successe relieves the afflicted In fine if any word or deed come in very pat and unexpectedly I am highly ravish'd These things I observe both please me in the reading or seeing and afterwards I find my self great with desire till I have discharged my self of them to some other whom I conceive apt to take pleasure in such passages In true Histories and Newes I am affected with a kind of sober satisfaction and if I have heard or read half a story I feel a want of content till I know the rest and be fully possest of the whole proceeding As for home-bred Curiosities I cannot conceive what entertains our affections concerning them except the common desire to know which I imagine is greater towards those things whereof we have already a beginning for so I see this Itch is pleased chiefly in the businesse of mine own acquaintance Light And do you think that the common desire of Knowing is a Passion of so triviall a consequence which peradventure if all things were throughly look't into would appeare the chief or sole cause of all our pleasure at least it being the inclination of our understanding and reason that is the most substantiall and principall part of us it must necessarily have great influence upon all our actions But besides this I see another delight which is a kind of tickling our affections whereat they move and have their course as strings tuned to certain notes answer one another And this happens in all humane affaires but chiefly in such as bear a particular relation to our own state and private circumstances We heare not of any action done by another man but it presently strikes a key in our breasts either of pleasure or displeasure because it has a proper and particular report to our condition Now consider how small a time you can endure to sit ruminating on a businesse that no way concerns you how impossible it is to take off your hearts from thoughts wherein your interest or affections are notably engag'd and then reflect on the choice which in heaven you shall have where according to what is declared the whole course of the sons of Adam shall be clear before your eyes none of their actions or secretest thoughts hidden from you Think how one reflection will preoccupate another how one delight will surcharge another If you will see the Counsels of Statesmen and great Princes there opens it self a Carriere aperte de vieu as the French say If you will see how Scholars came to their profound learning how Artificers to their great experience If you will see how petty fellows shew as much cunning in a little circle as the Grandees of the world in their deep and politick designes If you will see the increase as it were of souls from the babling of children that know not how to spell their letters to the learned Sermons and sublime Speculations of the most famous and renowned Masters in every kind an excesse of examples a world of particulars will display themselves to you all different in some respects yet all agreeing in generall heads all inviting and enticeing by their specialty all contenting and satisfying by shewing their source in evident and common principles Nor shall therebe in the whole multitude any one that shall not affect you with some particular relish and satisfaction by its speciall conformity or difformity to your nature for both these in that state shall yield content as you see here we laugh and are delighted with that in another whereat we should be asham'd and displeas'd if it were in our selves Soul Truly you tell me of a great content but I have been taught that it is the propriety of Almighty God to see hearts and that none else can penetrate into what passes there but by revelation from him Wherefore pray make me know what you mean when you say No mans thoughts are hidden from the Blessed for this I hear is grounded in the holy Scriptures so a dangerous matter to be meddled with Light Those who consider not that the Scriptures are written to men that is to people living in a vale of ignorance and darknesse may perhaps too hastily passe their censure upon the City of Light whereof we discourse But as far as I can understand them there is not a word in our holy books excluding the heavenly Jerusalem from this-knowledge and our Masters use to give a rule that speeches are to be taken secundum subjectam materiam according to the matter we treat of for he that speaks is suppos'd to confine himself to the particular subject of the discourse he undertakes neverthelesse you have not yet heard me say the celestiall habitation enjoyes this priviledge without Revelation for here I do not display the principles upon which their conclusions depend but onely declare to you admitting such positions to be true the excesse of pleasure and content you are to reap in that harvest if you cultivate your land in this world as you are commanded Soul Then I 'le believe what you say without farther enquiry For truly I see that if the day of Judgement declare the justice of Almighty God this cannot be done without full and generall discovery of all hearts and if then every secret thought shall be laid open before the whole world me thinks 't is no great matter the blessed should in joy the priviledge of knowing them before Besides it would be an unhandsome maime both to their knowledge and content if seeing the effects they should be depriv'd of seeing the causes which for the most part reside in the inward thoughts And so have I fallen upon no small subject of delight to me that I shall see the Motives and true Sources of all effects a thing I observe much aimed at by men of sharpest understandings whence 't is that Historians are so desirous to dive into the secrets of affaires those being accounted the best who are thought most truly to have found the deepest ground and bottom of matters of great consequence Light 'T is a good and ingenuous reflection And if you will take the paines to examine also the inconveniences which here you find in talking reading or fitting at a Play peradventure by comparison of your pleasures below you will make a fuller conceit of the content you shall meet above finding there all the delights sincere and pure without the mixture of those bitter and distastfull contingencies which are so frequently offensive here Soul I have not so ill and slowly follow'd you but of my self I can understand that there I shall not have that incertitude of reports which here we wholy rely upon and yet they are generally so fallible that it were a great indiscretion to believe above the tenth part of what is told us Nay even when I heare any strange relation from parties who were present whose eyes and eares saw and heard what pass'd yet am I often troubled how to understand their words some for Interest
Natures their Operations their Quires their Hierarchies And now there is but one great step more to behold the influence of the Divinity upon all and in all manners but in none so great and admirable as in shewing its self its Face its Essence to the blessed Spirits That Blessing that Adoption that Deification as it is the most wonderfull of all Gods works so will it be strangely ravishing to behold in others as well as feel in our selves Soul I have not the least scruple but that these delights are farre beyond all you have hitherto mention'd they clearly deserving that estimation and rank by the Excellence and Nobility of the Objects and the pleasure which I feel even in the meanest of them for those I confesse most affect me as being most suitable to my low and heavy disposition Light So 't is with you for the present but if much and solid contemplation make you able to manage this point you will in time experience that even here these sublime things overdraw all others Look upon the pains a Democritus an Archimedes a Plato and other Philosophers have taken to know the lowest of Truths The first is said to have put out his eyes that he might contemplate the better The second to have been so absorpt that he suffer'd death for not taking notice of the danger before him The third to have travailed through all parts where he could hear of learned men to be their Scholar Another to have liv'd in the fields two and twenty years to discover the customes and operations of Bees Think you not these excellent witts found great pleasure in their contemplations who was ever mov'd to so difficult undertakings by any worldly designe As for your Alexanders and Cesars if their lives be well look'd into they had many collaterall respects and by-invitements alwayes conversing amongst multitudes of men who crying up their conquests as actions of immortall fame still encourag'd them to go on and finish their triumphs Soul When time and experience shall have encreased my force I shall be able I hope to grapple with these motives But in the mean while is there nothing in these secrets of Nature which may touch my self and so make me more quick and sensible of the pleasures thereof Light If it so little move you that this knowledge is the proper mark at which your nature aimes at least consider that the knowledge of your self is a speciall part of it and if you believe you are concern'd in your self if delighted with your own parts and perfections you shall not want cause of content What would you have would you be the Center of this great Circumference would you have nothing done but you should have a share in 't If no lesse will satisfie you let 's see how much is true of this What think you are any two things exactly like one another Soul Peradventure yes I conceive it no paradoxe to believe so Light Then they would be in the same place have the same figure c. whereby they would be the same and not alike Soul That 's true I confesse therefore no two things are absolutely alike Light Can two things in any respect unlike one another proceed from the same causes in no respect differing from one another Soul Certainly they cannot for wherein they vary there must necessarily be some cause of their dissimilitude but the same causes still work the same therefore the causes must some way be different if there be difference in the effects Light This is well Then you and all the circumstances had not been the same if any one of the causes which concurred to the making of them had been alter'd in any thing concerning your making Soul That 's very true Light Then cast with your self what part of Nature you draw with you of all that pass'd before you Soul I see well that neither the causes immediately concurring to the making of me nor any that concurr'd to the making of them such as they ought necessarily to be for the making of me could from the beginning of the world to this hour be other then they have been if I were to be what I am But how farre this extends it self I do not clearly see Light Looke well into the causes of your body Doe you thinke the Aire contributes nothing Soul Yes certainly for it piercing all tender bodyes by Perspiration must of necessity alter much the disposition of either Man or Child if it self be different Light And if the very next Aire to that which enters into your body be different can that which enters be the same Soul Clearly it cannot for the next part in so fluid and penetrable a body must of necessity have great Influence into that which pierces my Body Light And how far reaches this operation Soul Marry in this way going from one to another and still arguing If the next be altered this cannot be the same I see no stop as far as the Air or any other such penetrable Body extends it self but the same consequence must be applyed to the whole Light You have forgotten your agreement with me in this point that the Air contributes to the bodies which are in it else you would easily have seen that all which communicate in the same Air must be chang'd if any the least thing in you were alter'd Soul Then if it be true what I see Astronomers now almost consent in that there are no Sphears but a continuall Aire or other subtile body runs through the whole frame of Nature all bodies that are must be alter'd for the alteration of any one unlesse Almighty God or some other Spirit by a particular and extraordinary interposure make an unexpected and preternaturall change in some one or more of them Light You are in the right but do you reflect upon the consequence that nothing created before you could be otherwise if you were to be what you are nor any thing following you could become what it is to be were not you what you are So that you shall find your self a partiall cause of all either before or after you Soul 'T is easie to conceive I may be cause of what comes after me because when once I have a being I can work and some effects may flow from me but before I my self am how can I be cause of any thing Light Do you not know that God creates nothing but he foresees and fore-wills all the good which is to follow upon such a production and makes it with designe that such good may proceed from 't Whence you may safely conclude that he intended you out of all that went before you and you are not ignorant that among the four kindes of Causes the finall or good intended is the chief and principall so that you are more the cause of what 's past then of what 's to come The eighth discourse Soul THough I know not what to answer to your Discourse nay though it seem clear
omitted which is reasonable to be done Soul No certainly Light And is it not reasonable that every lovely thing should be lov'd and if any person have any lovelinesse that there should be a poize and proportion of love for every grain of it in him Soul All this is just and reasonable Light Take notice then there shall not be the least good quality in you which shall not by every one be lov'd for its being what it is and your self be belov'd for its being in you wherefore sit down and consider what the things are for which in this world you reasonably desire to be esteem'd and know you shall be lov'd for them above as much as they can deserve as much as you can wish Soul Peradventure they are things I shall not carry with me as wholly or in part belonging to my body Light No matter You shall be belov'd there because you had such things in time and place wherein 't was fit to have them Soul Now surely I have ground enough without farther curiosity or dispute to presume upon the content I desire since you have so plainly and evidently demonstrated it But I know not whether I am arriv'd at my hopes for I feel in my self an expectation that my familiar friends and kindred and such as I my self particularly love should likewise return me a speciall love Light Fear not you shall have that also For mark well the principle I told you that there should not be the least thing love-worthy in you but you shall be especially belov'd for it Now then if Friendship Kindred Acquaintance c. be things which put a particular obligation of love upon those persons betwixt whom they are you will be more lovely to them for these very respects wherefore all those will love you more especially then any others which I think is that you express'd to be your desire Soul Yes this is well but yet a little difficulty molests me I have been taught that God loves most and next to himself the Angels or Saints according as they are in degree under him then if the lowest love me as much as I deserve others will love me more then I deserve which is against reason and so impossible Light Two things are to be considered in love first the comparison of one beloved object to another and this way all will love you according to your desert for none shall prefer any thing lesse lovely before you nor you before any thing more lovely a second consideration is the strength of the affection we call Love which being according to the nature out of which it proceeds in all above your condition will be greater then you deserve in all under you weaker according to the proportion of their natures and strengths Soul Yet one thing more comes into my mind I see some strong natures in whom though by reall effects it evidently appeares they love their friend yet there is no tendernesse you can observe no motion of love in their hearts no shew in their change of countenance such a love gives me small content Shall we therefore have in Heaven a melting sweet delicious love or onely those strong and solid thoughts which as they are very good so are they far from giving that pleasure which this other soft and gentle love affords Light Would you not think that man unreasonable who being cold and brought to a good fire should refuse to warm himself because there was no smoak he having been alwayes accustomed to smoaky fires Soul Yes certainly for he contradicts his own pretence smoak being a hindrance to the heating he desires besides other inconveniences which render it offensive Light Such is the passion you call Love to that which truly is Love for everything being to be discern'd by the effects you shall see those who are most given to this whining sort of love least active to help themselves but wholly abandoned up to the following of their Passion without indeavouring to procure what they desire So in grief if you see one fit still weeping and despairing you count him womanish and not so much that his sorrow is great as that a little overcomes him Besides this passion is but an expression of the inward mind or rather a wasting of it for we see that ordinarily weeping eases and discharges the heart which becomes lighter after such venting of it self by tears So that this which you desire to have in Heaven is not love but an expression or concomitant of it weakning and disturbing the affection for the present and wasting it for the future and therefore not fit to give content to such as understand the happinesse of enjoying a place in Heaven The sixth discourse Soul THere 's yet another thing wherein I find a great inclination and drawing of Nature and certainly 't is agreeable to some principle within me though this kind of delight appears not so sensibly 't is in hearing and understanding what passes in the world I cannot espie a whisper but I long to know about what ' t was If any of my neighbours or acquaintance have met with any change of fortune I cannot endure to have it concealed from me nay the more secret such an accident is the greater is my eagernesse to know it though as I said I observe not those sensible effects in this sort of Pleasure as in the former unlesse there happen a speciall reason out of some other consideration to raise them And perhaps the curiosity of hearing news proceeds from the same cause and belongs to the same head as also the love I have to reading Histories knowing what pass'd in our forefathers times for this I perceive I long after though I finde not therein such apparent delight as in other entertainments Light And why do you not mention too the feign'd Histories Romances which the world is full of find you no delight in them Soul Yes very great sensible they being wholy contriv'd and fram'd both in subject fashion and style to move nay even violently to force our delight These therefore I did not range under this Head as likewise seeing of Playes because the content arising from them seems to be of a higher order then those other pleasures I mentioned Light See you not that other Histories and these are of one nature though of different fashions So that the delight reap'd out of both must also of necessity be of the same nature And as for Playes they are but the ample expression of some little part of that which compriz'd more shortly makes a History so that they all agree in substance though differ from one another in circumstances Tell me then what is it that pleases you in all these things Soul For playes and feigned Histories I perceive my self taken with the Passions due to the subject represented I see I have a tendernesse and compassion towards those who suffer imnocently I abhor cruel and unnaturall actions I am glad when good
descent of effects from causes draws out this long Play that has so many Ages been acting upon the stage of this world there you shall discern the golden threads whereby the just retrive themselves out of the Labyrinth of sinners you shall penetrate the Adamantine chain with which the wicked are confin'd to eternall flames In all you shall see the glorious Liberty casting out its Rayes in God and his Saints strengthned with an undeceivable force of Light in the wayes of Men struggling in a perpetuall Agony with contingency and servitude except where in few souls the supernall light more and more hinders the instability of its estate The seventh discourse Soul TEll me no more of these great pleasures for I feel my self already full I can endure no longer I pant for breath and languish through excessive heat of desire I doubt not henceforth but the state of eternall Blisse contains farre more and higher joyes then ever entred into mortall hearts to conceive Nor fear I whensoever I enter this great field but for ever to find a most pleasant and delightfull feeding and eternally drink of the torrent which inebriates the City of God Light You are too tender Remember that the kingdome of heaven suffers violence and the violent onely can be Masters of it You must look for a strong Purgatory of love and desire if you walk this way you must not give over without resisting even to blood As yet you are scarce got out of the Circle of Man 't is time now to cast your eyes on the rest of this glorious frame we call the World and see what pleasure it affords It is the whole whereof mankind is but a little though a principall Part. It is a thing in a manner above us in a manner our end If our understanding be but a hunger of truth and truth but the perfect possession of a thing without us you see this great machine the world is a principall end to which nature has design'd our application And truly when we reflect that the universall Masse of Beings is the most full expression of Almighty God's Essence which nature can attain to what doubt remains but that our felicity in a notable degree consists in the perfect contemplation and knowledge of it Soul This I easily believe For when I have the good fortune to hear a strange discovery of some secret of nature such as Philosophers and Astronomers use to look into I cannot understand the joy I feel in mine heart 'T is not of that kind which I have when I laugh and am taken with some witty conceit 'T is not such as when I encounter any welcome news of some advantage to my self or friends but of a higher strain mixt with admiration methinks I am better and greater then I was before methinks they who know these things are more then men and are a kind of Demi-gods And I observe that Poets and persons of great brain and capacity having spent their youth in vain and worldly pursuits desire ordinarily to consecrate their riper yeares to these Sciences Light Reflect then upon the wonders which are stored up in Nature for your content Place before your eyes the admirable government of this great Fabrick the World Consider the courses of the Sun Moon Planets and fixed Starres and hope one day to know what causes and wheels they turn upon See the Globe of the Earth and Men heels to heels walking round about it without any nayls or glew to fasten them to it yet how laborious it is to remove from it Really the serious consideration of the Antipodes renders the mystery so strange and hard to be believ'd that though we are assur'd by experience of the truth yet if we should alwayes strongly imagine our selves so walking we could not but fear still falling into the Clouds when we travail'd to one another See the perpetuall floating of the Sea like a monethly or yearly Clock warning us of the seasons with as great exactnesse as do the Moon and Starres See the various Climes with all their affections The bounds of Seas and Lands The difference of temperature in the same proportions to the Sun The diversity of Beasts Birds Fishes and Plants according to the variety of their habitations Men themselves here black there white in some parts tawny some red and their very Wills and Affections following the temperament of their bodily qualities When you are weary of these wonders look into particular Natures The mixture of Metals and Stones How Juices and Liquids penetrate all and incorporating themselves frame these strange multiplicities of things we converse with Plants more wondrous then these who can choose but be delighted to see a little Flower or Meal hidden in the earth and peep out again now green then take body and strength disperse it self into branches bud forth leaves and flowers and fruit and at last other such bags of Meal as it self was Yet Living creatures are furnisht with a farre greater plenty of wonders The Wormes the Flies the Birds the Beasts the Fishes every one affording a world of admiration and variety But above all MAN the End and Master of all is a subject of amazing contemplation Who would not think a life spent in delight to understand what composition that should be which turn'd into blood becomes first one part of a heart afterwards a whole heart what should make it spring and shoot out into other vitall parts how can a poor heart frame such a variety of Members as are necessary to the perfect body of a man What should set two Armes two Legs two Eyes just such a number of Fingers and Toes upon every man so many different parts so various in their Nature Figures Use and Service and all these to agree together and Man compos'd of all to keep so long in tune and harmony the deeper we go the greater's the admiration though the words fewer But what astonishment will it be to discover the subtil nets wherewith Power and Act as Metaphysicians call them are forbidden parting to penetrate the divisibility of substance it self to sing the loves of Matter and Form and see how by the Influence of the Overflowing Being they become the Basis and Foundation of this fair Pageant Shall I seek into the rationall Soul and see the union of the two worlds or search the Conduits and passages by which knowledge is conveyed through the Body to the Spirit How the beating of divers weights and figures upon our senses can beget the skill of knowing all things Shall I ask why the Spirit being subsistent within our limbs seems dead or asleep and can do nothing but by the impression it receives from the body But what will it be to make this an occasion of passing into the next world there to contemplate the state of so many separated souls all different yet all like one another then still to mount up higher to the never-bodied Spirits and see their Being their
and evident yet the strangenesse and even incrediblenesse of the Conclusion makes me distrust mine own understanding But is it possible that all these great knowledges shall fall to my share if I come to Heaven Light Why should you fear the lesse if you be sure of the greater Do you peradventure doubt whether you shall be partaker of the sight of God and yet this is so farre beyond all we have hitherto spoken of that there is no comparison between them not so much as of a drop of water to the whole Sea Soul How can this be since God is but one indivisible Essence and in what you have declared there is an infinity of most worthy and ravishing Objects For though I doubt not but the sight of God exceeds farre the sight of any one his perfections infinitely surpassing all yet methinks when there is nothing else to be done for ever but to see the one and the other the variety carries so high an advantage in respect of taking delight in knowledge that there needs a vast excesse in any single object to counterpoise it Light Your own words convince you for admit that God exceeds any one object compared with him as to the pleasure of seeing infinitely that is to the proportion of his worth and dignity you by the same reason conclude him preferrable to two or three and so to any number that is to all However I shall rather apply my self to give you content in your demand then presse you severely with your own argument First then consider if there were a colour or beauty of so high a degree that our eye were not capable to see it without the assistance of some new-found spectacle and this not for the littlenesse or distance of the Object but because the purity of the light or excellency of the colour was so striking and glorious that an eye of this composure would be blinded with the lustre of its brightnesse do you not conceive the sight of so radiant a splendour would be nobler then the view we have of our ordinary world and this in the proportion that the Eye improv'd and fortified with the new spectacle is better and nobler then of its own single nature Soul So far I can espie no way to escape your reason for if both Eye and Object be heightned in a proportion the very seeing and by consequence the pleasure taken in it must of necessity rise in the same degree or I have lost my understanding Light Then ponder what I 'm sure you have been often taught that the sight of God is so great so sublime an operation that it exceeds the power of all celestiall spirits not onely such as are but even all that can be made and the whole campasse of creatures and whatsoever is not God Consider now how full and overflowing a measure of delight must necessarily follow upon these premisses I believe you 'l find it no lesse then I speak of Soul What may be the reason of this incredible excesse though I 'm a fool to ask a question you have already so fully answered by resolving it into the infinite beauty of Almighty God whose perfections are beyond all comparison Light In the beginning I bargain'd with you not to expect the causes of things in this discourse but the effects that is what pleasure arises out of them upon supposition of their truth Yet if you understand the excesse of a Spirit above Bodies and their grosse parts conceive that God so exceeds a Spirit as that is more excellent then a Body I mean not in equality of proportion but I would onely expresse that their excellencies are cleare of a different kinde so that there is no comparison of worths between them but the supereminent dignity of one so farre surpasses the other that in respect of the first the second is no wayes estimable A more particular account you may make your self at your leisure by reflecting that our apprehension of things has three degrees some we conceive as compounded others as simple and one onely thing which we call Being has a different nature in our very language and understanding from all the rest Now our Masters put Almighty God in the degree of Being alone and by himself If you could throughly penetrate these three manners of apprehending it would be a great advance toward the knowledge you desire For the present let me acquaint you with this observation that many great Clerks and studied Sages have so much esteem'd this Notion that they fear'd not to pronounce Almighty God absolutely invisible to any created understanding and inhabiting a light by no power accessible But herein the goodnesse of God has exceeded the wit of Man and found a means to communicate himself to our Soules Wherefore wiser are our Masters of Mysticall Divinity who acknowledge the gracious happinesse of the next life though here they find themselves silenced For when by long speculation they have heaped up all these great Titles of Being Goodnesse Truth Eternity Immensity Omnipotence Infinitenesse and whatever else we find attributed to the Deity after they have some little while exulted in that height reflecting upon what they are pleas'd withall suddenly they turn the leaf and with a more high Ignorance acknowledge he is none of all these but an unknown Nobility whereof all these are so poor and deficient an expression that they are asham'd of what they had said and now rest in a mute admration not finding words wherewith to expresse the thing which they onely can attain to by confessing themselves totally ignorant of it And this is not onely true in respect of Men but even of Angels whose languages if we could speak that is were our apprehensions and conceits as high and great as any of theirs yet would it not profit us because not necessarily conjoyned with Charity However even their languages exceed our short capacities and are not to be expressed with the tongues of Men which seems the cause why Saint Paul who was made partaker of their knowledge though short of the sight of the face of God said he had heard words of secret that were not in the power of Man to speak for so as I take it the Originall Text beares and not that it was unlawfull since what Law was made against speaking that which we have heard unlesse we participate of the first Errour conceiving God through envy to hide Mysteries great knowledges from us It was not then unlawfull but impossible to declare what was revealed to Saint Paul no words of Man being capable to expresse the conceits of an abstracted Intelligence amongst whom he then convers'd Soul You seem to drive me farther off from relishing this which you exalted as the most eminent pleasure of all others For if you afford me no other conceit of it then of an unapprehensible Light of a mysterious Darkness and a learned Ignorance I know not how to fasten any Armes of love or liking upon