Selected quad for the lemma: church_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A44763
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The vision, or, A dialog between the soul and the bodie fancied in a morning-dream.
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Howell, James, 1594?-1666.
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1651
(1651)
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Wing H3127; ESTC R11503
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50,341
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190
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c. The Roman Catholicks though they Invoke Saints and pray for the dead c. All these with sundrie sorts of Christians besides all the while they have the Symbole of saving Faith and same Apostolical Creed with me all the while they have the Decalog and holy Scriptures I have so much Charitie to hold that they differ from me not as much in Religion as in Opinion Now Opinion is that great Ladie which sways the World therefore I wish that they might go up the same scale of bliss with me Nor are the Swiâ—s and Gritons to be hated because they permit the Lutheran to preach in one end of the Church and the Calvinist in the other yet in theiâ— moral civilities and negotiations they live peaceably together To conclude this discours touching common Charitie and Love 't is tru my Fellow-cretures my Kindred and Friends have a great share of it but I reserve the quintessence thereof for my Creator and Saviour the one being the sea the other the spring of all felicitie I love my Creator a thousand degrees more than I fear him which makes me praise him more often than pray unto him and for matter of fear as I displayed my self elsewhere I fear none more than my self who am indeed my greatest foe I mean those obliquities and depravations which are my inmates whereof the ill spirit takes his advantage ever and anon to make me run into aberrations so that I may say I stand more in fear of my self than of the devil or death who is the king of fears Now touching this Elixer of love that I reserve for my Creator it melted one morning into these Stanzas As the parchd field doth thirst for rain When the Dog-star makes Sheep and Swain Of an unusual drowth coplain So thirsts my heart for Thee As the chac'd deer doth pant and bray After some brook or cooling bay When hounds have worried her astray So pants my heart for Thee As the forsaken Dove doth mone When her beloved mate is gone And never rests while self-alone So mones my heart for Thee Or as the teeming Earth doth mourn In black like Lover at an urn Till Titan's quickning beams return So do I mourn mone pant thirst For Thee who art my last and first Soul I am glad beyond measure to hear these discourses drop from you first that you make so good use of the objects of this Inferior world as to study your Creator in them proceeding from the effects to the search of the cause which is the method of Philosophy whereas the Theolog proceeds commonly from the cause to the effect The Pagan Philosophers by the twilight of nature soard so high that they came to discover there was a primus Motor an Ensentium an optimus maximus they came to know that he was ubiquitary and diffus'd through the Universs to give vigor life and motion to all parts as I do in that bodie of yours though invisibly if I may be so bold as assimilat so incomprehensible a greatness to so small a thing Now there is no finit intellect can form a quidditative apprehension of God no not the Angels themselves There may be negative conceptions of him as to say he is immortal immense independent simple and infinit c. Or there may be relative conceptions had of him as when we call him Creator Governor King c. Or there may be positive conceptions of him as the chiefest Good a pure Act or he may be described by an aggregation of Attributs as Mercifull Wise Pious c. But for the comprehensive quidditie of God it cannot be understood by any created Power Among all these one of the best wayes to describe him is by Abstracts as to call him goodness it self Justice it self Power Pity Piety it self He being the rule of all these some of those ancient Wisards among the Egyptians and Grecians came by reach of natural resons to the knowledge of one Incomprehensible Guide and conserver of the Univers specially Tresmegistus and Socrates but they durst not broach their opinions publiquely for fear of the fury of the Peeple among whom there was a kind of zeal in those dark times Plato flew as high as Socrates his Master in Divinitie and among other Passages throughout his Works there is one that is very pregnant for Writing to a friend of his he saith When I write to thee seriously I begin my Epistle with God save thee when otherwise The Gods save thee Aristotle Plato's scholler courted Nature onely groping her secrets a great Philosopher he was and no less a Sophister he was the first that entangled Philosophy with subtilties coin'd words and Paralogisms as the Classicans did first distract divinitie so that it was no improper Character which one gave That Aristotles school was a great skold Touching the celestial bodies I love you the better that you are affected with them so much that you sometimes speculat and spel your Creator among the stars Now some of the Rabbins hold that the word Iehovah which is the highest name of God Almightie and pronounced publickly in the Synagog but once a year may be plainly made up among the Oriental stars Nay they affirm that all the Hebrew letters may be found in the firmament which letters were the true characters of the constellations before the Egyptians came with their Hieroglyphicks that the Greeks hois'd up such monsters so near the throne of God as Bears Bulls Lions Goats Rams and Scorpions together with pitchers and planks of rotten wood They hold moreover that the fate and periods of Monarchies may be read not onely in Comets but in those fixd stars that are vertical over them When Medusa's head was vertical to Greece there were divers that presaged her destruction Ierusalem's ruin was read plainly among the stars some years before Nay Postel a Christian writer takes God and Christ to witness that in the Hebrew characters among the stars vidit omnia quae in Rerum natura constituta sunt he saw all things that were constituted by nature Doubtless that toung which was spoken in Paradise and by the Almightie himself may have some extraordinarie priviledge and mysteries in it nor was Postel lunatic when he broke out into such a protestation But the Authors of this opinion add unto it this caution that he who will be a schollar and a proficient in this sydereal school to spel the stars and studie this book for the Heavens are calld so in holy Scriptures must be an extraordinarie pious patient and prudent wel-wisd man so he may find old Orpheus words to be tru when speaking of God he sings {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Thy certain order doth run immutable commands aong the starrs Now touching those ancient notaries of Nature it may be well thought those large Ideas of knowledge they had were illuminations from Heven whence every good and perfect gift
Church Militant to be most like the Church Triumphant for in Heaven which is nothing els but one great Temple ther is among the Angels which are compounded of Essence and Existence as you and I are of matter and form ther is I say a most exact order They are divided to three Hierarchies in every Hierarchy ther are three orders The first consists of Seraphims the second of Cherubims the third of Thrones The second consists of Dominations of Vertues and powers The third consists of Principalities of Archangels and Angels Now those of the supremest Hierarchy partake of Divine illuminations in a greater measure then of the inferior and they one to another in respective manner who are subordinat unto them you and I are created in a capacity to dwell in that Temple of Eternity you after the Resurrection and I as soon as I part with you to see the face of my Creator and converse with those holy Angels by thoughts and looks Body 'T is hard for flesh and blood to beleeve that considering the immense distance which is twixt this ball of earth and 〈◊〉 Empyrean Heaven you should so instantaneously arrive thither to behold the beatificall vision For the lowest neighbour to earth of all the celestiall bodies which is the Moon is by the opinion of the best Astronomers computed to be 52. Semidiameters distant from the earth every diameter containing nere upon 3500. miles so that put case one could fly thither and mount 100. miles an hour yet he would be above four months in his journey moreover from the first sphere the primum mobile put case a millstone should descend thence to the centre it would be 60. yeers a coming down though it make 40. miles every hour as the prime of Astronomer averrs therfore under favor how is it possible that you should immediatly upon your separation from me post up with such inexcogitable speed up to Heaven and behold the blissfull vision Soul Touching the operations the movements and conveyancies of Spirits you must know that they are instantaneous and so wonderfull that the speculation thereof strikes Philosophy dumb They need no succession of Time or place as bodies require in their motions they meet with no stop or resistance at all in their passage Now if Light which is nothing els but dilated fire to the utmost tenuity that can be and comes neerest to the nature of a spirit of any corporeal creature if light I say doth exercise its function with such an admirable agility and suddennes as to expand it self from East to West over the whole surface of the Hemisphere what shall we think of Spirits that are far fuller of activity But you must understand that when I am devested of you the wall of partition that interposition is instantly taken away which stood 'twixt me and my Creator who is the Son of the Invisible world as that in the Firmament which you see with the sensitive optiques here is of this Materiall therefore I shall immediatly behold that infinitly more glorious Sun the veyl of flesh being taken away I shall be instantly within the Temple of glory wherof every Corner is fill'd with the light of his countenance insomuch that who is once in it can never be able to go again out of it Therefore though the blessed Angels are employed up and down the world upon his service yet they are alwayes within the verge of the Beatificall vision Body Let it not be held a petulant or impertinent curiosity in me if I covet to know since you now speak of Angels what degrees of difference ther may betwixt Them and separated souls in Heaven Soul As they agree in many things so they also differ in many Angels and separated souls agree in that both of them are spirits both of them are intellectual and eternal Cretures They behold the blissful vision They are Courtiers of Heaven and act meerly by the understanding The merits of Christ was beneficiall to both it made the one capable of the state of glory and it confirm'd the other in it that they can never be Apostats hereafter besides as som hold at the day of judgment they are to receive augmentation of bliss by being freed from further employment cares and solicitings for men and continue in an uninterrupted rest Now as the blessed Angels and separated souls do thus agree so they differ also in sundry things They differ in their very Essentialls for the principles of Angels are meerly metaphysicall viz. Essence and existence but a separated soul continueth still a part of that compositum which formerly consisted of matter and form and is still apt to be reunited to the body till then she is not absolutly completed for all that while she changeth not her nature but her state moreover they differ in the Exercise of the understanding and manner of knowledg for a separated soul knowes still by discours and ratiocination which an Angel doth not They also differ in dignity of nature for Angels have larger illuminations and at the first instant of their Creation they beheld the beatificall vision yet separated souls are capable to mount up to such a height of glory as to bee like them in all things both in point of vision adhaesion and fruitio◠Body But when you are setled in that state of blissfulness how can I expect that you will desire to bee united again to re-efform so frail and foul a thing as this body of mine why may not I think rather that you will assume some body of a nobler and more refined matter according to the speculation of him who imagin'd that rationall soules be they never so pious and pure mount not up presently after their separation from the corrupt mass of flesh to enjoy the Beatificall vision which is the height of all celestiall happiness but first they are carried to the body of the Moon or som other Star according to their degrees of piety and goodness in this life where they enter into and actuar som bodies of a purer mould and being refin'd then they reascend to som higher Star and so to som higher then that till at last they be made capable to behold the lustre of so glorious a Majesty in whose sight no impurity can stand which fancy may be illustrated by this comparison that if a prisoner as I touch elswhere after he hath bin kept close in a dark dungeon for many yeers should bee taken out and brought suddenly to look upon the Sun in the Meridian it would endanger him to bee struck stark blind So no humane polluted soul sallying out of a dark dirty prison as the body is would be possibly able to appear before the incomprehensible Majesty of God or be susceptible of the fulgor of his all-glorious countenance unless he be sitted before hand by certain degrees thereunto which might be done by passing from one Star to another who we are told in a good Text differ one from the other