are done there and that if all of a sudden he should be taken thence and the Heavens and the Earth the Sun the Moon the Stars the Clouds the force and power of the Winds and in general all that is peculiarly worthy of knowledge in all the parts of nature be shewed unto him 't is indubitable that he would fall into a very great admiration and that he would immediately cry out this is the Work and Habitation of the Gods themselves And there is no Person that Considers the thing as it ought which doth not easily apprehend that this Philosopher had reason For although the custom of seeing all these marvellous Objects diminishes the admiration of them 't is nevertheless from thence that all Nations have first learned that there is an infinite Being that by the wisdom of his understanding and power of his hand hath given being to all these things What may we then think of the ravishments that the Souls of the Faithful have experience of then when being delivered from the chains of the body and carried on high between the hands of Angels after having passed all the extent of the Air and gone through the vast and immense spaces of the Celestial Orbs and considered near at hand the vast and prodigious greatness the marvellous splendour of the Sun and other Stars they come to enter that stately Palace where God and our Lord Jesus dwell in glory When Jacob saw a Ladder which reached from Earth to Heaven and the Angels that ascended and descended from above he cried out this is the House of God or at least it is certainly the Gate of Heaven and testified that this place so venerable filled his Soul with fear and wonder both together David placed among his most earnest desires that of entring into the Tabernacle of God and of seeing on all sides the marvels that shined there And truely I do not doubt but that Spectacle was capable of overwhelming the Spirit with unspeakable content the matter it self was illustrious and amazing but the work and design much exceeded the matter But what is all that in comparison of what we may presume concerning the Heavens and the wonders that on all sides shine and sparkle there When we view the palaces of Kings the costliness of their Houses the stateliness of their seylings the variety of their Pictures the richness of their Tapestry the rarity of their Statues the lofty grandeur of their Pillars and Arches give a pleasure marvellously sensible and affecting to all men that have eyes and have not their internal senses marvellously stupid and blockish those that are knowing in Arts and well understand Building Painting Carving Embroidery and other things of that nature do there take much more content than others because they discover all the beauties that are in those Objects the most curious stroaks and the most delicate devices cannot escape them Whereas the generality observe nothing there but the various sparkling of Colours some order and general harmony and proportion which the most gross cannot be ignorant in and in such or such a Picture some likeness to persons that at some time they have seen If there be either Histories or Emblems Riddles or Devices in the Tapestries or Pictures those which are conversant in good Learning and pride themselves either in quickness of wit or the knowledg of Histories and Fables do there receive yet more satisfaction if they can lay open what is wrapt up there and go to the bottom of what others see nothing but the bark And if with so many other things the Spirit of Prophecy had given to David some understanding of the Mysteries which were vailed under the Types and Allegories of the Old Testament I do believe that in the contemplation of the Tabernacle neither the price of the matter whereof it was composed nor the Divine industry that Bezaleel and Aholiab employed there did never so much content either his senses or his understanding as he felt of ravishment in the marvellous wisdom wherewith God directed the design of all these things to represent by them others incomparably more excellent which were yet hid in the darkness of time to come Imagine you therefore a Soul first of all ready instructed in the truths of Christianity and purified from all false impressions which may have been mingled with them then afterwards extraordinarily illuminated by the Spirit of God and by that means made capable of all that the most sublime intelligences are capable of to be introduced into this place so full of Magnificence and splendor and there finding the substance of that whereof the Sanctuary of the Tabernacle was heretofore but a shadow If you do so I assure my self that you will fall so short of being able to conceive all the contentment that it will find there that you cannot attentively affix your Spirit thereon but it will remain swallowed up and fall and faint under the admiration of the knowledg that it will obtain there although you be not able to comprehend it There remains the third of these objects which is the presence of our Lord Jesus and our Communion with happy Spirits and Holy Angels To begin there as I believe that there is no reason to doubt but that Angels can communicate among themselves So I hold for certain that happy spirits can do the same and that Angels and Souls can mutually entertain each other What is the manner of this communication is a thing as difficult to explain as is the nature of Angels themselves and the substance of Spirits For such as is the nature of things such is the manner and quality of their Operations and no man will ever well explain the one if he have not first of all perfectly comprehended what may be understood of the other But although we do not well understand the manner nevertheless we do not fail to be fully assured of the thing it self Every understanding Being is enclined to society as on the other side no Beings have any society among themselves but those that are endued with understanding 'T is for that reason that among Animals man alone is Politick and Sociable as therefore with an understanding but which is inclosed in a Body God hath given us speech which is a Corporeal means of mutual Conversation so to substances separate from Body but nevertheless endued with understanding he hath given some power to entertain society and converse although it be not Corporeal And those that imagine that neither Angels nor Souls can move themselves unless it be by the means of a Body nor discover their thoughts and sentiments to each other unless it be by some Corporeal medium to say no more pretend to know what they do not at all understand For seeing they dare to determine the nature of the faculties of Spirits and the manner of their Operations they must be presumed to have an exact and perfect knowledg of the nature of substances purely Spiritual Therefore
THE EVIDENCE Of things not SEEN OR Diverse Scriptural AND Philosophical Discourses Concerning the State of Good and Holy men after Death In Answer to these following Questions 1. Whether the Soul after death be endued with perception or sleeps without exercising any of its Faculties until the day of Judgment 2. What is the place of the Souls abode Immediately after death and what is then the measure of the happiness of the Faithful 3. What will be the Condition of the Soul and Body at the Resurrection when they shall be Joyning and Re-joyned together 4. What will be the Nature of a good Mans Happiness in Eternal Glory after the Resurrection By that Eminently Learned Divine MOSES AMYRALDUS Translated out of the French Tongue By a Minister of the Church of England LONDON Printed for Tho. Cockerill at the Sign of the Three Legs in the Poultry THE TRANSLATOR TO HIS Dearest CONSORT My Dear THE Excellent Author of the following Discourses wrote them for the only use of his Dear Wife without any intention of Printing them but some Friends obtaining a sight of them in Manuscript were so delighted with them and so satisfied with the Philosophy and Reason of them together with the Scriptural evidences here made use of which do clearly reveal and plainly Manifest very much of the nature of mans future State and Condition as that they did not only judge them worthy of the Publick view but making it their earnest request to him did by the Mediation of so prevalent a person as his nearest Relation gain his consent as he tells us for the publishing of them Dear Heart I did sometimes since Translate them also for your use and now at your desire I do suffer them to pass the Press you have Communicated them to some of your Relations who think that they may be of great advantage to devout and pious Souls I do therefore willingly commit them to your and their Disposal and if they may promote and increase a love to and a faith in that blessed future State which is the Subject of them I shall most Heartily Rejoyce therein I very well know that such subjects are very congruous suitable and pleasant to your Soul and it was the knowledge thereof that did engage me at some Vacant hours to Translate them You have Experienced much good already by them and I doubt not but they will tend yet further to encrease a passion in you for God and Heaven It may be also that God may bless them to produce the same Effects upon many others that shall peruse them But as the Author inscribed them to no other Name than Hers for whose sake he Wrote them So I having made them English for your Use in a Especial manner do now make the Dedication of them only to your self always praying that God would so bless them to the profit of all that shall Read them that they together with us may be made Partakers of that blessed Inheritance a clear Map whereof is herewith so lively Delineated and so plainly Exhibited to our and their Eyes Now the God of peace fill thee my Dear with all joy through Believing which is the Dayly Prayer of thine G. J. Concerning the STATE Of the FAITHFUL After Death ALthough the Apostle St. Paul writing to the Thessalonians exhorts them to derive their Comforts in the loss of their Friends from the hopes of a happy Resurrection and tho the full Revelation of our happiness be reserved indeed till the day when that shall be Nevertheless we do not cease to Comfort those to whom such accidents arrive by this Consideration that assoon as the Soul is separate from the body it is received into a place of refreshment and repose where expecting this Resurrection it enjoys a Contentment greater than can be expressed We have been accustomed to give this hope to the diseased that we see in danger of death that if they be removed from this life it will be to enter into a better where they shall forthwith possess joy and happiness which we essay to describe in the most Illustrious manner that we are able But the thing it self must infinitely surpass all that we can in our words say concerning it And forasmuch as 't is apparent that naturally things a far off touch us little whereas those that are near and such as we think under our hand give to our Spirits motions and perceptions far more lively this Consolation hath I know not how more of efficacy both to sweeten the trouble of those that live and to abate the regret of those that die than the expectation of the re-establishment of this Body which according to all appearance of things seems to be differred to a time sufficiently long Now as 't is suitable to the Christian Religion and to the Office of those that are to Publish it to fill the minds of men with generous hopes and to make them feel the most lively Consolations so 't is worthy of its Excellence that these hopes and Consolations be true and certain and that those that do receive them have a full perswasion of it For the efficacy of such things depends on the evidence and solidity of their truth and in what degree a man doubts the truth of what is promised or whereof he receives assurance in the same degree the content that he receives from it doth weaken and diminish Forasmuch then as there is nothing the use whereof returns more frequently in the life of man and that there is not a Family among Christians that doth not sometimes need such Consolations and that the infirmity of the flesh finds always much of difficulty to impress on us aforehand the belief of these things and that even among Christians themselves some have doubted of the Estate of Souls after death and that it cannot be avoided but that in the particular Entercourse and Conversation of men they will happen on the discourse of this matter I do believe that it will not be altogether without reason to bestow some hours on the attentive Consideration of this Subject If my thoughts about it be of no use to the Edification of the Publick at least my near Allies may derive with me some particular utility from them in the Afflictions of this sort wherewith God hath visited us I propound to my self therefore to examine by the word of God for 't is from thence only that we can fetch such light as may satisfy us in these matters principally four things First what is the Estate of the faithful Soul after death Whether it be endowed with perception or whether it remain asleep without any use of its faculties until the day of Judgment Secondly it being supposed which we shall make appear that it exercises them with much joy and satisfaction what is the place where 't is received and what is the measure of the joy and happiness that it doth enjoy Thirdly what will be its State at the Resurrection and
that serve for the local motion of its members and on the incomparable disposition that nature hath established among the parts which are to digest distribute receive and appropriate that which is necessary for their nourishment To conclude the last reason hath no more force than the precedent For seeing Angels which are as I have said Beings totally separate from Matter or Body have nevertheless certain means which in truth we cannot easily comprehend but yet certainly believe of knowing things sensible and Corporeal and forming excellent discourses upon them whereof the Scripture furnishes us with indubitable proofs wherefore the Soul being a substance well nigh like that of Angels should it not be capable of the same operations let us imagin that by the power of God an Angel should be incarnate in such manner that he become the form of a humane Body and that he animate it after the manner of a reasonable Soul without doubt whiles he lodges there he will see and perceive things Corporeal by the Organs of sense and reason upon the Images which are brought from and perfected in the Phantasy as we now do And if actually he become the Soul of this body it will be as much subject to the use of its Organs for the exercise of his understanding as our Soul is at this time for the exercise of its most excellent faculties but if after this it should please God to disintangle it from the bonds of of the Body will it lose the use of those powers wherewith he served himself so advantageously without the use of Organs before it was made to serve there But there is something more 't is a constant truth and all the World assent to it that there is nothing in the understanding which was not in some manner first in the sense but this which is so indubitable to speak generally is not without difficulty when it comes to be explained because it may be taken in this sense viz. that universally we can have no other Idea's of things in our minds than such as have proceeded from things material and which our eyes or our ears or our other senses have been capable of receiving and again it may be so explained that although these be in our mind Idea's purely intellectual and which retain nothing of the nature of Body yet so it is that they are not formed but by occasion of the Images of Corporeal things which are received in the Phantasy upon which the Intellect makes its first Reflections And I think that if a man make but little use of his reason he shall find that 't is in this second manner but the aforesaid truth must be understood For to say nothing of our passing from Physicks or natural Philosophy to that of Metaphysicks or which is above nature by the means of certain obstructions which conduct the Spirit of a man from the Contemplation of Bodies to that of Spirits and things Immaterial I think Religion puts the thing out of all controversy and doubt For 't is indeed by the interposition of our Senses that we see the Heavens and the Earth and that we hear the word of God Preached and 't is upon the Idea's which the exercise of our senses introduce upon our Phantasy that we put our selves upon reasoning concerning the Deity But 't is a thing known by our proper experience that when we have sometimes seriously applied our selves thereunto from the consideration of things sensible which have given us the first notions or knowledg thereof we ascend to speculations concerning the nature of God and his properties which are entirely and absolutely separated from the qualities and matter of Bodies Although then our minds produce no operations whereof things Corporeal have not presented them the occasions as Saint Paul says Rom. 1. that from the workmanship of the World we come to the knowledg of the eternal power and goodness of the Divinity or Godhead nevertheless there are some actions of our minds which are purely Spiritual and which in no wise depend on Bodies any further than that Corporeal objects do furnish us with occasions to produce them by discourse now if there be any of the actions of our minds which to speak properly have nothing in common with Bodies even during the time that they inhabit there and are in some kind fastened and bound to their instruments why should they not be capable of producing them without the service of the Senses then when they are altogether losened from the bonds that have joyned and united them if then we can have any proofs from the Scripture that Souls use their faculties after the death of the Body that Divine Revelation ought not only to have sufficient Authority to impress this belief upon our minds notwithstanding the contradiction of the pretended discourses of our reason but these difficulties which some persons think to be in the thing it self ought not to leave in our minds the least hesitation or suspition Let us see then what the word of God doth teach concerning it Those Divines which have attempted to derive a proof of this verity from the Parable of the wicked Dives and Lazarus have received this contradiction on the part of those who believe that the Soul loses the use of its faculties in death viz. that what our Saviour says there is no History but only a Parable and that it is an impertinence to endeavour to make such discourses pass for narrations of things effectively accomplished And thereupon there is much and great Contestation because on one hand there is no other Parable in the Scripture where the persons that are there introduced are designed by their names and represented exactly by many circumstances as Lazarus is described in that place or Paragraph and on the other hand the discourse which our Saviour reports that Abraham and the Rich man had the one with the other or cross the great Gulph or Abyss hath no appearance or likeness of an Historical narration to commend it to acceptance as a real truth Wherefore seeing it may be in part an History and in part a Parable let us examine it briefly under this last Consideration in all the Parables which our Saviour makes use of in the Gospel we must have regard to the end whereunto it tends and also to what he says that he may come to it as to what concerns the end of this Parable 't is sufficiently apparent by its Conclusion that our Lord had in design to shew that the obstinacy of mans mind in opposition to things proposed unto him on the part of God is so great that neither Revelations made by the word of God nor Miracle laid open before our eyes is capable of moving or affecting us In such sort that although the dead themselves should rise we should give no more credit to their Testimony than we do to the writings of Moses and the Prophets if God touch us not inwardly by his Spirit All the rest
here below and that they shall obtain the reward that is promised them above by a manner of speech frequent in the Scripture where that which goes before is put for that which follows he makes no scruple to name one for the other Now the gratuitous reward of good works consists not in a privation of all perception but in the possession of Contentment and glory In the same Book the Souls of those that had been Martyred for the word of God are represented crying how long Lord just and true wilt thou not judge and avenge our blood on those that dwell on the earth which is a proof that there is in them memory and apprehension And it cannot be said here that this cry is attributed to them as in the eighth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans sighs and groans and desires are ascribed to the whole frame of Heaven and Earth or as the cry of vengeance is attributed to the blood of Abel by a kind of Prosopopeia or ficttion of personality because it being notorious that the Heavens and the Earth and the blood of a man have no knowledg or preception there is no danger that such manner of figurative expressions should beget erroneous opinions in the mind of any one the nature of the thing gives sufficient notice that necessarily there must be some figure in the enunciation or discourse but where 't is said of the Souls of men which we see during the time that they are in the body endued with lively and excellent perception supposing that they were extinct or at least wholly asleep after death who can hinder himself by Reading these words from drawing opinions of a quite contrary nature Now to the end that no man may doubt of the meaning of this Text it is appointed them to rest and expect a little while Now although by a kind of Prosopopeia or fiction of person we may attribute such voices to things void of all perception who ever saw God introduced making answer to them or any one for him forming a Dialogue in the manner with things without all understanding To conclude there is given unto them white garments which can signifie nothing less than some great light of knowledg and some great purity of holiness or perfection of sanctification Now neither the one nor the other can subsist without a perfect use of the understanding faculty and all the affections of the Soul And although these white Robes should signify either the grace of justification or the hope of happiness and glory because sometimes white Robes were the marks of those that aspired to the most eminent Offices in the Roman Common Wealth yet that cannot be without some perception and affection For if it be the first in as much as these Souls are represented in a place whether they could have had no admission if they had not been justified and their sins pardoned it is not properly justification which they have already which is given to them 't is the Taste and Sense of it whereof the fulness is bestowed on them whereas here below we have nothing but the foretasts of it in the peace and joy of our Souls and if it be the second that can represent nothing but the desire of their full and perfect glorification accompanied with assurance and by consequence with incredible contentment which cannot be reconciled with the sleep of the Soul and the extinction of all its powers The Apostle writing to the Philippians saith that he was ballanced or in a strait between two thoughts whether he ought to desire death or to continue a longer time in the World Because if he had regard to the Edification that his Ministry might give to the Church and the profit that it might draw from hence he ought much rather to chuse a longer life but if he had regard to his own particular good death was more desirable to him than life I pray if he had believed that all the powers of his Soul as well as those of the body had remained at death benummed for so long a time would he have thought that death would have been more advantageous to him I do acknowledge that he had endured many evils for the confirmation of the truth that he Preached from which a death such as those against whom I dispute do represent it drousie and void of all understanding would have secured him but so it is that the knowledg he had of our Lord Jesus whilst alive the marvellous Revelations that had been made unto him the Joy and Consolation that came unto him from the sense of the love and peace of God and the exercise of so many excellent Virtues wherewithal he was endued were in my opinion things of such importance that they should rather cause him to prefer life in which he retained the possession of them though accompanied with many afflictions than to embrace death which what ever it might be otherwise deprived him of the enjoyment of them But the reason that he adds wherefore he ought to chuse death if he had no regard but to his own person that it is much better to be with Christ cuts off all occasion of doubting concerning the mind of St. Paul in this matter For those without doubt are not with Christ which sleep without perception and without any knowledg of their felicity though they were received into the most holy and most illustrious place of his glory Otherwise those might be said to live and dwell with Kings which are interred in the Chappels of their Palaces whether the least ray of the glory that compasses them about cannot enter That other passage seems not to me less express 2 Cor. 5. 1 2 3. where the Apostle explains himself in these words we know that if the earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens wherefore we groan desiring earnestly to be clothed with our house that is from Heaven For is there any probability that he should desire with so much vehemency to be stripped of this Tabernacle of earth to be clothed with that which is from Heaven if he not only got nothing new but lost all the knowledg of things that he had in this life totally and altogether Now that he intends to speak there of the change that was to betide him before the Resurrection is a thing clear and manifest by the whole issue of the discourse 't is true he had said before that he knew that he that raised up the Lord Jesus would raise us up also by Jesus and cause us to appear in his presence and 't is for that reason that he testifies that he fainted not in his Tribulations and adds that though our outward man grew into decay nevertheless the inward man was renewed day by day going on from strength to strength and if we are exposed to several afflictions he says that our light affliction that is but
those of the old As to this Text of Scripture I observe that 't is understood after diverse manners whereof among others there are two worthy of Consideration for some have thought that by the Spirit of Christ is meant his Soul by his preaching the knowledge that he gave to the Souls of the ancient Believers of the propitiation that he made upon the Cross by the word which we translate Prison a kind of Watch-Tower wherein these Souls expected the Redemption hoped for according to the promises that had been given them concerning it they suppose then the Souls of the ancient Believers in condition something like those that are set in Centinel on some high place in a besieged City to discover afar off from whence and when succour will appear unto them only they put this difference that the hopes of succour in a place besieged is always mixed with doubts because of the uncertainty of all human Counsels and Events and this doubt is not without fear nor fear without unquietness nor by consequent without anxiety and perturbation whereas the Souls of the holy Persons of passed ages never having any doubt concerning the promise of God have possessed a hope altogether assured and by consequent a tranquillity very profound and a contentment without any mixture of afflictions others have thought that by the Spirit of Christ must be meant his Divine Nature by his preaching the invitation to Repentance that he caused to be made in the days of Noah And by the Spirits that are in Prison for they believe that to accommodate this Hebrew phrase to our Language 't is necessary to supply these words which are or which are now the Souls of those which would not hearken to this invitation and who by reason of their obstinacy have been put under chains of darkness in those horrible Prisons where they expect their final punishment Now to make here a small Digression and to return again after a little while to the preceding Question I say that whether of these two interpretations we do embrace it will evidently conclude that Souls are not destitute of all knowledge after death for if we fasten on the first the Souls of the faithful expect with great longing the revelation of the Redemption of Jesus Christ and if we follow the second Offenders do not use always to sleep in their holes the worm of their Conscience and the fear of what is to come will awaken them Besides if the Souls of the wicked lose all sense at their going out of the Body there will be no need of assigning to them one certain and common Prison they will be sufficiently well disposed of for the expectation of Judgment in whatsoever part of the World they shall be found But let us return to the Question in hand I think this second Interpretation much the better and most agreeable both to the intention and words of the Apostle and if I should hold my self to that I should have nothing to answer but that although the Prison and place of punishment be different sufficiently often yet they are not always so sometimes Offenders are punished in the Gaols and Prisons wherein they are kept expecting the sentence of the Judge and in the time that St. Peter wrote 't was a thing sufficiently common among the Ramans and Greeks to make use of the same place first as a Prison and then as the Theater of punishment so that this Text proves not at all that the Souls of Unbelievers are not now kept in Hell although one day they must there be tormented for their Crimes And by the same reason it will not follow that the Souls of Believers are not now assembled in the Heavens although that must be one day the place of their recompence and their glory But let us give this honour to those that have proposed this first interpretation to see if by receiving it it can be proved that the Souls of the faithful have not at present their habitation in the Heavens Although the Vision of God in which consists our supream happiness must be chiefly Communicated in the Heavens nevertheless the Court of Heaven and the Vision of God may be things distinct I say God may make himself seen out of Heaven if he pleases and if he pleases he may receive a person to Heaven who shall not see God by that Vision in which consists the top and highest part of happiness Let us put the Case that the Souls of the faithful have in other ages or are at present put in some place as in a Watch-Tower those of the faithful of times past in expectation of the Redemption of the Cross and those of the faithful of the time present in expectation of the appearance of the same Redeemer this place may very well be in the Heavens though the Vision of the glory of God be not yet Communicated to them and if we compare this Text so interpreted with that This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise there will be much more reason to believe that the place of this Sentinel is in Heaven than any where else for the Paradise whither the Soul of our Lord Ascended is in the Heaven and there by consequence are the Souls of those to whom he will give the knowledge of his satisfaction As to what concerns those other Texts wherein the Scripture sends us to the day of the blessed Resurrection for the obtaining of our Reward it seems not at all necessary to understand them in such manner as may persuade us to exclude faithful Souls from Heaven There is no term more usual to represent the glory which we expect on that very happy day than that of triumph Let us then compare the Condition of them that have formerly Triumphed at Rome with the faithful that expect the Reward of Glory they first of all fought at a distance from the City in strange Countreys some nearer and some farther off according as the emergency of things and the extent of the Empire did require after they had vanquished their Enemies they were permitted to enter into the City of Rome as private persons there to demand the charges of the Common-wealth or the honour of Triumph the Senate first appointed it and no man ever triumphed at Rome without consent of the Senate or by authority of the People After a permission of Triumph was obtained they went out of the City to return again in some short time not as private Persons without any Attendance or Ornaments but as victorious Captains and Conquerors with solemn pomp and magnificence Wherefore then after the Believer hath fought here below against the Enemies of the glory of God and his Salvation and is escaped victorious in all his Combates may he not be permitted to enter as a private person stripped of his body into the heavenly Jerusalem not to demand a Triumph for that is already determined but to expect the day on which it must be Celebrated in
Since our head is there and the Communion that we have with him is so strict and indissoluble wherefore doth not he assemble his members about him although by his wise dispensation some part of them remain yet a while on Earth Since he hath prayed that where he is we may be also why is the fruit of this prayer which without doubt God did hear differred for so many ages Since he hath said that he went thither to prepare a place for us why should we doubt that he doth receive us to the place that he hath designed and marked out for us To conclude since he shews himself to those that enquire not after him why doth he depart or withdraw himself so far from those that seek and desire him with so great passions and affections When Mary cast her self at his feet to embrace him he said touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father Without doubt because this woman transported with the pleasure of seeing him raised again was willing as we say to rejoyce and congratulate with him in so glorious a Victory and because she and his other disciples had hitherunto had some hope that the Lord would remain on Earth with them to re-establish the Kingdom of Israel she was ravished with joy as if henceforth there were nothing that could hinder but that she might enjoy his presence according to her wish and content there with all the desires of her Soul For that reason he repressed this heat and ardour and tells her that 't is not yet done it remains as yet that he ascend on high ere they must see the accomplishment of their expectations For according to his admirable goodness and wisdom he knew so to dispose his actions and discourses to his servants and to accommodate them for a little time to the quality of their knowledg and understanding but at this time that he is ascended upon high wherefore in expectation that he will descend thence to raise our Bodies should he not permit our Souls to go cast themselves at his feet and refresh themselves with the pleasant enjoyment of his presence all these considerations certainly ought to make very great impressions upon our minds but that which ought fully to perswade them is that the holy Scriptures given us most evident and indubitable instructions concerning it Let us therefore chuse some passages very express and which will render the thing wholly manifest St. Paul in the place that I alledged above saith that if the earthly House of our Body be dissolved we have a Building of God an House eternal in the Heavens And we have seen above that he speaks of what happens to the faithful immediately after death and not only of what they expect at the last Resurrection Will any one say that these words in the Heavens do not signify the place but the condition that is to say that Habitation is called Heavenly not because 't is in the Heavens but because 't is very holy and happy Certainly this neither can nor must be For besides that we may not have recourse to interpretations which seem a little forced without an absolute and invincible necessity he says 't is an house Eternal in the Heavens Now the Court of Heaven which is appointed for the faithful may well be called Eternal although it be necessary that Souls leave it for a moment at the time of the Resurrection Because things that are done for a very little space of time and only by dispensation are not at all considered and so small an interval hinders not but that we say they have always continued in that same place Even as we do not quit our dwelling by making a voyage into the Country and although the Angels come sufficiently often on Earth yet we do not cease to name them the Angels of Heaven but if Souls be in any place out of Heaven until the day of the Resurrection that Habitation being to be abandoned for ever it cannot in any wise be said to be Eternal The same Apostle says that he desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ Forasmuch as it was much better for him without doubt Jesus Christ is in the Heavens and if St. Paul had not believed that he should go thither when he died but that he must be confined in some other place of the world wherever it be out of the presence of our Lord he had not served himself of such expressions our Lord promised the Thief that he should that day be with him in Paradise now Paradise is in Heaven and although our Lord did soon redescend from thence to reunite himself to his body the thief without all controversy continued there having no need or occasion to return to this Earth In the Book of the Revel Chap. 14. Vers 4. All the faithful departed hence are represented under the number of an hundred and forty and four thousand gathered together in the Heavens in the company of the Lamb and following him whithersoever he goes Now there is no probability that God would represent to his Prophet Visions of this nature for the confirmation and consolation of his Children if they were contrary to the truth of things In the Epistle to the Hebrews 't is said that we are come to the assembly and Church of the first born whose names are written in Heaven Now 't is not the manner to enrol and make men free of a City and soon after exile them for a very long time into the Countrey Besides 't is apparent that this word written or enrolled signifies in this Text assembled for here are no publique Rolls or Records in the Heavens where the names and qualities of believers are actually written But because those that are admitted to the priviledges of Freemen in a City are wont first of all to be Enrolled after that manner of speaking which I have before remarked where that which goes before is put for that which follows and that which follows for that which goes before the holy Apostle calls those written or enrolled which are actually received into the possession of their Heavenly freedom and truly it seems to me that there is no reason to doubt of a thing whereof God hath been pleased to give most express assurance in all the periods and parts of the holy Scriptures For why think we did he raise and Translate Enoch before the Law Elias under the legal Oeconomy and Jesus Christ under the Gospel so apparently and manifestly that no man could doubt but that they are carried to Heaven if it were not to this end that we might raise our desires thoughts and affections thither after them I very well know that these things have a particular regard to the hope of the Resurrection but I do also maintain that God would not have drawn the hearts of men so visibly to himself if he had had any intention to command their Souls separated from their Bodies to remain I know not where
very far from the place whereof he had raised in them very strange and pleasant hopes and expectations And this good God which hath had so much care by all means to provide for the comfort of our faith would not have commanded us to embark with so much Courage and Resolution upon a Sea so troublesome and full of darkness and Abysses as is death if he had not clearly shewed us the Haven where our Souls must arrive after such troublesome agitations The other point which concerns the quality and degree of the blessedness of those Souls that are gathered together in Heaven will put us to some little more trouble whether it be seriously to search what may be said concerning it from the word of God which speaks not so plainly of it or whether it be to contain our selves modestly within the bounds of what it hath revealed and of what we can comprehend by the Analogy of Faith without passing the limits of it I shall endeavour notwithstanding to do the one and the other I must lay down here for the foundation of our discourse that the Souls of the faithful are put by death into a state of perfect sanctification seeing they enter into Heaven For nothing enters there that doth pollute or foul In short seeing that sin either in Bodily affections such as the Schools call the Irascible and Concupiscible or in the habits of the mind it self and in the evil dispositions of the understanding and will death must enfranchise them from subjection to the one and the other For first of all the Soul being delivered from the body it can be no longer subject to its affections and that among others is the reason why we die that the affections and desires of our members which have not been perfectly mortified by the grace of God which we receive here below might entirely be extinguished by the destruction and dissolution of the members themselves which 't is like the Apostle would signify when he says the body is dead because of sin that is to say mortal or subject to death to the end that sin might be extinguished Moreover as to what concerns the habits of the Spirit as it was that of God that began to dissipate them here below to the end that he might introduce those that are better so it is he himself that doth altogether cleanse us of them after death and impress upon us a perfect and compleat sanctity Now compleat Holiness doth necessarily suppose some perfection of knowledg For we are so framed that the love and affection of our wills is generated by the light that is in our understandings and this Frame or Constitution being essential to our Souls and by consequence absolutely inseparable from them in what place or in whatsoever state they be it must be that they be such as well after as before their separation from the Body for it cannot be conceived either that we can love those things that we do not at all understand or that we cannot love those which we do know to be truly lovely or that we love more or less in proportion to the knowledg we have of them In the mean time the perfection of knowledg depends of two things the one is the object which is presented to us the other is the manner in which we receive it the object may have the advantage of being presented to us after an excellent manner but if we be not well disposed to receive it the effect which it ought to produce in our Souls is not produced at all And on the other side we may be well disposed to receive it but if it be not presented to us in good manner we cannot derive those lights from it which otherwise we might Now as to the disposition of the faculties of our Souls we do here suppose that after death they will be perfectly well constituted since they will be delivered from sin by the extinction of the lusts and desires of the Body and be rendred incomparably more strong and luminous than naturally they could be by the presence of the Holy Ghost It remains now that we consider what may be the objects that present themselves to the contemplation of Souls thus qualified and prepared It seems to me that we may boldly say they are necessarily of three kinds The first are such as our Souls may have had some knowledg of whilst we lived and whereof we continue to retain the memory The second contain those works of God which are presented to their eyes The third are the persons that will there be seen and the Communion which they will have on high with those other Spirits which are found there Now as touching memory I think there is no person which doth not easily conceive that we have two sorts thereof For their is one that consists in the retention of things sensible and singular with their circumstances and particularities according to which our memories received the images of them which we recal in our Fantasy when occasions are presented or our Spirits engage themselves in the search of them for there is no person that knows not by experience what it is to review his memory there to recover the Idea's or Images of diverse sensible things which are there laid in reserve almost as a person passes his eyes over the Books in his Closet to find one there that he hath present use of But there is another also which consists in things more universal and which have their foundation in reason and discourse For there never were men which have not or might not make this Observation in themselves that after having as it seemed so forgotten certain conclusions which at some other times we had known that at the first attempt they did not present themselves to our thoughts but when we come attentively to consider the principles whereon they depend immediately we find the foot-steps of our reasonings and without any great difficulty return to the consequences that we had drawn from them in such manner that there is a like difference between a man that never knew science and another that hath had knowledg of it but the discontinuance of Meditating thereon hath a little obscured the Idea's thereof in his mind as there is between a man which never was in a Country and another who after having exactly known it hath been a stranger to it for some few years the one finds much difficulty in obtaining the knowledg of it and if he wander never so little from the beaten rode behold him utterly bewildred the other immediately recollects himself and the least thing which presents it self before his eyes replaces in his memory the Situation of the whole Country and if I may so say repaints in his mind the Map of a Province As to what concerns this first sort of memory 't is a corporeal faculty in us whereof I desire no other argument but that 't is found among beasts 'T is very true that as the
faculty which displays it self chiefly in the Operations of sense and motion I know not at all what will be then the constitution of our Organs nor what will be the nature of the Operation of our Soul upon them nor how the species of sensible things will be received by them And what is more I am not afraid to be esteemed an ignorant on this account at least for certain I shall have many Companions to partake with me in the blame thereof For I do not believe there is a man upon Earth that knows it But so it is that I very well know all will be otherwise than now it is the constitution of such Organs as now we have and the dispensation of Spirits whereupon depends all their Operations being a certain consequence of the passible and corruptible state of nature Now that which is natural will be swallowed up with that which is supernatural as that which is sensual by that which is Spiritual and that which is mortal by immortality and life And although we do not know the manner after which the Soul will be then joined to the Body for its Operations they will not be for that either the less certain or the less decorous If the measure of our knowledg were the measure of the Existence of things the greatest part of the objects of our faculties and their Operations would suffer very notable diminutions in the qualities of their Being yea some would be even absolutely expelled out of nature And I do not know whether we have used any of our senses as we ought That is to say whether of any of them we have very exactly and distinctly comprehended what it is that the Soul doth in their Operations what is the agency and activity of the Spirits And lastly what it is that the Organ it self contributes thereunto how ever it be the Organ after what manner so ever it be constituted the Soul after whatsoever manner it operate there will exercise so admirably each one what is proper to it self that they will do it without offence impediment errour or weariness with a vigour and clearness with an exactness and perfection wholly beyond imagination In conclusion to say something also of the appetites which have properly their seat in the Body and which as I have said are included under desire and anger these are passions which forasmuch as they are Corporeal will be so extinguished by death that they will return no more to life by the Resurrection And if it be true that there be virtues which have their seat in these passions as 't is apparent that Philosophy hath there placed those that they call properly moral either they will be no longer necessary because there will be no objects upon which they may be exercised or they consist not in the moderation of those appetites but in an excellent and invariable temper of the mind and will which will then be irrevocably fastened to all sorts of excellent objects by the light of the understanding All these impidements being removed if there were nothing else the reasonings of the Soul must be supreamly excellent For a good part of the failures which happen to us come either by the errour of our senses in the report that they make to us concerning sensible things or from the fumes of our passions which blind our understandings or from this that the aliments being not well concocted the Spirits which are formed out of part of their substance do retain something of their grossness and impurity wherewithal they infect the Organs which serve for the use of discourse or from this that from their first conformation there was some fault in their natural temper and construction But the same change which will put all the other parts of the Body into so excellent a constitution will put also those into the same condition wherein the intellective power of the Soul hath its seat and where it will form its ratiocinations This will be done the rather because all the other parts of the Body are not to be restored unless it be for their own proper felicity these are to serve the Operations of the Soul on which depends the happiness of the whole entire man and all the parts of him the Soul therefore being otherwise full of the illuminations of the Divine Spirit and strengthened by his presence far above the natural vigour of its faculties and coming to be lodged in a Body all whose power will be admirably perfect and bringing thither the impression of much excellent knowledg which it had already gained during the time of its residence in the Heavens it cannot effect any thing but productions worthy of its marvellous essence And as if during the time of a long separation the husband and wife had equally encreased in beauty and virtue and all other advantages they would receive incredible contentment if they might return to each other to enjoy long one and the same common felicity The Soul will rejoyce in its reunion to the Body and the Body will rejoyce in the presence of the Soul and both together composing one onely essence will be equally ravished with the happiness of their condition and with the assurance that they will have that it will be Eternal The second respect according to which man hath a Connexion and Relation to the World will deserve very attentive Consideration many things do manifestly show that the world was created for man The dignity of his nature which raised him infinitely above all other Creatures if he had remained in his integrity would not have permitted that he should have held any other place than that of an end to the use whereof other things were appointed The Empire that God gave him over all Plants and Animals at the beginning when he placed him in the Terrestrial Pardadise confirms it evidently For God would not have so ordained it if it had not been agreeable to the nature of the things themselves But nothing Teaches it unto us more expresly than the misery whereunto the world is subject on the occasion of mans sin For that 's it which the Apostle means when he says that the Creature is made subject to vanity not of it self but by reason of him which hath subjected it Rom. 8. 20. And if it be lawful to illustrate this by a Comparison taken from things Pagan the World was in regard of God as the statue of Minerva in regard of Phidias and man which is the image of God in the middle of the world as the image of Phidias in the middle of her Shield So that all the parts of the Statue were so aptly placed by their Jointures and Colligations that they met all together in the image of the workman in such manner that if it were plucked from thence all the work would fall in pieces all the parts of the World do so Abutt on this image of God that it cannot be corrupted by sin but the whole compages of
or sense After he had sufficiently considered them he demands if he believed that those bones could revive about which as it seems he found himself perplext and suspended between the impossibility that appeared to be in the thing it self and the consideration of the power of God with whom nothing is impossible and for that reason he answers doubtfully and modestly Lord thou knowest being unwilling to determine any thing thereupon God commands him to prophecy upon those bones and to say unto them as if they had been endowed with understanding and sense Yea dry bones hear the word of the Lord thus saith the Lord behold I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live I will lay sinews upon you and I will bring up flesh upon you and cover you with skin and put breath into you and ye shall live and know that I am the Lord the Prophet having pronounced these words in vision there was immediately a sound accompanied with a general motion of these bones which began to draw one after the other and to approach each unto that wherewith it was to be joyned to make the just and perfect skeleton of a Body immediately after the sinews began to be extended and the muscles to be formed and the flesh to cover all their protuberancies and to fill up all their cavities and last of all the skin warps up altogether in such manner that all the Organs and all the members being perfectly composed there remained nothing but the wind to give them life and motion Which was done then when God commanded the Prophet to Prophesy towards the wind it self and to call it crying thus saith the Lord come from the four winds and breath upon these slain that they may live Which being punctually executed every one of these Bodies was enlivened and stood up upon their feet and the number was found so great that it seemed an Army arranged for the Battel Now if the sole reading of this vision doth seize our Spirits with some admiration it cannot be doubted but the vision it self did fill that of the Prophet with much more of wonder be it that the thing were actually represented to the Corporeal senses be it that it were only drawn within by the Spirit of God upon the imagination the impression thereof without doubt was much more illustrious and vehement than that which we can impress upon our selves by the Idea that we can form of it Therefore it must also be that the emotions of his mind concerning it be in proportion much more great as well for the astonishment that he received from a spectacle so strong and unusual as for the joy that the hope of the miraculous re-establishment of the people of Israel foretold by this vision did give unto him and for which the Prophet had extraordinary desires and passions Nevertheless what is this in Comparison of what we shall see then when not men but Angels and the sound of the Trumpet of God shall effectually command the Earth that it open its Graves and the Sea that it give up its dead and to all the other Elements that they restore what each of them do possess and that from the dust of the grave and the bottom of the Sea shall come forth the matter of our Bodies to be re-establisht in life And how much will the subject of admiration yet increase when we shall see that the power of God will form them neither of bones or nerves or muscles or skin like to what we now have but of a Fabrick so new that excepting the humane shape which it will give us and that lovely conformation wherein we must express the image of our Lord in the Resurrection 't is likely that they are not humane Bodies but Millions of Stars Illustrious and Shining which are produced of all sides and born out of the very bowels of the Earth The second thing which will be presented to our eyes will be the change and transmutation of those that will remain alive which will not be less wonderful than the former For we see what are the divers infirmities wherewithal humane Bodies are incommoded Some are Dwarfs and others are of a prodigious and Gigantick greatness some want some member and others have too many one hath some part of a monstrous shape another is maimed in some of those senses which we usually call natural one hath the bone of his back bowed like an Arch another crooked like a Serpent and another bended inward and another hath some other fault in the Fabrick of his neck or head generally all have some imperfection in the constitution of their Bodies and if any be seen in which there is none he is a kind of Miracle But although there were less by many of the infirmities of that nature which I have mentioned we have always those that nature necessarily draws after it which are very great and considerable in themselves When therefore by this marvellous power which will be displayed at the time of the coming of our Lord we shall see in one day all these incommodities corrected and the Bodies of the living changed so of a sudden that there shall not be found one in that numberless number which shall not have obtained as in the twinkling of an eye I will not say all the perfections that can be desired or imagined in what concerns stature and beauty but all the splendour and incorruption that is in the Heavenly Bodies themselves what will be the Transport in which our Spirits will be sound at the aspect of a change so strange and wonderful Many here enquire whether we shall then know each other and as the love we bear to each other and the sensible and deep regret which we have on the loss of our Friends do encline us extreamly to desire it so in like manner they make us very willing to believe it and truly forasmuch as God promised the enjoyment of a happiness so perfect that nothing shall be wanting to its compleating nor to the perfection of the joy and content that we shall receive from thence we may be assured that if it will minister any thing to the accomplishment of our felicity we shall enjoy the Consolation of mutually knowing each other at that day But nevertheless I think here may be place for some considerations First of all knowledge consists in the memory of what we have seen before and as I have said above there are in us two sorts of Memories the one consists in this that the images of sensible things remain impressed upon our Memories with all their circumstances and particularities and the other in this that our understandings remain imbred with the general Idea's of things intellectual and which consist in discourse Now as to what concerns this first sort of memory I have said already that forasmuch as the faculty of memory in which the images of things sensible are laid in reserve is either wholly or in great
part Corporeal there is great probability that this faculty being extinct with the Body its images will by that means be obliterated in such sort that there is no great appearance that we can call to mind at the Resurrection the sensible and Corporeal shape of those that we have seen and known during the time of life But though we should retain some memory of them knowledge depends on the conformity that is found between the qualities which at present you find in the objects that are offered to your eyes and other senses and the images of those qualities which they had when you formerly knew them which are remaining in your memories So that if you find them such as you have seen them you may indeed remember them But if they be so changed that there be no likeness between their qualities and the Idea's which you have formerly received of them as if you had known some infant and should see him again along time after well advanced in years it would be impossible for you ever to recal him to mind Now we have already said that there will be a change marvellously great in all the constitution of our Bodies so that those that have seen us here below will find nothing at all of that by which we may become knowable unto them Moreover whilst the state of nature subsists the natural affections are both necessary to its subsistance and very beautiful and lovely in themselves when they are governed and conducted by that judgment and right reason that ought to preside over all our passions So 't is supreamly agreeable that Husbands love their Wives and Wives their Husbands and that Parents have great tenderness for their Children and Children vehement affections and profound respects for their Parents And by consequent it agrees perfectly well to the institutions of nature that those should cordially love each other between whom it hath established these Relations but when the estate of nature shall be changed and all things put in a supernatural state there is great probability that the necessity of these affections ceasing they will either be totally extinct or at least they will certainly lose much of their heat and vigour and our Lord Jesus answering to the Question which was made to him concerning the Woman that had seven Husbands and teaching us that in the Kingdom of Heaven all these Relations will cease hath as it seems likewise taught us that the affections that depend thereon will also be reduced to nothing Add to this that we know nothing more sweet nor more affecting in this life than the affections that we mutually bear to each other be it that they proceed from the inclinations and sentiments of nature and the Relations that it doth establish between us be it that familiar conversation and a conformity of humours and inclinations do generate and produce them Therefore as we are inclined to measure all things by the knowledg that we have and as it were conceive nothing above it Scarcely can we imagin that in the Heavens there be enjoyment more agreeable and pleasant than those that we have here on earth even our Lord accommodating himself to these inclinations and to the capacity of our minds promises us as it hath been said above that we shall there sit at Table with the Ancient Patriarchs but nevertheless there is great probability that as when St. Peter saw the transfiguration of Christ he was so swallowed up in the admiration of those objects that he forgot all those that at other times he knew and said 't is good for us to be here So then when we shall have our Souls filled with that love and joy which the presence of the Redeemer and the vision of God himself will beget within us we shall no more remember any of all that tenderness of affection that we had experience of in the present life Notwithstanding I shall not in this place neglect to observe two things that concern this matter the first is that St. Paul writing to the Thessalonians and being willing to exhort them effectually to something of importance speaks to them after this manner Brethren we beseech you by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto him the meaning is without doubt that he conjured them by that which might be most glorious and most desirable for them in the coming of our Saviour and by all that which might be one day most sweet and consolatory in our Holy Communion then when we shall be found together and from all our dispersions assembled round about him which seems to signify that he expected to enjoy content in their presence as they should enjoy in his at the coming of our Lord. Now 't is difficult to conceive what that manes if their be no mutual knowledge of each other I think therefore if it may be permitted to speak our apprehensions in things concerning which we have but little light from the word of God that the intellectual memory that is in us retaining the remembrance of general things which have been committed to it neither the Apostle St. Paul will forget that he Preached the Gospel to the Thessalonians nor will the Thessalonians forget that by the Preaching of St. Paul they had been called to the Communion of the Gospel If then St. Paul have any signal or mark by which he may be known among the Ministers of the Gospel of Christ and we shall see by and by what can be said about it the memory of it may awaken in the Thessalonians their ancient affections so that they may approach St. Paul and give unto him and receive from him as far as the glory of their Condition will permit them mutual Testimonies of their love and good will And forasmuch as our happiness will not be only for that day but for all Eternity and this Eternity will not pass in Solitude but in most pleasant and agreeable Communication who doubts but that in so long a consequence of Ages there may be presented an infinite number of accidents which may awaken in us those general remembrances which do remain of what we have seen here below and which by this means will reanimate our affections towards those persons which we have dearly loved in this life But as a Father which equally loves his Children perceives his love for a time more lively towards him among them which returns from a far Country after a very long absence than towards those that have been always with him but afterwards when time hath quieted that extraordinary emotion he returns to that equality of affection wherewithal he doth embrace them in like manner that joy which St. Paul and the Thessalonians will have to find themselves together at the appearance of Christ will not hinder but that in a short time their love will return and equally divide it self to all the faithful which they shall see partaking with them in the glory of the Saviour of
the World The other thing is that it seems that the holy Apostle would not that we should doubt but that there is something remarkable at the Coming of Christ which will make him knowable to those to whom he preached the Gospel of Salvation You are says he to the Philippians my joy and Crown in the day of Christ And things of like nature or manners of speech have given occasion to some to think that glory will be unequally divided among Believers at the day of Christ because it cannot appertain to all to make such discourses and that the Apostle doth design thereby to tell us that there is some peculiar honours reserved for him in that day Certainly if Believers shall be unequa lly partakers in the enjoyments of the happiness that is on high 't is a thing that may deserve very attentive consideration and the diversity of Opinions of great Persons upon this Subject do sufficiently demonstrate that the proofs that are produced on both sides are not at the first sight extreamly evident whatsoever be the force of the Reasons of those that hold an inequality of glory in the Heavens So it is that there is not one among us which humility doth not oblige to have this apprehension aforehand imprest upon his mind that he will be none of the number of those that will be so advanced above their Brother for eminence of glory is presupposed to be the Reward of eminent Virtues on which account 't is not permitted us to esteem our selves more excellent than others Now if this opinion be true and confirmed by the event in any of us 't will be difficult to comprehend in what this opinion will be found verified that there will be some that must have great advantages in this inheritance and if some must be more advantageously partakers of it there there must be some notable variety in the dispensation of the will of God concerning glory and the degrees thereof for to obtain glory it self God hath expresly appointed us to believe that we shall have it and by how much the more firmly we believe it by so much the more certain is it that it shall be given to us Whereas to obtain the most sublime degrees thereof 't is most suitable that we do not hope or believe it at all and for as much as humility which hinders us from expecting it is one of the most excellent virtues the less we hope to obtain them the more certain it is that our humility will be recompensed And lastly to excite us to reach after the supream pitch of Virtue the Scripture sets the reward of glory before our eyes whereas to come to its most raised degrees 't is necessary that we turn our minds from it humility which is that which must make us highest there not permitting us to affix our thoughts thereon So that we come to glory as he that runs a Race who sees the Butt whither he tends whereas we obtain the highest degrees thereof as Rowers which always turn their backs upon the Port to which nevertheless at last they do arrive However it be for this is not as yet the proper place to speak of the glory of Heaven but of that of the most happy day of the Saviour of the World I say that 't is certain that God will make some difference in the testimony that he will give unto his Servants in that day and that those who besides many labours that they have undergone and many journeys which they have made have besides as St. Paul passed through many reproaches here below shall receive this testimony from the mouth of their good Master that they have been faithful and loyal Servants and that they deserved other things than the Calumnies whereof they had experience This is that which will then make them known and I do not at all doubt but that the Apostles will be particularly signallized among others and if there be any one now not which may be equallized with the Apostles in gifts and authority for there hath been nor will be none such but in passing through Trials like unto those that have exercised them doth imitate in those Combates the example of their Piety of their Zeal and their Constancy I do not conceive that he will do ill to comfort himself by this hope that God will put all things in open light at his Coming so that if Athanasius Bazil and Chrysostom among the Ancients if John Husse Jerom of Prague Wickliff Luther Colain and many other good Servants of God which may with regard to the former be reckoned among the Moderns have in the midst of the Persecutions that they suffered both from within and from without had regard to this Consolation surely they will not find themselves deceived in their expectation Now these had many Friends in this life that knew them and may have retained an intellectual remembrance of this knowledge in such sort that what happened to St. Paul may very well happen to them nevertheless preserving with proportion the inequality that is between the least and the greatest things But be the particularities of our happiness what they will in general it will be such in that happy day that I dare not attempt to describe it through fear of obscuring the splendor of it Assuredly I shall diminish by the feebleness of my Expressions the Efficacy of what he may conceive of it whoever he be who shall set himself very attentively to consider what I have said concerning the estate of each of us of the World and that of the whole Church When our Saviour appeared at his first Coming as all the Church was in a marvellous expectation of his appearance so those that saw and believed in him did thence receive an incomparable Contentment Simeon testifies that he could dye in peace having seen the Salvation of God in this little glorious Infant Zachary was ravished to see his forerunner the Virgin that Conceived and brought him forth had such Transports as cannot be expressed the Angels themselves that declared him to the Shepherds although they had no part neither in the need nor hopes of Redemption nevertheless conceived thence a marvellous joy at the sight of his miracles and the hearing of his Preaching some one cryed out blessed are those that see and hear him and then when he entred into Jerusalem on the day which is yet observed by the solemnity of boughs all the people cryed Osanna with unimaginable pleasure what will it be then to see him come accompanied with Angels in the glory of his Father with a shout with the sound of Trumpet and the voice of an Archangel making king the clouds his Chariots and preparing a Throne in the Air there to pronounce eternal judgments upon all the World and to confirm the hopes and promises of Salvation that he hath made to believers What Triumph was ever to be compared to a spectacle so glorious What pomp of a Conqueror did ever
causes in nature hath certain fluxes and refluxes more or less observable on such and such Shores according as it hath pleased the Providence of God to dispose of them 't is true we see the Sea all entire though we see it not entirely for if we should encompass the World by all sides of the Ocean we should not find there any other sort of Sea than what we see in our own Harbours and Havens But if the Sea signifie all that extension of Water which encompasses the World in such manner that as we say its desinition includes universally all its parts and that if we divide it then it loses the name and nature of Sea without doubt he doth not see the Sea who sees nothing of it but an Arm or a Haven Now such is the nature of God that his infinity enters its definition or to express it otherwise his immensity is of the nature of his Essence so that he sees not God in his Essence which sees him not infinite and he cannot see him infinite that is to say know him such as he is in that respect who hath not an immense capacity of understanding But there is yet more We cannot only not see the Essence of God by portions but although we could see some portion of it that is not properly the thing in which our happiness doth consist I say we cannot see it by portions for the Properties of things are conceived by certain degrees which do in some sort divide their efficacy and virtues but Essences are absolutely indivisible to our understanding and if they could be conceived they would not be conceived but as a point so that either we do not comprehend that of God or we must comprehend it all intire though we do not consider it as infinite Now this is a thing absolutely impossible to our understandings moreover it will not be in that that our felicity will consist for 't is very true that the happiness of our understandings will consist in the supream excellence of their operations and that the excellence of their operations in great measure depend on the perfection of the Objects upon which they are employed Now 't is very true without doubt that the Essence of God is something supreamly perfect nevertheless this perfection of the Divine Essence is not acknowledged principally in that 't is an Essence but in that 't is an Essence which hath such Properties as that 't is supreamly powerful supreamly wise supreamly merciful that 't is eternal immutable and most happy in it self and things of like nature in such sort that to the end that the operations of our understanding may be as perfect as they ought to be that we may be accounted happy in that we do produce them there is no need that they fix themselves on the Essence of God in such sort as 't is an Essence 't is nccessary that they employ themselves in the knowledge of those virtues which I have named and of all others that may be mentioned of the same sort Besides to the end that these operations of our understanding be such as they ought to be 't is necessary that they produce in us conformity with God for we must be made like him because we shall see him as he is Now our happiness in this respect cannot consist in being made like to God in this that we shall have an Essence much less in this that our Essence be Divine but in this that we be holy just and good as he is And therefore this Vision of God which will make us such must consist in the knowledge of his admirable properties and perfections Behold then well nigh what it is to see God as he is and how the words of St. John must be understood 't is that now we know the virtues and perfections of God but it is not but very imperfectly as well because the revelation doth not discover him fully as principally because of the imperfect constitution of our Faculties and Beings Then we shall understand them as perfecty as they can be understood by a created understanding when 't is exalted to as high a degree of perfection as it can ascend unto and according to the most excellent degree of revelation in which they can be presented to a Creature which hath attained the highest degree of perfection in the constitution of his Faculties and Essence for as long as a thing doth not discover its qualities and virtues perfectly whatsoever attention we bring to the consideration of them we can neither see nor know it as it is and when 't is perfectly discovered we know it not as it is if we be not in a condition to know and consider it But when these two things meet together then a perfect vision or knowledge of it is made or obtained The declaration that God gives of his Properties to his Creatures consists either in the testimony that he gives to himself that such and such perfections are in him or in this that he doth some works and displays himself in some operations in which he puts the marks and impressions of them for every Effect bears some Character of its Cause and the more excellent the Cause and the more elaborate the Effect is the more evident and knowable are the Characters thereof Now as to what concerns testimony that consists in the word either which God himself pronounces or which he causes to be pronounced by his Servants therefore because 't is a means which he employs forasmuch as men have not understanding sufficiently clear nor strong to be able to perceive in the works of God the Virtues and Perfections whereunto his word gives testimony Then when man shall be put in such estate that his understanding shall be endowed with all necessary light to be able to know in the works of God his marvellous virtues 't is easie to imagine that this mean will then cease St. Paul says That since in the wisdom of God the World by wisdom knew not God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe When therefore the World shall be re-establisht in such an estate that it by wisdom can know God and that the objects that will be in his marvellous works can lead it to all the raised and sublime knowledge to which the ministry of the Word is capable of advancing it there will be without doubt no more need of making use of it so that we shall know God chiefly by the Contemplation of his Works when God created man he gave him the works of Heaven and Earth and all things contained in them for the object of his Contemplation and because the faculty of his understanding was then in condition so perfectly good as the condition of nature would bear he was able to see God in them that is to say to know the Virtues whose Characters he had impressed upon them And the chief of those virtues were his goodness which alone induced him
objects so agreeable and Divine It is moreover certain that to be imployed in the Contemplation of things with delight and pleasure 't is necessary that we have such with whom we may Communicate the knowledg that we acquire and the satisfaction that we derive from thence Assuredly the most knowing man in the World would lose half the pleasure that his knowledg gives him if he had no man to whom he might impart any thing thereof And that Roman that said that he was never less alone then when alone had the advantage of having a mind so great and so strong according to the opinion of Cicero that he could content himself with his own Meditations nevertheless 't was the mind of a man which hath a natural and irreconcileable inconsistency with solitude Add that although the Spirit or mind of man may in some manner be content with it self without needing the Conversation of any other nevertheless it is naturally Communicative and the more perfections and advantages it possesseth in it self the more inclination it hath to disperse them Now we shall be in the company of so many happy believers and in a Conversation so continual and ravishing that we shall never want persons to whom we may discover the thoughts of our minds and who may discover theirs to us to our common joy and consolation To conclude 't is certain that to obtain knowledg sufficient to correspond to that happy condition that we shall possess there will need a long time for the humane mind which however excellent it be is nevertheless always finite and for that reason cannot receive the images of all in a moment it must necessarily be that they enter there successively and one after the other For there is none but God alone whose understanding is infinite who sees all at once all sorts of objects in an instant and who perceives in that same instant both their sides and their bottom their Essence and their Properties their Principal and their Dependances Now for this we shall have an Eternity so that it seems there will be more reason to fear that objects may be wanting to our Meditation than that time should fail us for the gaining a perfect knowledg of them And certainly this deserves attentive Consideration For blessedness will consist properly in the contentment that we take in the Operations of our faculties and in great part contentment arises from this that the Operation of the faculty is performed with nimbleness and vigour For the objects which we conceive and lay hold on but languidly do not as it were at all touch our understandings nor stir up any Considerable emotion there the force and vehemence of the action comes also in great degree from this that the object appear new to us and that by its Novelty it excite and awaken our minds and enflame them with a desire of understanding it As soon as we know it it seems that our minds languish a little concerning it and according to the measure that we accustom our selves to see or consider it in the same measure ordinarily the satisfaction that at first we had therein doth diminish So that at last we leave it altogether and search out other objects to serve as pasture to that greediness of knowledg that is natural to our Souls So that the time that we shall have to exercise our selves in this pleasant employment being infinite and the Objects of our contemplation being not so it seems that there may be reason to fear whether there will be always there what will keep and preserve our minds in this raised taste and relish of their happiness and joy Nevertheless if we consider well what will be the nature of this contemplation we shall easily free our selves of this fear and pain If it be necessary that I serve my self of School terms this contemplation will have two acts the one direct which is carried directly to the object which presents it self before our eyes the other reflex that is to say that from the object makes reflexion upon the cause For other is for example the motion by which our mind is carried towards some engine artificially composed as is a watch to consider the wheels and springs thereof and other that by which it turns it self from the watch to the workman to consider that industry and dexterity wherewithal he composed that work Now touching the object if we imagine that Adam had remained in his integrity and by consequent had lived eternally I say the sole work of the world had been capable everlastingly of furnishing matter to his speculations And when we shall have represented to our selves how far he might have led his ratiocinations in Logick Physicks Metaphysicks Morality Arithmetick Geometry Algebra Astronomy Opticks and other Mathematical Sciences in the natural History of Animals Fishes Birds Creeping things Insects Plants Metals Minerals their Qualities Properties and Powers and then how far his understanding might have proceeded in the knowledg of Religion such as he might gather from the works of God and was agreeable to the condition in which he then was we shall find that there had been in all this imployment for him until I know not how many millions of ages For men at present see nothing but the fringes of those sciences and the superficies or outside of the wisdom of God in the subjects that are explained in them There is throughout them all such knowledg to be enquired into and fathomed that if our minds were capable of apprehending the latitude and extent thereof there is none of us who would not remain swallowed up of despair ever to come I will not say to the end but to the least part of the considerations that may be made only on one of these Sciences And it seems to me that he had good reason that said that all that we know compared with what we know not and yet may be known is as if we should compare a little brook which is dryed and drained during the heat of Summer to the vast extent and depth of the Ocean it self And verily I believe that Geometry alone to him that would follow it whither its figures and proportions would go and Chymistry alone to him that would search all its secrets would be able to furnish to the humane mind wherewithal to employ it self many hundreds of years Now 't is to be known that as the difficulties that are in things and the labour that our understandings have experience of in Fathoming them doth oblige us as much as we are able to make abridgment of Sciences and to restrain our selves within the bounds either of what we judge profitable or of what we can attain the facility that we shall there find in them and the success wherewithal weshall apply our understanding to them will cause us to extend them to that length that the desire of knowledge will not terminate it self unless it be where the object of knowledg it self determines We are at
where the Book of the Revelation attributes to Angels and Spirits that are assembled in Heaven a voice that says without ceasing Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty and Lord thou art worthy to receive honour and power for thou hast created all things and by thy will they are and were Created and again thou wert slain and hast Redeemed us to God out of every Tribe and Language and People and Nation and hast made us Kings and Priests to our God There are two things distinct the one is the voice it self which St. John represents as if it might be heard by the ears of the Body the other is the thing signified by the voice Forasmuch as 't is that which presents it self to the understanding Now as to what concerns the attributing a voice unto them 't is a thing Symbolical accommodated to the manner of Prophetical Visions which must not necessarily be so taken as if really and indeed the Angels and blessed Spirits had so cried The Angels are indeed represented in the Holy Scripture sometimes as speaking to men and as forming sounds in the air so as it happened in the publishing of the Law upon the mountain and it is certain they have sufficient power and force upon the Elementary Bodies to impress Images and sounds there when it is convenient and to articulate them in such manner that our ears shall be capable of receiving them and presenting them intelligibly to our minds But there is great probability that all the things that St. John reports are Visions the Idea's whereof had no subsistance any farther than the Spirit of God did impress them upon his imagination and not things so really existing that they could be perceived even by his Bodily senses as to what concerns that which is pronounced by the voice there appears a manifest consent in celebrating the nature virtues and Operations of God and our Lord Jesus Christ Now all consent of that kind necessarily infers that those among whom 't is found have knowledg of the minds and affections of each other The Soul therefore is not content to employ it self alone in the contemplation and admiration of those objects which are offered to it it communicates with those of its own kind and they all with the Holy Angels conspire on this occasion to give unto God the praises and blessings that are due unto him St. Paul says that in his ravishment into the third Heaven he heard words and things that could not be uttered that is to say he would not report them to us Nor was it permitted to him that heard them to come from thence either to astonish the Spirits or entertain the curiosity of men For without doubt if he had once given himself the liberty to tell them News from on high they would have forgotten the mystery of the Cross and have so wasted their Spirits in enquiring how Paradise was made that they would have neglected the knowledg of the means by which they might ascend thither Because therefore he did not tell us what it is and he himself hath concealed from whose mouth he understood these marvels 't is neither lawful for us to enquire nor possible to obtain more knowledg than he hath given us concerning it I will only infer this that although God hath had a marvellous care to instruct his Church here below and to this end hath given to his Prophets and Apostles incomparable illuminations and which infinitely exceed the sublimest thoughts that ever entred into humane understanding nevertheless he intends things yet more ravishing in the Heavens seeing St. Paul who hath explained to us so clearly the Mysteries of Religion keeps these other secrets hidden as far surpassing our present condition and the capacity of our understanding As to what concerns the presence of our Lord as we do not willingly behold the Sun it self directly Forasmuch as the lustre of its light doth dazle our eyes therefore we rather behold its image in the water where its splendour is much less illustrious so I shall not dare to fix my mind on the contemplation of the Idea's of his body such as we imagine it to be now on high I believe it will be better to search out some representation of it elsewhere where its glory will give less darkness and confusion to my thoughts the Evangelists report that he was once transfigured upon the mountain in the presence of St. Peter James and John and that his face became shining as the Sun and his garments white and glittering as the light Which was nevertheless but an essay of his glory as we make sometimes an image of the Sun in the night by some kind of Art and notwithstanding St. Peter remained so ravished in the admiration of it that although he did not altogether sink it appears plain enough by his words that his mind staggered under it and that he was not able to bear the weight of a Spectacle so glorious How will it be then with a mind perfectly purified from the infirmities of nature and the Body when it comes to contemplate the Lord Jesus in the Heavens amidst the glory wherewithal he glitters there there is no one among us that reading the History of the Gospel and there observing the discourses of our Lord the sweetness and wisdom of his conversation his wondrous actions the report of his miracles and all that Divine conduct whereof we have the description in the New Testament who doth not esteem them very happy who had the honour not only to converse familiarly with him as his disciples did but even to touch his garments and see that countenance so full of incomparable sweetness and great Majesty both together Notwithstanding that then he was encompassed with infirmity and always carried with him the presages of his Cross and ignominious passion How will it be then with a blessed Soul when it comes to present it self before him and shall see him in that estate that becomes him that is sate down on the right hand of God in infinite Power and Glory And if we that have eyes so weak and understandings so dark do not happen on those words where it is said that he is the brightness of his Fathers glory and the Table which bears a deep and indelible impression of his Power and Authority But the lustre of these expressions and the glory of the thoughts that they produce in our minds do cause within us very extraordinary emotions What must be the vision of this glorious object then when the separate Soul shall apply it self to contemplate him with an understanding full of light There it will remember indubitably what the Holy Gospel learnt it here below there it will enter into these discourses if at least the attempts that we make upon it are capable of representing any of its thoughts This is he will it say which hath put on our nature with its infirmities but by his Resurrection and ascension upon high hath changed his