot de anima l. 2. cap. 7. where Aristtotle saith That the colour of the thing seen doth move that which is perspicuum actu i.e. illustratam naturam quae sit in aere aliove corpore transparente and that that in regard of its continuation to the eye moveth the eye and by its help the internal sensorium and that so vision is perform'd Now as it is true that the Sectators of Aristotle are too blame by fastening up on-him by occasion of this passage that he meant that those things that made this impress upon the Organs are meer accidents and have nothing of substance which is more than ever he meant and cannot be maintained without violence to Reason and his own Principles so for Aristotle himself no man is beholden to him for any Science acquir'd by this definition for what is any man the near for his telling him that Colour admitting it to be a body as indeed it is and in that place he doth not deny doth move actu perspicuum when as the perspicuity is in relation to the eye and he doth not say how it comes to be perspicuous which is the thing enquired after but gives it that denomination before the eye hath perform'd its office so that if he had said it had been umbra Dei it would have been as intelligible as what he hath said He that would be satisfied how Vision is perform'd let him see Mr. Hobbs in Tract de nat human cap. 2. For God had not caused it to rain upon the Earth St. Aug. de Genes ad literam cap. 5. 6. salves that expression from any inconvenience but the Author in Pseudodox Epidemic l. 7. cap. 1. shews that we have no reason to be confident that this fruit was an Apple I believe that the Serpent if we shall literally understand it from his proper form and figure made his motion on his belly before the curse Yet the Author himself sheweth in Pseudodox Epidemic lib. 7 cap 1. that the form or kind of this Serpent is not agreed on yet Comestor affirm'd it was a Dragon Eugubinus a Basilisk Delrio a Viper and others a common Snake but of what kind soever it was he sheweth in the same Volume lib. 5. c. 4. that there was no inconvenience that the Temptation should be perform'd in his proper shape I find the tryal of the Pucelage and virginity of Women which God ordained the Jews is very fallible Locus extat Deut. c. 22. the same is affirm'd by Laurentius in his Anatom Whole Nations have escaped the curse of Child-birth which God seems to pronounce upon the whole sex This is attested by Mr. Montaign Les doleurs de l'enfantiment par les medicines pardein mosme estimles grandes quae nous pasons avec tant de Cetemonies ily a des notions entieres qui ne'n fuit mul conte l. 1. des Ess c. 14. Sect. 11 Pag. 21 Who can speak of Eternity without a Soloecism or think thereof without an Extasie Time we may comprehend c. Touching the difference betwixt Eternity and Time there have been great disputes amongst Philosophers some affirming it to be no more than duration perpetual consisting of parts and others to which opinion it appears by what follows in this Section the Author adheres affirmed to use the Author's phrase that it hath no distinction of Tenses but is according to Boetius lib. 5. consol pros 6. his definition interminabilis vitae tota simul perfecta possessio For me Non nostrum est tantas componere lites I shall only observe what each of them hath to say against the other Say those of the first opinion against those that follow Boetius his definition That definition was taken by Boetius out of Plato's Timaeus and is otherwise applyed though hot by Boetius yet by those that follow him than ever Plato intended it for he did not take it in the Abstract but in the Concrete for an eternal thing a Divine substance by which he meant God or his Anima mundi and this he did to the intent to establish this truth That no mutation can befal the Divine Majesty as it doth to things subject to generation and corruption and that Plato there intended not to define or describe any species of duration and they say that it is impossible to understand any such species of duration that is according to the Author's expression but one permanent point Now that which those that follow Boetius urge against the other definition is they say it doth not at all difference Eternity from the nature of Time for they say if it be composed
ejus usu sine taedio aut fatigatione These and some others that are in the Alcoran he reckons up Sed Physica quoque mirando saith he nam facit Solem Lunam in equis vehi illum autem in aquam calidam vespere mergi bene lotuâ—â— ascendere atque oriri Stellas in aere è catenis aureis pendere terram in bovini cornu cuspide stabilitum agitente se bove ac succutiente fieri terrae motum hominem autem exhirudine aut sanguisuga nasci c. Just Lisp Monit exempl Politic. cap. 3. I believe besides Zoroaster there were divers others that wrote before Moses Zoroaster was long before Moses and of great name he was the Father of Ninus Justin l. 1. Si quamlibet modicum emolumentum probaveritis ego ille sim Carinondas vet Damigeron vel is Moses vel Jannes vel Appollonius vel ipse Dardanus vel quicunque alius post Zoroasterm Hostanem inter Magos celebratus est Apuleius in Apol. Others with as many groans deplore the combustion of the Library of Alexandria This was that Library before spoken of set up by Ptolomeus Philadelphus in which 't is reproted by Ammianus Marcellinus there were 700000 volumes it was burnt by Caesar's means whose Navy being environed before Alexandria he had no means to keep off the Enemy but by flinging of fire which at length caught the Library and consumed it as Plutarch has it in Vita Caesaris but notwithstanding we have no reason to believe it was quite consumed because Sueton. in Claudius tells us that that Emperor added another to it and there must be somewhat before if it were an addition but true it is too many of the Books perished to repair which loss care was taken by Domitian the Emperour as the same Sueton. and Aurel. Victor do relate I would not omit a copy of Enoch 's Pillars had they many nearer Authors than Josephus c. For this the Story is that Enoch or his father Seth having been inform'd by Adam that the World was to perish once by water and a second time by fire did cause two Pillars to be erected the one of Stone against the water and another of Brick against the fire and that upon those Pillars was engraven all such learning as had been delivered to or invented by mankind and that thence it came that all knowledge and learning was not lost by means of the Floud by reason that one of the Pillars though the other perished did remain after the Floud and Josephus witnesseth till his time lib. 1. Antiq. Judaic cap. 3. Of those three great inventions of Germany there are two which are not without their incommodities those two he means are Printing and Gunpowder which are commonly taken to be German Inventions but Artillery was in China above 1500 years since and Printing long before it was in Germany if we may believe Juan Concales Mendosa in his Hist of China lib. 3. cap. 15 16. The incommodities of these two inventions are well described by Sam. Daniel l. 6. of the Civil Wars Fierce Nemesis mother of fate and change Sword-bearer of th' eternal providence Turns her stern look at last into the West As griev'd to see on Earth such happy rest And for Pandora calleth presently Pandora Jove's fair gift that first deceived Poor Epimetheus in his imbecility That though he had a wondrous boon received By means whereof curious mortality Was of all former quiet quite bereaved To whom being come deckt with all qualities The wrathful goddess breaks out in this wise Dost thou not see in what secure estate Those flourishing fair Western parts remain As if they had made covenant with fate To be exempted free from others pain At one with their desires friends with dabate In peace with Pride content with their own gain Their bounds contain their mindes their mindes applied To have their bonds with plenty beautified Devotion Mother of Obedience Bears such a hand on their credulity That it abates the spirit of eminence And busies them with humble piety For see what works what infinite expence What Monuments of zeal they edifie As if they would so that no stop were found Fill all with Temples make all holy ground But we must cool this all-believing zeal That hath ' enjoy'd so fair a turn so long c. Dislike of this first by degrees shall steal As upon souls of men perswaded wrong And that the sacred power which thin hath wrought Shall give her self the sword to cut her throat Go therefore thou with all thy stirring train Of swelling Sciences the gifts of grief Go loose the links of that soul-binding chain Inlarge this uninquisitive Belief Call up mens spirits that simpleness retain Enter their hearts and knowledge make the Thief To open all the doors to let in light That all may all things see but what is right Opinion arm against opinion grown Makenew-born contradictions still arise As if Thebes Founder Cadmus tongues had sown In stead of teeth for greater mutinies Bring new defended faith against faith known Weary the soul with contrarieties Till all Religion become Retrograde And that fair tye the mask of sin be made And better to effect a speedy end Let there be found two fatal Instruments The one to publish th' other to defend Impious contention and proud discontents Make that instamped characters may send Abroad to thousands thousand mens intents And in a moment may dispatch much more Than could a world of pens perform before Whereby all quarrels titles secrecies May unto all be presently made known Factions prepar'd parties allur'd to rise Seditions under fair pretences sown Whereby the vulgar may become so wise That with a self-presumption overgrown They may of deepest mysteries debate Controul their betters censure acts of State And then when this dispersed mischief shall Have brought confusion in each mystery Call'd up contempts of State in general And ripen'd the humour of impiety Then take the other engine wherewithal They may torment their self-wrought misery And scourge each other in so strange a wise As time or tyrants never could devise c. See Bellermontan in his Dissertat politic dissert 29. and 30. For the other Invention the Latine Annotator doubts whether the Author means Church-Organs or Clocks I suppose he means Clocks because I find that Invention reckon'd by a German with the other two as a remarkable one It is by Busbequius speaking of the Turks who hath these words Testes majores minoresque bombardae multaque alia quae ex nostris excogitata ipsi ad se avertunt ut libros tamen typis excuderunt horologia in publice haberent nondum adduci potuerunt Epist Legat. Turcic I suppose if he had known any Invention which next to the other two had been greater than this he would not have named this and this being the next considerable we have no cause to doubt but the Author meant it To maintain the Trade
we must consider what it is that bringeth us to this excellent State to be happy in the other World of Eternity and Immutability It is agreed on all hands to be God's Grace and Favour to us But all do not agree by what steps his Grace produceth this effect Herein I shall not trouble your Lordship with a long Discourse how that Grace worketh in us which yet I will in a word touch anon that you may conceive what I understand Grace to be but will suppose it to have wrought its effect in us in this life and from thence examine what hinges they are that turn us over to Beatitude and Glory in the next Some consider God as a Judge that rewardeth or punisheth men according as they co-operated with or repugned to the Grace he gave That according as their actions please or displease him he is well affected towards them or angry with them and accordingly maketh them to the purpose and very home feel the effects of his kindness or indignation Others that fly a higher pitch and are so happy Vt rerum poterint cognoscere causas do conceive that Beatitude and misery in the other life are effects that necessarily and orderly flow out of the Nature of those Causes that begot them in this life without engaging God Almighty to give a sentence and act the part of a Judge according to the state of our Cause as it shall appear upon the Accusations and pleadings at his great Bar. Much of which manner of expression is Metaphorical and rather adapted to contain vulgar minds in their Duties that are awed with the thought of a severe Judge sifting every minute-action of theirs than such as we must conceive every circumstance to pass so in reality as the literal sound of the words seems to infer in ordinary construction and yet all that is true too in its genuine sence But my Lord these more penetrating men and that I conceive are vertuous upon higher and stronger Motives for they truely and solidly know why they are so do consider that what impressions are once made in the spiritual Substance of a Soul and what affections it hath once contracted do ever remain in it till a contrary and diametrically contradicting judgement and affection do obliterate it and expel it thence This is the reason why Contrition Sorrow and Hatred for Sins past is encharged us If then the Soul do go out of the Body with impressions and affections to the Objects and pleasures of this life it continually lingreth after them and as Virgil learnedly as well as wittily saith Quae gratia currum Armorumque fuit vivis quae cura nitentes Pascere equos eadem sequitur tellure repostos But that being a State wherein those Objects neither are nor can be enjoyed it must needs follow that such a Soul must be in an exceeding anguish sorrow and affliction for being deprived of them and for want of that it so much prizeth will neglect all other contentments it might have as not having a relish or taste moulded and prepared to the savouring of them but like feavorish tongues that when they are even scorched with heat take no delight in the pleasingest liquors but the sweetest drinks seem bitter to them by reason of their overflowing Gall So they even hate whatsoever good is in their power and thus pine away a long Eternity In which the sharpness and activity of their pain anguish and sad condition is to be measured by the sensibleness of their Natures which being then spiritual is in a manner infinitely more than any torment that in this life can be inflicted upon a dull gross body To this add the vexation it must be to them to see how inestimable and infinite a good they have lost and lost meerly by their own fault and for momentary trifles and childrens play and that it was so easie for them to have gained it had they remained but in their right senses and governed themselves according unto Reason And then judge in what a tortured condition they must be of remorse and execrating themselves for their most resupine and sensless madness But if on the other side a Soul be released out of this Prison of clay and flesh with affections setled upon Intellectual goods as Truth knowledge and the like and that it be grown to an irksome dislike of the flat pleasures of this World and look upon carnal and sensual Objects with a disdainful eye as discerning the contemptible Inanity in them that is set off only by their painted outside and above all that it hath a longing desire to be in the Society of that supereminent Cause of Causes in which they know are heaped up the Treasurers of all Beauty Knowledge Truth Delight and good whatsoever and therefore are impatient at the Delay and reckon all their Absence from him as a tedious Banishment and in that regard hate their Life and Body as Cause of this Divorce such a Soul I say must necessarily by reason of the temper it is wrought into enjoy immediately at the instant of the Bodies dissolution and its liberty more Contentment more Joy more true Happiness than it is possible for a heart of flesh to have scarce any scantling of much less to comprehend For immense Knowledge is natural to it as I have touched before Truth which is the adequated and satisfying Object of the Understanding is there displayed in her own Colours or rather without any And that which is the Crown of all and in respect of which all the rest is nothing that infinite Entity which above all things this Soul thirsteth to be united unto cannot for his own Goodness sake deny his Embraces to so affectionate a Creature and to such an enflamed Love If he should then were that Soul for being the best and for loving him most condemned to be the unhappiest For what Joy could she have in any thing were she barrred from what she so infinitely loveth But since the Nature of superiour and excellent things is to shower down their propitious Influences wheresoever there is a Capacity of receiving them and no Obstacle to keep them out like the Sun that illuminateth the whole Air if no Cloud or solid opacous Body intervene it followeth clearly that this infinite Sun of Justice this immense Ocean of Goodness cannot chuse but inviron with his Beams and replenish even beyond satiety with his delightsome Waters a soul so prepared and tempered to receive them No my Lord to make use of this Discourse and apply it to what begot it be pleased to determine which way will deliver us evenest and smoothest to this happy end of our Journey To be vertuous for hope of a Reward and through fear of Punishment or to be so out of a natural and inward affection to Vertue for Vertues and Reasons sake Surely one in this latter condition not onely doth those things which will bring him to Beatitude but he is so secured in a