being think they can never have security enough for this so pleasing hope and expectation and so even with anxiety of mind busie themselves to prove the truth of that strongly which they desire vehemently to be true And this body which dissolution waits upon helpeth our infidelity exceedingly For the soul not seeing it self judgeth it self of such a nature as those things are to which she is nearest united Falsely saith but yet ordinarily I am sick I am weak I faint I die when it is nought but the perishing life of the body that is in such plight to which she is so close tyed in most intimate love and sympathy So a tender mother if she see a knife struck to her childs heart would shreek and swound as if her selfe had been smit when as if her eye had not beheld that spectacle she had not been moved though the thing were surely done So I do verily think that the mind being taken up in some higher contemplation if it should please God to keep it in that ecstasie the body might be destroyed without any disturbance to the soul for how can there be or sense or pain without animadversion But while we have such continuall commerce with this frail body it is not to be expected but that we shall be assaulted with the fear of death and darknesse For alas how few are there that do not make this visible world their Adonai their stay and sustentation of life the prop of their soul their God How many Christians are not prone to whisper that of the Heathen Poet Soles occidere redire possunt Nobis cùm semel occidit brevis lux Nox est perpetua una dormienda The Sunne may set and rise again If once sets our short light Deep sleep us binds with iron chain Wrapt in eternall Night But I would not be so injurious as to make men worse then they are that my little work may seem of greater use and worth then it is Admit then that men are most what perswaded of the souls immortality yet here they may read reasons to confirm that perswasion and be put in mind as they reade of their end and future condition which cannot be but profitable at least For the pleasure they 'll reap from this Poem it will be according as their Genius is fitted for it For as Plato speaks in his Io 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or according to the more usuall phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The spirit of every Poet is not alike nor his writings alike suitable to all dispositions As Io the reciter of Homers verses professeth himself to be snatcht away with an extradodinary fury or ecstasie at the repeating of Homers Poesie but others so little to move him that he could even fall asleep So that no man is rashly to condemn another mans labour in this kind because he is not taken with it As wise or wiser then himselfe may But this is a main piece of idolatry and injustice in the world that every man would make his private Genius an universall God and would devour all mens apprehensions by his own fire that glowes so hot in him and as he thinks shines so clear As for this present song of the Immortality of the soul it is not unlikely but that it will prove sung Montibus Sylvis to the waste woods and solitary mountains For all men are so full of their own phansies and idiopathies that they scarce have the civility to interchange any words with a stranger If they chance to hear his exotick tone they entertain it with laughter a passion very incident upon that occasion to children and clowns But it were much better neither to embosome nor reject any thing though strange till we were well acquainted with it Exquisite disquisition begets diffidence diffidence in knowledge humility humility good manners and meek conversation For mine own part I desire no man to take any thing I write upon trust without canvasing and would be thought rather to propound then to assert what I have here or elsewhere written But continually to have exprest my diffidence in the very tractates themselves had been languid and ridiculous It were a piece of injustice to expect of others that which I could never indure to stoop to my self That knowledge which is built upon humane authority is no better then a Castle in the Aire For what man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or at least can be proved to us to be so Wherefore the foundation of that argument will but prove precarious that is so built And we have rather a sound of words signifying the thing is so then any true understanding that the thing is so indeed What ever may seeme strange in this Poem condemne it not till thou findest it dissonant to Plato's School or not deducible from it But there be many arguments that have no strangenesse at all to prove the Souls immortality so that no man that is not utterly illiterate shall lose his labour in reading this short Treatise I must confesse I intended to spin it out to a greater length but things of greater importance then curious Theory take me off beside the hazard of speaking hard things to a multitude I make no question but those that are rightly acquainted with Platonisme will accept of that small pains and make a good construction of my labours For I well assure thee Reader that it will be nothing but ignorance of my scope that shall make any do otherwise I fly too high to take notice of lesser flaws If thou seest them I give thee free liberty to mend them But if thou regardest not lesser trifles we be well met Farewell H. M. The Argument of PSYCHATHANASIA Or The Immortality of the Soul BOOK I. CANT I. Struck with strong sense of Gods good will The immortality Of Souls I sing Praise with my quill Plato's Philosophy 1 WHatever man he be that dares to deem True Poets skill to spring of earthly race I must him tell that he doth misesteem Their strange estate and eke himselfe disgrace By his rude ignorance For there 's no place For forced labour or slow industry Of flagging wits in that high fiery chace So soon as of the Muse they quickned be At once they rise and lively sing like Lark in skie 2 Like to a Meteor whose materiall Is low unwieldy earth base unctuous slime Whose inward hidden parts ethereall Ly close upwrapt in that dull sluggish fime Ly fast asleep till at some fatall time Great Phoebus lamp has fir'd its inward spright And then even of it self on high doth climb That earst was dark becomes all eye all sight Bright starre that to the wise of future things gives light 3 Even so the weaker mind that languid lies Knit up in rags of dirt dark cold and blind So soon that purer flame of Love unties Her clogging chains and doth her spright unbind Shee sores aloft for shee her self doth find Well plum'd so
low'st do make us subject to disturbing fate 15 But low'st gins first to work the soul doth frame This bodies shape imploy'd in one long thought So wholy taken up that she the same Observeth not till she it quite hath wrought So men asleep some work to end have brought Not knowing of it yet have found it done Or we may say the matter that she raught And suck'd unto her self to work upon Is of one warmth with her own spright feels as one 16 And thus the body being the souls work From her own centre so entirely made Seated i' th' heart for there this spright doth lurk It is no wonder 't is so easly sway'd At her command But when this work shall fade The soul dismisseth it as an old thought 'T is but one form but many be display'd Amid her higher rayes dismist and brought Back as she list many come that ne're were sought 17 The soul by making this strange edifice Makes way unto herself to exercise Functions of life and still more waked is The more she has perfected her fine devise Hath wrought her self into sure sympathies With this great world Her ears like hollow caves Resound to her own spright the energies Of the worlds spright If it ought suffered have Then presentifick circles to her straight notice gave 18 We know this world because our soul hath made Our bodie of this sensible worlds spright And body Therefore in the glassie shade Of our own eyes they having the same might That glasse or water hath we have the sight Of what the Mundane spirit suffereth By colours figures or inherent light Sun stars and all on earth it hurrieth To each point of it self so far as 't circuleth 19 And where he lighteth on advantages His circulings grow sensible So hills That hollow be do audible voices Resound The soul doth imitate that skill In framing of the eare that sounds may swell In that concavitie The crystall springs Reflect the light of heaven if they be still And clear the soul doth imitate and bring The eye to such a temper in her shapening 20 So eyes and ears be not mere perforations But a due temper of the Mundane spright And ours together else the circulations Of sounds would be well known by outward sight And th' eare would colours know figures light So that it 's plain that when this bodie 's gone This world to us is clos'd in darknesse quite And all to us is in dead silence drown Thus in one point of time is this worlds glory flown 21 But if 't be so how doth Psyche hear or see That hath nor eyes nor eares She sees more clear Then we that see but secondarily We see at distance by a circular Diffusion of that spright of this great sphear Of th' Universe Her sight is tactuall The Sun and all the starres that do appear She feels them in herself can distance all For she is at each one purely presentiall 22 To us what doth diffusion circular And our pure shadowed eyes bright crystalline But vigorously our spright particular Affect while things in it so clearly shine That 's done continually in the heavens sheen The Sun the Moon the Earth blew-glimmering Hel Scorch'd Aetna's bowels each shape you 'l divine To be in Nature every dern cell With fire-eyed dragons or what else therein doth dwel 23 These be all parts of the wide worlds excesse They be all seated in the Mundane spright And shew just as they are in their bignesse To her But circulation shews not right The magnitude of things for distant site Makes a deficience in these circulings But all things lie opeâ—right unto the sight Of heavens great eye their thin shot shadowings And lightned sides All this we find in Natures springs 24 The worlds great soul knows by Protopathie All what befalls this lower sprite but we Can onely know 't by Deuteropathie At least in sight and hearing She doth see In our own eyes by the close unitie Of ours and the worlds life our passion Plainly perceives our Idiopathie As we do hers by the same union But we cannot see hers in that perfection 25 Fresh varnish'd groves tall hills and gilded clouds Arching an eyelid for the gloring Morn Fair clustred buildings which our sight so crouds At distance with high spires to heaven yborn Vast plains with lowly cottages forlorn Rounded about with the low wavering skie Cragg'd vapours like to ragged rocks ytorn She views those prospects in our distant eye These and such like be the first centres mysterie 26 Or if you will the first low energie Of that one centre which the soul is hight Which knows this world by the close unitie Concorporation with the Mundane sprite Unloos'd from this she wants a certain light Unlesse by true regeneration She be incorporate with God unite With his own spright so a new mansion Sh' has got oft saught with deepest suspiration 27 But robb'd of her first clothing by hard fate If she fall short of this wo's me what pains She undergoes when this lost former state So kindled hath lifes thirst that still remains Thus her eternitie her nothing gains But hungry flames raging voracitie Feeding on its own self The heavens she stains With execrations and foul blasphemie Thus in fell discontent and smoth'ring fire they frie. 28 Vain man that striv'st to have all things at will What wilt thou do in this sterilitie Whom canst thou then command or what shall fill Thy gaping soul O depth of miserie Prepare thy self by deep humilitie Destroy that fretting fire while thou art here Forsake this worlds bewitching vanitie Nor death nor hell then shalt thou need to fear Kill and cast down thy self to heaven God shall thee rear 29 This middle centrall essence of the soul Is that which still survives asleep or waking The life she shed in this grosse earthly moul Is quite shrunk up lost in the bodies breaking Now with slight phantasms of her own fond making She 's clad so is her life drie and jejune But all flit souls be not in the same taking That state this lifes proportion doth tune So as thou livest here such measure must ensuen 30 But they whose souls deiform summitie Is waken'd in this life and so to God Are nearly joyn'd in a firm Unitie This outward bodie is but earthie clod Digested having life transfus'd abroad The worlds life and our lower vitalitie Unite in one their souls have their aboad In Christs own body are eternally One with our God by true and strong communitie 31 When we are clothed with this outward world Feel the soft air behold the glorious Sunne All this we have from meat that 's daily hurld Into these mouthes But first of all we wonne This priviledge by our first union With this worlds body and diffused spright I' th' higher world there 's such communion Christ is the sunne that by his chearing might Awakes our higher rayes to joyn with his pure
obscure the weaker or further off and how that one being removed the energie of the other will easily appear Now that our comparison may be the fitter let us consider what Aristotle saith of phansie that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus much I will take of him that Phansie is sense and adde to it that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what I have intimated in some passages of these Poems that the soul doth alwayes feel it self it s own actuall Idea by its omniform centrall self So that the immediate sense of the soul is nothing else but to perceive its own energie Now sith that that which we call outward sense is indeed the very energie of the soul and inward sense which is phansie can be no other there seems to be no reall and intrinsecall difference betwixt the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of any form no more then there is betwixt a frog born by the Sunne and mere slime and one born by copulation For these are but extrinsecall relations Wherefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the soul it self is all one But now sith it is the same nature why is not there the same degrees in both I say there is as appears plainly in sleep where we find all as clear and energeticall as when we wake But here these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for I have prov'd them all one do as greater and lesser lights dim one another or that which is nearest worketh strongliest Hence it is that the light or life of this low spirit or body of ours stirring up the soul into a perpetuall senfuall energie if we foster this and unite our minds will and animadversion with it will by its close nearenesse with the soul dim and obscure those more subtil and exile phantasms or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 risen from the soul it self or occasioned by other mens writings For they will be in the flaring light or life of the body as the starres in the beams of the Sunne scarce to be seen unlesse we withdraw our selves out of the flush vigour of that light into the profundity of our own souls as into some deep pit Wherefore men of the most tam'd and castigate spirits are of the best and most profound judgement because they can so easily withdraw themselves from the life and impulse of the lower spirit of this body Thus being quit of passion they have upon any occasion a clear though still and quiet representation of every thing in their minds upon which pure bright sydereall phantasms unprejudiced reason may safely work and clearly discern what is true or probable If my writings fall into the hands of men otherwise qualified I shall gain the lesse approbation But if they will endeavour to compose themselves as near as they can to this temper though they were of another opinion then what my writings intend to prove I doubt not but they will have the happinesse to be overcome and to prove gainers by my victory To say any thing more particularly concerning these last I hold it needlesse Onely let me excuse my self if any chance to blame me for my 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as confuting that which no man will assert For it hath been asserted by some as those Mauri whom Ficinus speaks of and the question is also discussed by Plotinus in his fourth Ennead where he distinguisheth of all souls being one after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The latter member is that which my arguments conclude against though they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet were we safe enough as safe as the beams of the Sun the Sun existing But the similitude of Praxiteles broken glasse is brought in according to the apprehension of such as make the image to vanish into nothing the glasse being taken away and that as there is but one face though there be the appearances of many so though there be the appearances of many souls by reason of that ones working in divers bodies yet there is but one soul and understanding sense and motion to be the acts of this one soul informing severall bodies This is that which both Plotinus and I endeavour to destroy which is of great moment For if one onely soul act in every body what ever we are now surely this body laid in the dust we shall be nothing As for the Oracles answer to Amelius if any vulgar conceited man think it came from a devil with Bats wings and a long tail the Seventies translation of the eight verse of the 32. chapter of Deuteronomy may make it at least doubtfull When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance when he separated the sonnes of Adam he set the bounds of the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He did not then deliver them into the hand and jurisdiction of devils nor to be instructed and taught by them But if Apollo who gave so good a testimony of Socrates while he was living and of Plotinus after his death was some foul fiend yet t is no prejudice to their esteem since our Saviour Christ was acknowledged by the devil But I have broke my word by not breaking off before this Reader t is time now to leave thee to the perusall of my writings which if they chance to please thee I repent me not of my pains if they chance not to please that shall not displease me much for I consider that I also with small content and pleasure have read the writings of other men Yours H. M. The Argument of ANTIPSYCHOPANNYCHIA Or The confutation of the sleep of the Soul CANT I. Adams long sleep will mind compar'd With low vitality The fondnesse plainly have unbar'd Of Psychopannychie 1 THe souls ever durancy I sung before Ystruck with mighty rage A powerfull fire Held up my lively Muse and made her soar So high that mortall wit I fear she 'll tire To trace her Then a while I did respire But now my beating veins new force again Invades and holy fury doth inspire Thus stirred up I 'll adde a second strain Lest what afore was said may seem all spoke in vain 2 For sure in vain do humane souls exist After this life if lull'd in listlesse sleep They senselesse lie wrapt in eternal mist bound up in foggy clouds that ever weep Benumming tears and the souls centre steep With deading liquour that she never minds Or feeleth ought Thus drench'd in Lethe deep Nor misseth she her self nor seeks nor finds Her self This mirksome state all the souls actions binds 3 Desire fear love joy sorrow pleasure pain Sense phancy wit forecasting providence Delight in God and what with sleepy brain Might sute slight dreams all banish'd farre from hence Nor pricking nor applauding conscience Can wake the soul from this dull Lethargie That 'twixt this sleepy state small difference You 'll
That they a tree with different colour stain And divers shapes smoothnesse asperity Straightnesse acutenesse and rotundity A golden yellow or a crimson red A varnish'd green with such like gallantry How dull then is the sensitive how dead If forms from its own centre it can never spread 36 Again an Universall notion What object ever did that form impresse Upon the soul What makes us venture on So rash a matter as ere to confesse Ought generally true when neverthelesse We cannot e're runne through all singulars Wherefore in our own souls we do possesse Free forms and immateriall characters Hence 't is the soul so boldly generall truth declares 37 What man that is not dull or mad would doubt Whether that truth for which Pythagoras When he by subtile study found it out Unto the Muses for their helping grace An Hecatomb did sacrifice may passe In all such figures wheresoever they be Yet all Rectangle Triangles none has Viewed as yet none all shall ever see Wherefore this free assent is from th' innate Ides 38 Adde unto these incorporeity Apprehended by the soul when sense nere saw Ought incorporeall Wherefore must she From her own self such subtile Idols draw Again this truth more clearly still to know Let 's turn again to our Geometry What body ever yet could figure show Perfectly perfect as rotundity Exactly round or blamelesse angularity 39 Yet doth the soul of such like forms discourse And finden fault at this deficiency And rightly term this better and that worse Wherefore the measure is our own Idee Which th' humane soul in her own self doth see And sooth to sayen when ever she doth strive To find pure truth her own profundity She enters in her self doth deeply dive From thence attempts each essence rightly to descrive 40 Last argument which yet is not the least Wise Socrates dispute with Theaetete Concerning learning fitly doth suggest A midwifes sonne ycleeped Phenarete He calls himself Then makes a quaint conceit That he his mothers trade did exercise All witlesse his own self yet well did weet By his fit questions to make others wise A midwife that no'te bear anothers birth unties 41 Thus jestingly he flung out what was true That humane souls be swoln with pregnancy Of hidden knowledge if with usage due They were well handled they each verity Would bringen forth from their fecunditie Wise framed questions would facilitate This precious birth stirre up th' inward Idee And make it streme with light from forms innate Thus may a skilfull man hid truth elicitate 42 What doth the teacher in his action But put slight hints into his scholars mind Which breed a solemn contemplation Whether such things be so but he doth find The truth himself But if truth be not sign'd In his own Soul before and the right measure Of things propos'd in vain the youth doth wind Into himself and all that anxious leasure In answering proves uselesse without that hid treasure 43 Nor is his masters knowledge from him flit Into his scholars head for so his brain In time would be exhaust and void of wit So would the sory man but little gain Though richly paid Nor is' t more safe to sam As fire breeds fire art art doth generate The soul with Corporeity't would stain Such qualities outwardly operate The soul within her acts there closely circulate 44 Wherefore the soul it self by her Idee Which is her self doth every thing discover By her own Centrall Omniformity Brings forth in her own self when ought doth move her Till mov'd a dark indifferency doth hover But fierce desire and a strong piercing will Makes her those hidden characters uncover Wherefore when death this lower life shall spill Or fear or love the soul with actuall forms shall fill The Argument of ANTIPSYCHOPANNYCHIA OR The Confutation of the Sleep of the Soul Cant. 3. Departed souls by living Night Suckt in for pinching wo No'te sleep or if with God unite For joyes with which they flow 1 MY hardest task is gone which was to prove That when the soul dy death 's cut off from all Yet she within her self might live and move Be her own world by life imaginall But sooth to sain 't seems not so naturall For though a starre part of the Mundane spright Shine out with rayes circumferentiall So long as with this world it is unite Yet what 't would do cut off so well we cannot weet 2 But sith our soul with God himself may meet Inacted by His life I cannot see What scruple then remains that moven might Least doubt but that she wakes with open eye When Fate her from this body doth untie Wherefore her choisest forms do then arise Rowz'd up by union and large sympathy With Gods own spright she plainly then descries Such plenitude of life as she could nere devise 3 If God even on this body operate And shakes this Temple when he doth descend Or with sweet vigour doth irradiate And lovely light and heavenly beauty lend Such rayes from Moses face did once extend Themselves on Sinai hill where he did get Those laws from Gods own mouth mans life to mend And from Messias on mount Saron set Farre greater beauty shone in his disciples sight 4 Al 's Socrates when his large Intellect Being fill'd with streaming light from God above To that fair sight his soul did close collect That inward lustre though the body drove Bright beams of beauty These examples prove That our low being the great Deity Invades and powerfully doth change and move Which if you grant the souls divinity More fitly doth receive so high a Majesty 5 And that God doth illuminate the mind Is well approv'd by all antiquity With them Philosophers and Priests we find All one or else at least Philosophy Link'd with Gods worship and pure piety Witnesse Pythagoras Aglaophemus Zoroaster thrice-mighty Mercury Wise Socrates nothing injurious Religious Plato and vice-taming Orpheus 6 All these addicted to religion Acknowledg'd God the fount of verity From whence flows out illumination Upon purg'd souls But now O misery To seek to God is held a phantasie But men hug close their loved lust and vice And deem that thraldome a sweet liberty Wherefore reproch and shame they do devise Against the braver souls that better things emprise 7 But lo a proof more strong and manifest Few men but will confesse that prophesie Proceeds from God when as our soul 's possest By his All-seeing spright al 's ecstasie Wherein the soul snatch'd by the Deity And for a time into high heaven hent Doth contemplate that blest Divinity So Paul and John that into Patmos went Heard and saw things inestimably excellent 8 Such things as these men joyntly do confesse To spring from Gods own spirit immediately But if that God ought on the soul impresse Before it be at perfect liberty Quite rent from this base body when that she Is utterly releast she 'll be more fit To be inform'd by that
divine Idee Hight Logos that doth every man enlight That enters into life as speaks the sacred Writ 9 Behold a fit resemblance of this truth The Sun begetteth both colours and sight Each living thing with life his heat indew'th He kindles into act each plastick spright Thus he the world with various forms doth dight And when his vigour hath fram'd out an eye In any living wight he fills with light That Organ which can plainly then descry The forms that under his far-shining beams do ly 10 Even so it is with th' intellectuall sunne Fountain of life and all-discovering light He frames our souls by his creation Al 's he indews them with internall sight Then shines into them by his lucid spright But corporall life doth so obnubilate Our inward eyes that they be nothing bright While in this muddy world incarcerate They lie and with blind passions be intoxicate 11 Fear anger hope fierce vengeance and swoln hate Tumultuous joy envie and discontent Self-love vain-glory strife and fell debate Unsatiate covetise desire impotent Low-sinking grief pleasure lust violent Fond emulation all these dim the mind That with foul filth the inward eye yblent That light that is so near it cannot find So shines the Sunne unseen on a trees rugged rind 12 But the clean soul by virtue purifi'd Collecting her own self from the foul steem Of earthly life is often dignifi'd With that pure pleasure that from God doth streem Often's enlightn'd by that radiant beam That issues forth from his divinity Then feelingly immortall she doth deem Her self conjoynd by so near unity With God and nothing doubts of her eternitie 13 Nor death nor sleep nor any dismall shade Of low contracting life she then doth fear No troubled thoughts her settled mind invade Th' immortall root of life she seeth clear Wisheth she were for ever grafted here No cloud no darknesse no deficiency In this high heavenly life doth ere appear Redundant fulnesse and free liberty Easie flowing knowledge never weary energy 14 Broad open sight eternall wakefulnesse Withouten labour or consuming pain The soul all these in God must needs possesse When there deep-rooted life she doth obtain As I in a few words shall maken plain This bodies life by powerfull sympathy The soul to sleep and labour doth constrain To grief to wearinesse and anxiety In fine to hideous sense of dread mortality 15 But sith no such things in the Deity Are to be found Shee once incorporate With that quick essence she is setten free From ought that may her life obnubilate What then can her contract or maken strait For ever mov'd by lively sympathy With Gods own spright an ever-waking state She doth obtain Doth heavens bright blazing eye Ever close ywrapt in sleep and dead obscurity 16 But now how full and strong a sympathy Is caused by the souls conjunction With the high God I 'll to you thus descry All men will grant that spread dispersion Must be some hinderance to close union Al 's must confesse that closer unity More certainly doth breed compassion Not that there 's passion in the Deity But something like to what all men call Sympathy 17 Now sith the soul is of such subtlety And close collectednesse in dispersion Full by her centrall omniformity Pregnant and big without distension She once drawn in by strong attraction Should be more perfectly there counite In this her high and holy union Then with the body where dispersion's pight But such hard things I leave to some more learned wight 18 The first pure Being's perfect Unity And therefore must all things more strongly bind Then Lives corporeall which dispersed be He also the first Goodnesse is defin'd Wherefore the soul most powerfully's inclin'd And strongly drawn to God But life that 's here When into it the soul doth closely wind Is often sneep'd by anguish and by fear With vexing pain and rage that she no'te easly bear 19 Farre otherwise it fares in that pure life That doth result in the souls Unity With God For there the faster she doth strive To tie her selfe the greater liberty And freer welcome brighter purity She finds and more enlargement joy and pleasure O'reflowing yet without satietie Sight without end and love withouten measure This needs must close unite the heart to that hid treasure 20 This plainly's seen in that mysterious Cone Which I above did fairly stell descrive Their freenesse and incarceration Were plainly setten forth What down doth dive Into the straitned Cuspis needs must strive With stringent bitternesse vexation Anxious unrest in this ill plight they live But they that do ascend to th' top yflown Be free yet fast unite to that fair vision 21 Thus purged souls be close conjoyn'd to God And closer union surer sympathy Wherefore so long as they make their abode In Him incorp'rate by due Unitie They liven in eternall energie For Israels God nor slumbers nor doth sleep Nor Israel lost in dull lethargie Must list lesse ly while numbing streams do steep His heavy head overwhelmed in oblivion deep 22 But here more curious men will straight enquire Whither after death the wicked soul doth go That long hath wallowed in the sinfull mire Before this question I shall answer to Again the nature of the soul I 'll show She all things in her self doth centrally Contain what ever she doth feel or know She feels or knows it by th' innate Idee She 's all proportion'd by her omniformity 23 God heaven this middle world deep glimmering hell With all the lives and shapes that there remain The forms of all in humane souls do dwell She likewise all proportions doth contain That fits her for all sprights So they constrain By a strong pulling sympathy to come And straight possesse that fitting vitall vein That 'longs unto her so her proper room She takes as mighty Nemesis doth give the doom 24 Now which I would you presly should observe Though oft I have with tongue balbutient Prattled to th' weaker ear lest I should sterve My stile with too much subtilty I nere ment To grant that there 's any such thing existent As a mere body For all 's life all spright Though lives and sprights be very different Three generall sprights there be Eternall Light Is one the next our World the last Infernall Night 25 This last lies next unto old Nothingnesse Hight Hyle whom I term'd point of the Cone Her daughter Night is full of bitternesse And strait constraint and pent privation Her sturdy ray's scarce conquer'd by the moon The earths great shade breaks out from this hid spright And active is so soon the Sun is gone Doth repossesse the aire shotten forth right From its hid centrall life ycleep'd Infernall Night 26 In this drad world is scorching Phlegethon Hot without flame burning the vexed sense There hatefull Styx and sad Cocytus run And silent Acheron All drink from hence From this damn'd spright receiven influence That in our world or
rais'd upon her spreaden wing She softly playes and warbles in the wind And carols out her inward life and spring Of overflowing joy and of pure love doth sing 4 She sings of purest love not that base passion That fouls the soul with filth of lawlesse lust And Circe-like her shape doth all misfashion But that bright flame that 's proper to the just And eats away all drosse and cankred rust With its refining heat unites the mind With Gods own spright who raiseth from the dust The slumbring soul and with his usage kind Makes 't breath after that life that time hath not defin'd 5 So hath he rais'd my soul and so possest My inward spright with that unfained will He bears to Psyche's brood that I nere rest But ruth or ragefull indignation fill My troubled veins that I my life near spill With sorrow and disdain for that foul lore That crept from dismall shades of Night and quill Steep'd in sad Styx and fed with stinking gore Suckt from corrupted corse that God and men abhorre 6 Such is thy putid muse Lucretius That fain would teach that souls all mortall be The dusty Atoms of Democritus Certes have fall'n into thy feeble eye And thee bereft of pâ—rspicacity Others through the strong steem of their dull bloud Without the help of that Philosophy Have with more ease the truth not understood And the same thing conclude in some sad drooping mood 7 But most of all my soul doth them refuse That have extinguish'd natures awfull light By evil custome and unkind abuse Of Gods young tender work that in their spright He first gins frame But they with heddy might Of over-whelming liquour that life drownd And reasons eye swell up or put out quite Hence horrid darknesse doth their souls confound And foul blasphemous belch from their furd mouth resounds 8 Thus while false way they take to large their spirit By vaster cups of Bacchus they get fire Without true light and ' cording to demerit Infernall blasts blind confidence inspire Bold heat to uncouth thoughts is their bad hire Which they then dearly hug and ween their feet Have clombe whither vulgar men dare not aspire But it s the fruit of their burnt sootie spright Thus dream they of drad death and an eternall night 9 Now in the covert of dame Natures cell They think they 'r shrowded and the mystery Of her deep secrets they can wisely spell And ' pprove that art above true piety Laugh at religion as a mockery A thing found out to aw the simpler sort But they brave sparks have broke from this dark tie The light of nature yields more sure comfort Alas too many souls in this fond thought consort 10 Like men new made contriv'd into a cave That ne're saw light but in that shadowing pit Some uncouth might them hoodwink hither drave Now with their backs to the dens mouth they sit Yet shoulder not all light from the dern pit So much gets in as Optick art counts meet To shew the forms that hard without do flit With learned quaere each other here they greet True moving substances they deem each shadow slight 11 When fowls flie by and with their swapping wings Beat the inconstant air and mournfull noise Stirre up with their continuall chastisings In the soft yielding penitent the voice These solemn Sages nought at all accoyes 'T is common onely they philosophize Busying their brains in the mysterious toyes Of flittie motion warie well advize On'ts inward principles the hid Entelechies 12 And whereabout that inward life is seated That moves the living creature they espie Passing in their dim world So they 'r defeated Calling thin shadows true realitie And deeply doubt if corporalitie For so they term those visibles were stroy'd Whether that inward first vitalitie Could then subsist But they are ill accloy'd With cloddie earth and with blind duskishnesse annoy'd 13 If roaring Lion or the neighing Horse With frisking tail to brush off busie flies Approch their den then haply they discourse From what part of these creatures may arise Those greater sounds Together they advise And gravely do conclude that from the thing That we would term the tail those thund'ring neyce Do issue forth tail of that shadowing They see then moved most while he is whinneying 14 And so the Lions huge and hideous roar They think proceeds from his rugg'd flowing mane Which the fierce winds do tosse and tousell sore Unlesse perhaps he stirre his bushie train For then the tail will carrie it again Thus upon each occasion their frail wit Bestirres it self to find out errours vain And uselesse theories in this dark pit Pond reasoning they have seldome or never hit 15 So soon new shadows enter in the cave New entelechias they then conceive Brought forth of nature when they passed have Their gloomy orb false shades eas'ly deceive Not onely they that visible bereave Of life and being but the hidden might And moving root unliv'd unbeen'd they leave In their vain thoughts for they those shadows slight Do deem sole prop and stay of th' hidden motive spright 16 This is that awfull cell where Naturalists Brood deep opinion as themselves conceit This Errours den where in a magick mist Men hatch their own delusion and deceit And grasp vain shows Here their bold brains they beat And dig full deep as deep as Hyle's hell Unbare the root of life O searching wit But root of life in Hyles shade no'te dwell For God's the root of all as I elsewhere shall tell 17 This is the stupid state of drooping soul That loves the body and false forme admires Slave to base sense fierce ' gainst reasons controul That still it self with lower lust bemires That nought believeth and much lesse desires Things of that unseen world and inward life Nor unto height of purer truth aspires But cowardly declines the noble strife ' Gainst vice and ignorance so gets it no relief 18 From this default the lust full Epicure Democrite or th' unthankfull Stagirite Most men preferre 'fore holy Pythagore Divinest Plato and grave Epictete But I am so inflam'd with the sweet sight And goodly beauty seen on Eloim-hill That maugre all mens clamours in despight I 'll praise my Platonissa with loud quill My strong intended voice all the wide world shall fill 19 O sacred Nymph begot of highest Jove Queen of Philosophie and virtuous lear That firest the nobler heart with spotlesse love And sadder minds with Nectar drops dost chear That oft bedrencht with sorrows while we 're here Exil'd from our dear home that heavenly soil Through wandring wayes thou safely dost us bear Into the land of truth from dirtie foil Thou keepst our slipping feet oft wearied with long toil 20 When I with other beauties thine compare O lovely maid all others I must scorn For why they all rude and deform'd appear Certes they be ill thew'd and baser born Yet thou alas of men art more forlorn For like will to its
Straight all night-trifling sprights doth chase away with fear 12 Long have I swonk with anxious assay To finden out what this hid soul may be That doth her self so variously bewray In different motions Other we her see When she so fairly spreads the branching tree Other when as sh ' hath loos'd her self from ground And opes her root and breaths in heaven free And doth her wants in the wide air resound Speaks out her joy no longer whispers under-ground 13 Such is the noise of chearfull chirping birds That tell the sweet impressions of the Spring Or 'fore some storm when their quick sprights be stird With nearer strong appulse and hid heaving That fills their little souls and makes them sing Puft up with joy and o'rflowing delight Estsoons with ratling winds the air doth ring The sturdy storm doth make them take their flight Into thick bush or hedge to save them from heavens spight 14 From this same sourse of sense are murmuring moans Of bellowing bullocks when sharp hunger bites Hence whining dog so pittifully groans When as with knotted whip his Lord him smites And every beast when with Deaths pangs he fights But senslesse trees nor feel the bleaker wind That nip their sides nor the Suns scorching might Nor the sharp ax piercing their ruggid rind Yet have they soul whose life in their sweet growth we find 15 So plants spring up flourish and fade away Not marking their own state they never found Themselves when first they ' pear'd in sunny day Nor ever sought themselves though in the ground They search full deep Nor are they wak'd by wound Of biting iron to nought are attent That them befalls when cold humours abound And clog their vitall heat or when they 're brent With Sirius flame or when through eld they waxen faint 16 Or whatsoever diseases them betide That basten death they nought at all regard But when to plantall life quick sense is ti'd And progging phansie then upon her guard She gins to stand and well her self to ward From foes she plainly feels pursues her joy Remembers where she well or ill hath far'd Or swiftly flies from that that doth annoy Or stoutly strives her fierce destroyer to destroy 17 Thus have we run thorow these two degrees Of the souls working seen in beast and plant Reason's the third of common qualities The best Of this the humane race doth vaunt As proper to themselves But if we skan't Sans prejudice it 's not in them alone The Dog the Horse the Ape the Elephant Will all rush in striving to make up one And sternly claim their share in use of right reason 18 But whether brutes do reason and reflect Upon their reasoning I 'll not dispute Nor care I what brisk boyes will here object Long task it were all fondlings to confute But I 'll lay down that which will better sute With that high heavenly spark the soul of man His proper character I would he knew 't Is that which Adam lost by wily train Of th' old sly snake that â—â—ve beguil'd with speeches vain 19 This was the Image of the highest God Which brutes partake not of This Image hight True Justice that keeps ever th' even trod True Piety that yields to man the sight Of heavenly beauty those fair beams so bright Of th' everlasting Deity that shed Their sacred fire within the purer spright The fruit of Eden wherewith souls be fed Mans awfull majesty of every beast ydred 20 Nor is that radiant force in humane kind Extinguisht quite he that did them create Can those dull rusty chains of fleep unbind And rear the soul unto her pristin state He can them so inlarge and elevate And spreaden out that they can compasse all When they no longer be incarcerate In this dark dungeon this foul fleshly wall Nor be no longer wedg'd in things corporeall 21 But rais'd aloft into their proper sphere That sphere that hight th' Orb Intellectuall They quiet sit as when the flitting fire That Natures mighty Magick down did call Into the oyly wood at its own fall Grows full of wrath and rage and gins to fume And roars and strives ' gainst its disquietall Like troubled Ghost forc'd some shape to assume But it its holding foe at last doth quite consume 22 And then like gliding spright doth straight dispear That earst was forc'd to take a fiery form Full lightly it ascends into the clear And subtile aire devoid of cloudy storm Where it doth steddy stand all-uniform Pure pervious immixt innocuous mild Nought scorching nought glowing nothing enorm Nought destroying not destroy'd not defil'd Foul fume being spent just 'fore its flight it faicly smil'd 23 Thus have I trac'd the soul in all her works And severall conditions have displaid And show'd all places where so e'r she lurks Even her own lurking's of her self bewray'd In plants in beasts in men while here she staid And freed from earth how then she spreads on high Her heavenly rayes that also hath been said Look now my Muse and cast thy piercing eye On every kind and tell wherein all souls agree 24 Here dare I not define't th' Entelechie Of organized bodies For this life This centrall life which men take souls to be Is not among the beings relative And sure some souls at least are self-active Withouten body having Energie Many put out their force informative In their ethereall corporeity Devoid of heterogenâ—all organity 25 Self-moving substance that be th' definition Of souls that longs to them in generall This well expresseth that common condition Of every vitall centre creaturall For why both what hight form spermaticall Hath here a share as also that we term Soul sensitive I 'll call 't form bestiall It makes a beast added to plantall sperm Adde rationall form it makes a man as men affirm 26 All these be substances self-moveable And that we call virtue magneticall That what 's defin'd be irreprovable I comprehend it in the life plantall Mongst trees ther 's found life Sympatheticall Though trees have not animadversive sense Therefore the soul 's Autokineticall Alone What ere 's in this defining sense Is soul what ere 's not soul is driven far from hence 27 But that each soul 's Autokineticall Is easly shown by sifting all degrees Of souls The first are forms Spermaticall That best be seen in shaping armed trees Which if they want their fixt Centreities By which they fairly every part extend And gently inact with spred vitalities The flowring boughs How Natures work doth wend Who knows or from what inward stay it doth depend 28 Forthy let first an inward centre hid Be put That 's nought but Natures fancie ti'd In closer knot shut up into the mid Of its own self so our own spirits gride With piercing wind in storming Winter tide Contract themselves and shrivell up together Like snake the countrey man in snow espi'd Whose spright was quite shrunk in by nipping weather From whence things come by fo-man
is needlesse all in vain Each centrall form its rayes with ease can well up-stayen 8 What holds the earth in the thin fluid aire Can matter void of fix'd solidity But she like kindly nurse her forms doth chear What can be suck'd from her dark dugges drie Nor warmth nor moistnesse nor fast density Belong to her Therefore I 'll nurse I ween She 'll make that neither hath to satisfie Young-craving life nor firmnesse to sustein The burden that upon her arms should safely lean 9 Therefore an uselesse super fluity It is to make Hyle substantiall Onely let 's term 't the possibility Of all created beings Lives centrall Can frame themselves a right compositall While as they sitten soft in the sweet rayes Or vitall vest of the lives generall As those that out of the earths covert raise Themselves fairly provok'd by warmth of sunny dayes 10 And thus all accidents will prove the beams Of inward forms their flowing energy And quantity th' extension of such streams That goes along even with each qualitie Thus have we div'd to the profundity Of darkest matter and have found it nought But all this worlds bare Possibility Nought therefore ' gainst lifes durance can be brought From Hyles pit that quenchen may that pleasant thought The Argument of PSYCHATHANASIA Or The Immortalitie of the Soul BOOK II. CANT 1. Mans soul with beasts and plants I here Compare Tell my chief end His immortality's to clear Show whence grosse errours wend. 1 BUt hitherto I have with fluttering wings But lightly hover'd in the generall And taught the lasting durance of all springs Of hidden life That life hight seminall Doth issue forth from its deep root centrall One onely form entire and no'te advert What steals from it Beasts life Phantasticall Lets out more forms and eke themselves convert To view the various frie from their dark wombs exert 2 But mans vast soul the image of her Maker Like God that made her with her mighty sway And in ward Fiat if he nould forsake her Can turn sad darknesse into lightsome day And the whole creature 'fore her self display Bid them come forth and stand before her sight They straight flush out and her drad voice obey Each shape each life doth leapen out full light And at her beck return into their usuall Night 3 Oft God himself here listeth to appear Though not perforce yet of his own frank will Sheds his sweet life dispreads his beauty clear And like the Sun this lesser world doth fill And like the Sun doth the foul Pythou kill With his bright darts but cheareth each good spright This is the soul that I with presser quill Must now pursue and fall upon down-right Not to destroy but prove her of immortall might 4 Nor let blind Momus dare my Muse backbite As wanton or superfluously wise For what is past She is but justly quit With Lucrece who all souls doth mortalize Wherefore she did them all immortalize Besides in beasts and men th' affinity Doth seem so great that without prejudice To many proofs for th'immortality Of humane Souls the same to beasts we no'te deny 5 But I herein no longer list contend The two first kinds of souls I 'll quite omit And ' cording as at first I did intend Bestirre me stifly force my feeble wit To rescue humane souls from deaths deep pit Which I shall do with reasons as subtile As I can find slight proofs cannot well fit In so great cause nor phansies florid wile I 'll win no mans assent by a false specious guile 6 I onely wish that arguments exile May not seem nought unto the duller eye Nor that the fatter phansie my lean style Do blame it 's fittest for philosophy And give me leave from any energie That springs from humane soul my cause to prove And in that order as they list to flie Of their own selves so let them freely rove That naturally doth come doth oft the stronger move 7 Self-motion and centrall stability I have already urg'd in generall Al 's ' did right presly to our soul apply Those properties who list it to recall Unto their minds but now we 'll let it fall As needlesse Onely that vitality That doth extend this great Univervall And move th' inert Materiality Of great and little worlds that keep in memory 8 And how the mixture of their rayes may breed Th' opinion of uncertain quality When they from certain roots of life do spreed But their pure beams must needs ychanged be When that those rayes or not be setten free Thinly dispers'd or else be closely meint With other beams of plain diversity That causeth oft a strong impediment So doth this bodies life to the souls high intent 9 The lower man is nought but a fair plant Whose grosser matter is from the base ground The Plastick might thus finely did him paint And fill'd him with the life that doth abound In all the places of the world around This spirit of life is in each shapen'd thing Suck'd in and changed and strangely confound As we conceive This is the nourishing Of all but spermall form the certain shapening 10 This is that strange-form'd statue magicall That hovering souls unto it can allure When it 's right fitted down those spirits fall Like Eagle to her prey and so endure While that low life is in good temperature That a dead body without vitall spright And friendly temper should a guest procure Of so great worth without the dear delight Of joyous sympathy no man can reckon right 11 But here unlucky Souls do waxen sick Of an ill furfeit from the poison'd bait Of this sweet tree yet here perforce they stick In weak condition in a languid state Many through ignorance do fondly hate To be releas'd from this imprisonment And grieve the walls be so nigh ruinate They be bewitch'd so with the blandishment Of that fresh strumpet when in love they first were ment 12 Others disdain this so near unity So farre they be from thinking they be born Of such low parentage so base degree And fleshes foul attraction they do scorn They be th'outgoings of the Eastern morn Alli'd unto th' eternall Deity And pray to their first spring that thus forlorn And left in mud that he would set them free And them again possesse of pristine purity 13 But seemeth not my Muse too hastily To soar aloft that better by degrees Unto the vulgar mans capacity Mought show the souls so high excellencies And softly from all corporeities It heaven up unto its proper seat When we have drove away grosse falsities That do assault the weaker mens conceit And free the simple mind from phansies foul deceit 14 The drooping soul so strongly's coloured With the long commerce of corporeals That she from her own self awide is led Knows not her self but by salfe name she calls Her own high being and what ere befalls Her grosser bodie she that misery Doth deem her own for she her self miscalls
Or some thin body or spread quality Or point of quality or fixt or setten free 29 But whether thin spread body she doth deem Her self dispersed through this grosser frame Or doth her self a quality esteem Or quient complexion streaming through the same Or else some lucid point her self doth name Of such a quality in chiefest part Strongly fix'd down or whether she doth clame More freedome for that point in head nor heart Fast seated yet saith she the bodies brat thou art 30 Thence thou arose thence thou canst not depart There die thou must when thy dear nurse decayes But these false phansies I with reason smart Shall eas'ly chace away and the mind raise To higher pitch O listen to my layes And when you have seen fast seald eternity Of humane souls then your great Maker praise For his never fading benignity And feed your selves with thought of immortality The Argument of PSYCHATHANASIA OR The Immortality of the Soul Book 2. Cant. 2. Sense no good judge of truth What spright What body we descry Prove from the souls inferiour might Her incorp'reitie 1 WHile I do purpose with my self to sing The souls incorporeity I fear That it a worse perplexitie may bring Unto the weaker mind and duller ear For she may deem herself ' stroyd quite clear While all corporeals from her we expell For she has yet not mark'd that higher sphear Where her own essence doth in safety dwell But views her lower shade like boy at brink of well 2 Dotes upon sense ne higher doth arise Busied about vain forms corporeall Contemns as nought unseen exilities Objects of virtue Intellectuall Though these of substances be principall But I to better hope would fainly lead The sunken mind and cunningly recall Again to life that long hath liggen dead Awake ye drooping souls shake off that drousihead 3 Why do you thus confide in sleepy sense Ill judge of her own objects who 'll believe The eye contracting Phoebus Orb immense Into the compasse of a common sieve If solid reason did not us relieve The host of heaven alwayes would idle stand In our conceit nor could the Sun revive The neither world nor do his Lords command Things near seem further off farst off the nearst at hand 4 The touch acknowledgeth no gustables The tast no fragrant smell or stinking sent The smell doth not once dream of audibles The hearing never knew the verdant peint Of springs gay mantle nor heavens light ylent That must discover all that goodly pride So that the senses would with zeal fervent Condemne each other and their voice deride If mutually they heard such things they never try'd 5 But reason that above the sense doth sit Doth comprehend all their impressions And tells the touch it s no fanatick fit That makes the sight of illustrations So stifly talk upon occasions But judgeth all their voyces to be true Concerning their straight operations And doth by nimble consequences shew To her own self what those wise Five yet never knew 6 They never knew ought but corporealls But see how reason doth their verdict rude Confute by loosening materialls Into their principles as latitude Profundity of bodies to conclude The term of latitude is breadthlesse line A point the line doth manfully retrude From infinite processe site doth confine This point take site away it s straight a spark divine 7 And thus unloos'd it equally respects The bodies parts not fixt to any one Let 't be distused through all Thus it detects The soul's strange nature operation Her independency loose union With this frail body So 's this unity Great but without that grosse extension Exceeding great in her high energie Extended far and wide from her non-quantity 8 If yet you understand not let the soul Which you suppose extended with this masse Be all contract and close together roll Into the centre of the hearts compasse As the suns beams that by a concave glasse Be strangely strengthned with their strait constraint Into one point that thence they stoutly passe Fire all before them withouten restraint The high arch'd roof of heaven with smouldry smoke they taint 9 But now that grosnesse which we call the heart Quite take away and leave that spark alone Without that sensible corporeall part Of humane body so when that is gone One nimble point of life that 's all at one In its own self doth wonderfully move Indispers'd quick close with self-union Hor sparkling active mounting high above In bignesse nought in virtue like to thundring Jove 10 Thus maugre all th' obmurmurings of sense We have found an essence incorporeall A shifting centre with circumference But she not onely sits in midst of all But is also in a manner centrall In her outflowing lines For the extension Of th' outshot rayes circumserentiall Be not gone from her by distrought distension Her point is at each point of all that spread dimension 11 This is a substance truly spiritall That reason by her glistring lamp hath shown No such the sense in things corporeall Can ere find out May this perswasion O sunken souls slaves of sensation Rear up your heads and chase away all fear How when by strong argumentation I shall you strip of what so doth appear Corporeall that you to nought should vanish clear 12 The naked essence of the body 's this Matter extent in three dimensions Hardnesse or softnesse be but qualities Withouten self reduplications Or outspread circling propagations Of its own presence These be corporall And what with these in such extension Singly's stretch'd out is form materiall Whether our soul be such now to the test we 'll call 13 If souls be bodies or inanimate They be or else endowed with life If they Be livelesse give they life if animate Then tell me what doth life to them convey Some other body Here can be no stay Straight we must ask whether that livelesse be Or living Then what ' lives it Thus we 'll play Till we have forc'd you to infinity And make your cheeks wax red at your Philosophy 14 Again pray tell me is this body grosse Or fluid and thin you deem the soul to be If grosse then either strongly it is cross'd From entring some parts of this rigid tree And so of life they 'll want their ' lotted fee Or if it penetrate this bulk throughout It breaks and tears and puts to penalty This sory corse If 't thin and fluid be thought How pulls it up those limbs and again jerks them out 15 Besides if stretchen corporeity Longs to the soul then Augmentation Must likewise thereto appertain But see Th' absurdities that this opinion Will drag on with it for effluxion Of parts will spoil the steddy memory And wash away all intellection Deface the beauty of that imagery That once was fairly graven in her phantasie 16 But oft when the weak bodie 's worn and wasted And far shrunk in the nimble phantasie So far she 's from being withered and blasted More
largely worketh and more glitterandly Displayes her spreaden forms and chearfully Pursues her sports Again the greater corse Would most be fill'd with magnanimity But oft we see the lesse hath greater force To fight or talk the greater oft we see the worse 17 All which if weighed well must ill agree With bodies natures which merely consist In a dull silent stupid quantity Stretching forth mirksome matter in what list Or precincts no man knows No Naturalist Can it define unlesse they adde a form That easly curbs the thing that no'te resist And after her own will can it inform It still and stupid stands and thinks nor good nor harm 18 The man is mad that will at all agree That this is soul Or if forme bodily Non-replicate extent not setten free But straight stretch'd out in corporeity Betwixt these two there 's that affinity As little wit that man will seem to have Which I shall plainly prove by th' energie Of sense though that same force seem not so brave Yet for the present I 'll not climbe to higher stave 19 If Souls be substances corporeall Be they as big just as the body is Or shoot they out to th' height Aethereall Of such extent are the sights energies If they shoot out be they equally transmisse Around this body or but upward start If round the body Nature did amisse To lose her pains in half of the souls part That part can finden nought that through the earth doth dart 20 Or will you say she is an hemisphere But a ridiculous experiment Will soon confute it list you but to rear Your agill heels towards the firmament And stand upon your head that part is bent Down through the earth that earst did threat the skie So that your soul now upward is extent No higher then your heels yet with your eye The heavens great vastnesse as before you now discry 21 You 'll say this souls thin spread exility Turns not at all How doth it then depend Upon this body It has no unity Therewith but onely doth of cur'sy lend It life as doth the worlds great lamp down send Both light and warmth unto each living wight And if they chance to fail and make an end It s nought to him he shineth yet as bright As ere he did This showes the soul immortall quite 22 But if the soul be justly coextent With this straight body nought can bigger be Then is our body that she doth present ' Cording to laws of Corporeity So must she represent each realty Thus tallest Gyants would be oft defied By groveling Pigmees for they could not see The difference nor mete his manly stride Nor ween what matchlesse strength did in his armes reside 23 For they must judge him just as their own selves Of the same stature of the self-same might All men would seem to them their fellow Elves Nor little curs would tremble at the sigh Of greater dogs nor hawks would put to flight The lesser birds Th' impression of a seal Can be no larger then the wax or right As big or lesse it is Therefore repeal This grosse conceit and hold as reason doth reveal 24 Again if souls corporeall you ween Do the light images of things appear Upon the surface slick bright smooth and sheen As in a looking glasse Or whether dare They passe the outside and venture so farre As into the depth of the souls substance If this then they together blended are That nought we see with right discriminance If that the object gone away those forms do glance 25 Thus should we be devoid of memory And be all darknesse till the good presence Of outward objects doth the soul unty From heavy sleep But this experience Plainly confutes For even in their absence We do retain their true similitude So lovers wont to maken dalliance With the fair shade their minds do still include And wistly view the grace wherewith she is endude 26 But now new reasons I will set on foot Drawn from the common sense that 's not extense But like a centre that around doth shoot Its rayes those rayes should be the outward sense As some resemble't But by no pretence Would I the outward senses should be thought To act so in a spread circumference That the seat of their forms should be distrought Or that by reach of quantities dead arms they wrought 27 For see how little share hath quantitie In act of seeing when we comprehend The heavens vast compasse in our straitned eye Nor may the Ox with the Eagle contend Because a larger circle doth extend His slower lights So that if outward sense In his low acts doth not at all depend On quantity how shall the common-sense That is farre more spirituall depend from thence 28 But still more presly this point to pursue By th' smelling odours voices by the ear By th' eye we apprehend the coloured hew Of bodies visible But what shall steer The erring senses where shall they compear In controversie what the difference Of all their objects can with judgement clear Distinguish and discern One common-sense For one alone must have this great preeminence 29 And all this one must know though still but one Else't could not judge of all But make it two Then tell me doth the soul by this alone Apprehend this object that the sense doth show And that by that or doth it by both know Both objects as this colour and that sound If both knew both then nature did bestow In vain one faculty it doth redound But if this that that this what shall them both compound 30 And by comparison judge of them both Therefore that judge is one But whether one Without division let 's now try that troth If it be any wise extent you 're gone By the same reason that afore was shown Suppose't a line the least of quantity Or sound is here there colour or each one Of the lines parts receive them both If we Grant that again we find a superfluity 31 If this part this and that part that receive We are at the same losse we were afore For one to judge them both or we bereave Our souls of judgement For who can judge more Than what he knows It is above his power Therefore it 's plain the common sense is one One individed faculty But store Of parts would breed a strange confusion When every part mought claim proper sensation 32 If not nor all could exercise the Act Of any sense For could a power of sense Arise from stupid parts that plainly lack'd That might themselves Thus with great confidence We may conclude that th' humane souls essence Is indivisible yet every where In this her body Cause th' intelligence She hath of whatsoever happens here The aking foot the eye doth view the hand doth cheer 33 What tells the hand or head the toes great grief When it alone is pinch'd with galling shooes Do other parts not hurt call for relief For their dear mates Ill
messenger of woes That grieveth not himself Can they disclose That misery without impression Upon themselves Therefore one spirit goes Through all this bulk not by extension But by a totall Self-reduplication 34 Which neither body nor dispersed form Nor point of form dispersed e'r could do And bodies life or sprite for to transform Into our soul though that might this undo Yet to so rash conceit to yield unto Cannot be safe for if it propagate It 's self and 'ts passions yet they free may go Unmark'd if sense would not them contemplate So doth the Mundane sprite not heeded circulate 35 Besides if from that spirit naturall The nurse of plants you should dare to assert That lively inward Animadversall To springen out it would surely invert The order of the Orbs from whence do stert All severall beings and of them depend Therefore the Orb Phantastick must exert All life phantasticall sensitive send The life of sense so of the rest unto each end 36 There 's nought from its own self can senden forth Ought better then it self So nought gives sense That hath not sense it self nor greater worth Then sense nor sense nor better springs from thence Nor that which higher is can have essence Lesse active lesse reduplicate lesse free Lesse spiritall then that 's amov'd from hence And is an Orb of a more low degree Wherefore that centrall life hath more activitie 37 And present is in each part totally Of this her body Nor we ought diffide Although some creatures still alive we see To stirre and move when we have them divide And cut in twain Thus worms in sturdie pride Do wrigge and wrest their parts divorc'd by knife But we must know that Natures womb doth hide Innumerable treasures of all life And how to breaken out upon each hint they strive 38 So when the present actuall centrall life Of sense and motion is gone with one part To manage it strait for the due relief Of th' other particle there up doth start Another centrall life and tries her art But she cannot raigne long nor yet recure That deadly wound The plantall lifes depart And flitten or shrunk spright that did procure Her company being lost make her she 'll not endure 39 And so at last is gone from whence she came For soon did fade that sweet allurement The plantall life which for a while did flame With sympathetick fire but that being spent Straight she is flown Or may you this content That some impression of that very soul That 's gone if gone with plantall spirit meint The broken corse thus busily may roll Long 't is till water boild doth stranger heat controul 40 Thus have we prov'd ' cording to our insight That humane souls be not corporeall With reasons drawn from the sensitive might Nor bodies nor spread forms materiall Whether you substances list them to call Or qualities or point of these I 'll bring Hereafter proofs from power rationall In humane souls to prove the self same thing Mount up aloft my Muse and now more shrilly sing The Argument of PSYCHATHANASIA Or The Immortality of the Soul BOOK II. CANT III. The souls incorporeitie From powers rationall We prove Discern true pietie From bitternesse and gall 1 LIke Carpenter entred into a wood To cut down timber for some edifice Of stately structure whiles he casts abroad His curious eye he much perplexed is There stand in view so many goodly trees Where to make choice to enter his rugg'd saw My Muse is plung'd in like perplexities So many arguments themselves do show That where to pitch my wavering mind doth yet scarce know 2 One taller then the rest my circling eye Hath hit upon which if 't be sound at heart Will prove a goodly piece to raise on high The heavenly structure of that deemed part Of man his soul and by unerring art Set his foundation 'bove the bodies frame On his own wheels that he may thence depart Intire unhurt So doth the Scythian swain Drive his light moving house on the waste verdant Plain 3 I 'll sing of piety that now I mean That Trismegist thus wisely doth define Knowledge of God That 's piety I ween The highest of virtues a bright beam divine Which to the purer soul doth sweetly shine But what 's this beam and how doth it enlight What doth it teach It teacheth to decline Self-love and frampard wayes the hypocrite Doth trample in accloy'd with dirt and dismall night 4 Not rage nor mischief nor love of a sect Nor eating irefulnesse harsh cruelty Contracting Gods good will nor conscience checkt Or chok'd continually with impiety Fauster'd and fed with hid hypocrisie Nor tyranny against perplexed minds Nor forc'd conceit nor man-idolatry All which the eye of searching reason blinds And the souls heavenly flame in dungeon darknesse binds 5 Can warres and jarres and fierce contention Swoln hatred and consuming envie spring From piety No. 'T is opinion That makes the riven heavens with trumpets ring And thundring engine mur'drous balls out-sling And send mens groning ghosts to lower shade Of horrid hell This the wide world doth bring To devastation makes mankind to fade Such direfull things doth false Religion perswade 6 But true Religion sprong from God above Is like her fountain full of charity Embracing all things with a tender love Full of good will and meek expectancy Full of true justice and sure verity In heart and voice free large even infinite Not wedg'd in strait particularity But grasping all in her vast active spright Bright lamp of God! that men would joy in thy pure light 7 Can souls that be thus universalis'd Begot into the life of God e're dy His light is like the sun that doth arise Upon the just and unjust can they fly Into a nothing and hath God an eye To see himself thus wasted and decay In his true members can mortality Seize upon that that doth it self display Above the laws of matter or the bodies sway 8 For both the body and the bodies spright Doth things unto particulars confine Teaching them partiall friendship and fell spight But those pure souls full of the life divine Look upon all things with mild friendly eyne Ready to do them good Thus is their will Sweetly spread out and ever doth incline The bent of the first Goodnesse to fulfill Ay me that dreary death such lovely life should spill 9 Besides this largenesse in the will of man And winged freenesse now let 's think upon His understanding and how it doth scan Gods being unto whom religion Is consecrate Imagination That takes its rise from sense so high ascent Can never reach yet intellection Or higher gets or at least hath some sent Of God vaticinates or is parturient 10 For ask her whether God be this or that A body infinite or some mighty spright Yet not almighty such vain speech she 'll hate Whether all present or in some place pight Whether part here part there or
What God near made nor doth at all intend To make free phantasms laughs at future fates Foresees her own condition she relates Th' all comprehension of eternity Complains she 's thirsty still in all estates That all she sees or has no'te satisfie Her hungry self nor fill her vast capacity 29 But I 'll break off My Muse her self forgot Her own great strength and her foes feeblenesse That she her name by her own pains may blot While she so many strokes heaps in excesse That fond grosse phansie quite for to suppresse Of the souls corporal'tie For men may think Her adversaries strength doth thus her presse To multitude of reasons makes her swink With weary toyl and sweat out thus much forced ink 30 Or that she loves with trampling insultations To domineere in easie victory But let not men dare cast such accusations Against the blamelesse For no mastery Nor fruitlesse pomp nor any verity Of that opinion that she here destroyes Made her so large No 't is her jealousie ' Gainst witching falshood that weak souls annoyes And oft doth choke those chearing hopes of lasting joyes The Argument of PSYCHATHANASIA OR The Immortality of the Soul Book 3. Cant. 1. The souls free independency Her drery dreadfull state In hell Her tricentreity What brings to heavens gate 1 WEll said that man what ever man that was That said what things we would we straight believe Upon each slight report t' have come to passe But better he that said Slow faith we give To things we long for most Hope and fear rive Distracted minds as when nigh equall weights Cast on the trembling scales each tug and strive To pull the other up But the same sleights By turns do urge them both in their descents and heights 2 Thus waves the mind in things of greatest weight For things we value most are companied With fear as well as hope these strifly fight The stronger hope the stronger fear is fed On mother both and the like livelyhed One object both from whence they both do spring The greater she the greater these she bred The greater these the greater wavering And longer time to end their sturdy struggeling 3 But is there any thing of more import Then the souls immortality Hence fear And hope we striving feel with strong effort Against each other That nor reason clear Nor sacred Oracles can straight down bear That sturdy rascall with black phantasies Yclad and clouded with drad dismall chear But still new mists he casts before our eyes And now derides our prov'd incorporieties 4 And grinning saith That labour 's all in vain For though the soul were incorporeall Yet her existence to this flesh restrain They be so nearly link'd that if one fall The other fails The eare nor hears our call In stouping age nor eye can see ought clear Benumming palsies shake the bodies wall The soul hath lost her strength and cannot steer Her crasie corse but staggering on reels here and there 5 So plain it is that though the soul 's a spright Not corporall that it must needs depend Upon this body and must perish quite When her foundation falls But now attend And see what false conceits vain fears do send 'T is true I cannot write without a quill Nor ride without an horse If chance that rend Or use make blunt o're-labouring this kill Then can I walk not ride not write but think my fill 6 Our body is but the souls instrument And when it fails onely these actions cease That thence depend But if new eyes were sent Unto the aged man with as much case And accuratenesse as when his youth did please The wanton lasse he now could all things see Old age is but the watry blouds disease The soul from death and sicknesse standeth free My hackney fails not I my pen not sciencie 7 But as I said of things we do desire So vehemently we never can be sure Enough Therefore my Muse thou must aspire To higher pitch and fearfull hearts secure Not with slight phansie but with reason pure Evincing the souls independency Upon this body that doth her immure That when from this dark prison she shall flie All men may judge her rest in immortality 8 Therefore I 'll sing the Tricentreity Of humane souls and how they wake from sleep In which ywrapt of old they long do lie Contract with cold and drench'd in Lethe deep Hugging their plantall point It makes me weep Now I so clearly view the solemn Spring Of silent Night whose Magick dew doth steep These drowsie souls of men whose dropping wing Keeps off the light of life and blunts each fiery sting 9 Three centres hath the soul One plantall hight Our parents this revive in nuptiall bed This is the principle that hales on Night Subjects the mind unto dull drowsyhed If we this follow thus we shall be led To that dark straitnesse that did bind before Our sluggish life when that is shrivelled Into its sunken centre we no more Are conscious of life what can us then restore 10 Unlesse with fiery whips fell Nemesis Do lash our sprights and cruelly do gore Our groning ghosts this is the way I wisse The onely way to keep 's from Morpheus power Both these so dismall are that I do showr Uncessant tears from my compassionate eyes Alas ye souls Why should or sleep devour Sweet functions of life or hellish cries To tender heart resound your just calamities 11 Thus may you all from your dead drowsinesse Be wak'd by inward sting and pinching wo That you could wish that that same heavinesse Might ever you o'represse and Lethe flow Upon your drowned life But you shall glow With urging fire that doth resuscitate Your middle point and makes it self to gnaw It self with madnesse while 't doth ruminate On its deformity and sterill vexing state 12 Continuall desire that nought effects Perfect hot-glowing fervour out to spring In some good world With fury she affects To reach the Land of life then struck with sting Of wounding memory despairs the thing And further off she sees her self the more She rageth to obtain thus doth she bring More fewell to her flame that scorched sore With searching fire she 's forc'd to yell and loudly rore 13 Thus she devours her self not satisfies Her self nought hath she but what 's dearly spun From her own bowels jejune exilities Her body 's gone therefore the rising sun She sees no more nor what in day is done The sporting aire no longer cools her bloud Pleasures of youth and manhood quite are gone Nor songs her eare nor mouth delicious food Doth fill But I 'll have this more fully understood 14 Three centres hath mans soul in Unity Together joynd or if you will but one Those three are one with a Triplicity Of power or rayes Th' high'st intellection Which being wak'd the soul's in Union With God If perfectly regenerate Into that better world corruption Hath then no force her blisse to perturbate The
stream be alwayes homogeneall 32 But the high heaven-born soul sprung out from Jove Ever is clashing with the foolery Of this dull body which the sense doth love And erring phansie It were long to try In every thing O how 't would magnifie The hight of pleasures that fall under sense This well describ'd would prove its Deity A vast round body cloth'd with th' excellence Of glorious glistring light through the wide aire extense 33 Bravely adorn'd with diverse colours gay Even infinite varieties that shine With wondrous brightnesse varnish'd with the ray Of that clear light with motion circuline Let turn about and stir up sounds divine That sweetly may affect th' attentive ear Adde fragrant odours waft with gentle wind Adde pleasant taste soft touch to Venus dear This is the bodies God this is its highest sphear 34 But from far higher place and brighter light Our reason checks us for this vanity Calls to us warns us that that empty sight Lead not our soul unto Idolatry Make us not rest in easie falsity If thou be stirred up by working fire To search out god to find the Deity Take to thy self not what thine eyes admire Or any outward sense or what sense can desire 35 Behold a light far brighter then the Sun The Sun 's a shadow if you them compare Or grosse Cimmerian mist the fairest Noon Exceeds not the meridian night so far As that light doth the Sun So perfect clear So perfect pure it is that outward eye Cannot behold this inward subtile starre But indisperst is this bright Majesty Yet every where out shining in infinitie 36 Unplac'd unparted one close Unity Yet omnipresent all things yet but one Not streâ—k'd with gaudy multiplicity Pure light without discolouration Stable without circumvolution Eternall rest joy without passing sound What sound is made without collision Smell taste and touch make God a grosse compound Yet truth of all that 's good is perfectly here found 37 This is a riddle unto outward sense And heavie phansie that can rise no higher Then outward senses knows no excellence But what those Five do faithfully inspire From their great God this world nor do desire More then they know wherefore to consopite Or quench this false light of bold phansies fire Surely must be an act contrary quite Unto this bodies life and its low groveling spright 38 Wherefore the body 's not Originall Of humane soul when she doth thus resist That principle which still more clearly shall Be proved Oft when either drowsie mists Provoke to sleep or worst of senses lists To ease his swelling veins or stomach craves His wonted food that he too long hath mist Or our dry lungs cool liquor fain would have Or when in warre our heart suggests the fear of grave 39 Yet high desire of truth and deep insight Into Gods mystery makes us command These low attractions and our countries right Bids march on bravely stout and stifly stand In bloudy fight and try 't by strength of hand Thus truth and honesty so sway our will That we no longer doubt to break the band Of lower Nature and this body kill Or vex so we the Laws of reason may fulfill 40 This proves the soul to sit at liberty Not wedg'd into this masse of earth but free Unloos'd from any strong necessity To do the bodies dictates while we see Clear reason shining in serenity Calling above unto us pointing to What 's right and decent what doth best agree With those sweet lovely Ideas that do show Some glimps of their pure light So Sol through clouds doth flow 41 How oft do we neglect this bodies life And outward comely plight for to adorn Our soul with virtuous ornaments and strive To fat our mind with truth while it 's forlorn Squalid half-nasty pallid wan deform Can this desire from the base body spring No sure such brave atchievements be yborn Within the soul tend to her perfecting See th' independent mind in her self circuling 42 Best plight of body hinders such like acts How doth she then upon the body pend To do those subtle high pure heavenly facts What doth the Sun his rayes that he out-sends Smother or choke though clouds that upward wend May raised be by him yet of those clouds That he doth congregate he no'te depend Nor doth the soul that in this flesh doth croud Her self rely on that thick vapour where she 's shroud 43 But still to prove it clearer If the mind Without the bodyes help can operate Of her own self then nothing can we find To scruple at but that souls separate Safely exist not subject unto fate Nothing depending on their carcases That they should fade when those be ruinate But first perpend well both their properties That we may better see their independencies 44 The living body where the soul doth ' bide These functions hath phansie sense memory How into sense these outward forms do glide I have already told and did descry How presentifick circularity Is spread through all there is one Mundane spright And body vitall corporality We have from hence Our souls be coâ—unite With the worlds spright and body with these herself she has dight 45 Our body struck by evolution Of outward forms spread in the worlds vast spright Our listning mind by its adversion Doth notice take but nothing is empight In it Of old Gods hand did all forms write In humane souls which waken at the knock Of Mundane shapes If they were naked quite Of innate forms though heaven and earth should rock With roring winds they 'd hear no more then senselesse stock 46 Phansy's th' impression of those forms that flit In this low life They oft continue long When as our spright more potently is hit By their incursions and appulses strong Like heated water though a while but hung On fiercer fire an hot impression Long time retains so forms more stoutly flung Against our spright make deep insculption Long time it is till their clear abolition 47 Hence springeth that which men call memory When outward object doth characterize Our inward common spright or when that we From our own soul stir up clear phantasies Which be our own elicited Idees Springing from our own centrall life by might Of our strong Fiat as oft as we please With these we seal that under grosser spright Make that our note-book there our choifest notions write 48 But sith it is not any part of us But longeth unto the great world it must Be chang'd for course of Time voraginous With rapid force is violently just Makes each thing pay with what it was in trust The common life sucks back the common spright The body backward falls into the dust It doth it by degrees Hence phancie sight And memory in age do not their functions right 49 Often disease or some hard casualtie Doth hurt this spirit that a man doth lose The use of sense wit phansie memory That hence rash men our souls mortall suppose Through
their rude ignorance but to disclose The very truth our soul 's in safety In that distemper that doth ill dispose Her under spright But her sad misery Is that so close she 's tied in a prone Unitie 50 Leans on this bodies false security Seeks for things there not in herself nor higher Extremely loves this bodies company Trusts in its life thither bends her desire But when it gins to fail she 's left i' th' mire Yet hard upon us hangs th' Eternall light The ever-live-Idees the lamping fire Of lasting Intellect whose nearnesse might Illumin were our minds not lost in that frail spright 51 That spright and we are plain another thing Which now I 'll clearly show that we may see Our independency on his existing Which prove I must from eithers property That spright hath no perceptibility Of his impressions Phantasie nor sense Perceive themselves often with open eye We look upon a man in our presence And yet of that near object have no cognoscence 52 And so of Phansies that be fresh enough Even deeply seald upon that lower spright Unlesse we seek them out and pierce them through With aiming animadversion they in night Do lurk unknown to us though they be bright In their own selves Again some object may In its great vigour lustre sweying might This spirit wound by its fierce riving ray Our sight is hurt by th' eye of the broad blasing day 53 Beside the senses each one are restrained To his own object so is Phantasie That in the spirits compasse is contained As likewise the low naturall memory But sooth to say by a strong sympathy We both are mov'd by these and these do move As the light spider that makes at a fly Her selfe now moves the web she subt'ly wove Mov'd first by her own web when here the fly did rove 54 Like spider in her web so do we sit Within this spirit and if ought do shake This subtile loom we feel as it doth hit Most part into adversion we awake Unlesse we chance into our selves betake Our selves and listen to the lucid voice Of th' Intellect which these low tumults slake But our own selves judge of what ere accloyes Our muddied mind or what lifts up to heavenly joyes 55 All the five senses Phansie Memorie We feel their work distinguish and compare Find out their natures by the subtiltie Of sifting reason Then they objects are Of th' understanding bear no greater share In this same act then objects wont to do They are two realties distinguish'd clear One from the other as I erst did show She knows that spright that spright our soul can never know 56 Sense Phansie Memorie as afore was said Be hurt by stronger objects or be spoild By longer exercise Our soul ne're fades But doth her spright commiserate long toild With agitation when she feels it moild Descends to comfort it and gives it rest But she grows quicker vaster never foild With contemplations that this spright molest The inward soul 's renew'd as cannot be exprest 57 How soul and spright be severed we see But how 't works by it self is not yet shown I mean without this sprights assistencie Though not quite by her self High light doth crown Her summitie when sleep that spright doth drown â—â—apt into highest heavens in ecstasie She sees such things as would low life confound Enrage with a tumultuous agonie Burst this pent spright for want of fit capacitie 58 Then is she joynd with the Eternall Idees Which move our souls as sights do here below Joynd with the spright of God we gaze on these As by the Mundane spright th' Out-world we know Our soul hangs twixt them both and there doth go Where either spright doth snatch her Either raise Her inward forms which leap out nothing-slow When sympathie them calls Thus she displayes Her inward life Gods light views with her wakened rayes 59 When we confute a pregnant falsitie Cloth'd with strong phantasmes in our snared mind As this suppose The earths stabilitie What help can we in our low phansie find Possest of this impression what shall bind This stubborn falshood so inveterate That spright so stifly set can't be inclin'd By ought but by the soul that contemplates Truth by her self brings out her forms that be innate 60 Flies she to sense sense pleads for Ptolemee Flies she to her low phansie that 's so swayd By sense and fore-imprest Astronomie By botch'd inculcate paradigmes made By senses dictate that they 'll both perswade That Philolaus and wise Heraclide Be frantick both Copernicus twice mad She cannot then this question well decide By ought but her own forms that in her self reside 61 Which she calls out unto her faithfull aid Commands deep silence to fond phantasie Whose odious prating truth hath oft betraid And in her stead brought in rash falsitie Seated in sowr inert stupiditie Then farewell sense and what from sense hath sprong Saith she I 'll contemplate in puritie And quit my self of that tumultuous throng What then she finâ—s shall be unfold in my next song The Argument of PSYCHATHANASIA Or The Immortality of the Soul BOOK III. CANT III. That th' earth doth move proofs Physicall Unto us do descrie Adde reasons Theosophicall Al 's adde Astronomie 1 BLest souls first Authours of Astronomie Who clomb the heavens with your high reaching mind Scal'd the high battlements of the lofty skie To whom compar'd this earth a point you find Your bodies lesse what measure hath defin'd What art that mighty vastnesse Such high facts The ancient Giants swoln with raging wind Could not effect A subtile Parallax A dark Eclipse do quite obscure their braving acts 2 O the great might of mans high Phantasie Which with a shade or a divided line That nought this but a thin exilitie Can do farre more then strength enrag'd with tine Hoysted with haughty pride That brood combine To clamber up to heaven Hill upon hill Ossa upon Olympus doth recline Their brawnie arms redoubled force doth fill While they their spirits summon t' effect their furious will 3 But all in vain they want the inward skill What comes from heaven onely can thereascend Not rage nor tempest that this bulk doth fill Can profit ought but gently to attend The souls still working patiently to bend Our mind to sifting reason and clear light That strangely figur'd in our soul doth wend Shifting its forms still playing in our sight Till something it present that we shall take for right 4 The busie soul it is that hither hent By strength of reason the true distancies Of th' erring Planets and the vast extent Of their round bodies without outward eyes Hath view'd told their proportionalities Confounded sense by reasons strange report But wiser he that on reason relies Then stupid sense low-sunken into dirt This weapon I have got none from me may extort 5 O You stiff-standers for ag'd Ptolemce I heartily praise your humble reverence If willingly given to Antiquitie But when of him
17 This is the measure of Gods providence The key of knowledge the first fair Idee The eye of truth the spring of living sense Whence sprout Gods secrets the sweet mystery Of lasting life eternall charity But you O bitter men and soure of sprite Which brand Gods name with such foul infamy As though poor humane race he did or slight Or curiously view to do them some despight 18 And all to shew his mighty excellency His uncontrolled strength fond men areed Is' t not as great an act from misery To keep the feeble as his life to speed With fatall stroke The weak shak'd whisling reed Shows Boreas wondrous strong but ignorance And false conceit is the foul spirits meed Gods lovely life hath there no enterance Hence their fond thoughts for truth they vainly do advance 19 If God do all things simply at his pleasure Because he will and not because its good So that his actions will have no set measure Is' t possible it should be understood What he intends I feel that he is lov'd Of my dear soul and know that I have born Much for his sake yet is it not bence prov'd That I shall live though I do sigh and mourn To find his face his creatures wish he 'll slight and scorn 20 When I breathe out my utmost vitall breath And my dear spirit to my God commend Yet some foul feigne close lurking underneath My serious humble soul from me may rend So to the lower shades down we shall wend Though I in hearts simplicity expected A better doom sith I my steps did bend Toward the will of God and had detected Strong hope of lasting life but now I am rejected 21 Nor of well being nor subsistency Of our poor souls when they do hence depart Can any be assur'd if liberty We give to such odde thoughts that thus pervert The laws of God and rashly do assert That will rules God but Good rules not Gods will What ere from right love equity doth start For ought we know then God may act that ill Onely to show his might and his free mind fulfill 22 O belch of hell O horrid blasphemy That Heavens unblemish'd beauty thus dost stain And brand Gods nature with such infamy Can Wise Just Good do ought that 's harsh or vain All what he doth is for the creatures gain Not seeking ought from us for his content What is a drop unto the Ocean main All he intends is our accomplishment His being is self-full self-joy'd self-excellent 23 He his fair beams through all has freely 〈◊〉 Purge but thy soul that thou mayst take them in With froward hypocrite he never went That finds pretexts to keep his darling sinne Through all the earth this Sprite takes pains to winne Unto himself such as be simply true And with malignant pride resist not him But strive to do what he for right doth shew So still a greater light he brings into their view 24 All Lives in severall circumference Look up unto him and expect their food He opes his hand showrs down their sustinence So all things be yfild with their wish'd good All drink are satisfi'd from this free floud But circling life that yet unsettled is Grows straight as it is further still remov'd From the first simple Good obtains lesse blisse Sustains sharp pains inflicted by just Nemesis 25 But why do I my soul loose and disperse With mouldring reason that like sand doth flow Life close united with that Good a verse Cannot declare nor its strange virtue show That 's it holds up the soul in all her wo That death nor hell nor any change doth fray Who walks in light knows whither he doth go Our God is light we children of the day God is our strength and hope what can us then dismay 26 Goodnesse it self will do to us this good That godly souls may dwell with him for aye Will God forsake what of himself 's belov'd What ever Lives may shrink into cold clay Yet good mens souls deaths hests shall not obey Where there 's no incompossibility Of things Gods goodnesse needs must bear the sway You virtuous brood take 't for sure verity Your souls shall not fall short of blest eternity 26 But yet bold men with much perplexity Will here object against this principle Heaping up reasons strange fecundity Of ignorance that goodly might to quell Of my last argument so fairly well Set down right strongly the unsettled spright To have confirmed at my last far-well But contrair forces they bring into sight And proudly do provoke me with that rout to fight 27 Whence was 't say they that God the creature made No sooner why did infinite delay Precede his work should God his goodnesse staid So long a time why did he not display From infinite years this out-created ray The mighty starres why not in habited When God may souls proportion to their clay As well as to this earth why not dispred The world withouten bounds endlesse uncompassed 28 Poore souls why were they put into this cave Of misery if they can well exist Without the body Why will not God save All mankind His great wisdome if it list Could so contrive that they 'd at last desist From sinning fallen into some providence That sternly might rebuke them that have mist Their way and work in them true penitence Thus might they turn to God with double diligence 29 Why be not damned souls devoyd of sense If nothing can from wickednesse reclaime Rather then fry in pain and vehemence Of searching agony or why not frame Another form so with new shape and name Again to turn to life One centrall spright Why may 't not many forms in it contain Which may be wak'd by some magnetick might ' Cording as is the matter upon which they light 30 For when too severall kinds by Venus knit Do cause a birth from both the soul doth take A tincture but if free it were transmit Uncloth'd with th' others seed then it would make One simple form for then they could not slake One th' others working Why is the World still Stark nought through malice or through blind mistake Why had the first-made-man such a loose will That his innumerous of-spring he should fouly spill 31 Why was not this unlucky world dissolv'd As soon as that unhappy Adam fell I itch till of this knot I be resolv'd So many myriads tumble down to hell Although partakers of Gods holy spell Beside t is said they that do not partake Of Christian lore for ever they must dwell With cursed fiends and burn in brimstone lake Such drery drad designes do make my heart to quake 32 One of a multitude of myriads Shall not be sav'd but broyl in scorching wo Innumerous mischiefs then to mischiefs addes This worlds continuance if that be so Ill infinitely more then good doth grow So God would show much more benignity If he the ribs of heaven about would strow Powder the earth choke
find and that men call Mortality Plain death 's as good as such a Psychopannychie 4 What profiteth this bare existency If I perceive not that I do exist Nought longs to such nor mirth nor misery Such stupid beings write into one list With stocks and stones But they do not persist You 'll say in this dull dead condition But must revive shake off this drowsie mist At that last shrill loud-sounding clarion Which cleaves the trembling earth rives monuments of stone 5 Has then old Adam snorted all this time Under some senselesse sod with sleep ydead And have those flames that steep Olympus climbe Right nimbly wheeled or'e his heedlesse head So oft in heaps of years low buried And yet can ken himself when he shall rise Wakend by piercing trump that farre doth shed Its searching sound If we our memories And wit do lose by sicknesse falls sloth lethargies 6 If all our childhood quite be waste away With its impressions so that we forget What once we were so soon as age doth sway Our bowed backs sure when base worms have eat His mouldring brains and spirits have retreat From whence they came spread in the common fire And many thousand sloping sunnes have set Since his last fall into his ancient mire How he will ken himself reason may well admire 7 For he must know himself by some impression Left in his ancient body unwash'd out Which seemeth strange For can so long succession Of sliding years that great Colosses mought Well moulder into dust spare things ywrought So slightly as light phantasms in our brain Which oft one yeare or moneth have wrenched out And left no footsteps of that former stain No more then 's of a cloud quite melted into rain 8 And shall not such long series of time When Nature hath dispread our vitall spright And turn'd our body to its ancient slime Quite wash away what ever was empight In that our spirit If flesh and soul unite Lose such impressions as were once deep seald And fairly glistered like to comets bright In our blew Chaos if the soul congeald With her own body lose these forms as I reveald 9 Then so long time of their disjunction The body being into dust confract The spright diffus'd spread by dispersion And such Lethean sleep that doth contract The souls hid rayes that it did nothing act Must certainly wipe all these forms away That sense or phansie ever had impact So that old Adam will in vain assay To find who here he was he 'll have no memorie 10 Nor can he tell that ere he was before And if not tell he 's as if then first born If as first born his former life's no store Yet when men wake they find themselves at morn But if their memory away were worn With one nights sleep as much as doth respect Themselves these men they never were beforn This day 's their birth day they cannot conject They ever liv'd till now much lesse the same detect 11 So when a man goes hence thus may he say As much as me concerns I die now quite Adiew good self for now thou goest away Nor can I possibly thee ever meet Again nor ken thy face nor kindly greet Sleep and dispersion spoyls our memory So my dear self henceforth I cannot weet Wherefore to me it 's perfectly to die Though subtiler Wits do call 't but Psychopannychie 12 Go now you Psychopannychites perswade To comely virtues and pure piety From hope of ioy or fear of penance sad Men promptly may make answer Who shall try That pain or pleasure When death my dim eye Shall close I sleep not sensible of ought And tract of time at least all memory Will quiâ—e debarre that reacquainten mought My self with mine own self if so my self I sought 13 But I shall neither seek my self nor find My self unsought Therefore not deprehend My self in joy or wo. Men ought to mind What longs unto them But when once an end Is put unto this life and fate doth rend Our retinence what follows nought at all Belongs to us what need I to contend And my frail spright with present pain to gall For what I nere shall judge my self did ere befall 14 This is the uncouth state of sleeping soul Thus weak of her own self without the prop Of the base body that she no'te out-roll Her vitall raies those raies Death down doth lop And all her goodly beauty quite doth crop With his black claws Wisdome love piety Are straight dried up Death doth their fountain stop This is those sleepers dull Philosophy Which fairly men invites to foul impiety 15 But if we grant which in my former song I plainly prov'd that the souls energie Pends not on this base corse but that self-strong She by her self can work then when we fly The bodies commerce no man can deny But that there is no interruption Of life where will puts on there doth she hie Or if she 's carried by coaction That force yet she observes by presse adversion 16 And with most lively touch doth feel and find Her self For either what she most doth love She then obtains or else with crosse unkind Contrary life since her decease sh ' hath strove That keeps her wake and with like might doth move To think upon her self and in what plight She 's fallen And nothing able to remove Deep searching vengeance groans in this sad Night And rores and raves and storms and with her self doth fight 17 But hearty love of that great vitall spright The sacred fount of holy sympathy Prepares the soul with its deep quickning might To leave the bodies vain mortality Away she flies into Eternity Finds full accomplishment of her desire Each thing would reach its own centrality So Earth with Earth and Moon with Moon conspire Our selves live most when most we feed our Centrall fire 18 Thus is the soul continually in life Withouten interruption if that she Can operate after the fatall knife Hath cut the cords of lower sympathy Which she can do if that some energie She exercise immur'd in this base clay Which on frail flesh hath no dependency For then the like she 'll do that done away These independent acts t is time now to display 19 All comprehending Will proportionate To whatsoever shall fall by Gods decree Or prudent sufferance sweetly spread dilate Stretch'd out t' embrace each act or entity That creep from hidden cause that none can see With outward eyes Next Intellect whose hight Of working 's then when as it stands most free From sense and grosser phansie deep empight In this vild corse which to purg'd minds yields small delight 20 Both Will and Intellect then worketh best When Sense and Appetite be consopite And grosser phansie lull'd in silent rest Then Will grown full with a mild heavenly light Shines forth with goodly mentall rayes bedight And finds and feels such things as never pen Can setten down so that unexpert wight May reade and
Intellect do not rely Upon the body sith they are indew'd With such apparent contrariety Of qualities to sense and phantasie Which plainly on the body do depend So that departed souls may phantasms free Full well exert when they have made an end Of this vain life nor need to Lethe Lake descend The Argument of ANTIPSYCHOPANNYCHIA OR The Confutation of the Sleep of the Soul Cant. 2. Bondage and freedom's here set out By an inverted Cone The self-form'd soul may work without Incorporation 1 FOuntain of beings the vast deep abysse Of Life and Love and penetrating Will That breaks through narrow Night so transmiss At last doth find it self What mortall skill Can reach this mystery my trembling quill Much lesse may set it forth yet as I may I must attempt this task for to fulfill He guide my pen while I this work assay Who All through all himself doth infinitely display 2 My end 's loose largenesse and full liberty To finden out Most precious thing I ween When contrall life her outgone energy Doth spreaden forth unsneep'd by foe-man keen And like unclouded Sunne doth freely shine This is right Liberty whose first Idee And measure is that holy root divine Of all free life hight Ahad Vnitie In all things He at once is present totally 3 Each totall presence must be infinite So is He infinite infinity Those infinites you must not disunite So is He one all spreaden Unity Nor must you so outspread this Deitie But that infinitie so infinite Must be in every infinite so we Must multiply this infinite single sight Above all apprehension of a mortall wit 4 What is not infinitely infinite It is not simply infinite and free For straitnesse if you do conceive aright Is the true daughter of deficiency But sith there 's no defect in Unity Or Ahad Ahad this first centre hight In Poetry as yet to vulgar eye Unpublish'd Him first freedome infinite We may well style And next is that eternall Light 5 Sonne unto Ahad Aeon we him name In that same Poem like his father free Even infinitely free I him proclaim Every where all at once And so is she Which Psyche hight for perfect Unity Makes all those one So hitherto we have Unmeasurable freedome Semele Is next whom though fair fluttering forms embrave Yet motion and defect her liberty deprave 6 Imagination's not infinite Yet freer farre then sense and sense more free Then vegetation or spermatick spright Even absent things be seen by phantasie By sense things present at a distancie But that spermatick spright is close confin'd Within the compasse of a stupid tree Imprison'd quite in the hard rugged rind Yet their defective Re'plication we find 7 Farre more defective then in phantasie Or sense yet freer is the plastick spright Then quantity or single quality Like quantity it self out stretched right Devoid of all reduplicative might If any such like qualities there were So dull so dead so all devoid of light As no communicative rayes to bear If there be such to Hyle they do verge most near 8 But Hyle's self is perfect penurie And infinite straitnesse Here we sinden nought Nor can do ought If curiously we prie Into this mirksome corner quite distraught From our own life and being we have brought Our selves to nothing Or the sooth to sayen The subtilest soul her self hath never wrought Into so strait a place could nere constrain Herself to enter or that Hagge to entertain 9 Lo here 's the figure of that mighty Cone From the strait Cuspis to the wide-spread Base Which is even all in comprehension What 's infinitely nothing here hath place What 's infinitely all things steddy stayes Aâ— the wide Basis of this Cone inverse Yet it s own essence doth it swiftly chace Oâ—etakes at once so swiftly doth it pierce That motion here 's no motion 10 Suppose the Sunne so much to mend his pace That in a moment he did round the skie The nimble Night how swiftly would he chace About the earth so swift that scarce thine eye Could ought but light discern But let him hie So fast that swiftnesse hath grown infinite In a pure point of time so must he flie Around this ball and the vast shade of Night Quite swallow up ever steddy stand in open sight 11 For that which from its place is not away One point of time how can you say it moves Wherefore the Sunne doth alwayes steddy stay In our Meridian as this reason proves And sith that in an instant round he roves The same doth hap in each Meridian line For in his instantaneous removes He in them all at once doth fairely shine Nor that large stretchen space his freenesse can confine 12 The Sun himself at once stands in each point Of his diurnall circle Thus we see That rest and motion cannot be disjoynt When motion 's swift even to infinity Here contrarieties do well agree Eternall shade and everlasting light With one another here do well comply Instant returns of Night make one long Night Wherefore infinity is freedome infinite 13 No hinderance to ought that doth arrive To this free camp of fair Elysium But nearer that to Hyle things do dive They are more pent and find much lesser room Thus sensuall souls do find their righteous doom Which Nemesis inflicts when they descend From heavenly thoughts that from above do come To lower life which wrath and grief attend And scorching lust that do the souls high honour blend 14 Wherefore the soul cut off from lowly sense By harmlesse fate farre greater liberty Must gain for when it hath departed hence As all things else should it not backward hie From whence it came but such divinity Is in our souls that nothing lesse then God Could send them forth as Plato's schools descry Wherefore when they retreat a free abode They 'll find unlesse kept off by Nemesis just rod. 15 But if kept off from thence where is she then She dwells in her own self there doth reside Is her own world and more or lesse doth pen Her self as more or lesse she erst did side With sense and vice while here she did abide Steril defect and nere-obtained desire Create a Cone whose Cusp is not more wide Then this worlds Cone Here close-contracted fire Doth vex doth burn doth scorch with searching heat and ire 16 Nor easly can she here fall fast asleep To slake her anguish and tormenting pain What drisling mists may here her senses steep What foggie fumes benumb her moistned brain The flitten soul no sense doth then retain And sleep ariseth from a sympathie With these low sprights that in this flesh remain But when from these the soul is setten free What sleep may bind her from continuall energie 17 Here they 'll reply It is not a grosse sleep That binds the soul from operation But sith that death all phantasms clean doth wipe Out of the soul she no occasion Can have of Will or Intellection The
be Subterranean the last And worst Light-hating ghosts more cruel farre Then Bear or Wolf with hunger hard opprest But doltish yet and dull like an unweildy beast 38 If this sort once possesse the arteries Of forlorn man Madnesse and stupor seize His salvag'd heart and death dwels in his eyes Ne is there remedy for this sad disease For that unworthy guest so senselesse is And deaf no Exorcist can make him hear But would in vain with Magick words chastise Others the thundring threats of Tartar fear And the drad names of Angels that this office bear 39 For they been all subject to passion Some been so grosse they hunger after food And send out seed of which worms spring anon And love to liggen warm in living bloud Whence they into the veins do often crowd Of beasts as well as men wherein they bathe Themselves and sponge-like suck that vitall flood As they done also in their aery path Drink in each unctuous steam which their dire thirst allayth 40 Such be the four last kinds foul dull impure Whose inward life and phansy's more inert And therefore usually in one shape endure But those of aire can easily convert Into new forms and then again revert One while a man after a comely maid And then all suddenly to make the stert Like leaping Leopard he 'll thee invade Then made a man again he 'll comfort thee afraid 41 Then straight more quick then thought or cast of eye A snarling Dog or brisled Boar he 'll be Anon a jugge of milk if thou be drie So easily's turnd that aire-consistency Through inward sport and power of phantasie For all things virtually are containd in aire And like the sunne that fiery spirit free Th' internall soul at once the seed doth rear Waken and ripe at once as if full ag'd they were 42 Cameleon like thus they their colour change And size contract and then dilate again Like the soft earthworm hurt by heedlesse chance Shrinks in her self to shun or ease her pain Nor done they onely thus themselves constrain Into lesse bulk but if with courage bold And flaming brond thou strike these shades in twain A sudden smart they feel that cannot hold Close quick as cloven aire So sang that Wizzard old 43 And truth he said what ever he was told As even this present Age may verifie If any lists its stories to unfold Of Hags of Hobgoblings of Incubi Abhorred dugs by devils sucken dry Of leaping lamps and of fierce flying stones Of living wool and such like witchery Or prov'd by sight or self confessions Which things much credence gain to past traditions 44 Wherefore with boldnesse we will now relate Some few in breif as of th' Astorgan lad Whose peevish mother in fell ire and hate Quite drunk with passion through quick cholar mad With execrations bold the devil bad Take him alive which mood the boy no'te bear But quits the room walks out with spirit sad Into the court where Lo by night appear Tall Giants with grim looks rough limbs black grizely hair 45 These in a moment hoist him into th' air Away him bear more swift then bird can fly Straight to the destin'd place arrived are Mongst craggy rocks and bushy Mountains high Where up and down they drag the sorry boy His tender skin and goary flesh they tear Till he gan on his Maker call and cry Which forc'd the villains home again him bear Where he the story told restor'd by Parents care 46 The walking Skeleton in Bolonia Laden with rattling chains that showd his grave To th' watchfull Student who without dismay Bid tell his wants and speak what he would have Thus cleared he the house by courage brave Nor may I passe the fair Cerdinian maid Whose love a jolly swain did kindly crave And oft with mutuall solace with her stay'd Yet was no jolly swain but a deceitfull shade 47 More harmlesse mirth may that mad spright commend Who in an honest widows house did won At Salamanca who whole showers would send Of stones that swifter then a whirlwind come And yet where ere they hit no hurt is done But cursed cruell be those wicked Hags Whom poysonous spight envy and hate have won T' abhorred sorcery whose writhled bags Fould feinds oft suck and nestle in their loathsome rags 48 Such as the Devil woes in homely form Of swarthy man or some black shaggy Curre Or vermine base and in sad case forlorn Them male-content to evil motions stirre Proffer their service adding a quick spurre To meditated vengance and fell teen Whose hellish voice they heare without demur Abjure God and his Sonne who did redeem The world give up themselves to Satan and foul sinne 49 Thus ' bodyed into that Stygian crue Of damned wights made fast by their own bloud To their bad Master do his service due Frequent the assemblies dance as they were wood Around an huge black Goat in loansome wood By shady night farre from or house or town And kisse with driveling lips in frantcik mood His sacred breech Catch that catch may anon Each Feind has got his Hag for copulation 50 O loathsome law O filthy fond embrace The other root of cursed sorcery For if the streams of this bad art we trace They lead to two foul springs th' one Venerie And coarsest Lust the other near doth lie And is ycleeped Vengeance Malice Hate Or restlesse Envy that would all destroy But both but from one seed do germinate Hight uncurb'd Will or strong Desire inordinate 51 Wherefore I needs must humbly here adore Him whose chaste soul enwombd in Virgin chast As chast a body amongst mortals wore Who never woman knew ne once did taste Of Hymens pleasures while this life did last Ah! my dear Lord dread Sovereigne of souls Who with thy life and lore so warmed hast My wounded heart that when thy Storie 's told Sweet Love methinks in 's silver wings me all infolds 52 How do I hang upon thy sacred lips More sweet then Manna or the hony-dew Thy speech like rosie drops doth cool my wits And calme my fierce affections untrue And winne my heart unto obeisance due Blest O thrice blessed be that holy hill Whereon thou did'st instruct thy faithfull crue In wayes of peace of patience and good will Forbidding base self-love revenge and speeches ill 53 Meek Lambe of God! the worlds both scourge and scorn How done th' infernall feinds thy face envy Thou light they darknesse they Night thou the Morn Mild chariot of Gods lovely Majesty Exalted Throne of the Divinitie As thou with thine mak'st through the yielding aire How do thy frighted foes before thee fly And grin and gnash their teeth for spight and fear To see such awfull strength quite to themselves contraire 54 Ho! you vain men that follow filthy lust And swallow down revenge like pleasant wine Base earthly spirits fly this sinfull dust See with what hellish Comrades you combine Al 's see whose lovely friendship
as when lamp we lighten from a lamp Which done withouten diminution Of the first light shows how the soul of man Though indivisible may another rear Imparting life But if we rightly scan This argument it cometh nothing near To light the lamp's to kindle the sulphurious gear 89 No substance new that act doth then produce Onely the oyly atomes 't doth excite And wake into a flame but no such use There is of humane sperm For our free sprite Is not the kindled seed but substance quite Distinct therefrom If not then bodies may So changed be by nature and stiff fight Of hungry stomacks that what erst was clay Then herbs in time it self in sense may well display 90 For then our soul can nothing be but bloud Or nerves or brains or body modifide Whence it will follow that cold stopping crud Hard moldy cheese dry nuts when they have rid Due circuits through the heart at last shall speed Of life and sense look thorough our thin eyes And view the Close wherein the Cow did feed Whence they were milk'd grosse Pie-crust will grow wife And pickled Cucumbers sans doubt Philosophize 91 This all will follow if the soul be nought But the live body For mens bodies feed Of such grosse meat and if more fine be brought Suppose Snipes heads Larks heels for Ladies meet The broth of Barly or that oily Sweet Of th' unctious Grape yet all men must confesse These be as little capable of wit And sense nor can be so transform'd I wisse Therefore no soul of man from seed traducted is 92 Ne been they by th' high God then first create When in this earthly mansion they appear For why should he so soon contaminate So unspotted beauties as mens spirits are Flinging them naked into dunghills here Soyl them with guilt and foul contagion When as in his own hand they spotlesse were Till by an uncouth strange infusion He plung'd them in the deep of Malediction 93 Besides unworthily he doth surmise Of Gods pure being and bright Majesty Who unto such base offices him ties That He must wait on lawlesse Venery Not onely by that large Causality Of generall influence for Creation More speciall concourse all men deem to be But on set purpose He must come anon And ratifie the act which oft men wish undone 94 Which is a rash and shamelesse bad conceit So might they name the brat Adeodatus What ever they in lawlesse love beget Again what 's still far more prodigious When men are stung with fury poysonous And burn with flames of lust toward brute beasts And overcome into conjunction rush He then from that foul act is not releast Creates a soul misplacing the unhappy guest 95 Wherefore mans soul 's not by Creation Nor is it generate as I prov'd before Wherefore let 't be by emanation If fully it did not praeexist of yore By flowing forth from that eternall store Of Lives and souls ycleep'd the World of life Which was and shall endure for evermore Hence done all bodies vitall fire derive And matter never lost catch life and still revive 96 And what has once sprout out doth never cease If it enjoy it self a spray to be Distinct and actuall though if God please He can command it into th' ancient tree This immense Orb of wast vitality With all its Lives and Souls is every where And do's where matter right prepar'd doth lie Impart a soul as done the sunne beams clear Insinuate themselves where filth doth not debarre 97 Thus may the souls in long succession Leap out into distinct activity But sooth to say though this opinion May seem right fair and plausible to be Yet toils it under an hard difficulty Each where this Orb of life 's with every soul Which doth imply the souls ubiquity Or if the whole Extent of Natures's full Of severall souls thick set what may the furthest pull 98 What may engage them to descend so low Remov'd farre from the steam of earthly mire My wits been here too scant and faith too slow Ne longer lists my wearied thoughts to tire Let bolder spirits to such hight aspire But well I wote if there admitted were A praeexistency of souls entire And due Returns in courses circular This course all difficulties with ease away would bear 99 For then suppose they wore an airy sphear Which choise or Nemesis suck'd lower down Thus without doubt they 'll leave their carcase clear Like dispossessed spright when death doth come And by rude exorcisme bids quit the room Ne let these intricacies perplex our mind That we forget that ere we saw the sunne Before this life For who can call to mind Where first he here saw sunne or felt the gentle wind 100 Besides what wonder is 't when fierce disease Can so empair the strongest memory That so full change should make our spirits leese What 'fore they had impress'd in phantasie Nor doth it follow thence that when we die We nought retain of what pass'd in these dayes For Birth is Death Death Life and Liberty The soul 's not thence contract but there displayes Her loosened self doth higher all her powers raise 101 Like to a light fast lock'd in lanthorn dark Whereby by night our wary steps we guide In slabby streets and dirty channels mark Some weaker rayes through the black top do glide And flusher streams perhaps from horny side But when we 've past the perill of the way Arriv'd at home and laid that case aside The naked light how clearly doth it ray And spread its joyfull beams as bright as Summers day 102 Even so the soul in this contracted state Consin'd to these strait instruments of sense More dull and narrowly doth operate At this hole hears the sight must ray from thence Here tasts there smels But when she 's gone from hence Like naked lamp she is one shining sphear And round about has perfect cognoscence What ere in her Horizon doth appear She is one Orb of sense all eye all airy ear 103 Now have I well establish'd the fourth way The souls of men from stupid sleep to save First Light next Night the third the soules Self-ray Fourth the souls Chariot we named have Whether moist air or fire all sparkling brave Or temper mixt Now how these foure agree And how the soul her self may dip and lave In each by turns how no redundancy Ther 's in them might we tell nor scant deficiency 104 But cease my restlesse Muse be not too free Thy chiefest end thou hast accomplished Long since shak'd of the Psychopannychie And rouz'd the soul from her dull drowsiehed So nothing now in death is to be dred Of him that wakes to truth and righteousnesse The corps lies here the soul aloft is fled Unto the fount of perfect happinesse Full freedome joy and peace she lively doth possesse ANTIMONOPSYCHIA Or The fourth part of the Song OF THE SOUL Containing A confutation of the Unity of Souls Whereunto is annexed a Paraphrase
So full of one great light she hath no time To such low trifles as past sights to dive Such as she gathered up in earthly slime Foreknowledge of herself is lost in light divine 35 But can she here forget our radiant Sunne Of which its maker is the bright Idee This is His shadow or what she hath done Now she 's rewarded with the Deitie Suppose it Yet her hid Centralitie So sprightly's quickned with near Union With God that now life 's wished liberty Is so encreas'd that infinitely sh ' has fun Herself her deep'st desire unspeakably hath wonne 36 And deep desire is the deepest act The most profound and centrall energie The very selfnesse of the soul which backt With piercing might she breaks out forth doth flie From dark contracting death and doth descry Herself unto herself so thus unfold That actuall life she straightwayes saith is I. Thus while she in the body was infold Of this low life as of herself oft tales she told 37 In dangerous sicknesse often saith I die When nought doth die but the low plantall man That falls asleep and while Nature doth tie The soul unto the body she nere can Avoid it but must feel the self-same pain The same decay if hereto she her mind Do bend When stupid cold her corse oreran She felt that cold but when death quite doth bind The sense then she herself doth dead and senselesse find 38 Or else at least just at the entrance Of death she feels that slie privation How now it spreads ore all so living sense Perceives how sleep creeps on till quite o'recome With drousinesse animadversion Doth cease but lower sense then fast ybound The soul bestoweth her adversion On something else So oft strange things hath found In sleep from this dull carcase while she was unbound 39 So though the soul the time she doth advert The bodies passions takes her self to die Yet death now finish'd she can well convert Herself to other thoughts And if the eye Of her adversion were fast fixt on high In midst of death 't were no more fear or pain Then 't was unto Elias to let flie His uselesse mantle to that Hebrew Swain While he rode up to heaven in a bright fiery wain 40 Thus have I stoutly rescued the soul From centrall death or pure mortalitie And from the listlesse flouds of Lethe dull And from the swallow of drad Unitie And from an all-consuming Deitie What now remains but since we are so sure Of endlesse life that to true pietie We bend our minds and make our conscience pure Lest living Night in bitter darknesse us immure FINIS THE ORACLE OR A Paraphrasticall Interpretation of the answer of Apollo when he was consulted by Amelius whither Plotinus soul went when he departed this life I Tune my strings to sing some sacred verse Of my dear friend in an immortall strain His mighty praise I loudly will rehearse With hony-dewed words some golden vein The strucken chords right sweetly shall resound Come blessed Muses let 's with one joynt noise With strong impulse and full harmonious sound Speak out his excellent worth Advance your voice As once you did for great Aeacides Rapt with an heavenly rage in decent dance Mov'd at the measures of Meonides Go to you holy Quire let 's all at once Begin and to the end hold up the song Into one heavenly harmony conspire I Phoebus with my lovely locks ymong The midst of you shall sit and life inspire Divine Plotinus yet now more divine Then when thy noble soul so stoutly strove In that dark prison where strong chains confine Keep down the active mind it cannot move To what it loveth most Those fleshly bands Thou now hast loos'd broke from Necessitie From bodies storms and frothie working sands Of this low restlesse life now setten free Thy feet do safely stand upon a shore Which foaming waves beat not in swelling rage Nor angry seas do threat with fell uprore Well hast thou swommen out and left that stage Of wicked Actours that tumultuous rout Of ignorant men Now thy pure steps thou stay'st In that high path where Gods light shines about And perfect Right its beauteous beams displayes How oft when bitter wave of troubled flesh And whirl-pool-turnings of the lower spright Thou stoutly strov'st with Heaven did thee refresh Held out a mark to guide thy wandring flight While thou in tumbling seas didst strongly toyl To reach the steddie Land struckst with thy arms The deasing surges that with rage do boyl Stear'd by that signe thou shunn'st those common harms How oft when rasher cast of thy souls eye Had thee misguided into crooked wayes Wast thou directed by the Deitie They held out to thee their bright lamping rayes Dispers'd the mistie darknesse safely set Thy feeble feet in the right path again Nor easie sleep so closely ere beset Thy eyelids nor did dimnesse ere so stain Thy radiant sight but thou such things didst see Even in that tumult that few can arrive Of all are named from Philosophie To that high pitch or to such secrets dive But sith this body thy pure soul divine Hath left quite risen from her rotten grave Thou now among those heavenly wights dostâ—shine Whose wonne this glorious lustre doth embrave There lovely Friendship mild-smiling Cupid's there With lively looks and amorous suavitie Full of pure pleasure and fresh flowring chear Ambrosian streams sprung from the Deitie Do frankly flow and soft love-kindling winds Do strike with a delicious sympathie Those tender spirits and fill up their minds With satisfying joy The puritie Of holy fire their heart doth then invade And sweet Perswasion meek Tranquillitie The gentle-breathing Air the Heavens nought sad Do maken up this great felicitie Here Rhadamanthus and just Aeacus Here Minos wonnes with those that liv'd of yore I' th' golden age here Plato vigorous In holy virtue and fair Pythagore These been the goodly Off-spring of Great Jove And liven here and who so fill'd the Quire And sweet assembly of immortall Love Purging their spirits with refining fire These with the happy Angels live in blisse Full fraught with joy and lasting pure delight In friendly feasts and life-outfetching kisse But ah dear Plotin what smart did thy sprite Indure before thou reach'st this high degree Of happinesse what agonies what pains Thou underwent'st to set thy soul so free From baser life She now in heaven remains Mongst the pure Angels O thrice-happy wight That now art got into the Land of Life Fast plac'd in view of that Eternall Light And sitt'st secure from the foul bodies strife But now you comely virgins make an end Break off this musick and deft seemly Round Leave off your dance For Plotin my dear friend Thus much I meant my golden harp should sound AN ADDITION of some few smaller POEMS BY HENRY MORE Master of Arts and Fellow of CHRISTS COLLEDGE in CAMBRIDGE CAMBRIDGE Printed by Roger Daniel Printer to the Universitie 1647. Cupids Conflict
spirits wrought To better temper and of old hath blest My loftie soul with more divine aspires Then to be touchd with such vile low desires I hate and highly scorn that Kestrell kind Of bastard scholars that subordinate The precious choice induements of the mind To wealth or worldly good Adulterate And cursed brood Your wit and will are born Of th' earth and circling thither do return Profit and honour be those measures scant Of your slight studies and endeavours vain And when you once have got what you did want You leave your learning to enjoy your gain Your brains grow low your bellies swell up high Foul sluggish fat ditts up your dulled eye Thus what the earth did breed to th' earth is gone Like fading hearb or feeble drooping flower By feet of men and beast quite trodden down The muck-sprung learning cannot long endure Back she returns lost in her filthy source Drown'd chok'd or slocken by her cruell nurse True virtue to her self 's the best reward Rich with her own and full of lively spirit Nothing cast down for want of due regard Or ' cause rude men acknowledge not her merit She knows her worth and stock from whence she sprung Spreads fair without the warmth of earthly dung Dew'd with the drops of Heaven shall flourish long As long as day and night do share the skie And though that day and night should fail yet strong And steddie fixed on Eternitie Shall bloom for ever So the soul shall speed That loveth virtue for no worldly meed Though sooth to say the worldly meed is due To her more then to all the world beside Men ought do homage with affections true And offer gifts for God doth there reside The wise and virtuous soul is his own seat To such what 's given God himself doth get But earthly minds whose sight 's seal'd up with mud Discern not this flesh-clouded Deity Ne do acknowledge any other good Then waht their mole-warp hands can feel and trie By groping touch thus worth of them unseen Of nothing worthy that true worth they ween Wherefore the prudent Law-givers of old Even in all Nations with right sage foresight Discovering from farre how clums and cold The vulgar wight would be to yield what 's right To virtuous learning did by law designe Great wealth and honour to that worth divine But nought's by law to Poesie due said he Ne doth the solemn Statesmans head take care Of those that such impertinent pieces be Of common-weals Thou'd better then to spare Thy uselesse vein Or tell else what may move Thy busie Muse such fruitlesse pains to prove No pains but pleasure to do th' dictates dear Of inward living nature What doth move The Nightingall to sing so sweet and clear The Thrush or Lark that mounting high above Chants her shrill notes to heedlesse ears of corn Heavily hanging in the dewy Morn When Life can speak it cannot well withold T' expresse its own impressions and hid life Or joy or greif that smoothered lie untold Do vex the heart and wring with restlesse strife Then are my labours no true pains but ease My souls unrest they gently do appease Besides that is not fruitlesse that no gains Brings to my self I others profit deem Mine own and if at these my heavenly flames Others receiven light right well I ween My time 's not lost Art thou now satisfide Said I to which the scoffing boy replide Great hope indeed thy rhymes should men enlight That be with clouds and darknesse all o'recast Harsh style and harder sense void of delight The Readers wearied eye in vain do wast And when men win thy meaning with much pain Thy uncouth sense they coldly entertain For wotst thou not that all the world is dead Unto that Genius that moves in thy vein Of poetrie But like by like is fed Sing of my Trophees in triumphant strein Then correspondent life thy powerfull verse Shall strongly strike and with quick passion pierce The tender frie of lads and lasses young With thirstie eare thee compassing about Thy Nectar-dropping Muse thy sugar'd song Will swallow down with eager hearty draught Relishing truly what thy rhymes convey And highly praising thy soul-smiting lay The mincing maid her mind will then bewray Her heart-bloud flaming up into her face Grave matrons will wax wanton and betray Their unresolv'dnesse in their wonted grace Young boyes and girls would feel a forward spring And former youth to eld thou back wouldst bring All Sexes Ages Orders Occupations Would listen to thee with attentive ear And eas'ly moved with thy sweet perswasions Thy pipe would follow with full merry chear While thou thy lively voice didst loud advance Their tickled bloud for joy would inly dance But now alas poore solitarie man In lonesome desert thou dost wander wide To seek and serve thy disappearing Pan Whom no man living in the world hath eyde For Pan is dead but I am still alive And live in men who honour to me give They honour also those that honour me With sacred songs But thou now singst to trees To rocks to Hills to Caves that senselesse be And mindlesse quite of thy hid mysteries In the void air thy idle voice is spread Thy Muse is musick to the deaf or dead Now out alas said I and wele-away The tale thou tellest I confesse too true Fond man so doteth on this living clay His carcase dear and doth its joyes pursue That of his precious soul he takes no keep Heavens love and reasons light lie fast asleep This bodies life vain shadow of the soul With full desire they closely do embrace In fleshly mud like swine they wallow and roll The loftiest mind is proud but of the face Or outward person if men but adore That walking sepulchre cares for no more This is the measure of mans industry To wexen some body and getten grace To 's outward presence though true majestie Crownd'd with that heavenly light and lively rayes Of holy wisdome and Seraphick love From his deformed soul he farre remove Slight knowledge and lesse virtue serves his turn For this designe If he hath trod the ring Of pedling arts in usuall pack-horse form Keeping the rode O! then 't's a learned thing If any chanc'd to write or speak what he Conceives not 't were a foul discourtesie To cleanse the soul from sinne and still diffide Whether our reasons eye be clear enough To intromit true light that fain would glide Into purg'd hearts this way 's too harsh and rough Therefore the clearest truths may well seem dark When sloathfull men have eyes so dimme and stark These be our times But if my minds presage Bear any moment they can ne're last long A three branch'd Flame will soon sweep clean the stage Of this old dirty drosse and all wex young My words into this frozen air I throw Will then grow vocall at that generall thaw Nay now thou' rt perfect mad said he with scorn And full of foul derision
station to take a right view of the Song of the Soul is Psyche or the soul of the Universe For whatsoever is handled in Psychozoia and the three other parts of this song hath a meet relation to Psyche as the subject of the whole Poem For the whole Poem is spent either in her Parentage Marriage Clothing or Of-spring The three first are dispatched in the first Canto of Psychozoia the last in the two latter Cantoes and three following parts of the Poem For in the second Canto the manner of the production of Souls is set out till the 24 Stanza Then all the residue of that and the whole Canto following in the description of their habitation But their habitation being the Land of life that is the severall states of the Soul in good and evill for this cause chiefly as also in part for the description in the first Canto of that life deriv'd from Ahad and Aeon to Psyche and that which flows from her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the lowest skirts of the Universe do I call this first part of the Song of the Soul Psychozoia Vers 7. O life of time and all Alterity For what is time but the perseverance of the motion of the soul of the world while she by her restlesse power brings forth these things in succession that Eternity hath at once altogether For such is the nature of Aeon or Eternity viz. A life exhibiting all things at once and in one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but distance of life makes time and the prorogation of life continueth time the praeterition of life is the praeterition of time but Psyche is the fountain of this evolved life whence she is also the very life of time And all Alterity It may be thus shadowed out The seed of a plant hath all the whole tree branches leaves and fruit at once in one point after a manner closed up but potentially Eternity hath all the world in an indivisible indistant way at once and that actually Psyche or the Soul of the world when she begins this world begets a grosser kind of Alterity and dispersed diversity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as the seminall forme spreads out it self and the body it inacts into distant branches from the quiet and silent seed making that actuall in time and succession which could not be here below in bodies at once See Plotin Ennead 3. lib. 7. cap. 10. where the nature of time is more fully described Vers 8. The life of lives Viz. God himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of minds thou art the Mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Soul of souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Nature of each natures kind Synes Hymn 4. STANZ 5. Vers 9. That same that Atove hight The deepest Centre of all things and first root of all beings the Platonists call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Good and the One. See Plot. Ennead 1. lib. 7. cap 1. Mercur. Trismeg Serm. Univers ad Aesculap This is the simple and naked essence of God utterly devoid of division and plurality and therefore not to be known by reason or Intellect but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Oracle speaks by the flower or the summity of the Intellect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Mich. Psellus expounds it by the unitive power of the Intellect or by a certain simple and tactuall Energie of the soul when it is roused into act For so is the expression of Plotinus Ennead 6. l. 9. c. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For he is present to him that can touch him but to him that cannot he is not present and in the 9. Cap. describing more lively the state of our union with Atove or the eminent absolute Good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And there lyeth our happinesse saith he and to be removed from hence is but to partake lesse of being Here is the rest of the soul set out of the reach of all evils ascended into a place devoid of all danger and mischief Here she becomes intellectuall Here she is impassible Here she truly lives indeed But this life that we live disjoyned from God is but a shadow and umbratil imitation of that But that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intellectuall energie an energie that begets Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that still and silent tactuall conjunction with this Universall Good It begets beauty it begets righteousnesse it begets valour for these doth the soul bring forth being once impregned of God and fil'd as it were with his sacred seed And in the 10. Chap. describing further this Union he saith that God and the soul doth as it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyne centres and centres do wholly swallow up one another so that this union is even more then touch This tactuall conjunction of the soul with God surely in the Christian phrase is no more then divine love as S John speaks God is love and he that is in love is in God and God in him And Plotinus doth plainly acknowledge it when as he saith Every soul is a Venus and hath her Cupid born with her an heavenly Cupid with an heavenly Venus till she be defiled with earthly love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made common and as it were become an Harlot but that the soul in the purity of her own nature loves God and desireth to be joyned with him as a beautifull virgin to a beautifull man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so I think the text is to be read and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 See the whole ninth book of the sixth Ennead For the nature of Atove or Ahad and the manner of the conjunction of the soul with him is there exquisitly set out STANZA 6 7. Now can I not c. It being acknowledged both in the purest Philosophy and in Christianity that the root of all things is goodnesse it self the most genuine consequence of this is That his providence being measured by himself goodnesse it self is the measure thereof so that all Melancholick and dismall dreams of idly affrighted men may well vanish in the clearnesse of this light and truth as also the envious malicious and bloudy minded man may here consider how far he hath wandred from the will of God and the root of his own being STANZA 8. This Ahad of himself the Aeon fair c. This Aeon is all things essentially and truly as Ahad or Atove above all things It is the very intellectuall world Eternall life united ever with the father that brought him forth The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God his understanding or explicit inward comprehension of all things ab aeterno infinite and every where differing onely from his fountain in this that he is one simple Unity this one ever-actuall omniformity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Oracle speaks being the very Essence or Idea of all things at once not successively or in part See
this sensible world of it self can make us know things at distance though Plotinus seem inclinable to that Opinion See Psychathan lib. 3. Cant. 1. STANZ 55. All Sense doth in proportion consist Something 's are so light that the weight is indiscernable to some as the Flie that sat upon the Bulls horns and apologized for her self as having wearied him as it is in the Arabian fable some smells too weak to strike the nostrills of others and some objects too obscure to be seen of the eyes of othersome But Arachne is proportioned to all whatsoever is any way sensible to any because Psyche doth inact this All or Universe as a particular Soul doth the body Vers 9. All life of Sense is in great Haphe's lift It must needs be so For no living soul is sensible of ought in this out-World but by being joyned in a living manner to it Therefore Psyche being joyned to it all must needs perceive all forms and motions in it that are presented to any particular soul For these representations be made in some particular body which is but a part of the whole a knot as it were of Psyches outward stole but the universall body of the World is one undivided peece wherefore nor Owl nor Bat nor Cat nor any thing else can possibly see but Psyche seeth ipso facto for 't is part of her body that hath those representations in it wherefore man is transfixt through and through by the rayes of the divine Light besides that more incomprehensible way of omnisciency in God STANZ 5.6 Sense and Consent c. As Psyche sees all naturall things so she doth allow of them For contrariety of Spirits is onely betwixt particulars and uglinesse and ill-favourednesse are but such to some kinds nor is poyson poyson to all else would the Spider be her own death and all venomous monsters would save man the labour of encounter STANZ 57. Rich Semele display Till we come to Psyches self motion and mutabilitie have place But in Aeon and Ahad is steddy and unalterable rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And there hath Psyche the one eye plac'd as well as the other below beholding all things and that which is above all things as also the shadows and projections of all things without distraction at once as easily as our eyes discern many colours at once in one thing STANZ 59. The mother of each Semele How she is the mother of them see the second Canto of this book at the 23. Stanz Vers 3. But she grasps all The Mundane spirit of which every body hath its part inacted by Psyche if any particular soul exert any imaginative act needs must for a time at least be coloured as it were or stained with that impression so that Psyche must needs perceive it sith it affects her own spirit See Psychath lib. 3. Cant. 2. Stanz 46.47 Besides this euery particular soul as all things else depending so intimately on Psyche as being effluxes from her it is inconceivable that the least motions of the mind or stillest thought should escape her But if any man be puzled how the phantasie of a mans soul should make an impression upon any part of the universall spirit of the world and Semele should not let him consider that the imaginative operations of Psyche are more high more hovering and suspense from immersion into the grosser spirits of this body which is little or nothing conscious of what 's done so farre above and so not receiving the impresse of so high acts it ordinarily happens even in the exaltation of our own phansie that memory fails And besides this as the vigour of sense debilitates or quite extinguisheth the ordinary imaginations of the soul so doth her ordinary imaginations or sense or both hinder the animadversion of the impresses of Semele But particular imaginations and the vigour of sense weakened or extinct in sleep or near death the energies of the soul of the world are then more perceptible probably even in the very spirit of our body as well as in the naked soul hence come prophetick dreams and true predictions before death But to go back to the apprehensions of Psyche Every sensible object and every sensitive and imaginative act appear before her and whatsoever is in her sight is also in the sight of Aeon Because the union betwixt Aeon and Psyche is much more near then between Psyche and the Mundane spirit And whatsoever is represented in Aeon is also clearly in the view of Ahad by reason of the unexpresseable close unity of these two so that Ahad knowes every individuall thing and motion as clearly nay more clearly then any mortall eye can view any one thing let it look never so steddily on it Thus the thoughts of all mens minds and motions of heart arise up into the sight and presence of the all-comprehending Divinity as necessarily and naturally as reek or fume of frankincense rouls up into the open air For the spirit of the Lord fills all the world and that which conteineth all things hath knowledge of the voyce yea of the outward shape gestures and thoughts too Wisd 1 7. Nor is Eternity changed or obscured by the projection of these low shadows For infinite animad version can discern all things unmixtly and undisturbedly not at all loosing it self though gaining nothing by the sight of inferiour things Nor can I assent to that passage in Plotin taken in one sense nor is it I think necessary to take it in that sense the words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is But that such a kind of inclining himself to himself being as it were his energie and abode in himself makes him to be what he is the contrary supposed doth argue For if he should incline to that which is without him he would lose that being which he is But this is to be considered that God being infinitely infinite without stooping or inclining can produce all things and view alwayes his work keeping his own seat that is himself for so saith the Philosopher in another place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is That Intellect or On or the Intellectuall world is the first energie of God is the first substance from him he abiding in himself See Plotin Ennead 6. lib. 8. cap. 16. also Ennead 1. lib. 8. c. 2. But now to take a short view of what I have runne through in my notes on this Canto Ahad Aeon Psyche the Platonick Triad is rather the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Divinity rather then the Deity For God is but one indivisible unmovable self-born Unity and his first born creature is Wisdome Intellect Aeon On or Autocalon or in a word the Intellectuall world whose measure himself is that is simple and perfect Goodnesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is For he is without need self-sufficient wanting nothing the measure and term of all things yielding out of himself Intellect or On and Psyche And speaking
chiefly aimed at in this Stanza yet I do not confine my Theoprepia to it nor think I the soul of man disjoyned from God that is not in that sort united to him But if a man have lost his self-will and self-love being wholly dead to himself and alive to God though that life exert it self in successive acts if a man I say be but affected as God himself if he were in the flesh would be affected he is also truly and really in Theoprepia Cant. 3. STANZA 1. Shafts which Vriel vers 5. vers 7. No other help we had for Gabriel URiel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ignis Dei Angelus Meridionalis He that rules in the power of the Meridian Sunne Quatuor Angeli praesidentes cardinibus Coeli Michael Raphael Gabriel Vrieb For Gabriel in this place bears onely a naturall notion elsewhere it is the strength of the Lord revealed in the soul But as for those terms it was rather chance then choice that cast me upon them being nothing solicitous whether there be any such Presidents or no. I conceive they be some old Rabbinicall inventions or traditions by the grosse mistake in them For when as they assign to Michael the East and the West to Raphael they seem never to have dreamed of any East or West but what belonged to their own Horizon when as where ever East is West is also to some Inhabitants so that both these Angels will have the same province Cornel. Agrip. de Occult. Philos lib. 2. cap. 7. STANZ 3 4 5. The first estate of man when he begins to make conscience of the law of God which I call Diana which is the Moon as not affording life and vigour though some small light Small I deem it in comparison of the day-starre the Sunne of righteousnesse himself This estate is set out in these 4. Stanzas STANZA 6 7 8 9. The penitent perplext and passionate estate of one that hath the true sight and sense of his sinne and corruption but is not rid of them STANZ 10 Me thought the Sunne it self c. The condition of him whose spirits indeed are unpurged though the fire hath got hold on them and burns and glows as in fowl rubbish This estate is set out by the appearance of the sunne from Ida hill the description whereof follows in the next Stanz STANZ 11. But Phoebus form c. A sad image of bitter zeal and praecipitant wrath against all those that are not in the same sad condition with our selves that is that are either better or worse in life and different in opinion Vers 8. Small things they will prize c. Such men scarce got into the spirit of Elias yet esteem their temper above the meeknesse of Christs own spirit because they never yet had experience of it STANZ 18. All sects besides his own doth execrate This was the disease of the Gnosticks in Plotinus time who contemned all beside their own sect to whom the incomparable Philosopher gravely and more like a Christian then those that call themselves by that name writes to this sense That if they were so much better then all the world they ought to be so much the more mild and modest and not so full of ferocity and rudenesse and to think that there may be room with God for others also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And not in placing themselves onely next to God to sore as it were in a dream to flie in their sleep STANZ 35. Whom with cruel spear The difficulty here is how the eternall Sonne of God may suffer he being everlasting and immortall life it self and not contradict what was written Canto 1. Stanz 9 14 35 36 37. For to the impassible eternall being is the inheritance of the world there promised but here to that which is passible and mortall I answer that the eternal and immortall sonne of God is to take possession of the world by that which after a manner is mortall and extinguishable which is the energie of himself exerted upon the souls of men or a kind of life diffused in mans heart and soul whereby God doth inact us and is our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the soul is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the body and governs and guides it And if Aeon as he is the sonne of Ahad or Atove to speak Platonically that is the simple and free good or in brief as he is the sonne of God who is the simple good without all self-nesse or straitnesse even pure and perfect Light it self for this Aeon contains in him also the whole creature and is the essence or Idea of all things I say if he as he is the sonne of God be in us by his imparted life he then takes possession of the world and God by him But he hath not yet enquickened men generally with this Deiform life but it hath lyen dead to them or they to it that influx being rather suspended then absolutely destroyed but as the soul to its body or any part of her body that is numb and dead But when that life shall flow into them as the vitall rayes of the soul into this mortall body He shall then as truly govern rule and possesse the world as any soul doth her body And that there is an eternall sonne of God immortall impassible and not onely in the souls of men but that fills the whole universe the Evangelist I think will confirm For he ascribes the creation of all things to him yea and calls him God which makes me wonder that the Turks have so high an esteem of this Gospel of S. John unlesse they will interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the same tenour that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be interpreted neither place then signifying unity or identity but union onely and conjunction But to prove the thing in hand John the 1. vers 10. He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not By world must be understood either the whole universe or men inhabiting it and they either the godly or the wicked If the Universe he is then the eternall principle whereby God made the whole creation If the godly onely as he may be said in some more speciall manner to be their maker how came they not to know him when he was in them and alive in them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If the wicked onely he made them not wicked so that if he made them at all he made their naturall being soul and body and if them why not all the world whence a man may reasonably conclude that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Word is eternall and immortall and invulnerable And if any Authority will now be worth looking after S. Johns testimony being so plain Philo the Jew speaks out to this purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 3. It is manifest that the Archetypal seal which we call the intellectuall world is the very word of God
my writings I answer That it is sometime fit for Poeticall pomp sake as in my Psychozoia Othersome time necessitie requires it Propter egestatem linguae rerum novitatem as Lucretius pleads for himself in like case Again there is that significancie in some of the barbarous words for the Greeks are Barbarians to us that although not out of superstition yet upon due reason I was easily drawn to follow the Counsel of the Chaldee Oracle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not to change those barbarous terms into into our english tongue Lastly if I have offended in using such hard names or words I shall make amends now by interpreting them A ABinoam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pater amoenitatis Father of delight Acronychall See Cronychall Adamah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Earth The earthly or naturall mans abode Adonai 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lord or the sustainer of all things from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Basis or foot of a pillar Aelpon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not hoping or without hope Aeon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eternity Aether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to burn The fluid fiery nature of heaven the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies as much viz. a fiery fluour or fluid fire Africk Rock See Pompon Mel. lib. 1. cap. 8. Rom. 9.33 1. Cor. 10.4 1. Pet. 2.5 Revel 5.10 Psal 105.15 Ahad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One or The One. The Platonists call the first Originall of all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for these reasons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or One because the multitude or plurality of Beings is from this One as all numbers from an unite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or The Good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because all things are driven drawn or make haste to partake of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Procl Theo. log Plat. lib. 2. cap. 4. Aides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It ordinarily signifies Orcus or Pluto here the Winter Sunne the etymon fits both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hell is dark and the Sunne in Winter leavs us to long nights Ain Not to be To be nothing from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non nihil or nemo Alethea-land That is the land of truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Platonists call it Alopecopolis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The foxes city or politie Ananke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The same that Hyle is But the proper signification of the word is Necessity See Hyle Anautaesthetus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One that feels not himself or at least relisheth not himself Anautaesthesie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Without self-sensednesse or relishing ones self Animadversall That lively inward animadversall It is the soul it self for I cannot conceive the body doth animadvert When as objects plainly exposed to the sight are not discovered till the soul takes notice of them Anthropion The same with Adamah Onely Adamah signifies earthlinesse Anthropion from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 uprightnesse of body or looking up Apathie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To be without passion Apogee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is that absis or ark of the circle of a Planet in which the Planet is further off from the earth as the word it self intimates Apterie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 negative and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wing It signifies the want of wings Arachnea hath its name from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spider Atom-lives The same that Centrall-lives Both the terms denotate the indivisibilty of the inmost essence it self the pure essentiall form I mean of plant beast or man yea of angels themselves good or bad Atove See Hattove Autaparnes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Simon Autaparnes Hypomone are but the soul thrice told over Autaparnes is the soul denying it self Hypomone the soul bearing the anguish of this deniall of it self From these two results Simon the soul obedient to the spirit of Christ Now there is no self-deniall where there is no corrupt or evill life to be supprest and satisfied nor any Patience or Hypomone where there is no agony from the vexation of self-deniall So that the soul as long as it is Autaparnes or Hypomone is a thing complex or concrete necessarily including the corruption of that evill life or spirit which is the souls self for a time Hence is that riddle easily opened How the strength of Autaparnes is the weakning of Simon and the destruction of him and Hypomone in the valley of Ain Simons consummation and perfection or rather his translation or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Autaestthesia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Self-sensednesse Autokineticall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which moves it self Autopathia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Denotates the being self-strucken to be sensible of what harms us rather then what is absolutely evill Autophilus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A lover of himself B BAcha Weeping Bacha Vale is the Valley of tears from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Flevit Beirah or Beiron The brutish life from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 brutum Body The ancient Philosophers have defined it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sext. Emperic Pyrrhon Hypotyp lib. 3. cap. 5. Near to this is that description Psychathan Cant. 2. Stanz 12. lib. 2. Matter extent in three dimensions But for that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 simple trinall distension doth not imply it wherefore I declin'd it But took in matter according to their conceit that phansie a Materia prima I acknowledge none and consequently no such corpus naturale as our Physiologist make the subject of that science That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is nothing but a fixt spirit the conspissation or coagulation of the cuspidall particles of the Cone which are indeed the Centrall Tasis or inward effence of the sensible world These be an infinite number of vitall Atoms that may be wakened into divers tinctures or energies into Fiery Watery Earthy c. And one divine Fiat can unloose them all into an universall mist or turn them out of that sweat into a drie and pure Ethereall temper These be the last projections of life from the soul of the world and are act or form though debil and indifferent like that which they call the first matter But they are not merely passive but meet their information half way as I may so speak are radiant ab intimo and awake into this or the other operation by the powerfull appulse of some superadvenient form That which change of phantasmes is to the soul that is alteration of rayes to them For their rayes are ab intrinseco as the phantasmes of the soul These be the reall matter of which all supposed bodies are compounded and this matter as I said is form and life so that all is life and form what ever is in the world as I have somewhere intimated in Antipsychopan But how ever I use the
term Body ordinarily in the usuall and vulgar acception And for that sense of the Ancients nearest to which I have defined it in the place first above mentioned that I seem not to choose that same as most easie to proceed against in disproving the corporeity of the soul the Arguments do as necessarily conclude against such a naturall body as is ordinarily described in Physiologie as you may plainly discern if you list to observe as also against this body composed of the Cuspidall particles of the Cone For though they be Centrall lives yet are they neither Plasticall Sensitive or Rationall so farre are they from proving to be the humane soul whose nature is there discust C CEntre Centrall Centrality When they are used out of their ordinary sense they signifie the depth or inmost Being of any thing from whence its Acts and Energies flow forth See Atom lives Chaos In our blew Chaos that is In our corporeall spirit for that is the matter that the soul raiseth her phantasmaticall forms in as the life of the World doth bodily shapes in the Heavens or Air. Circulation The term is taken from a toyish observation viz. the circling of water when a stone is cast into a standing pool The motion drives on circularly the first rings are thickest but the further they go they grow the thinner till they vanish into nothing Such is the diffusion of the Species audible in the strucken Air as also of the visible Species In breif any thing is said to circulate that diffuseth its Image or Species in a round It might have been more significantly called orbiculation seeing this circumfusion makes not onely a Circle but fills a Sphere which may be called the Sphere of activity Yet Circulation more fitly sets out the diminution of activity from those rings in the water which as they grow in compasse abate in force and thicknesse But sometimes I use Circulate in an ordinary sense to turn round or return in a Circle Clare Claros a Citie of Jonia famous for Apollo's Temple and answers amongst which was this which I have interpreted in Psychathanasia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Macrob. Saturnal lib. 1. cap. 18. Cone Is a solid figure made by the turning of a rectangular Triangle about one of the sides that include the right angle resting which will be then the Axis of the compleated Cone But I take it sometimes for the comprehension of all things God himself not left out whom I tearm the Basis of the Cone or Universe And because all from him descends 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with abatement or contraction I give the name of Cone to the Universe And of Cone rather then Pyramid because of the roundnesse of the figure which the effluxes of all things imitate Cronychall or Acronychall that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vespertine or at the beginning of night So a starre is said to rise or set Acronychall when it riseth or setteth at the Sunne-setting For then is the beginning of Night Cuspis of the Cone The multiplide Cuspis of the Cone is nothing but the last projection of life from Psyche which is a liquid fire or fire and water which are the corporeall or materiall principles of all things changed or disgregated if they be centrally distinguishable and again mingled by the virtue of Physis or Spermaticall life of the World of these are the Sunne and all the Planets they being kned together and fixt by the centrall power of each Planet and Sunne The volatile Aether is also the same and all the bodies of Plants Beasts and Men. These are they which we handle and touch a sufficient number compact together For neither is the noise of those little flies in a Summer-evening audible severally but a full Quire of them strike the eare with a pretty kind of buzzing Strong and tumultuous pleasure and scorching pain reside in these they being essentiall and centrall but sight and hearing are onely of the Images of these See Body D Daemon Any particular life any divided spirit or rather the power ruling in these This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divido Daemoniake That which is according to that divided life or particular spirit that rules for it self Deuteropathie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a being affected at second rebound as I may so say We see the Sunne not so properly by sympathy as deuteropathie As the mundane spirit is affected where the Sunne is so am I in some manner but not presently because it is so affected but because in my eye the Sunne is vigorously represented Otherwise a man might without question see the Sunne if he had but a body of thin Aire Diana The Moon by which is set out the dead light or letter of the Law Dicaeosyne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justice or Morall righteousnesse Dizoia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Double-livednesse Duessa Division or duality E EIdos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Form or Beauty Eloim or Eloah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie properly the strong God Energie it is a peculiar Platonicall term I have elsewhere expounded it Operation Efflux Activity None of those words bear the full sense of it The examples there are fit viz. the light of the Sun the phantasmes of the soul We may collect the genuine sense of the word by comparing severall places of the Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For every being hath its Energie which is the image of it self so that it existing that Energie doth also exist and standing still is projected forward more or lesse And some of those Energies are weak and obscure others hid or undiscernable other some greater and of a larger projection Plotin Ennead 4. lib. 5. cap. 7. And again Ennead 3. lib. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And we remain above by the Intellectuall man but by the extreme part of him we are held below as it were yielding an efflux from him to that which is below or rather an Energie he being not at all lessened This curiosity Antoninus also observes lib 8. Meditat. in the nature of the Sun-beams where although he admits of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet he doth not of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Sun saith he is diffused and his fusion is every where but without effusion c. I will onely adde one place more out of Plotinus Ennead 3. lib. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The naturall Energie of each power of the soul is life not parted from the soul though gone out of the soul viz. into act Comparing of all these places together I cannot better explain this Platonick term Energie then by calling it the rayes of an essence or the beams of a vitall Centre For essence is the Centre as it were of that which is truly called Energie and Energie the beams and rayes of an essence And as the Radi◠of a circle leave not the Centre by touching the Circumference no more
utmost unities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in Aristotle intimates equity or justice The sides are equall one with another and so are the angles and the number of the sides and angles equall one with another Both the numbers put together are a number pariter par again and constitute the first cube which is eight That adds steddinesse and persevererance in true justice and uprightnesse toward God and man Hypomone bears all this that is all that dolour and vexation that comes from the keeping our perverse heart to so strait and streight a rule Quantitative Forms quantitative are such sensible energies as arise from the complexion of many natures together at whose discretion they vanish That 's the seventh orb of things though broken and not filling all as the other do But if you take it for the whole sensible world it is intire and is the same that Tasis in Psychozoia But the centre of Tasis viz. the multiplication of the reall Cuspis of the Cone for Hyle that is set for the most contract point of the Cuspis is scarce to be reckoned among realities that immense diffusion of atoms is to be referred to Psyche as an internall vegetative act and so belongs to Physis the lowest order of life For as that warmth that the soul doth afford the body is not rationall sensitive or imaginative but vegetative So this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is liquid fire which Psyche sends out and is the outmost last and lowest operation from her self is also vegetative R RAyes. The rayes of an essence is its energie See Energie Reason I understand by Reason the deduction of one thing from another which I conceive proceeds from a kind of continuity of phantasmes and is something like the moveing of a cord at one end the parts next it rise with it And by this concatenation of phantasms I conceive that both brutes and men are moved in reasonable wayes and methods in their ordinary externall actions Reduplicative That is reduplicative which is not onely in this point but also in another having a kind of circumscribed ubiquity viz. in its own sphear And this is either by being in that sphear omnipresent it self as the soul is said to be in the body tota in toto tota in qualibet parte or else at least by propagation of rayes which is the image of it self and so are divers sensible objects Reduplicative as light colours sounds And I make account either of these wayes justly denominate any thing spiritual Though the former is most properly at least more eminently spirituall And whether any thing be after that way spirituall saving the Divinity there is reason to doubt For what is intirely omnipresent in a sphear whose diametre is but three foot I see not why that in the circumference being as fresh and intire as that in the centre it should stop there and not proceed even in infinitum if the circumference be still as fresh and entire as the centre But I define nothing Rhomboides is a parallelogrammicall figure with unequall sides and oblique angles S SCalen a triangle with all sides unequall Self reduplicative See Reduplicative Semele Imagination from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imago Simon intimates obedience from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obedivit Solyma or Salem from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Peace Soul when I speak of mans soul I understand that which Moses saith was inspired into the body fitted out and made of Earth by God Gen. 2. which is not that impeccable spirit that cannot sinne but the very same that the Platonists call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a middle essence betwixt that which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and we would in the Christian language call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the life of the body which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of an umbratil vitalitie that the soul imparts to the body in the enlivening of it That and the body together we Christians call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the suggestions of it especially in its corrupt estate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that that which God inspired into Adam was no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the soul not the spirit though it be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiraculum vitae is plain out of the text because it made man but become a living soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But you will say he was a dead soul before and this was the spirit of life ye the spirit of God the life of the soul that was breathed into him But if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imply such a life and spirit you must acknowledge the same to be also in the most stupid of all living creatures even the fishes whose soul is as but salt to keep them from stinking as Philo speaks for they are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chap. 1. v. 20.21 See 1. Cor. chap. 15. v. 45 46. In breif therefore that which in Platonisme is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the brute or beast in the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same in both Sperm It signifies ordinarily seed I put it for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ratio seminalis or the invisible plasticall form that shapes every visible creature Spermaticall It belongs properly to Plants but is tranferred also to the Plasticall power in Animalls I enlarge it to all magnetick power whatsoever that doth immediately rule and actuate any body For all magnetick power is founded in Physis and in reference to her this world is but one Plant one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 giving it shape and corporeall life as in reference to Psyche one happy and holy Animall Spirit Sometimes it signifieth the soul othersometime the naturall spirits in a mans body which are Vinculum animae corporis and the souls vehicle Sometimes life See Reduplicative T TAgathon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Good the same with Hattove Tasis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extension Tricentreity Centre is put for essence so Tricentreity must imply a Trinity of essence See Centre and Energie V VAticinant The soul is said to be in a vaticinant or parturient condition when she hath some kind of sense and hovering knowledge of a thing but yet cannot distinctly and fully and commandingly represent it to herself cannot plainly apprehend much lesse comprehend the matter The phrase is borrowed of Proclus who describing the incomprehensiblenesse of God and the desire of all things toward him speaks thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theolog. Platon lib. 1. cap. 21. See Psychathan lib. 3. cant 3. stanz 12. 14. Vranore The light or beauty of heaven from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pulchritudo Z ZAphon Aquilo The North. Zeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jupiter from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 serveo or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
steddy Spring exclude Summers accession Or Summer spoil the Spring with furious hot oppression 5 You chearfull chaunters of the flowring woods That feed your carelesse souls with pleasant layes O silly birds cease from your merry moods Ill suits such mirth when dreary deaths assayes So closely presse your sory carkases To mournfull note turn your light verilayes Death be your song and winters hoary sprayes Spend your vain sprights in sighing Elegies I 'll help you to lament your wofull miseries 6 When we lay cover'd in the shady Night Of senselesse matter we were well content With that estate nought pierc'd our anxious spright No harm we suffered no harm we ment Our rest not with light dream of ill was blent But when rough Nature with her iron hond Pull'd us from our soft ease and hither hent Disturbing fear and pinching pain we found Full many a bitter blast full many a dreadfull stound 7 Yet life 's strong love doth so intoxicate Our misty minds that we do fear to dy What did dame Nature brood all things of hate And onely give them life for misery Sense for an undeserved penalty And show that if she list that she could make Them happy but with spightfull cruelty Doth force their groaning ghosts this house forsake And to their ancient Nought their empty selves betake 8 Thus in deep sorrow and restlesse disdain Against the cankered doom of envious fate I clove my very heart with riving pain While I in sullen rage did ruminate The Creatures vanity and wofull state And night that ought to yield us timely rest My swelling griefs did much more aggravate The sighs and groans of weary sleeping beast Seem'd as if fleep it self their spirits did molest 9 Or as constrain'd perforce that boon to wrest From envious Nature All things did augment My heavie plight that fouly I blam'd the best Of stubborn destiny cause of this wayment Even sleep that 's for our restauration ment As execrable thing I did abhorre Cause ugly death to th' life it did depeint What good came to my mind I did deplore Because it perish must and not live evermore 10 Thus wrapt in rufull thought through the waste field I staggerd on and scattered my woe Bedew'd the grasse with tears mine eyes did yield At last I am arriv'd wiâ—h footing slow Near a black pitchy wood that strongest throw Of starry beam no'te easily penetrate On the North side I walked to and fro In solitary shade The Moons sly gate Had cross'd the middle line It was at least so late 11 When th' other part of night in painfull grief Was almost spent out of that solemn grove There issued forth for my timely relief The fairest wight that ever sight did prove So fair a wight as might command the love Of best of mortall race her count'nance sheen The pensive shade gently defore her drove A 〈◊〉 sweet light shone from her lovely eyne She seem'd no earthly branch but sprung of stock divine 12 A silken mantle colour'd like the skie With silver starres in a due distance set Was cast about her somewhat carelesly And her bright flowing hair was not ylet By Arts device onely a chappelet Of chiefest flowers which from far and near The Nymphs in their pure Lilly hands had fet Upon her temples she did seemly weare Her own fair beams made all her ornaments appear 13 What wilfull wight doth thus his kindly rest Forsake said she approching me unto What rage what sorrow boils thus in thy chest That thou thus spend'st the night in wasting wo Oft help he gets that his hid ill doth show Ay me said I my grief 's not all mine own For all mens griefs into my heart do flow Nor mens alone but every mornfull grone Of dying beast or what so else that grief hath shown 14 From fading plants my sorrows freshly spring And thou thy self that com'st to comfort me Wouldst strongst occasion of deep sorrow bring If thou wert subject to mortality But I no mortall wight thee deem to be Thy face thy voice immortall thee proclaim Do I not well to wail the vanity Of fading life and churlish fates to blame That with cold frozen death lifes chearfull motions tame 15 Thou dost not well said she to me again Thou hurt'st thy self and dost to them no good The sighs thou sendest out cannot regain Life to the dead thou canst not change the mood Of stedfast destiny That man is wood That weetingly hastes on the thing he hates Dull sorrow chokes the sprights congeals the blood The bodies fabrick quickly ruinates Yet foolish men do fondly blame the hasty fates 16 Come hasty fates said I come take away My weary life the fountain of my wo When that 's extinct or shrunk into cold clay Then well I wote that I shall undergo No longer pain O! why are you so slow Fond speech said she nor chang'd her countenance No signe of grief or anger she did show Full well she knew passions misgovernance Through her clear brest fond passion never yet did lance 17 But thus spake on Sith friendly sympathy With all the creatures thus invades thy brest And strikes thine heart with so deep agony For their decay ' cording to that behest Which the pure sourse of sympathy hath prest On all that of those lovely streams have drunk I 'll tell thee that that needs must please thee best All life 's immortall though the outward trunk May changed be yet life to nothing never shrunk 18 With that she bad me rear my heavie eye Up toward heaven I rear'd them toward th' East Where in a roscid cloud I did espy A Lunar rainbow in her painted vest The heavenly maid in the mean while surceast From further speech while I the bow did view But mine old malady was more increas'd The bow gan break and all the gawdy hiew Dispeared that my heart the sight did inly rue 19 Thus life doth vanish as this bow is gone Said I. That sacred Nymph forthwith reply'd Vain showes may vanish that have gaily shone To feeble sense but if the truth be tri'd Life cannot perish or to nothing slide It is not life that falleth under sight None but vain flitting qualities are ey'd By wondring ignorance The vitall spright As surely doth remain as the Suns lasting light 20 This bow whose breaking struck thy troubled heart Of causelesse grief I hope shall thee recure When I have well explain'd with skilfull Art By its resemblance what things must indure What things decay and cannot standen sure The higher causes of that coloured Ark What e're becomes of it do sit secure That so the body falling lifes fair spark Is safe I 'll clearly show if you but list to mark 21 There be six Orders 'fore you do descend To this gay painted bow Sols centrall spright To the first place to th' next we must commend His hid spread form then his inherent light The fourth his rayes wherewith he is bedight The
fifth that glistring circle of the Moon That goodly round full face all silver bright The sixth be beams that from her visage shone The seventh that gawdy bow that was so quickly gone 22 The fluid matter was that dewy cloud That faild as faithlesse Hyle wont to fall New guest being come the old she out doâ—h croud But see how little Hyle did prevail Or sad destruction in this deemed bale Sols spright hid form fair light and out-gone rayes The Moons round silver face withouten veil Do still remain her beams she still displayes The cloud but melt not lost the bow onely decayes 32 This number suits well with the Vniverse The number 's eight of the Orbs generall From whence things flow or wherein they converse The first we name Nature Monadicall The second hight Life Intellectuall Third Psychicall the fourth Imaginative Fifth Sensitive the sixth Spermaticall The seventh be fading forms Quantitative The eighth Hyle or Ananke perverse coactive 24 That last is nought but potentiality Which in the lower creature causeth strife Destruction by incompossibility In some as in the forms Quantitative All here depend on the Orb Unitive Which also hight Nature Monadicall As all those lights and colours did derive Themselves from lively Phoebus life centrall Nought therefore but vain sensibles we see caducall 25 And that the first Every-where-Unitie Is the true root of all the living creatures As they descend in each distinct degree That God's the sustentacle of all Natures And though those outward forms gawdy features May quail like rainbowes in the roscid sky Or glistring Parelies or other meteors Yet the clear light doth not to nothing flie Those six degrees of life stand sure and never die 26 So now we plainly see that the dark matter Is not that needfull prop to hold up life And though deaths engins this grosse bulk do shatter We have not lost our Orb conservative Of which we are a ray derivative The body sensible so garnished With outward forms these inward do relieve Keep up in fashion and fresh lively-hed But this grosse bulk those inward lives stands in no sted 27 Nor can one inward form another slay Though they may quell their present energy And make them close contract their yielding ray And hide themselves in their centreity Till some friendly appulse doth set them free And call them out again into broad day Hence lives gush not in superfluity Into this world but their due time do stay Though their strong centrall essence never can decay 28 In Earth in Aire in the vast flowing Plain In that high Region hight Aethercall In every place these Atom-lives remain Even those that cleeped are forms seminall But souls of men by force imaginall Easly supply their place when so they list Appear in thickned Aire with shape externall Display their light and form in cloudy mist That much it doth amaze the musing Naturalist 29 Wherefore sith life so strongly sealed is Purge out fond thoughts out of thy weary mind And rather strive that thou do nought amisse Then God to blame and Nature as unkind When nought in them we blamable can find When groaning ghosts of beasts or men depart Their tender mother doth but them unbind From grosser fetters and more toilsome smart Bless'd is the man that hath true knowledge of her Art 30 And more for to confirm this mysterie She vanish'd in my presence into Aire She spread her self with the thin liquid sky But I thereat fell not into despair Of her return nor wail'd her visage fair That so was gone For I was woxen strong In this belief That nothing can empair The inward life or its hid essence wrong O the prevailing might of a sweet learned tongue 31 By this the Suns bright waggon gan ascend The Eastern hill and draw on chearfull day So I full fraught with joy do homeward wend And fed my self with that that Nymph did say And did so cunningly to me convey Resolving for to teach all willing men Lifes mysterie and quite to chase away Mind-mudding mist sprung from low fulsome fen Praise my good will but pardon my weak faltring pen. PSYCHATHANASIA Or The Immortality of the Soul BOOK I. CANT 4. That Hyle or first matter 's nought But potentialitie That God's the never-fading root Of all Vitalitie 1 WHat I was wisely taught in that still Night That Hyle is the Potentialitie Of Gods dear Creatures I embrace as right And them nigh blame of deep idolatrie That give so much to that slight nullitie That they should make it root substantiall Of nimble life and that quick entitie That doth so strongly move things naturall That life from hence should spring that hither life should fall 2 For how things spring from hence and be resolv'd Into this mirksome sourse first matter hight This muddy myst'rie they no'te well unfold If it be onely a bare passive might With Gods and Natures goodly dowries dight Bringing hid Noughts into existencie Or sleeping Something 's into wide day-light Then Hyle's plain potentialitie Which doth not straight inferre certain mortalitie 3 For the immortall Angels do consist Of out-gone act and possibilitie Nor any other creature doth exist Releast from dreary deaths necessity If these composures it so certainly Ensuen must If substance actuall They will avouch this first matter to be Fountain of forms and prop fiduciall Of all those lives and beings cleeped Naturall 4 Then may it prove the sphear spermaticall Or sensitive if they would yield it life Or that is next the Orb Imaginall Or rather all these Orbs withouten strife So mought we all conclude that their relief And first existence from this sphear they drew And so our adversaries loth or lief Must needs confesse that all the lore was true Concerning life that that fair Nymph so clearly shew 5 And that particular Lives that be yborn Into this world when their act doth dispear Do cease to be no more then the snails horn That she shrinks in because she cannot bear The wanton boys rude touch or heavie chear Of stormy winds The secundary light As surely shineth in the heavens clear As do the first fair beams of Phoebus bright Lasting they are as they though not of so great might 6 So be the effluxes of those six orders Unfading lives from fount of livelihood Onely what next to strifefull Hyle borders Particular visibles deaths drearyhood Can seiz upon They passe like sliding flood For when to this worlds dregs lives downward hie They stroy one th' other in fell cankred mood Beat back their rayes by strong antipathie Or some more broad-spread cause doth choke their energie 7 But to go on to that common conceit Of the first matter What can substance do Poore naked substance megre dry dull slight Inert unactive that no might can show Of good or ill to either friend or foe All livelesse all formlesse She doth sustain And hath no strength that task to undergo Besides that work
every whit In every point she likes that latter well So that its plain that some kind of insight Of Gods own being in the soul doth dwell Though what God is we cannot yet so plainly tell 11 As when a name lodg'd in the memory But yet through time almost obliterate Confusely hovers near the phantasie The man that 's thus affected bids relate A catalogue of names It is not that Saith he nor that that 's something like to it That nothing like that 's likst of all I wot This last you nam'd it 's not like that a whit O that 's the very name now we have rightly hit 12 Thus if 't be lawfull least things to compare With greatest so our selves affected be Concerning Gods high essence for we are Not ignorant quite of this mystery Nor clearly apprehend the Deity But in mid state I call 't parturient And should bring forth that live Divinity Within our selves if once God would consent To shew his specious form and nature eminent 13 For here it lies like colours in the night Unseen and unregarded but the sunne Displayes the beauty and the gladsome plight Of the adorned earth while he doth runne His upper stage But this high prize is wonne By curbing sense and the self-seeking life True Christian mortification Thus God will his own self in us revive If we to mortifie our straitned selves do strive 14 But can ought bodily Gods form receive Or have it in its self potentially Or can ought sprung of this base body heve It self so high as to the Deitie To clamber strive to reach infinity Can ought born of this carcase be so free As to grasp all things in large sympathie Can lives corporeall quite loosened be From their own selves casheering their centreity 15 These all ill suit with corporeitie But do we not amisse with stroke so strong All to dispatch at once needed we flie So high at first we might have chose among The many arguments that close do throng And tender their own selves this cause to prove Some of a meaner rank and then along Fairly and softly by degrees to move My Muse kens no such pomp she must with freedome rove 16 And now as chance her guides compendiously The heads of many proofs she will repeat Which she lists not pursue so curiously But leaves the Reader his own brains to beat To find their fuller strength As the souls meat Of which she feeds if that she fed at all She is immortall if she need not eat But if her food prove to be spiritall Then can we deem herself to be corporeall 17 The souls most proper food is verity Got and digest by Contemplation Hence strength enlargement and activity She finds as th' body by infusion Of grosser meats and drinks concoction Well perfected our limbs grow strong by these The soul by reasons right perswasion But that truths spiritall we may with ease Find out For truth the soul from bodies doth release 18 Next argument let be abstraction When as the soul with notion precise Keeps off the corporall condition And a nak'd simple essence doth devise Against the law of Corporeities It doth devest them both of time and place And of all individualities And matter doth of all her forms uncase Corporeall wight such subtile virtue never has 19 Now shall the indivisibilitie Of the souls virtues make an argument For certainly there 's no such qualitie Resideth in a body that 's extent For tell me is that quality strait pent Within a point of that corporeall Or is it with some spreaden part distent If in a point then longs it not at all To th' body in spread part then 't is extentionall 20 But that some virtue 's not extentionall May thus be proved Is there no science Of numbers Yes But what is principall And root of all have we intelligence Of Unities Or else what 's sprong from thence We could not know what doth the soul then frame Within her self Is that Idea extense Or indivisible If not we 'll blame The soul of falshood and continuall lying shame 21 Again if we suppose our intellect Corporeall then must we all things know By a swift touch what do we then detect The truth of bignesse when one point doth go Of our quick mind It need not be â—o'reslow For infinite parts be found in quantitie Or doth it use its latitude If so Remember that some things unspreaden be How shall it find them out Or if 't use both we 'll see 22 That both be unsufficient I prove A point cannot discern loose unity Freed from all site That latitude must move On all the body that it doth descry So must it be upstretch'd unto the skie And rub against the Stars surround the Sun And her own parts to every part apply Then swiftly fridge about the pallid Moon Thus both their quantities the mind hath strangely won 23 Adde unto these that the soul would take pains For her destruction while she doth aspire To reach at things that were her wofull gains That be not corporall but seated higher Above the bodies sphere Thus should she tire Her self to ' stroy her self Again the mind Receives contrary forms The feverish fire Makes her cool brooks and shadowing groves to find Within her thoughts thus hot and cold in one she binds 24 Nor is she chang'd by the susception Of any forms For thus her self contraire Should be unto her self But Union She then possesseth when heat and cold are Together met They meet withouten jarre Within our souls Such forms they be not true You 'll say But of their truth lest you despair Each form in purer minds more perfect hew Obtains then those in matter we do dayly view 25 For there they 're mixt soild and contaminate But truth doth clear unweave and simplifie Search sever pierce open and disgregate All ascititious cloggins then doth eye The naked essence and its property Or you must grant the soul cannot define Ought right in things or you must not deny These forms be true that in her self do shine These be her rule of truth these her unerring line 26 Bodies have no such properties Again See in one cluster many arguments Compris'd She multitudes can close constrain Into one nature Things that be fluent As flitting time by her be straight retent Unto one point she joyns future and past And makes them steddy stand as if present Things distant she can into one place cast Calls kinds immortall though their singulars do waste 27 Upon her self she strangely operates And from her self and by her self returns Into her self thus the soul circulates Do bodies so Her axle-tree it burns With heat of motion This low world she spurns Raiseth her self to catch infinity Unspeakable great numbers how she turns Within her mind like evening mist the eye Discerns whose muddy atomes 'fore the wind do fly 28 Stretcheth out time at both ends without end Makes place still higher swell often creates
light 32 And when he hath that life elicited He gives his own dear body and his bloud To drink and eat Thus dayly we are fed Unto eternall life Thus do we bud True heavenly plants suck in our lasting food From the first spring of life incorporate Into the higher world as erst I show'd Our lower rayes the soul to subjugate To this low world we fearlesse sit above all fate 33 Safely that kingdomes glory contemplate O'reflow with joy by a full sympathie With that worlds sprite and blesse our own estate Praising the fount of all felicitie The lovely light of the blest Deitie Vain mortals think on this and raise your mind Above the bodies life strike through the skie With piercing throbs and sighs that you may find His face Base-fleshly fumes your drowsie eyes thus blind 34 So hath my Muse according to her skill Discovered the soul in all her rayes The lowest may occasionate much ill But is indifferent Who may dispraise Dame Natures work But yet you ought to raise Your selves to higher state Eternitie Is the souls rest and everlasting dayes Aspire to this and hope for victorie I further yet shall prove her immortalitie The Argument of PSYCHATHANASIA Or The Immortality of the Soul BOOK III. CANT 2. From many arguments we show The independencie Of humane souls That all Lives flow From a free Deitie 1 THree apprehensions do my mind divide Concerning the souls preexistencie Before into this outward world she glide So hath my Muse with much uncertaintie Exprest her self so as her phantasie Strongly inacted guides her easie pen I nought obtrude with sow'r anxietie But freely offer hints to wiser men The wise from rash assent in darksome things abstein 2 Or souls be well awake but hovering Not fixt to ought but by a Magick might Drawable here and there and so their wing Struck with the steem of this low Mundane sprite May lower flag and take its stooping flight Into some plantall man new edified By his own plastick point Or else deep Night Drawn on by drooping phansie she doth slide Into this world and by her self that skill is tried 3 Makes to her self this fleshly habitation For this worlds spirit hath provok'd these rayes Then drown in sleep she works that efformation Of her own body all its parts displayes As doth the senselesse plant The two next wayes Are these A reall tricentreitie First centre ever wakes unmoved stayes Hight Intellect The next in sleep doth lie Till the last centre burst into this open skie 4 And then the middle wakes But the last way Makes but one centre which doth sleep likewise Till its low life hath reach'd this worlds glad day A fourth we 'll adde that we may all comprise Take quite away all preexistencies Of humane souls and grant they 're then first made When they begin this bodies edifice And actually this outward world invade None of these wayes do show that they must ever fade 5 The first way might be well occasioned By what the soul in her self feels and tries She works sometime as though she quite had fled All commerce with these low carnalities Yet falls she down at last and lowly lies In this base mansion is so close contract That sleep doth seise her actualities Retains no memory of that strange fact Nor of her self that soar'd in that high heavenly tract 6 The second way that makes the soul tricentrall The highest awake the other with sleep drownd May spring from hence None would vouchsafe the entrall Into this life if they were but once bound To that vast centre where all things are found Hight Intellect The lowest is not awake Therefore the midst lies close in sleep upwound Three centres made that souls may quite forsake This baser world when union with the lowest they break 7 Again because this bodie 's fashioned Without our knowledge reason doth suggest That it could no wise be thus figured From our own centre and yet we not prest To any adversion Therefore we are drest With this grosse clothing by some plantall spright Centred in Nature So that glorious vest The Deiform intellect by our own might's Not made But we have rayes which each of these will fit 8 Ardent desire strong breathing after God At length may work us to that better place Body or clothing that high sure aboad That searching weather nor time can deface But to go on in our proposed race The third and fourth way have the same foundation Not multiplying beings to surpasse Their use What needs that numerous clos'd centration Like wastefull sand ytost with boisterous inundation 9 Let wiser Clerks the truth dare to define I leave it loose for men to muse upon View at their leasure But yet this call mine Though we should grant the souls condition Before her deep incorporation Into dull matter to be nothing more But bare potentiality yet none Can prove from thence that she must fade therefore When to its earth this earth the trusty fates restore 10 For though she and her body be at once Yet of her body she doth not depend But it of her she doth its members branch Pierce bind digest and after makes it wend At her own will when she hath brought to end Her curious work and hath consolidate Its tender limbs which earst did feebly bend Through weaknesse then this world she contemplates And life still blazing higher seeks an heavenly state 11 Breaths after the first fountain of all life Her sweet Creatour thither doth aspire Would see his face nor will she cease this strife Till he fulfill her thirsty fierce desire Nothing can quench this so deep rooted fire But his own presence So he gins despise This bodies pleasures ceaseth to admire Ought fair or comely to these outward eyes Or if she do from hence she higher doth arise 12 But can she higher rise then her own head Therefore her spring is God thence doth she pend Thence did she flow thither again she 's fled When she this life hath lost and made an end Of this low earthly course she doth ascend Unto her circles ancient Apogle Lifted aloft not again to descend Nor stoups not sets that Sunne but standeth free On never shaken pillars of Aeternitie 13 But still this truth more clearly to evince Remember how all things are from one light It shall thy reason forceably convince That nought but God destroyes a centrall spright If he sucks in his beams eternall night Seiseth upon that life that it no'te flow In actuall efflux hath no being quite But Gods own power He lets his breath out go The self-same things again so eas'ly doth he show 14 Let be Noon day the welkin clear the Moon I' th' nether world reflecting the Suns rayes To cheer the irksome night Well! That being done Call out some wondrous might that listlesse stayes In slower phansies Bid't break all delayes Surround with solid dark opacity The utmost beams that Phoebus light displayes Softly steal on
fluid Sea with unexpected sway Long time it were this mystery fully to display 57 Wherefore I 'll let it passse my self betake Unto some reasons Astronomicall To which if 't please the nimble mind t' awake And shake off prejudice that wont forestall The ablest wit I fear not but he 'll fall Into the same opinion magnifie That subtile spirit that hath made this All And hath half-hid his work from mortall eye To sport and play with souls in sweet philosophie 58 But with crabb'd mind wisdome will nere consort Make her abode with a sowr ingenie That harmlesse spright her self will nere disport With bloudy zeal currish malignitie With wrathfull ignorance grave hypocrisie Mirth and Free mindednesse Simplicitie Patience Discreetnesse and Benignitie Faithfulnesse heart-struck Teneritie These be the lovely playemates of pure veritie 59 The Eternall Son of God who Logos hight Made all things in a fit proportion Wherefore I wote no man that judgeth right In Heaven will make such a confusion That courses of unlike extension Vastly unlike in like time shall be run By â—he flight stars Such huge distension Of place shews that their time is not all one Saturn his ring no'te finish as quick as the Moon 60 Yet if the Earth stand stupid and unmov'd This needs must come to passe For they go round In every twise twelve houres as is prov'd By dayly experience But it would confound The worlds right order if 't were surely found A reall motion Wherefore let it be In them but seeming but a reall round In th' Earth it self The world so 's setten free From that untoward disproportionalitie 61 For so the courses of the erring Seven With their own orbs will fitly well agree Their Annuall periods in the liquid Heaven They onely finish then which as they be Or lesse or greater so the time they flie In their own circlings hath its difference The Moon a moneth Saturn years ten times three Those have the least and bigg'st circumference So all their times and oâ—bs have mutuall reference 62 Next light 's the Planets dark opacitie Which long time hath been found in the low Moon Hills Valleys and such like asperitie Through optick glasses thence have plainly shone By the same trick it hath been clearly shown That Venus Moon-like grows corniculate What time her face with flusher light is blown Some such like things others have contemplate In Mercurie about the Sunne both circulate 63 When Venus is the furthest off from us Then is she in her full When in her full She seemeth least which proves she's exterous Beyond the Sunne and further off doth roll But when her circling nearer down doth pull Then gins she swell and waxen bug with horn But loose her light parts clad with darknesse dull She shows to us She and Mercury ne're born Farre from the Sunne proves that about him both do turn 64 They both opake as also is the Moon That turns about the Earth so turn those foure 'Bout Jupiter tend him as he doth run His annuall course That Tellus so may scoure Th'Ethereall Plain and have the self same power To run her circuits in the liquid skie About the Sunne the mind that doth not lour Drooping in earthy dregs will not deny Sith we so well have prov'd the starres opacitie 65 About the great the lesser lamps do dance The Medicean foure reel about Jove Two round old Saturn without Nominance Luna about the earth doth nimbly move Then all as it doth seemly well behove About the bigg'st of all great Phoebus hight With joy and jollitie needs round must rove Tickled with pleasure of his heat and light What tumbling tricks they play in his farre-piercing sight 66 Next argument could I it well expresse With Poets pen it hath so mighty force That an ingenious man 't would stoutly presse To give assent unto the Annuall course Of this our earth But prejudice the nurse Of ignorance stoppeth all free confession Al 's keeps the way that souls have not recourse To purer reason chok'd with that oppression This argument is drawn from the stars retrocession 67 Planets go back stand still and forward flie With unexpected swiftnesse What 's the cause That they thus stagger in the plain-pay'd skie Or stupid stand as if some dull repose Did numb their spirits and their sinews lose Here 'gins the wheel-work of the Epicycle Thus patch they Heaven more botch'dly then old cloths This pretty sport doth make my heart to tickle With laughter and mine eyes with merry tears to trickle 68 O daring phansie that dost thus compile The Heavens from hasty thoughts such as fall next Wary Philosophers cannot but smile At such feat gear at thy rude rash context An heap of Orbs disorderly perplext Thrust in on every hint of motion Must be the wondrous art of Nature next Here working under God Thus thus vain man Intitles alwayes God to his opinion 69 Thinks every thing is done as he conceives Would bind all men to his religion All the world else of freedome he bereaves He and his God must have Dominion The truth must have her propagation That is his thought which he hath made a God That furious hot inust impression Doth so disturb his veins that all abroad With rage he roves and all gainsayers down hath trod 70 But to return from whence my Muse hath flown All this disordred superfluity Of Epicycles or what else is shown To salve the strange absurd enormity Of staggering motions in the azure skie Both Epicycles and those turns enorm Would all prove nought if you would but let flie The earth in the Ecliptick line yborn As I could well describe in Mathematick form 71 So could I that 's another argument From this same principle most clearly prove In regresse and in progresse different Of the free Planets Why Saturn should rove With shorter startings give back lesse then Jove Jove lesse then Mars why Venus flincheth out More then Mercurius why Saturn moves Ofter in those back jets then Jove doth shoot But Mercury more oft then Venus and Mars stout 72 And why the Sunne escap'd an Epicycle When as th' old prodigall Astronomie On th' other six bestowed that needlesse cycle Why Saturn Jove and Mars be very nigh Unto the Earth show bigger in our eye At Eventide when they rise Acronicall Why far remov'd with so vast distancy When they go down with setting Cronicall All these will plain appear from th' earths course Annuall 73 Many other reasons from those heauenly motions Might well be drawn but with exility Of subtile Mathematicks obscure notions A Poets pen so fitly no'te agree And curious men will judge't a vagrancy To start thus from my scope My pitched end Was for to prove the immortality Of humane souls But if you well attend My ship to the right port by this bow'd course did bend 74 For I have clearly show'd that stout resistence Of the pure soul against the Mundane spright And body
God who is th' Originall of all Who being everywhere doth multiplie His own broad shade that endlesse throughout all doth lie 11 He from the last projection of light Ycleep'd Shamajim which is liquid fire It Aether eke and centrall Tasis hight Hath made each shining globe and clumperd mire Of dimmer Orbs. For Nature doth inspire Spermatick life but of a different kind Hence those congenit splendour doth attire And lively heat these darknesse dead doth bind And without borrowed rayes they be both cold and blind 12 All these be knots of th' universall stole Of sacred Psyche which at first was fine Pure thin and pervious till hid powers did pull Together in severall points and did encline The nearer parts in one clod to combine Those centrall spirits that the parts did draw The measure of each globe did then define Made things impenetrable here below Gave colour figure motion and each usuall law 13 And what is done in this Terrestriall starre The same is done in every Orb beside Each flaming Circle that we see from farre Is but a knot in Psyches garment tide From that lax shadow cast throughout the wide And endlesse world that low'st projection Of universall life each thing 's deriv'd What er'e appeareth in corporeall fashion For body's but this spirit fixt grosse by conspissation 14 And that which doth conpissate active is Wherefore not matter but some living sprite Of nimble nature which this lower mist And immense field of Atoms doth excite And wake into such life as best doth fit With his own self As we change phantafies The essence of our soul not chang'd a whit So do these Atomes change their energies Themselves unchanged into new Centreities 15 And as our soul 's not superficially Colourd by phantasms nor doth them reflect As doth a looking-glasse such imag'rie As it to the beholder doth detect No more are these lightly or smear'd or deckt With form or motion which in them we see But from their inmost Centre they project Their vitall rayes not merely passive be But by occasion wak'd rouse up themselves on high 16 So that they 're life form sprite not matter pure For matter pure is a pure nullitie What nought can act is nothing I am sure And if all act that is they 'll not denie But all that is is form so easily By what is true and by what they embrace For truth their feigned Corporalitie Will vanish into smoke But on I 'll passe More fully we have sung this in another place 17 Wherefore more boldly now to represent The nature of the world how first things were How now they are This endlesse large Extent Of lowest life which I styled whileere The Cuspis of the Cone that 's every where Was first all dark till in this spacious Hall Hideous through silent horrour torches clear And lamping lights bright shining over all Were set up in due distances proportionall 18 Innumerable numbers of fair Lamps Were rightly ranged in this hollow hole To warm the world and chace the shady damps Of immense darknesse rend her pitchie stole Into short rags more dustie dimme then coal Which pieces then in severall were cast Abhorred relicks of that vesture foul Upon the Globes that round those torches trac'd Which still fast on them stick for all they run so fast 19 Such an one is that which mortall men call Night A little shted of that unbounded shade And such a Globe is that which Earth is hight By witlesse Wizzards the sole centre made Of all the world and on strong pillars staid And such a lamp or light is this our Sun Whose fiery beams the scorched Earth invade But infinite such as he in heaven won And more then infinite Earths about those Suns do run 20 And to speak out though I detest the sect Of Epicurus for their manners vile Yet what is true I may not well reject Truth 's incorruptible ne can the style Of vitious pen her sacred worth defile If we no more of truth should deign t' embrace Then what unworthy mouths did never soyle No truths at all ' mongst men would finden place But make them speedy wings and back to Heaven apace 21 I will not say our world is infinite But that infinity of worlds there be The Centre of our world 's the lively light Of the warm sunne the visible Deity Of this externall Temple Mercurie Next plac'd and warm'd more throughly by his rayes Right nimbly 'bout his golden head doth fly Then Venus nothing slow about him strayes And next our Earth though seeming sad full sprightly playes 22 And after her Mars rangeth in a round With fiery locks and angry flaming eye And next to him mild Jupiter is found But Saturn cold wons in our outmost sky The skirts of his large Kingdome surely ly Near to the confines of some other worlds Whose Centres are the fixed starres on high 'Bout which as their own proper Suns are hurld Joves Earths and Saturns round on their own axes twurld 23 Little or nothing are those starres to us Which in the azure Evening gay appear I mean for influence but judicious Nature and carefull Providence her dear And matchlesse work did so contrive whileere That th' Hearts or Centres in the wide world pight Should such a distance each to other bear That the dull Planets with collated light By neighbour suns might cheared be in dampish night 24 And as the Planets in our world of which The sun 's the heart and kernell do receive Their nightly light from suns that do enrich Their sable mantle with bright gemmes and give A goodly splendour and sad men relieve With their fair twinkling rayes so our worlds sunne Becomes a starre elsewhere and doth derive Joynt light with others cheareth all that won In those dim duskish Orbs round other suns that run 25 This is the parergon of each noble fire Of neighbour worlds to be the nightly starre But their main work is vitall heat t' inspire Into the frigid spheres that 'bout them fare Which of themselves quite dead and barren are But by the wakening warmth of kindly dayes And the sweet dewie nights they well declare Their seminall virtue in due courses raise Long hidden shapes and life to their great Makers praise 26 These with their suns I severall worlds do call Whereof the number I deem infinite Else infinite darknesse were in this great Hall Of th' endlesse Universe For nothing finite Could put that immense shadow unto flight But if that infinite Suns we shall admit Then infinite worlds follow in reason right For every Sun with Planets must be fit And have some mark for his farre-shining shafts to hit 27 But if he shine all solitarie alone What mark is left what aimed scope or end Of his existence wherefore every one Hath a due number of dim Orbs that wend Around their centrall fire But wrath will rend This strange composure back'd with reason stout And rasher tongues right speedily
understand Experienc'd men Do onely know who like impressions sustain 21 So far 's the Soul from a dependency In these high actions on the body base And further signe is want of memory Of these impressions wrought in heavenly place I mean the holy Intellect they passe Leaving no footsteps of their former light When as the soul from thence descended has Which is a signe those forms be not empight In our low proper Chaos or Corporeall spright 22 For then when we our mind do downward bend Like things we here should find but all is gone Soon as our flagging souls so low descend As that straight spright Like torch that droppeth down From some high tower held steddy clearly shone But in its fall leaves all its light behind Lies now in darknesse on the grail or stone Or dirty earth That erst so fully shin'd Within a glowing coal hath now its light confin'd 23 So doth the soul when from high Intellect To groveling sense she takes her stooping flight Falling into her body quite neglect Forget forgother former glorious sight Grosse glowing fire for that wide shining light For purest love foul fury and base passion For clearest knowledge fell contentious fight Sprong from some scorching false inust impression Which she 'll call truth she gains O witlesse Commutation 24 But still more clear her independent might In understanding and pure subtile will To prove I will assay t' explain aright The difference ' ccording to my best skill 'Twixt these and those base faculties that well From union with the low consistency Of this Out-world that when my curious quill Hath well describ'd their great disparity To th' highest we may give an independency 25 The faculties we deem corporeall And bound unto this earthy instrument So bound that they no'te operate at all Without the body there immerse and meint Be hearing feeling tasting sight and sent Adde lower phansie Mundane memory Those powers be all or more or lesse ypent In this grosse life We 'll first their property Set down and then the others contrariety 26 This might perceives not its own instrument The taste discovers not the spungy tongue Nor is the Mundane spright through all extent From whence are sense and lower phansie sprong Perceived by the best of all among These learned Five nor yet by phantasie Nor doth or this or those so nearly throng Unto themselves as by propinquity To apprehend themselves They no'te themselves descry 27 Nor e're learn what their own impressions be The mind held somewhere else in open sight What ever lies unknown unto the eye It lies though there its image be empight Till that our soul look on that image right Wherefore themselves the senses do not know Nor doth our phansie for each furious wight Hath phansie full enough so full't doth show As sense nor he nor 's phansie doth that phansie know 28 Age potent objects too long exercise Do weaken hurt and much debilitate Those lower faculties The Sun our eyes Confounds with dazeling beams of light so that For a good while we cannot contemplate Ought visible thus thunder deafs the eare And age hurts both that doth quite ruinate Our sense and phansie so if long we heare Or see 't sounds not so sweet nor can we see so clear 29 Lastly the Senses reach but to one kind Of things The eye sees colours so the eare Hears sounds the nostrills snuff perfumed wind What grosse impressions the out-senses bear The phansie represents sometimes it dare Make unseen shapes with uncouth transformation Such things as never in true Nature are But all this while the phansies operation To laws bodily is bound such is her figuration 30 This is the nature of those faculties That of the lower Mundane spright depend But in our Intellect farre otherwise We'st see it if we pressely will attend And trace the parallels unto the end There 's no self-knowledge Here the soul doth find Her self If so then without instrument For what more fit to show our inward mind Then our own mind But if 't be otherwise defin'd 31 Then tell me Knows she that fit instrument if she kens not that instrument how can She judge whether truely it doth represent Her self there may be foul delusion But if she kens this Organ straight upon This grant I 'll ask how kens she this same tole What by another by what that so go on Till to infinity you forward roll An horrid monster count in Philosophick school 32 The soul then works by 't self and is self-liv'd Sith that it acts without an instrument Free motions from her own self deriv'd Flow round But to go on The eyes yblent Do blink even blind with objects vehement So that till they themselves do well recure Lesse matters they no'te see But rayes down sent From higher sourse the mind doth maken pure Do clear do subtilize do fix do settle sure 33 That if so be she list to bend her will To lesser matters she would it perform More excellently with more art and skill Nor by long exercise her strength is worn Witnesse wise Socrates from morn to morn That stood as stiff as any trunck of tree What eye could bear in contemplation So long a fix'dnesse none so long could see It s watery tears would wail its frail infirmity 34 Nor feeble eld sure harbinger of death Doth hinder the free work of th' Intellect When th' eye growes dim and dark that it unneath Can see through age the mind then close collect Into her self such mysteries doth detect By her far-piercing beams that youthfull hear Doth count them folly and with scorn neglect His ignorance concludes them but deceit He hears not that still voyce his pulse so loud doth beat 35 Lastly sense phansie though they be confin'd To certain objects which to severall Belong yet sure the Intellect or mind Apprehends all objects both corporeall As colours sounds and incorporeall As virtue wisdome and the higher spright Gods love and beauty intellectuall So that its plain that she is higher pight Then in all acts to pend on any earthly might 36 If will and appetite we list compare Like difference we easly their discover This pent contract yfraught with furious jar And fierce antipathy It boyleth over With fell revenge or if new chance to cover The former passion Suppose lust or fear Yet all are tumults but the will doth hover No whit enslav'd to what she findeth here But in a free suspence her self doth nimbly bear 37 Mild gentle calm quick large subtill serene These be her properties which do increase The more that vigour in the bodies vein Doth waste and waxen faint Desires decrease When age the Mundane spright doth more release From this straight mansion But the will doth flower And fairly spread near to our last decease Embraceth God with much more life and power Then ever she could do in her fresh vernall hower 38 Wherefore I think we safely may conclude That Will and
The self-same knowledge art experience skill The frugall parent might his money save The Pedagoge his pains If he engrave His Grammer precepts but in one boyes mind Oâ— decent manners He doth thus embrave With single labour all the youth you 'll find Under the hollow Heavens they 'll be alike inclin'd 18 And every man is skill'd in every trade And every silent thought that up doth spring In one mans brest doth every man invade No counsel-keeper nor no secret thing Will then be found They 'll need no whispering Not louder voice Let Orators be dumb Nor need the eager auditours make a ring Though every one keep himself close at home The silent Preachers thoughts through all the world will roam 19 Find each man out and in a moment hit With unavoided force Or sooth to sain They all begin at once to think what 's fit And all at once anon leave off again A thousand such incongruities vain Will follow from the first absurdity Which doth all souls into one centre strain And make them void of self-centrality Strange soul from whence first sprong so uncouth falsity 20 Now all the arguments that I have brought For to disprove the souls strange solitude That there is not one onely soul well mought Be urg'd and will with equall strength conclude To prove that God his creature hath indew'd With a self-centrall essence which from his Doth issue forth with proper raies embew'd And that not all the very Godhead is For that would straight beget the like absurdities 21 For he is indivisibly one being At once in every place and knoweth all He is omnipotent infinite in seeing Wherefore if Creatures intellectuall And in that order humane souls will fall Were God himself they would be alike wise Know one anothers thoughts imaginall Which no man doth such falshoods would arise With many more which an idiot might well despise 22 Nor will mens souls that now be different Be God himself hereafter and all one For thus they were quite lost their life ylent And subtill being quite away are flone This is a perfect contradiction They are all one with God and yet they are If they be one with God then they alone Did make themselves and every rolling starre For God alone made these and God himself they are 23 Before the Sun and all the host of heaven The earth the sea and mans deep centrall spright Before all these were made was not God even With his own self what then him moven might To waste his words and say Let there be light If the accomplishment of all things be That all be God himself This is not right No more perfection no more Entity There 's then then was in that eternall Silency 24 Or will you say that God himself delights To do and undo But how can this stand With self-sufficiency There 's nought that might Adde to His happinesse if I understand His nature right But He with open hand Doth easly feed the Creature that he made As easly Wherefore if the truth be scand This Goodnesse would that nought should be decay'd His mind is all should live no life he would should fade 25 But if the finall consummation Of all things make the Creature Deiform As Plato's school doth phrase it there is none That thence need fear to come to any harm For God himself will then inact inform And quicken humane souls at the last day And though the Devil rore and rage and storm Yet Deaths drad power shall be done away Nor living Night on men her poysonous beams shall ray 26 He hasten it that makes that glorious day For certainly it is no fearfull thing But unto pride and love of this base clay It s their destruction but the perfecting Of the just souls It unto them doth bring Their full desire to be more close unite With God and utter cleans'd from all their sin Long was the world involv'd in cloudy Night But at the last will shine the perfect Christian light 27 Thus the souls numerous plurality I 've prov'd and shew'd she is not very God But yet a decent Deiformity Have given her thus in the middle trod I safely went and fairly well have row'd As yet Part of my voyage is to come Which is to prove that the souls new aboad In heaven or hell what ever is her doom Nought hinders but past forms even there again may bloom 28 Which if they did not she could never tell Why she were thus rewarded wherefore ill Or good she doth enjoy whether ill or well She lived here Remembrance death did spill But otherwise it fares as was her will And inclination of her thirsty spright Impressions of like nature then doth fill Her lively mind whether with sad affright Disturb'd which she long fear'd or in hop'd-for delight 29 The life that here most strongly kindled was Sith she awakes in death must needs betray The soul to what nearest affinity has With her own self and likenesses do sway The mind to think of what ever did play In her own self with a like shape or form And contraries do help the memory So if the soul be left in case forlorn Remembrance of past joy makes her more deeply mourn 30 'T is also worth our observation That higher life doth ever comprehend The lower vitall acts sensation The soul some fitten hint doth promptly lend To find out plantall life sense is retaind In subtiller manner in the phantasie Al 's reason phantasies doth well perpend Then must the souls highest capacity Contain all under life Thus is their Memory 31 This faculty is very intimate And near the Centre very large and free Extends it self to whatsoever that The soul peracts There is no subtilty Of Intellect of Will nor Phantasie No Sense nor uncouth strange impression From damned Night or the blest Deity But of all these she hath retention And at their fresh approach their former shapes can own 32 This memorie the very bond of life You may well deem If it were cut away Our being truly then you might contrive Into a point of time The former day Were nought at all to us when once we lay Our selves to sleep we should not know at morn That e're we were before nor could we say A whit of sense so soon as off we turn One word that 's quite forgot Coherence thus is torn 33 Now sith it is of such necessitie And is the bundle of the souls duration The watchman of the soul lest she should flie Or steal from her own self a sure fixation And Centrall depth it hath and free dilation That it takes notice of each energie Of Phansie Sense or any Cogitation Wherefore this virtue no dependencie Hath of this body must be safe when it doth die 34 But if dispersed lifes collection Which is our memory safely survive Which well it may sith it depends not on The Mundane spirit what can fitly drive It into action In heaven she doth live
Plotin Ennead 3. lib. 7. where he doth acknowledge Aeon and On all one at the fourth Chapter STANZ 9. This is the ancient Eidos omniform Fount of all beauty c. The description of Aeon which is the first form also or pulchritude is largely set out Ennead 5. lib. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the condition of that Eternall life is thus delineated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that is It is an easie life they live there for truth is their mother nurce substance and nourishment and they see all things not in which generation is but essence and themselves in others For all 's pellucid nothing dark or impervious but every one to every one is perspicuous and all to every one as light to light For every one hath in him all things and again sees all things in others So that all things are every where and all is all and every thing all and the splendour infinite For every thing there is great sith what is little must be also great the Sun there is all the starres and again every starre the Sun and all things but every thing is more eminently some one thing and yet all things fairly shine in every thing c. See Plotin Ennead 5. lib. 8. cap. 4. STANZ 13. Far otherwise it fares in Aeons realms This is in reference to Narcissus story Stanz 12. that sets out the hazard of loving earthly beauty and of the desire of conjunction with it but there is no such danger in Aeon land for the objects there are perfective and not destructive better then the soul not baser and chiefly Abinoam or Ahad which is as it were the Sun of that world which Aeon doth alwayes behold steddy and unmoved and with him all they that arrive thither Aeons self is also an unspeakable plenitude of life and it is an unexpresseable perfection of the mind to be joyned with him so that there is plainly no danger or hurt to desire earnestly the enjoyment of these divine forms though union with corporeall features may deface the soul STANZ 14. For Aeon land which men Idea call Is nought but life c. So Plotin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is The nature of Intellect and On is the true and first world not distant from it self not weak by division or dispersion nothing defective But all of it is life and all intellect living in one and at once understanding A part exhibits the whole and the whole is friendly to it self not separated one part from another nor become another alone and estrang'd from others Whence one part is not injurious to another nor contrary Wherefore every where being one and perfect every where it stands unmoved and admits no alteration See Ennead 3. lib. 2. cap. 1 STANZ 5. That Virgin wife of Aeon Vranore Vranore or Psyche the wife of Aeon the daughter of Ahad For indeed all things come from him but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Ahad that is a simple unity then Aeon that 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an actuall unmoveable Omniformity Lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 's Vranore or Psyche viz capable of that stable Omniformity that Fulnesse of life even all things and of him that is above all things but it is not of her Essence to be all things actually and steddily See Plotin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ennead 5. lib. 1. cap 8. But nothing can be more plain than what he hath written Ennead 5. lib. 6. cap. 4. where speaking of Ahad Aeon and Psyche 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is And we may resemble the first viz. Ahad to lux or light the next to the Sunne the third viz. Psyche to the Moon borrowing her light of the Sunne For Psyche hath but an adventitious Intellect which doth as it were colour her made Intellectuall But Intellect or Aeon hath in himself proper Intellectuall life not being that light onely but that which is in his essence illuminated by Ahad but that which imparts this light viz. Ahad is light alone and nothing else beside exhibiting a power to him to be what he is STANZ 4. 5. Because the fire Of Aethers essence c. That the Intellect in man is clothed with the soul the soul with fire or spirit and that through that instrument it governs and orders this grosse body is the Opinion of Trismeg in his Clavis and the like instrument he ascribes to the Maker of the whole World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Maker of the Heavens useth fire to his work But I conceive indeed that the pure Heavens or Aether which is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to burn is nothing else but attenuate fire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a subtill fiery liquor or liquid fire as I have else where intimated Vers 6.7 And inward unseen golden hew doth dight And life of Sense c. I cannot better declare this matter then the Philosopher hath already Ennead 5. lib. 1. cap. 2. Let any particular soul saith he quietly by her self conceive the whole Universe devoid of life form and motion let the Earth be still and stupid the Sea the Aire and the Heaven anon an universall soul flow into this torpent masse inwardly infus'd penetrating throughout and illuminating all as the beams of the Sunne doth some Cloud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 making a golden show by their gilding light Such is the entrance of Psyche into the body of the Vniverse kindling and exciting the dead mist the utmost projection of her own life into an Aethereall vivacity and working in this by her plasmaticall Spirits or Archei all the whole world into order and shape fitting this sacred Animal◠for perfect sense establishing that in being which before was next to nothing Vers 8. Aether's the vehicle of touch smell sight Of taste c. This is true in the Microcosme as well as in the Macrocosme above described viz. that the more subtill fiery and attenuate spirits in mans body are the medium whereby the soul is joyned to and doth work in the body STANZ 16. May reach that vast profundity Synesius also calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the paternall depth Hymn 2. STANZ 18. Now rise my Muse c. From this STANZ to the 33. is contained a description of the visible World Vers 2. Th' outward vest To make all this visible World the garment of Psyche is no forc'd or new fancy sith the Sibyll hath apparrelled God therewith Sibyll Orac. lib. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is I am JEHOVAH well my words perpend Clad with the frory Sea all mantled over With the blew Heavens shod with the Earth I wend The Starres around me dance th' Air doth me cover Moses also if we will believe Philo the Jew made Aarons garment a symboll of the visible World and it agrees well with this of the Sibylls For
of Intellect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That intellect is taken up about him imployed in a kind of vitall operation about him living in him But of Psyche 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Psyche something removed and without danceth about the Intellect busily beholding it and looking into it seeth God through it So that Ahad is the vitall perfection of Aeon or Intellect and Aeon and Ahad the happinesse of Psyche and her vitall accomplishment Ennead 1. lib. 8. And both Aeon and Psyche and all things else are from Ahad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is with abatement and farthest off from the fountain the weaker and darker as is more fully set forth in the next Canto Stanz 7 8. c. And that the world is inacted by Psyche and so is which Trismegist and Plato are not nice to grant one intire Animal and that therefore nothing can scape the knowledge of that universall soul no more then any sensation imagination or motion of man can be hid from the soul of man if she be at leasure to observe it That Psyche is at leasure being uncapable of distraction as whose animadversion is infinite entirely omnipresent and every where at once And now I have taken the pains so accurately to describe the Deity me thinks I have made my self obnoxious to almost a just censure of too much boldnesse and curiosity But give me leave to answer that I have not taken upon me so much to set out the absolute nature of God as those Notions that Plato's School have framed of Him Which I hold neither my self nor any man else engaged to embrace for Oracles though they were true 'till such time as they appear to him to be so But how ever I think all men are to interpret both Plato and all men else at the best and rather mark what of undoubted truth they aime at then quarrell and entangle themselves in disputes about the manner of expressing that which no man can reach unto As for example I had rather fill my mind with that unquestionable truth exhibited in their Triad viz. that God is as fully Goodnesse Wisedome and powerfull Love as if there were three such distinct Hypostases in the Deity and then that he is as surely one with himself as if there were but one onely Hypostasis then to perplex my mind with troublesome questions of Three and One and One and three c. For the mind of man being so unable to conceive any thing of the naked being of God those more grosse and figurate representations of Him so be they be sutable to expressive of His unquestionable Attributes are not onely passable but convenient for created understandings to lead them on in the contemplation of God in easie Love and Triumph Whereas by endeavouring more Magisterially and determinately to comprehend and conclude that which is so unconcludible and incomprehensible to the understanding of man we work our selves into anxietie and subtile distemper and dry up the more precious outflowings of the Divinity in our souls by this hellish thirst and importunate desire of dealing with the very naked essence of God But let every modest Philosopher but read that Inscription in Isis Temple a notable monument of the great wisedome of the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then pronounce whether there be not roome enough in the Deity for every man to speak diversely one from another in the representation thereof and yet no man nor all men together to set out accurately and adequately the nature of God Notes upon Psychozoia Canto 2. STANZ 6. It s he that made us YEt not excluding Ahad See what 's written upon the 23. Stanza of this Canto STANZ 9. The last extreme the fardest of from light Plotinus Ennead 4. lib. 3. cap. 9. describes the production of the corporeall world after this manner Psyche cannot issue out into any externall vivificative act unlesse you suppose a body for that 's her place properly and naturally Wherefore if she will have place for any vitall act she must produce her self a body So she keeping steddily her own station 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like a plentifull flame shining out in the extreme margins of the fire begot a fuliginous darknesse which she seeing streightway actuated with life and form 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that darknesse becoming a variously adorned aedifice is not disjoyned from its builder but dependeth thence as being the genuine and true energie of the soul of the World This I conceive is the sense of the Philosopher whose conceit I have improved and made use of as here in this Canto for many Stanzas together so also else where in Psychathanasia Vers 2. Hyles cell What I understand by Hyle see the Interp. Gèn. It 's lower then this shadow that Plotinus speaketh of and which maketh the body of the World For I conceive the body of the World to be nothing else but the reall Cuspis of the Cone even infinitely multiplied and reiterated Hyle to be nothing else but potentiality that to be an actuall Centrality though as low as next to nothing But what inconvenience is in Tasis or the corporeall sensible nature to spring from Hyle or the scant capacity or incompossibility of the creature STANZ 10. Dependance of this All hence doth appear to the 17. Stanz The production of the World being by way of energy or emanation hath drawn strange expressions from some of the Ancients as Trismeg cap. 11. Mens ad Mercur. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is For God being the sole Artificer is alwayes in his work being indeed that which he maketh According to this tenour is that also in Orpheus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is Jov's first Jov's last drad Thunderer on high Jov's head Jov's navell Out of Jove all 's made Jov's the depth of the Earth and starry Skie Jove is a man Jov's an immortall Maide Jove is the breath of all Jove's restlesse fire Jov's the Seas root Jove is both Sun and Moon Jov's King Jov's Prince of all and awfull Sire For having all hid in himself anon He from his sacred heart them out doth bring To chearfull light working each wondrous thing Aristot De Mundo cap. 7. And this Hyperbolicall expression of the close dependance that all things have on God is not mis-beseeming Poetry But Trismeg is as punctuall in this excesse as the Poet Ad Tat. cap. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hence is the strange opinion of God being all and that there is nothing but God But it is not at all strange that all things are the mere energie of God and do as purely depend on him as the Sun-beams of the Sunne So that so farre forth as we may say the body lux
lumen of the Sunne all put together is the Sunne so farre at least we may be bold to say that God is all things and that there is nothing but God And that all this may not seem to be said for nothing the apprehension of what hath been writ on this 1. verse of the 10. Stanz will also clear well the 6. 7. and 8. verses of the 15. Stanz where the whole Universe is exhibited to the mind as one vitall Orb whose centre is God himself or Ahad Vers the 9. In every Atom-ball That is Ahad and Aeon are in every Cuspiall particle of the world STANZ 12. Why may 't not c. By differentiall profundity is understood the different kinds of things descending 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or abatement from the first cause of all things But by latitude is understood the multitude of each kind in Individuo which whether they be not infinite in spirituall beings where there is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or justling for elbow-room I know not unlesse you will say there will be then more infinites then one But those are numbers and not one I but those numbers put together are equall to that One But yet that One may be infinitely better then all For who will not say that Space or Vacuum is infinitely worse then any reall thing and yet its extension is infinite as Lucretius stoutly proves in his first Book Deâ—natura rerum STANZ 15. Throughly possest of lifes community That the World or Universe is indewed with life though it be denied of some who prove themselves men more by their risibility then by their reason yet very worthy and sober Philosophers have asserted it As M. Anton. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 10. where he calls this Universe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a compleat Animal good just and beautifull And Trismeg cap. 12. de Commun Intellectu ad Tat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. This Universe a great Deity which I conceive he speaks in reference to Psyche upon whom such divine excellency is derived and the image of a greater united also to him and keeping the will and ordinances of his Father is one entire fullnesse of life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For there neither was nor is nor shall be any thing in the World devoid of life And Plotin Ennead 4. lib. 3. cap. 10. shews how Psyche by her vitall power full of form and vigour shapes and adorns and actuates the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the seminall forms or Archei form and shape out particular Animals as so many little Worlds Vers 9. And all the Vests be Seats c. i.e. Degrees STANZ 16. That particular creature throng In contradistinction to the Universall creature Aeon Psyche Physis Tasis the centre as it were and more firm essence of the particular creatures For I must call these universall Orders of life creatures too as well as those and onely one God from whence is both the sensible and Intellectuall All and every particular in them both or from them both STANZ 23. Each life a severall ray is from that Sphere Arachne Semel c. Not as if there were so many souls joyned together and made one soul but there is a participation of the virtue at least of all the life that is in the universall Orb of life at the Creation of Mans soul of which this place is meant whence man may well be tearmed a Microcosme or Compendium of the whole World STANZ 24. Great Psychany The abode of the body is this Earth but the habitation of the soul her own energy which is exceeding vast at least in some Every man hath a proper World or particular Horizon to himself enlarged or contracted according to the capacity of his mind But even Sence can reach the starres what then can exalted phansie do or boundlesse Intellect But if starres be all inhabited which Writers no way contemptible do assert how vast their habitation is is obvious to any phansie Beside some inhabit God himself who is unspeakably infinite STANZ 25. Two mighty Kingdomes c. Let Psychanie be as big or little as it will Autaesthesia and Theoprepia be the main parts of it and exhaust the whole Let souls be in the body or out of the body or where they will if they be but alive they are alive to God or themselves and so are either Theoprepians or Autaesthesians Vers 4. Autaesthesie's divided into tway Now they that are alive unto themselves are either wholly alive unto themselves or the life of God hath also taken hold upon them they that are wholly alive to themselves their abode is named Adamah which signifieth the corrupt naturall life the old Adam or Beirah because this Adam is but a brute compared to that which Plotinus calleth the true Man whose form and shape and life is wisdome and righteousnesse That which is above is saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that low life in the body is but a Leonine or rather a mixture of all brutish lives together and is the seat or sink of wickednesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Trismegist speaks For vice is congenit or connaturall to beasts See Plotin Ennead 1. cap. 1. whence it is manifest why we call one thing by these two names of Adamah and Beirah The other part of Autaesthesia is Dizoia their condition is as this present Stanza declares mungrill betwixt Man and Beast Light and Darknesse God and the Devill Jacob and Esau struggle in them STANZ 26. Great Michael ruleth c. Theoprepia is a condition of the soul whereby she doth that which would become God himself to do in the like cases whether in the body or out of the body Michael ruleth here that is the Image or likenesse of God the true Man the Lord from Heaven For the true man indeed viz. the second Adam is nothing else but the Image of the God of Heaven This is He of whom the soul will say when He cometh to abide in her and when He is known of her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is like unto God for either beautie or power who so comely or strong as He Vers 5. His name is Daemon Daemon the Prince of Autaesthesie i. e. of self-sensednesse it is the very image of the Devil or the Devil himself or worse if ought can be worse it is a life dictating self-seeking and bottoming a mans self upon himself a will divided from the will of God and centred in its self Vers 7. From his dividing force c. All divisions both betwixt God and Man and Man and Man are from this self-seeking life STANZ 28. Autophilus the one yoleeped is Autophilus is the souls more subtill and close embracements of her self in spirituall arrogancy as Philosomatus the love of her body wherefore the one ruleth most in Dizoia the other in Beirah Vers 8. Born of the slime of Autaesthesia Daemon that is the authour of division of man from God born of
self-sensednesse See Plotin Ennead 5. lib. 1. cap. 1. where he saith the first cause of evil to the soul was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they would be their own or of themselves So delighted with this liberty they were more and more estranged till at last like children taken away young from their parents they in processe of time grew ignorant both of themselves and of their parents SANZ 29. Duessa first invented Magick lore Duessa is the naturall life of the body or the naturall spirit that whereby we are lyable to Magick assaults which are but the sympathies and antipathies of nature such as are in the spirit of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The true Magick saith he is nothing else but the concord and discord in the Universe and he viz. the the world is the first Magician and Enchanter others do but learn of him by imitation wherefore they that are established in a principle above the world and are strong in God which are the true and perfect Israel are exempt from the danger of this Enchantment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For neither Astrall spirit nor Angel can prevail against one ray of the Deity as Aesculapius writes to King Ammon Plotinus soul was come to that high and noble temper that he did not onely keep off Magicall assaults from himself but retorted them upon his enemy Olympius which Olympius himself who practised against him did confesse to be from the exalted power of his soul Porphyr de Vita Plot. STANZ 30. Ten times ten times ten The number of ten among the ancients called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an emblem of perfection for it comprehends all numbers sith we are fain to come back again to one two c. when we are past it So that ten may go for perfection of parts in the holy life but the raising of it into a cube by multiplication perfection of degrees in a solid and unshaken manner STANZ 33 Amoritish ground 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it is indeed from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dixit the Land of talkers STANZ 34. Psittacusa land id est the land of talkers or Parots See Don Psittaco Intepret Gen. STANZ 35. Ther 's no Society c. This Stanza briefly sets out the Beironites condition as concerning their Society and friendship the bond whereof and exercise is either feasting and tippling or a complacency in the well-favourednesse of this mortall body or some astrall concordance or hidden harmony of spirits which also often knits in wedlock those that are farre enough from beauty Vers 2. But beastlike grazing c. Aristotle defines very well and like a Philosopher the genuine society that should be among men viz. in the communication of reason and discourse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For that in men is right society and not as in beasts to graze in the same pasture Moral Nicom lib. 9. cap. 8. How unlike to these Beironites was the divine communialty of Pythagoras followers as Iamblicus describes it de vita Pythag. lib. 1. cap. 33. not onely supplying friendly one another in the necessities of life but mutually cherishing in one another the divine life of the soul and maintaining an inviolable concord in the best things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For they often admonished one another not to dissipate the Deity in them Wherefore their friendship wholly in words and works seemed to aim at a kind of commixtion and union with God and communion with the divine Intellect and Soul STANZ 136. The swelling hatefull toad This Stanza sets out the nature of each Beironite singly considered by himself which is referable to some bird or beast who are sometime lightly shadowed out even in their very countenances STANZ 137. None in Beiron virtuously do live True virtue I make account is founded in true knowledge of God in obedience and self-deniall without which those seeming virtuous dispositions are but mockvirtues no other then are found in some measure among the brutes Vers 9. If outward form you pierce For as Cicero from Plato saith Mens cujusque is est quisque The soul is the man not the outward shape If she live therefore but the life of a Brute if her vitall operation her vigorous will and complacency be that which a Beast likes I cannot see that she is any more then a living Brute or a dead Man or a Beast clad in mans cloths See the 48. Stanza of this Canto STANZ 138 139. From the 34. Stanz to the 138. are the Religion Polity Freindship or familiar Society and single natures of the Beironites set out Here now begins the discovery of the way of escape from this bruitish condition which is by obedience Now obedience consists in these two Self-deniall Autaparnes and Patience Hypomone Obedience discovers to us the doore of passage out of this pure brutality viz. Humility For it is self-conceit and high presumption that we are all well and wise already that keeps us in this base condition STANZ 144. The young mans speech caus'd sad perplexity c. That a man in confuso or in generall is more easily drawn to entertain obedience but when it is more punctually discovered to him in self-denyall and patience it is nothing so welcome STANZ 146. For understanding of this Stanza see Autaparnes in the Interpr Gen. as also in the 64 65 66 67. Stanz of the third Canto of this book STANZ 147. Into Atuvus life doth melt Ice so long as it is is a thing distinct suppose from the Ocean but once melt by the warmth of the Sunne it becomes one with the rest of the sea so that no man can say at least not perceive it is different from the sea This state of union with God Plotinus as all things else describes excellently well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore then the mind neither sees nor seeing discerns nor phansies too but as it were become another not her self nor her own is there and becoming His is one with Him as it were joyning centre with centre Ennead 6. lib. 9. cap. 10. And that this may not seem a Chimoera I will annex what the noble Philosopher writes of his own experience Ennead 4. lib. 8. cap. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I often awaking out of the body into my self and being without all things but within my self do then behold an admirable beauty and become confident of my better condition having then so excellent a life and being made one with the Deity in which I being placed do set my self above all other Intellectuall beings But after this my station and rest in God descending out of Intellect into reason I am perplext to think both how I now descend and how at first my soul entred this body she being such as she appeared to be by her self although being in the body Such an union as this that Plotinus professeth himself to have been acquainted with though it be the thing
are gallant lights and a noble spirit moves in those Philosophers vains and so near-Christianisme if a man will look on them favourably that one would think they are baptized already not onely with water but the holy Ghost But I not seeing humility and self-denyall and acknowledgement of their own unworthinesse of such things as they aimed at nor mortification not of the body for that 's sufficiently insisted upon but of the more spiritual arrogative life of the soul that subtill ascribing that to our selves that is Gods for all is Gods I say I not seeing those things so frequently and of purpose inculcated in their writings thought I might fitly make their Philosophy or rather the life that it doth point at for that 's the subject of this Poem a Type of that life which is very near to perfection but as yet imperfect having still a smack of arrogation and self-seeking But believe it a man shall often meet with frequent Testimonies of their charity and universall love of meeknesse and tranquillity of mind of common care of men of hearty forgivenesse of offences Temperance Justice and contempt of death are obvious and triviall also their Prayer to God and belief that he helps both in finding out of Truth and improvement of Virtue So that I reserve as the true and adequate Character of Christianisme the most profound and spirituall humility that any man can have experience of and a perfect self-deadnesse which is the begetter indeed of the former For where selfenesse is extinguished all manner of arrogation must of necessity be extinct and this is the passage through the valley of Ain So that it must be acknowledged that though there have been many brave and generous lights risen upon the Earth yet none so plainly perfect so purely amiable and lovely as that sweet life of the Messias to whom the possession of the World is promised STANZ 59. Vers 7 8 9. True fortitude that truest foes doth aw Justice and abstinence from sweetest ill And wisedome like the Sunne doth all with light orespill This ravishing beauty and love is lively set out by Plotinus lib. 6. cap. 5. Ennead 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And when you behold your selves beautifull within How are you affected How are you moved and ravished and gathering your selves from your bodies desire more nearly and closely to embrace your naked selves For thus are they affected that are truely amorous when they either contemplate in themselves or behold in others that gallantry and greatnesse of soul that constant garb of Justice pure and undefiled Temperance manly and awfull-eyed Fortitude Gravity and Modesty gently mooving in all peaceable stillnesse and steddy Tranquillity and a god-like Understanding watering and varnishing all these Virtues as it were with golden showers of lustre and light STANZ 63. But Autaparnes wox more wan and wo c. See Autaparn Interpr Gen. STANZ 66. This dale hight Ain c. This valley of Ain is nothing else but self deadnesse or rather self-nothingnesse wherefore the fume rising thence must needs be Anautesthesie that is self-senslesnesse no more feeling or relishing a mans self as concerning himself then if he were not at all STANZ 67. Here Autaparnes c. See Autaparn Interpr Gen. Notes upon Psychathanasia Lib. 1. Canto 1. STANZ 10. Like men new made contriv'd into a Cave SEE Jamblich Protrept cap. 15. STANZ 12. Vers 4. Calling thin shaddows c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Merc. Trismeg 6. STANZ 16. This Errors den The condition of the soul in this life is so disadvantagious to her that the Philosopher in the 3. Chapter of the 8 Book of his 4. Ennead falleth into these expressions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the body is but a prison and sepulchre to the soul and this World a Den and Cave Vers 6. As deep as Hyles Hell The Materia prima such as the schools ordinarily describe Else where Hyle signifieth mere potentiality STANZ 17. That loves the body c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jambliâ—h Protrept cap. 3. pag. 80. Also Plat. Phaed. STANZ 18. Th' unthankefull Stagirite There is notorious testimony of Aristotles pride conceitednesse and unthankfulnesse towards Plato Aelian Var. Histor lib. 3. cap. 19. as also lib. 4. cap. 9. The Title of that Chapter is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of Plato's humility and Aristotles ingratitude Vers 3. Most men prefer 'fore holy Py thagore See Jamblich De Vita Pythag. where the purity and holinesse of his spirit is sufficiently evidenced from the Character of his manners cap. 2. pag. 30. where it is said that what ever he did or spake he did it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with inimitable serenity and sedarenesse of mind never surpriz'd with anger laughter zeal contention or any other precipitancy or perturbation STANZ 21. Love of the Carcas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore the love of Mortality is the Mother of Ignorance especially in divine things for we cannot cleave to both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mercur. Trismeg 4. pag. 21. Vers 9. Here will true wisedome lodge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Paemandr pag. 7. Cant. 2. STANZ 5. Or like a Lamp c See Plotin ' Ennead 4. lib. 1. cap. 8. 12. STANZ 24. Withouten body having energie 'T is the opinion of Plotinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ennead 4. lib. 1. STANZ 57. But if 't consist of points then a Scalene I 'll prove all one with an Isosceles c. If quantity consists of Indivisibles or Atoms it will follow that a Scalenum is all one with an Isosceles c. Before I prove this and the following conclusions it will be necessary to set down some few Axioms and Definitions Axioms 1. That a Line hath but two ends 2. That Lines that consist of an equall number of Atoms are equall 3. That it is indifferent where we pitch upon the first Line in a superficies so that we fill the whole Area with Lines parallell to what first we choose 4. That no Motion goeth on lesse then an Atom at a time or the breadth of a Mathematicall Line Definitions 1. An Isosceles is a Triangle having two equall sides 2. A Scalenum is a Triangle having all sides unequall Theorem 1. That a Scalenum and an Isosceles be all one Let ABC be a Scalenum The same ABC is also an Isosceles For fill the whole Area ABC with Lines parrallell to AC by the 3. Axiom There is then as many points in BA as in BC by the 1. Axiom and therefore by the second BA is equall to BC. and consequently by the 1. Definition ABC is an Isosceles Appendices The same reason will prove 1. That every Triangle is an Isopleuron or equilaterall Trirngle 2. That the Diametre of a Quadrangle is equall to any of its sides 3. That the Chord of a segment of a Circle is equall to the Ark c. Vers 4. That the crosse Lines of a Rhomboids That from their meeting to all corners presse be
where else as well as at A but the point G is onely at G or if it be at L it is onely then at L and not at G nor any where else therefore A though in respect of the Universall orders of Beings which flow from him may be the Centre of a Circle yet in respect that these orders fall short of his large Ubiquity some of them at least all of his perfection and excellency and the last reall efflux is contracted after a manner to a mere mathematicall point for such is the nature of the Orb G or corporeall substance as I have intimated For this reason I say may A rightly be called the largest Basis of the Cone whose Diametre is IM or NL as the descent of these Degrees and Beings from Ahad or Atove may fitly resemble a Conicall figure whose Cuspis is G. And here I may seasonably appeal unto the apprehensions of men whether the divine fecundity A flow'd out per saltum and produced onely the Orb G or whether there being a possibility of more excellent intermediate Orbs I will not stand upon this number I have assigned he did not produce BCD c. And if he produced G onely whether that Orb G be not either an arbitrarious or naturall efflux from A. i.e. dependeth on him as closely and intimately as a Ray doth on the Sun And if so why the nature of Atove should be lesse fruitfull then the imaginations of men who can in reason and distinct notion place severall Orbs betwixt A and G. Or why the free will of Atove or Ahad should be lesse bountifull then the minds of well meaning men who if it were in their power as it is in the arbitrarious power of Ahad it clashing with no other good attribute would fill up that empty gulf betwixt A and G. Wherefore as farre as free reason and authority of Platonisme will reach the mystery of the Cone will hold good though my drift at this time was rather to explane it then confirm it But if any should be so adventrous as to deny such an Ubiquity as I have described yet in some sort this adumbration of the Cone will still hold good For there will be a latitude and contraction of power if not of presence And this will be ground enough for this expression But it is to be noted that if we forsake this apprehension of the omnipoâ—ency of Ahad God and all things else will prove mere bodies And then must God if he can make himself up in severall parcells and pieces And God administring the affairs of the Earth will scarce know what God doth in Saturn or at least many millions of miles distant which conceit seems to me farre below the light of Nature and improv'd Reason But to conceive God not onely a body but a body devoid of life sense and understanding is so dark and melancholick a phansie that I professe I think I could with far lesse pain and reluctancy suffer my body to be buried alive in the cold Earth then so stark and stupid conceit to entombe my soul STANZ 85. Besides the Conflux and Congeries Of lesser Lights a double augmentation Emplies and 'twixt them both a lessening coarctation The difficulty that their opinion is entangled with that hold the Comets to be nothing but a conflux of lesser stars is this That they must then seem first bigger then lesser then bigger again which will evidently appear in the following Scheme Circle I. But afterward this light will be lesse and lesse till they come to the Centre A where it will be least of all they coming there closest of all one to another But then they holding on stil in their severall Arks they will passe by one another and the Comet will grow bigger and bigger till they have reached the Circle I again where the Comet is as big as at the biggest before But then disjoyning themselves more wide one from another their severall Circles so carrying them they cease to be seen of us This would be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Comet if it did consist of a conflux of Starres But sith there is no such thing observed in Comets it is very probable they arise not from this cause Notes upon The Philosophers Devotion Nimbly they hold on their way Shaping out their Night and Day Summer Winter Autumn Spring Their inclined Axes bring TO shew how Day and Night VVinter and Summer arise from Copernicus his Hypothesis will not onely explane these verses but exceedingly set out the fitnesse and genuinenesse of the Hypothesis it self VVhich I will therefore do out of Galilaeo for the satisfaction of the unprejudiced and ingenuous Reader Let the Circle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the Ecliptick where by the way we may take notice that when the Earth is in the sign 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sun will appear in the opposite sign 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And so while the Earth doth really passe through the Signes the sunne seems to passe through the Signs opposite to those the Earth is really passing through whence this annuall motion through the Zodiack has been ascribed unto him Let now the centre of the Earth be plac'd in the point of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let the Poles and Axis of the earth be AB inclining upon the Diametre of Capricorn and Cancer 23 degrees and an half VVe must also suppose this inclination immutable the upper pole A to be the North pole the South-pole B. Now imagine the Earth turnd round on her Axis in 24 houres from West to East then will every point in the semicircle ADB describe a parallel Circle We 'll for the present take notice onely of that great circle CD and two other remov'd from this 23. gr and an half viz. EF. and GN the one above the other below and lastly two other furthermost circles IK and LM equidistant from the Poles AB Furthermore we are to understand that while the Earth moves on that her Axis keeps not onely the same inclination upon the Plane of the Ecliptick but also one constant direction toward the same part of the Universe or Firmament remaining alway parallel to it self Now this immutability of inclination and steddy direction of her Axis presupposed place the Earth also in the first points of Aries Cancer and Libra according as you see in the present Scheme VVe will go thorough all the foure figures and first that in Capricorn In which because the Axis AB declines from a perpendicular upon the Diametre of Capricorne and Cancer 23. grad and an half towards the Sun O and the Ark AI is 23. grad and an half the Sun enlightning an Hemisphere of the Earth divided from the dark Hemisphere by the Circle KL which Galilaeo calls Terminator lucis this Terminator lucis KL must divide CD as being a great circle into equall parts but all the
that 's the lower mans consistence How it doth quell by force of reason right Those grosse impressions which our outward sight Seald in our lower life From whence we see That we have proper independent might In our own mind behold our own Idee Which needs must prove the souls sure immortality The Argument of PSYCHATHANASIA OR The Immortality of the Soul Book 3. Cant. 4. Justice true faith in the first good Our best perswasion Of blest eternity unmov'd The earths conflagration 1 IT doth me good to think what things will follow That well prov'd thesis in my former song How we in liquid heavens more swift then swallow Do sail on Tellus lap that doth among The other starres of right not rudely throng We have what highest thoughts of man desire But highest thoughts of man are vain and wrong In outward heaven we burn with hellish fire Hats envie couetise revenge lust pride and ire 2 In the eighth sphear Andromeda from chains Is not releast fearfull Orion flies The dreadfull Scorpion Alas what gains Then is 't to live in the bright starry skies It no man can exeem from miseries All you that seek for true felicity Rend your own hearts There God himself descries Himself there dwels his beautious Majesty There shines the sun of righteousnesse in goodly glee 3 And you who boldly all Gods providence Confine to this small ball that Tellus hight And dream not of a mutuall influence And how that she may shine with beames bright At a farre distance clad with Sols lent light As Venus and the Moon O you that make This earth Gods onely darling dear delight All th' other orbs merely for this orbs sake So swiftly for to run with labour never slack 4 To dance attendance on their Princesse Earth In their quick circuits and with anger keen Would bite him that or serious or in mirth Doubts the prerogative of your great Queen Best use of that your Theory I ween Is this that as your selves monopolize All the whole world so your selves back again You wholly give to God Who can devise A better way Mans soul to God this closely tyes 5 But if the Earth doth thankfully reflect Both light and influence to other starres As well as they to it where 's the defect That sweet subordination it mars Gods love to us then not so plain appears For then the starres be mutually made One for another Each all the good then bears Of th' Universe for ' tâ—s single labour paid With the joint pains of all that in the heavens wade 6 Rare reason why then God would be too good What judgeth so but envie and vain pride And base contract self-love which that free floud Of bounty hath so confidently tied Unto it self alone Large hearts deride This pent hypocrisie Is he good to me That grace I would not ere should be deny'd Unto my fellow My felicity Is multiply'd when others I like happy see 7 But if the rolling starres with mutuall rayes Serve one another sweet fraternity And humble love with such like lore we 'll raise While we do see Gods great benignity Thus mutually reflected in the skie And these round-moving worlds communicate One with another by spread sympathy This all things friendly will concatenate But let more hardy wits that truth determinate 8 It me behoves t' hold forward on my way Leaving this uncouth strange Philosophy In which my lightsome pen too long did play As rigid men in sad seuerity May deem but we right carelesse leave that free Unto their censure Now more weighty thought Doth sway our mind thinking how all doth flee Whatever we have painfully ytaught So little fruits remain of all my skill hath wraught 9 O th'emptinesse of vain Philosophy When thin-spun reason and exile discourse Make the soul creep through a strait Theory Whither the blunter mind can never force Her self yet oft alas the case is worse Of this so subtile wight when dangers deep Approch his life then his who learnings sourse Did never drink of nere his lips did steep In Plato's springs nor with low gown the dust did sweep 10 Certes such knowledge is a vanity And hath no strength t' abide a stormy stour Such thin slight clothing will not keep us dry When the grim heavens all black and sadly soure With rage and tempest plenteously down shower Great flouds of rain Dispread exility Of slyer reasons fails Some greater power Found in a lively vigorous Unity With God must free the soul from this perplexity 11 Say now the dagger touch'd thy trembling breast Couldst thou recall the reasons I have shown To prove th' immortall state of men deceast Evolved reason cannot stand at one Stoutly to guard thy soul from passion They passe successively like sand i' th' glasse While thou look'st upon this the other's gone But there 's a plight of soul such virtue has Which reasons weak assistance strangely doth surpasse 12 The just and constant man a multitude Set upon mischief cannot him constrain To do amisse by all their uprores rude Not for a tyrants threat will he ere stain His inward honour The rough Adrian Tost with unquiet winds doth nothing move His steddy heart Much pleasure he doth gain To see the glory of his Master Jove When his drad darts with hurrying light through all do rove 13 If Heaven and Earth should rush with a great noise he fearlesse stands he knows whom he doth trust Is confident of his souls after joyes Though this vain bulk were grinded into dust Strange strength resideth in the soul that 's just She feels her power how 't commands the sprite Of the low man vigorously finds she must Be independent of such feeble might Whose motions dare not 'pear before her awfull fight 14 But yet my Muse still take an higher flight Sing of Platonick Faith in the first Good That Faith that doth our souls to God unite So strongly tightly that the rapid floud Of this swift flux of things nor with foul mud Can stain nor strike us off from th' unity Wherein we stedfast stand unshak'd unmov'd Engrafted by a deep vitality The prop and stay of things is Gods benignity 15 Al 's is the rule of his Oeconomie No other cause the creature brought to light But the first Goods pregnant fecundity He to himself is perfect full delight He wanteth nought with his own beams bedight He glory has enough O blasphemy That envy gives to God or soure despight Harsh hearts that feign in God a tyranny Under pretense t' encrease his sovereign Majesty 16 When nothing can to Gods own self accrew Who 's infinitely happy sure the end Of this creation simply was to shew His flowing goodnesse which he doth out send Not for himself for nought can him amend But to his creature doth his good impart This infinite Good through all the world doth wend To fill with heavenly blisse each willing heart So the free Sunne doth ' light and ' liven every part