THE VISION OR A Dialog between the Soul and the Bodie Fancied in a Morning-Dream Svmbolum Auth. Senesco non segnesco LONDON Printed for William Hope at the Blue â—â—chor on the North side of the Royaâ— Exchange Anno Dom. 1651. To the knowing Reader MAn is the Worlds Abridgement who enrouls Within himself a Trinitie of souls He runs through all Creations by degrees First he is onely Matter on the lees Whence he proceeds to be a Vegetal Next Sensitive and so Organical Then by Divine infusion a third soul The Rational doth the two first controul But when this soul comes in and where she dwels Distinct from others no Dissector tells And which no creture else can say that state Enables her to be Regenerate She then becomes a Spirit and at last A Devil or a Saint when she hath cast That clog of flesh which yet she takes again To perfect her beatitude or pain Thus Man is first or last allied to all Cretures in Heven Earth or Hells blackhall This Vision may conduce to let us know Our present baseness and our future bliss If it make any gentle souls to glow And mend their pace that way I have my wish JAM HOVVELL TO The Right Honourable the Ladie ELISABETH DIGBYE c. Madame COuld the Rational soul whom Philosophy calls the Queen of forms and Divinity the Image of the Allmighty be seen by the outward eye of sense she would as Plato sometimes spoke of Virtue were she so visible rayse in us a world of admiration We should be so ravish'd with her beauty and so struck in love that we would leave all things else to win her favour An odd Humorist vapouring once that Women had no souls was answered by a modest Lady 〈◊〉 Sir you are deceiv'd for I can pâ—â—duce a good Text to the contrary My soul doth magnifie the Lord and it was a woman that spoke it No less humorous was He who would maintain that the salique Law was in force in Heaven as well as in France which excluded women from raigning But much more civil was a farewell that the Count of Lemos took of the Dutchess of Pastrana who having invited him to see a new Palace that she had built with a stately Chappell annex'd at his departure said Madam I see your body is fairly Housd but I find that your soul is far better Housd than your Body Madam I have the happiness to know your L shp many years near upon 4. lifes in the law and truly I never knew any whose soul was better lodgd and furnishd with more virtues and graces which makes me resolv'd to live and die Your Lshps most humble and dutifull servant JAM HOVVELL The PROEM IT was about the Summer solstice when the Measurer of Time that glorious Luminarie of Heven allowed but little above three hours night to cover this part of the Hemisphere That after my sleep a second stole gently upon me which happend about the dawnings of the day when those grosser sort of soporiferous fumes that are wont to ascend from the stomack to lock up the outward senses for their natural repose being dissipated and spent the purest kind of subtil rarified vapours rise up to the Region of the brain which use to represent more plain and even objects to the Imagination and make the storie and circumstances of dreams more coherent and cleer though the â—ost lucid fancies that appear uâ—â—â—â—s in sleep be but as stars in a cloudie night or the branches of trees in a thick standing pool I say it was about the break of day that I had an unusual Dream or Vision rather For me thought a little airie or rather an aethereal kind of spark did hover up and down about my bodie It seemed to have a shape yet it had none but a kind of reflexion it was me thought within me and it was not but at such a distance and in that posture as if it lay Centinel At last I found it was my Soul which useth to make sollices in time of sleep and fetch vagaries abroad to practise how she can live apart after the dissolution when she is separated from the bodie and becomes a spirit Afterwards the fantasma varying she took a shape and the nearest resemblance I could make of it was to a veild Nunn with a flaming cross on the left side of her breast who in dolefull tones and thrâ—â—â—â—g accents broke out into these queâ—â—â—ous ejaculations A DIALOG between the SOUL and the BODIE Soul OMe how much reason have I to rue the time that ever I was cloistered up among those walls of clay What cause have I to repent that ever I was thrown into that dungeon that corrupt mass of flesh For when I first entered I bore the image of my Creatour in somâ— lustre but since that time 't is scarce discernable on me in regard of those soul leprous spots and taintures which I have contracted from those frail corporeal organs which have so pitifully disfigured and transformed me that I cannot be called the same Thing I was at first the Character of my Creatour being almost quite lost in me Bodie Dear Soul how comes it to pass that you are in so much anxietie how comes it that you are so discomposed and transported with passion imputing the cause of your indispositions to me Alas you know well that I am but an unwieldie lump of earth a meer passive thing of my self It is you that actuats and animats me otherwise I could neither think speak or do any thing nay without your impulss I could have no motion at all you are the Pilot that steers â—his frail Bark you fit in the box of the Chariot I am but the organ you are the breath you are the intelligence that governs and enlightens this dark orb of mine so that all my motions are derived from the poles of your commands it is you that denominates me a man therefore if any thing be amiss 't is I that have more reason to complain in regard that being but a meer unwieldie trunk of my self I am quickened altogether by you whether you be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a continual motion as some Philosophers would have you to be or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the perfection from whence all motion proceeds as others term you therefore because I am liable also to future punishment as well as you 't is I that have more cause of complaint and to repent me of that syneresis and union which is betwixt us For it had been less danger for me to have been an inanimate thing and to have had neither vegetal sensitive or rational Soul either by traduction or infusion cast into me for then I had been free from those numberless incommodities which all three are liable unto The First being subject to excess of moisture and drought to blastings and the furie of the Meteors The Second to hunger and thirst with multitudes of
lickering my boots already to that purpose but that which is father'd upon Paul the third is beyond all these when he said upon his death bed that shortly he should be resolved of two things whether ther be a God and Devil or whether ther were a Heaven and Hell Therefore Earth may be said to be worse then Hell in one respect because it bear's Atheists which Hell doth not but rather converts them in regard they feel God ther by his judgments and begin to have an historicall faith of him which here they had not Nor am I of that drowsie opinion to think that I shall sleep all the while among the common mass of souls in som receptacles ordain'd I know not where for that purpose till I be rejoyn'd unto you Nor doth the Religion I am of admit of any suburbs in hell as purgatory and other places where I must be purified some yeers before I ascend to heaven As Fray Iulian of Alcala doth averr upon record which is made authentique producing other spectators besides himself that he visibly saw the soul of Philip the second going up to Heaven in two ruddy clouds some two yeers after his death at such an hour of the night Body Let not my Soul bee offended if I bee curious to know somthing touching that most comfortable point of the immortality of the Soul and this curiosity doth not arise out of any doubt but a desire to be further confirm'd therein because there be some busie Spirits that stumble at it alledging that it is but a new tenet of Christian Faith not establish'd in the Church till the latter Lateran Councell and pumping out other quaeres and cavils concerning this Article Soul It is in Divinity as in Philosophy for as it was said long since that in this an impertinent Sceptic may blurt out a question which all the Sages of Greece were they alive could not answer So in Divinity an irresolute inconformable stubborn spirit may raise doubts that the whole Academy of Christian learning cannot solve such Pyrrhonians and perverse spirits have bin in all Ages ther are no principles can tie them their braines may bee said to bee like a skein of thrumb'd small threed any thing will entangle them and their thoughts like a bush of thornes that takes hold of any thing they are never satisfied either in points of faith or the operations of nature like him who would have found somthing to shear off upon an egge This may be cal'd one of the truest sorts of superstitions whose etymologie is super stare to stand too precisely and peremptorily upon a thing specially things indifferent and to bee over hot either in the abolition or maintenance of them to the destruction of whole Nations as also in recerches after supererogatory knowledg and interpretations of Scriptures wherby they would make the Holy Spirit speak what he never meant whereas the moderat and submiss sober minded he or she are the best proficients in the school of Divine knowledg But wheras you say that you desire to be strengthned and illuminated further touching the imateriality and consequently the incorruptibleness and immortality of the Rational Soul Let me tell you that not only Christian Divines but the best of Pagan writers both Poets Philosophers and Orators have done Her that right One calls Her Divinae particulam aurae Another sings Igneus est olli vigor coelestis imago Another Mens infusa Deo mortalis nescia sortis And Cicero among other hath a remarkable saying to this purpose si erro credendo Animam esse Immortalem libenter erro If I err in beleeving the soul to be immortall I willingly erre Moreover the Intellectuall humane soul doth prove Her self to be immortall both by her desires her apprehensions and operations Her desires are infinit and still longing after eternity now ther is no naturall passion given to any finit Creture to bee frustraneous Her apprehending of notions of Eternall truth which are her chiefest employment and most adaequat objects declare her immortall Al corruption comes from matter and from the clashing of contraries now when the soul is sever'd from the body she is beyond the sphere of matter therefore no causes of mortality can reach her ther is nothing in her that can tend to a not being Her operations also pronounce her immortall which she doth exercise without the ministery of corporeall organs for they are rather a clogg to Her she doth use to spiritualize materiall things in the understanding to abstract ideas from all Individuals she is an engin that can apprehend negations and privations she can frame collective notions all which conclude her immateriality and where no matter is found ther 's no corruption and wher ther is no corruptibleness ther must be an immortality now her prime operations being without any concurrence of matter she may be concluded immortall by that common principle Modus operandi sequitur modum essendi for in the world to come the state of the soul shall be a state of pure Being nor will ther be either action or passion in that state whence may be inferr'd she shall never perish in regard that all corruption comes from the action of another thing upon that which is corruptible therfore that thing must be capable of being made better or worse now if a separate soul be in her utmost final estate that she can be made neither it follows she can never lose the being she hath Moreover since the egress out of the body doth not alter her Nature but only her condition it must be granted that she was of the same nature while shee continued incorporated though in that imprisonment of hers she was subject to be forg'd as it were by the hammers of materiall objects beating upon her yet so as she was still of her self what she was Therfore when she goes out of the passible ore wherin she suffers by reason of the foulness and impurity of that ore she immediatly becomes impassible and a fix'd subject of her own nature that is a simple pure Being Both which states of the soul may be illustrated in som measure by what we find passeth in the coppelling of a fix'd mettall for as long as any lead or dross or any allay remains with it it continueth melting flowing and in motion under the muffle but as soon as they are parted from it and that it is become pure without mixture and single of it self it contracteth it self to a narrower room and at that instant ceaseth from all motion it grows hard permanent and resistent to all operations of the fire and admitteth no change or diminution in it 's subject by any extern violence so the Rational Soul when she departs from the drossy ore of the body and comes be her single self she becomes as it were exalted gold to be perfectly by her self she can never be liable any more to diminution to action passion or any kind of
headstrong furious that he will at last tumble us both down the precipice of destruction Lastly whereas you alledge that I sit at the stern of that leaking bark of yours t' is true I do so but I sayl in her as one passing upon some part of the Danubius where she meets with the River Sava and the two Rivers running in collaterall consortship many miles without intermingling the Boats that row along the stream have oftentimes on the one side a black muddie water and on the Danubs side a clear stream In this manner do I sail in that bodie of yours through good and bad affections through clear and turbid humours though the last be more predominant whence such vapours arise that cause strange tempests in me and disturb the calm of my mind which makes me wearie of this habitation when I think on those pollutions and black specks wherewith I am contaminated whereunto my meditations tended lately in these few Stanzas of multifarious cadences Lord I cry Lord I fly To thy Throne of grace This world is irksom unto me In my mind Stings I find Of that dismal place Where pains still growing young ne'r die O thou whose clemencie Reacheth to earth from skie Set my sins from me as wide As is East From the West Or the Court of bliss From the Infern abyss So far let us asunder ever bide Angels blest With the rest Of that Heavenly quire Which Halelujas always sing Fain would I Mount on high And those seats aspire Where every season is a constant spring O thou who thought'st no scorn To be in Bethlem born Though grand Monarch of the sky Through a floud Of thy bloud Let me safely dive And at that port arrive Where I may ever rest from shipwrack free Faith and Hope Take your scope And my Pilots be To waft me to this blisfull bay Gently guid Through the tide Of Mans miserie My Bark that it lose not the way When landed I shall be At that Port pardon me If I bid you both farewell Onely love Reigns above 'Mong celestial souls Where passion not controuls Nor any thing but Charity doth dwel Lord of light In thy sight Are those Mounts of bliss Which humane brains transcend so far Ear nor ey Can descry Nor heart fully wish Or toungs of men and saints declare Those sense-surmounting joys That free from all annoys For those few up-treasur'd lie Which ere sun Shone at noon Have their names enroll'd In characters of gold Through the white volums of Eternitie Bodie You are beholden to my frailties for this and such like Meditations who raise them in you as rusty steel useth to strike sparks of fire sin it self becomes an advantage to us somtimes nay mankind may be said to be beholden to the Iews and Iudas because they were the outward Instruments that wrought salvation for the Cross which they set upon mount â—alvarie for the crucifying of our Saviour was the first Christian Altar that ever was erected and it may be well doubted whether he that hates the Altar shall ever have benefit of the Sacrifice as one said But I am sorry to hear from you that your dwelling in me is so tedious unto you all that I can say is I could wish you were better hous'd Now touching those Passions and Affections you speak of which are also my Inmates they are to the soul as sayls to a ship they are also as so many gales to fill those sayls as so many breezes to blow this small Vessel of mine wherein you are embarked to the haven of happiness and as I said before they are meer Emanations from you for there is nothing of motion in me but what I derive from you Now touching Affections and Passions how uncoth would all human actions be unless they were sweetned by them how stupid and slumbering would our Spirits be without them What a dull thing were Generation if there were no Concupiscence What comfort would there be in educating children if there were not a natural love that affected us Charitie would grow key-cold if Pity did not heat her to action and that Souldier fights best who being in the field is possess'd with the Passion of anger which the Philosopher calls the Whetstone of fortitude He cannot becom a true Penitent that is not affecteÌ„ with sorrow nor a true Convert who is not affected with hatred of sin Touching other infirmities you charge me withall you know I have them by natural and hereditary propagation from my first Parents whose corruption was entail'd upon all mankind which may also excuse at least extenuat my faults But besides these Resons I have another that may serve for an Apologie in my behalf which is that all these members of mine and that mass of bloud which runs through them with the cestern of Humors as likewise all the cells of my brain are guided and governed by the motions of celestial bodies whose influxes do perpetually invade me and are irresistible Add hereunto that there is a malus Genius an ill Spirit that is always busie about me and ready to take all advantages to impel me to acts of weakness All these things being well considered and weigh'd in a just balance conclude me to be of my self but a poor passive thing and to act by the impulses of others Touching those Affections and Passions you speak of which are nought else but a conglobation of the Spirits I not onely allow but am glad of them they serve as wings to carry me up to heaven and you after me or as you say they are as so many gales to send me thither provided that the one do onely blow not bluster and raise tempests And that the other be not irregular or exorbitant but directed to their true Object The Passions are as so many pleaders wrangling at a bar and Reson my chiefest facultie should be their Chancelor But oftentimes those troops of furious Spirits which Passion musters up and sends up boyling to the brain are so violent that those Spirits which are under the jurisdiction of Reson are not able to encounter them though she unite all her forces to that purpose Moreover whereas you would pin your infirmities upon your first Parents 't is true that although Adam at first was created in a state of integrity and perfection being he was the Epitome of the Creation and a kind of Microcosm a little World of himself whereunto there may be some allusion in his name which comprehends the four corners of the World the word Adam being made up of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} viz. East West North and South Although at first he was compleated to that state and yet made capable of a higher perfection which capacitie was no imperfection but a seale to a higher I say that although he was so accomplish'd to present happiness yet by the seducement of the ill Spirit he fatally fell from it nor was the fault as much in the Woman
doth descend therefore Erasmus cannot be much blamed for canonizing Socrates for a Saint so confident he was of his salvation And it were no profaness to say That as the Holy Prophets were Harbengers to the Second Person of the Trinitie so the Philosphers were the Heralds of the First Touching your Passions Senses and Organs though the first have been Traytors so often unto me within doors and the other Rebells without yet you apologize indifferently well for them Age will take off their teeth and ougles in time for they are no other than wild Beasts Insomuch that it was not said improperly of him who having pass'd his gran Climacterique viz. 63 said that he was got loose from his unruly Passions as from so many Tygars or Wolves But I like it well that you have so much of Hope and Love Touching the first you say well it maybe a cause of longevity because it keeps the Spirits in a temperat motion and preserves them from wasting too fast And this may be one reson why Kings and Soverain Princes are not commonly so long liv'd as others because they have fewer things to hope for and more things to fear Touching the largeness of your Love that it extends to a tender compassion towards sensitive animals it is a thing not to be altogether discommended in you though it may be smild at by some nor are you alone herein but there be some Noble Christian Authors that are of your disposition who say that they could find in their hearts to inveigh against the cruel bloudy and nasty sacrifices of the Jews had they not served as Types of the great Oblation for Mankind nor is your charitable large Love towards all those that bear God Almighties Image to be blam'd being well interpreted specially towards Christians considering that they have the Decalog wherein there are omnia facienda all things to be done and the Dominical Prayer wherein there are omnia petenda all things to be asked for and lastly the Creed wherein there are omnia credenda all things to be believed though the Roman Church be accus'd to mutilat one of them 'T is true there have been Haeretiques and Hetroclits in Divinitie from all times specially in this doting age and not only in Divinitie but also in Philosophy and Policy The Church of Christ like Saint Peters bark must expect in this troublesom World to be toss'd with cross winds and somtimes with tempests which proceed from the light and airy opinions of human brains and while they think to make the said bark tite and stop the leaks they make more holes in her Others going about to exalt the Church do raise her upon the Devils back And the worst is that Peeple fall out about meer nicities and extern indifferent forms for though they agree in the fundamentals and doctrin yet they come to exercise mortal hatred one to the other but it hath been so from the beginning what a huge clash did one little Vowel made in a great general Councel whether {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} was more Orthodoxal and what a huge gulph of separation is made now among Christians whether in the holy Eucharist we take panem Domini or panem Dominum There may be garments of divers fashions made of one stuff the same faith may admit of divers rites And indeed it is very observable how the Genius of a Nation may be discovered by their outward exercise and forms of Religion The Romans who had large souls did always delight in magnificence and Pomp in stately Fabriques in rich ornaments in exquisit Music in curious sculptures and Paintings in solemnities and stately Processions all these the Italians who are extracted of the Romans as also divers Families in Spain and France do exercise in the practice of their Religion thinking nothing too costly and precious for their Churches and that it concerns all Arts to contribut their best and most quintessential Pieces for the beautifying thereof wherein all others who are under the Roman Church do imitat Her But there are other Peeple that have souls of another temper they care not for Exterior shews and appearances of pomp or for feeding the eyes And whereas the other Nations do deck trim up and imbellish Religion with the rarest Ornaments and richest Jewels and furniture they can find to set a good face upon Her whereas they house Her in the stateliest manner they can adorning perfuming and keeping her Temples as neat and decent as possible can be to draw the Peeple to a love and frequentation of them The other sort of Peeple put Her in homely plain attire being loth to spend much money upon her least if devotion shold produce too much welth the daughter wold devour the Mother Touching the charitable conceit you bear towards those sects of Christians which you have nam'd discovers a candid charitable nature in you for though the number of the Elect be few yet to confine them to one clime and coop them up in one corner of the Earth is a presumption Yet every one shold be so confident of his own religiō as to wish that all Mankinde were of the same as He. I like it extremely well that you reserve the best and purest motions of love for your Creator who is the source and wide sea who is the sum and center of all happiness This love you may be well assured will not be lost towards him who taketh delight in nothing more than in the good of his cretures and to see them do well He is always more ready to open than they to knock more ready to hear than they to cry more ready to bestow than they to begg moreover I like well those submissive and decent postures wherein you prostrat your self before him there can be no exces of humility in your comportment that way the inward man is known by the outward carriage and when the members bow without 't is a signe that the heart doth so also within I like it well also that your praises are more frequent than your prayers prayers bend God but prayses bind him prayer concerns our own interest but praise aymes principally at his glory and they who doth truly preform this part of piety may be saied to discharge the duty of an Angell upon earth God who is omniscious knows all our wants before hand and what 's fitting for us therfore to be too importunat and over-tedious in one praier to eflagitat him with reiterations of the same thing discovers a doubting and diffident heart therefore it more becomes a Christian to be more vehement in prayse rather than in prayer the one issuing out of the foggy vapours of sin the other from the pure exhalations of piety and gratitude which sooner ascend to heaven Therefore a Christian should not stand always knocking and begging at the gates of heaven but endeavour to bestow some thing upon his Creator