causes from whence they spring so as if the one give her selfe over to the weake passions of griefe and lamentation this other falling from the height of her ambitious pretences must needs abandon her selfe unto despairer to rage and fury shee hath beene so far blinded during this life by the opinion of her owne wisdome and sufficiency or dazeled with the false lustre of her dignities and Power that she refused to stoop to the Divinity and acknowledge him the onely giver of them she hath therefore proposed her selfe unto her selfe as the maine end of all her actions and having thus established a chiefe good opposite unto that of all the other Creatures and setled in her selfe the notions and affections thereof shee hath beene seperated from the bodie When comming to discover the true Nature and cause of things shee findes that whatsoever hath a being depends on God as the first cause and are willingly subordinate unto him as the end for which they were created that her selfe is like a Prodigie in Nature whom all the other Creatures exprobrate with this her vile ungratitude Treason and Rebellion against their Maker what can shee doe having thus proudly contemned her God being her selfe forsaken and detested by all other things but seeke out a retirement in her selfe where her proud thoughts despoyled of that false greatnesse they had fancied feed her continually with envy rancour and dispite against her fellow Creatures and the Deity Her case in my opinion hath some resemblance with that of Baiazet King of the Turkes hee who was overcome and taken Prisoner by the great Tamerlane this proud Prince saw himselfe master of the better part of Asia and having swallowed in his ambitious thoughts the Monarchy of the whole World had besieged the Grecian Emperour in his Emperiall City which hee was upon the point of taking but in the midst of all his flattering prosperities he was invaded by this Tamerlane who having defeated him in a great battle caused him to bee shut up within an iron cage in which being inclosed he exposed him unto the mockery of all his Army and used him as a footstoole to tread upon whensoever he had occasion to get on horsebacke what were the thoughts of this proud Tyrant who haveing lately had the disposall of a World of men and being regarded by them as a Deity was suddenly become the scorne of Boies and Lackies and having formerly fancied to himselfe the Empire of the World was forced to serve another as his footstoole All his past greatnesse Power and Prosperities had now no other subsistance but in his Memory where they were alwayes present not to give ease to his afflictions but to encrease the anguish and the trouble of them by inspiring him with thoughts of rage and fury against God and men by whom his expectations had beene so foulely disappointed Such we may fancy to our selves are the ravings of this poore soule though with this difference that Bajazet was able to avoid the trouble of them by dashing out his braines against the iorn barres of that his Prison whereas this soule can never quit her selfe from being persecuted by those stings of conscience she carries with her as her torturers for all Eternity Alas how imperfect is that apprehension wee have of the acts which a soule exerciseth after her seperation from the bodie by comparing them unto those wee are capable of during this life hee that should estimate the motion of the primum mobile according unto what hee sees performed heere by a snaile would not fall shorter in his conception of the Rapid swiftness wherewith that Sphear is whirled about this Globe of Earth then wee shall doe in ours if wee resemble the affections of joy and griefe which wee have heere during the union with our materiall bodies to those a soule hath when shee is severed from it whether we shall consider her huge activity when she is purely an immateriall substance in comparison of what shee hath when shee is clogged with flesh and bloud or the perfection of her operations when she beholds clearly the things themselves in their owne Natures without helpe of those Ideas or imperfect represent aions of them in our fancies which wee are forced to use during this life or lastly the exemption from time and place by which our actions heere are all restrained but can have no commerce at all with her who is above the reach of time because of her Eternall being nor can bee circumscribed in place as having neither quantity nor matter The affections of joy and griefe as they-reside in the intellectuall appetite of man are but impulses of our wills upon our other faculties which carry us on to the enjoying of the one or shunning the other with more or lesse violence according to the measure of the impression wee receive touching the good or evill of them the force whereof depends upon the active motion of the soule and therein that of one seperated hugely surpasseth what shee hath heere while shee is mingled with the masse of our terrestriall bodies powder whereof wee have the dayly use when it remaines united in the Masse whereof it is composed is easily restrained by the weake closure of a Tunne or Barrell but if it once take fire will cause an Earthquake and shake the frame of Nature if it bee hindred in its course towards the region of fire which is the proper center whereunto it tends The soul hath some resemblance unto this her passions or impulses during her union with the bodie are weake and feeble but being once devided from it shee then hath an activity surpassing that of fire which makes her passions or impulses become so strong and violent that they bear no proportion at all with those which we have heere and enjoy nothing common with them but their appellation Their force is also very much encreased by the cleare sight she hath of things in their own Natures without the helpe of any Species drawne from the things or the conversion of her selfe unto the Phantasmes from whence ariseth the certainty of knowledge incompatible with doubt or with opinion which are the greatest enemies to action since no man ever vehemently covets or feares a thing of whose Nature hee is uncertain And lastly they are beyond measure heightened by the exemption from time and place which shee enjoyes during her state of seperation whereby shee comprehends after a sort all time and place within her selfe A little time and a small place are capable onely of little alterations wee are not sensible of the falling of one drop of water whereas in time it hath the force to pierce the hardest Marble and the Sunes beames which being divided into sundry places have scarce the Power to warme us doe when they are united by a glasse become a fire that burnes and scorceth What shall wee say then of a passion which hath Eternity and an infinity of place for bounds of its
continuance and situation all degrees of comparison are heere exceeded and wee must needs acknowledge that all the miseries whereof a man is capable during this life are a meere nothing in respect of what these wretched wretched soules are forced to suffer towardes the expiation of their crimes for all Eternity What I have heere set downe hath beene to explicate the miserable state of those unhappy soules during Eternity according to the ordinary course of naturall causes who deviating from the true good for the enjoyment whereof they were created have pursued their owne vitious inclinations and affections in stead thereof But who is hee that can bee able to discover the immense greatness of those punishmēts which the strict justice of an offended Deity will inflict upon them for their ungratitude against him heere all expression is dumb and wee must needs acknowledge our hearts are too too narrow to comprehend the vast abisses of his judgements as well as the ouerflowing torrents of his mercies Yet since himselfe hath by his onely Sonne beene pleased to communicate something concerning them unto mankind I shall with reverence draw neere and without prying curiously into the hidden secrets of them attempt to take a short imperfect view of the proceedings which the Divine iustice will order to bee made against these Malefactors for the condigne punishment of their offences How deplorable is the condition of these soules according unto what I have described already and yet how happy were it in respect of what it is were they but left alone to bee tormented onely by themselves for they have scarce begun to make a sad acquaintance with their miseries when they are suddenly invironed with a multitude of Divells whose ugly shapes cause an affrightment in them equall to that of the imployment upon which they come and that is to convey them unto the dreadfull judgement seat of God These fiends do now begin to glory in the successe of their temptations and whilest they drag them to the place where they are to receive the sentence of their condemnation practise upon them all those barbarous cruelties which an insulting mercilesse enemy can use against a Captived wretch delivered over to his rage and fury They now have executed their commission and these poore guilty soules tremble with horrour to see themselves presented before the dreaded majesty of him whom having formerly rejected for their Advocate and their Redeemer they must now submit unto as Judge of all their actions and deportments those rayes of glory which streaming from his sacred person replenish all the Saints and Angells with unspeakeable content and rleasure fill them with an excesse of horour and despaire by making them reflect upon the innocence wherein they were created the happinesse for which they were ordained the base unworthynesse of that for love whereof they have cast off the first and forfeited the latter the prodigious uglinesse of those affections wherewith they now are filled instead of them and lastly that all this must bee proclaimed and justified against them before the dreadfull Majesty of God in presence of the Saints and Angells by their owne consciences produced as witnesses against them to their Eternall shame and infamy so that incompassed with a Legion of these torturing thoughts as well as Divells they know not whether of the two hath greater torment either the expectation of the sentence or the Execution of it And yet that same is wonderfully terrible for they are thereby banished from the presence of Almighty God and doomed to live in Everlasting Fire provided for the Divell and his Angells from all Eternity A dismall mansion whether wee shall consider the place it selfe which is a Region belching out perpetuall flames and yet covered with an impenetrable darkenesse or the society of the inhabitants thereof who are the Divels implacable enemies of humane kinde whose malice keepes them perpetually busied in the invention of new torments whereby to ad unto the greatness of their afflictions or lastly their entertainments whilest they abide there which as the Sonne of God himselfe informes us are weeping gnashing of their teeth for all Eternity I shall not goe about to reckon up the sundry kindes of punishments inflicted there on severall persons according to the Nature of their severall crimes the sulphurous potions which the drunkard shall there bee forced to swallow downe instead of the delicious wines wherein hee placed his greatest happinesse the loathsome food wherewith the glutton shall there bee crammed in lieu of his choice feasts and sumptuous banquets the scornes indignities and contempts to which the proud ambitious man shall bee exposed in exchange of of that respect and honour hee sought for heere and all those different kindes of tortures which the Divine justice dispenseth with an admirable order amid that horrour and confusion according to the different crimes whereof those soules have heere beene guilty these have already beene copiously deciphered by other excellent pennes and cannot bee comprisde by mee within the compasse of this short discourse nor doe I comprehend how these materiall things may by the ordinary course of Nature worke any alteration in the immateriall soule when she is seperated from the body for I speake nothing of her condition after the resurrection when she shall bee againe united to it but I must needs conclude her torments farr exceed the force of humane and understanding to conceive when I consider the infinite Majesty of that God for satisfaction of whose justice they are appointed the absolute unlimited Power of him by whose order they are inflicted the huge activity of a seperated soule by whom they are suffered and the endlesse continuance of Eternity during all which they are to be endured We have accompanied these miserable soules unto the brinke of that infernall lake wherein who ever falles is irrecoverably lost for all Eternity unhappy persons to have at all received a being since they must there exchang the momētary pleasures they have enjoyd in giving satisfaction to their own unbrideled appetites to live in everlasting flames tormented by the Divells and the sting of their owne consciences more cruell to them then those hellish monsters amongst whom they are confined by the Divine justice for their punishment and our example Let us now alter the Scene and quitting these sad spectacles of horrour and affrightment turne all our thoughts upon the contemplation of a soule who during life hath proposed God unto her selfe as her chiefe good and entring into a serious consideration of the unspekable benefits shee hath received from him in her creation in her redemption and continuall preservation hath by an act of generous gratitude cast off all thoughts of Lust of Vanity or Pride whereunto she was inclined by her concupiscences and affections to sacrifice her selfe intirely unto the performance of his will and pleasure the Divine grace seconding these good dispositions hath so illuminated her with the resplendent beames of Heavenly light
it together beares in comparison to them but such proportion according to the Astronomers computation as a point in midle of a circle to the circumference doth with its unmeasurable greatnesse out vie the force of humane understanding to conceave any idea of its dimensions and yet when wee consider but with the least attention these great workemanships of God and search into the nature of them wee must needs be satisfied they are not infinite for that consisting as our senses can informe us of finite parts themselves must likewise bee of the same nature with the parts whereof they are composed who is it that perceives not when hee takes up a shovell full of earth from the ground or but a dish of water out of the Sea that those portions of the two Elements are finite and that our not being able to find out their certaine quantity proceeds not from any contradiction in their natures to bee surveyd or measured but onely from the weaknesse of our forces who is it that can doubt when hee perceives the Sunne draw neerer to us but that the distance betweene us and him is finite since were it otherwise it were not capable of increase or diminution And who in fine can make a question but that the Heavens are circumscribed by certaine bounds and limits when hee beholds them to bee perpetually measured by the Sunn Moone and the other Planets in their severall motions according to whose different races wee give beginning and ending unto our houres dayes months years and to our ages Archimedes was of opinion hee could have mooved the world had there been any other place out of it upon which he might have fixed his instrument and I am certainly perswaded that when wee shall bee freed out of this cage of earth wherein our soules are inclosed during this life wee shall with ease bee able to surveigh and comprehend the Heavens the Earth and all the other workmanships of nature that now appeare to bee so far beyond the reach of humane understanding And yet when our inlarged soules shall have the power to circle earth sound hell and measure all the vast extent of Heaven how little or rather nothing at all will that appeare being compared unto infinity if wee were able to number all the droppes of water in the Sea and count the sands upon the shore and if for every one of them wee were to live an age before wee died yet were this terme as nothing being compared unto Eternity since time would at last consume all that large stocke of our subsistance and Eternity when that were past would still continue constant in the full possession of all its being Aristotle was of opinion the world wherein wee live had no beginning and should never have an ending perswaded thereunto by the incessant vicissitude of generation and corruption and the setled course of Nature which perpetuates all the severall species or kinds of things notwithstanding the continuall decay of the individualls whereof they are composed if this imagination of his were true it would then follow that the duration of the world should bee indeed perpetuall but not infinite and that it would have nothing in it approaching to the pure simplicity of an Eternall being For if time be divided as reason experience and the opinion of all Philosophers assure us t is into past present and to come how can that though nere so farr extended bee without end whose very being consists in a perpetuall fluxe of ending and beginning or how can that bee without bounds whose two parts that is the first and last are not at all and whose third part wherein onely it subsists is circumscribed within such narrow limits that we can hardly think a thought during the terme of its duration and what resemblance can there bee in it of Eternity the one being in a continuall motion and the other in a constant quiet the one perpetually changing and the other never subject to alteration and the one in fine subsisting onely in the short instants of the present time whereas the other comprehends all times past present and to come in the pure simplicity of a present being From this ground there ariseth another consideration of the Nature of Eternity that is of the indivisibility thereof which I make the subject of my next reflection Indivisibility is a terme also negative which represents unto us onely something that cannot bee parcelled out by portions as the things of this inferiour world way bee Divide et impera that is divide and governe is a maxime succesfully practised by the Politicians when making use of the private dissentions either of a City or Common-wealth they obtaine and preserve thereby their Dominion over all the differing parties and we may also with the same truth affirme this other Divide destruâ— divide and destroy God who is Creator of whatsoever hath an existence being himselfe one by the simplicity of his Nature hath placed the subsistence of all things in unity and hath therefore by a working peculiar onely to himselfe united the contraries of heat and cold of draught and moisture unto the making up of all the severall bodies either sensible or insensible which are contained in the rich treasury of nature whilest they continue united by this bond so long they are said to bee but if the union bee once broken either by externall violence or the inward working of the different qualities whereof the body is composed then doth it forthwith lose the former being and becomes some other thing according to the nature of the new form which it acquires As long as our bodies remaine fit to entertaine our soules by the due temperature of the humors and disposition of the Organs to receive her operations wee continue to bee men but when that ceaseth either by inward distemper or outward force wee then leave to be so our soules becomming seperated formes and our bodies returning to the common masse of matter from whence they are extracted the same wee see happens in beasts plants and in all other inanimate bodies of what Nature or quality soever so as there can bee no conclusion truer then this that whatsoever is allready divided hath left to bee what it was formerly whatsoever may bee divided is subject to decay and ruine and whatsoever is indivisible must also of necessity by reason of the simplicity of its Nature bee Eternall Eternity is therefore indivisible and all those happy persons who have gained that blessed part are allwaies in possession of their whole being they lose nothing of what is past they want nothing of what is future but the present in that Celestiall Countrey doth comprehend after an unexpressible manner all those three different and incompatible parts into which time is divided And hence it is that all the happinesse found there is true and solid because those different goods are united in that fixed Mansion which being heere divided mislead the greatest part of humane
command unto a Page of his to wake him dayly with this admonition that hee should call to minde hee was a man fearing lest hee might otherwise bee transported by the false lustre of his greatnesse and prosperities as to mistake which his Sonn after did what himselfe was and forget the condition of humanity wherein hee had beene placed by God and Nature And the great Doctor of the Church Saint Jerome thinkes it a matter of that consequence for us to imploy our selves in the consideration of what is future that hee assures us confidently by warrant of the sacred Scripture wee should never sin did wee but carefully ruminate on the last things that doe attend us Memorare novissima tua et in aeternum non peccabis See here the true condition of our being during the succession of time Let us now alter the Scene and from this theater of confusion and disorder raise up our thoughts unto the contemplation of Eternity It is an instant alwayes present never decaying whose infinity comprehends all times past present and to come and whose simplicity presenting us at once with whatsoever can be good or perfect united in their first cause whereof unlesse our sinns debar us from his sight the Divine Nature wee shall be then made glad beholders cleares up the foggy mists of ignorance of forgetfullnesse and of mistake which hang betweene our understandings and the truth of things fills all the powers and faculties of our soules with the enjoyment of their desired objects and doth establish us in the secure possession of our blisse beyond the reach of fortune or of time which shall not there have power to traverse our contentments with the desire of ought that 's past or the apprehension of ought to come When we have once maturely waighed these sollid truths wee shall begin to loath this prison of our bodies subject to the perpetuall injuries of time and death and shall cry out with the Apostle Infaelix ego homo quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus unhappy man that I am who shall deliver mee from this body which belongs to death and with the same Apostle fixing all our affections and thoughts upon Eternity wee shall continually desire to bee dissolved that we may live with Christ in his Eternall habitation and when wee shall receive the summons to dislodge hence brought us by age diseases war famine pestilence or any other officer of time clad in the hideousest dresse that death can weare wee shall with joy prepare our selves unto the journey and with the Prophet David say Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi in domum domini ibimus I am rejoyced in that which hath beene said unto me we will goe into the house of the Lord It seemes being a man according unto Gods owne heart hee had well studied the Nature of that celestiall mansion whose quallities hee doth so excellenty describe in the 2 following verses Stantes erant pedes nostri in atriis tuis Jerusalem Jerusalem quae aedificatur ut civitas cujus participatio ejus in idipsum Our feete were standing in thy Courts Jerusalem Here they are running forced to accompany the motion of time but they shall there be fixed in an Eternal rest never to bee disturbed by time or fortune Jerusalem that is builded as a City whose portion consisteth in the thing it selfe All other places are but Innes where we are entertained as passengers during our pilgrimage and therfore have their buildings subject as are those they harbour unto decay and ruine but this City being the permanent place of our aboade hath its foundations laid upon the never fading basis of Eternity And if you aske what is the stocke or treasure of the inhabitants in that blessed country he forth with tells us that their portion consisteth in the thing it selfe what is the thing it selfe but that which is without dependance upon any other and what is that but hee who being to declare himselfe unto the Patriarch Moses saith hee is hee that is even God himselfe in whom is comprehended the fulnesse of all things and without whom is nothing but the privation of good and happinesse Let us endeavour then so to comport our selves that wee bee not engaged amid these fading transitory things but may bee able to say with the Apostle our life is laid up with Christ in God and let our onely trafficke and negotiation be to hoord up treasures according to the counsell of our blessed Lord and Saviour where neither rust nor mothes can come to wast them nor thieves breake in to steale them from us Wee neede not be to seeke where that should bee since hee informeth us that t is in Heaven the onely proper seat and mansion of Eternity In the precedent discourse I have endeavoured to describe although imperfectly the Nature and condition of Eternity which is the true and proper habitation of our soules who have no commerce with time but onely by their union with our bodies A blessed country but such a one as doth not equally agree with all constitutions to some it is an Ocean of pleasure rest and happiness to others an abisse of everlasting horrour trouble and confusion the reason of which difference proceedes from the diversity of those severall dispositions and affections wee carry with us at our parting hence For the cleare understanding whereof it is necessary that wee consider the Nature of our Soules and examine what are those things which subsist in and together with them after the dissolution of our bodies The Heathen Philosophers guided only by the light of nature did some of them believe the soule of man to bee immortall they perceived well that shee was capable of many operations even in this life without the mediation of the bodie that shee gave a being within her selfe unto an infinite number of thinges abstracted from the severall notions of time place figure or any other property incident unto materiall things which kinde of being because it sorted not unto the things themselves in their owne Nature they must necessarily receive from her and they did thence inferr that shee could not communicate such a being unto them unlesse shee had an immateriall being in her selfe They saw the act of judging was an action purely her own whereby she produced severall conclusions which are new beings out of those premises that present themselves to our imaginations and knowing the infallibility of this argument ex nihilo nihil fit that of nothing there comes nothing they were fully satisfied the soule had a being independant from the body since it was able to communicate a being unto other things without the helpe of any Organes which depend upon her From the assurance of her being they collected also her immortallity for having by the strict observation of all naturall causes found out that nothing whatsoever could lose its former being and acquire a new one which wee terme death