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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B10083	Tracts theological. I. Asceticks, or, the heroick piety and vertue of the ancient Christian anchorets and coenobites. II. The life of St. Antony out of the Greek of Sr. Athanasius. III. The antiquity and tradition of mystical divinity among the Gentiles. IV. Of the guidance of the spirit of God, upon a discourse of Sir Matthew Hale's concerning it. V. An invitation to the Quakers, to rectifie some errors, which through the scandals given they have fallen into.	Stephens, Edward, d. 1706.; Stephens, Edward, d. 1706. Asceticks, or, the heroick piety and virtue of the ancient Christian anchorets and coenobites.; Stephens, Edward, d. 1706. Life of St. Antony.; Stephens, Edward, d. 1706. Antiquity, tradition, and succession of mystical divinity among the Gentiles.; Stephens, Edward, d. 1706. Enthusiasmus divinus: the guidance of the spirit of God.; Stephens, Edward, d. 1706. Apology for, and an invitation to, the people call'd Quakers, to rectifie some errors, which through the scandals given they have fallen into.	1697 (1697)	Wing S5444E; Wing S5444E; ESTC R184630	221,170	486

heal'd many wounded Persons and others that were wounded in their Understandings And many Greeks desir'd to touch the Old Man believing they should be benefitted thereby By this means there were as many Christians in a few Days as us'd to be made in a whole Year Some Persons thought the Crowd was too troublesome to him and therefore kept Persons from pressing upon him But he was not disturb'd with them and said to them The People are not more in Number than those Devils with which I have contended in the Mountain When he went away we went before him 43. And as we were just at the Gate as it were a Woman cry'd out O Man of God pray tarry a little for my Daughter is grievously troubled with a Devil Tarry I pray thee lest I also fall into some danger by running after thee When the Old Man heard her he willingly tarry'd at our Entreaty so the Woman drew near and the Maid fell upon the Ground and when Antony had pray'd and mention'd Christ the Maid rose up very well for the Unclean Spirit was gone out of her and the Maid bless'd God and all the Spectators gave Thanks and St. Antony himself also was very glad and return'd to his own abode in the Mount He was also very prudent and which is very strange though illiterate he was a very piercing and judicious Man 44. Once there came to him Two Greek Philosophers with a design to try him now at that time he was in the outer part of the Mountain St. Antony perceiv'd what kind of Men they were by their Looks and spoke thus to them by an Interpreter O ye Philosophers Why did you trouble your selves to come to such a simple Fellow But they reply'd That he was not so but very prudent If ye come to a silly Fellow said Antony your Labour is lost and to no purpose But if ye think otherwise become such as I am for we should imitate all things that are fair and commendable Had I come to you I would have imitated you Since therefore ye come to me become such Men as I am for I am a Christian But they admiring withdrew for they saw the Devils dreading Antony 45. Others also met him there thinking to scoff at him because he had not learnt to read Said Antony pray answer me one Question Which think ye is first the Mind or the Alphabet Whether of the two is the Authour and cause of the other the Mind of Letters or Letters of the Mind They answered The Mind is first and the Inventer of Letters Well then saith Antony Whoso has a sound Mind stands in no need of Letters Which Answer astonish'd them and all that were with them so they went away admiring to see so much Understanding in a private Man for though he grew Old in the Desart yet he was not Savage in his Carriage like a Mountaineer but he was Courteous and Civil His Mind and Discourse was season'd with Divine Salt so that none envy'd him but all that visited him took delight in him 46. After this some Pretenders to Wisdom among the Greeks came to him and demanded of him an account of his Christian Belief and made offers to dispute subtilly with him about the Divine Cross in order to mock him St. Antony having paus'd a while and pity'd their Ignorance spoke very well to them by an Interpreter to this Effect Which of the Two is more laudable to confess a Cross or to charge those whom ye call Gods with Adulteries and Sodomies For our Confession is a sign of Manliness and Contempt of Death but yours are the Passions of Lasciviousness Which is better to say That the Wisdom of God was not chang'd but for the sake of Salvation and Beneficence to Men assum'd an Humane Body that by Communion with the Humane Race he might make Men partake of a Divine and Intellectual Nature or To liken the Deity to Irrational Beings and so worship four-footed Creatures and creeping things and Statues of Men For these are the Adorations of your Wise Men. Moreover How dare ye deride us who say That Christ did appear a Man when ye deriving the Soul from the Divine Mind say That it wandred and lapsed from Heaven into the Body and I wish it did not pass not only into an Humane Body but into four-footed and creeping Creatures Our Faith saith That Christ came for the Salvation of Men but ye erring say The Soul is not generated We consider the Power and Philanthropy of God because this was not impossible with God But ye saying That the Soul is the Image of the Mind yet attribute Lapses to it and fable it to be changeable and by consequence introduce the Mind as changeable by the Soul for such as was the Image such must that of which 't is the Image necessarily be But when ye have such Thoughts as these concerning the Mind pray consider that ye blaspheme the Father of the Mind himself And as for the Cross What can ye say of it When ye see wicked Men ensnare us ye see we are ready to endure the Cross and to contemn Death whensoever or wheresoever forc'd upon us Alas the Fables of the Rovings of Osiris and Isis and the Treachery of Typho and the Flight of Saturn and Gormandizings of Children and of Paracide What are these Yet these are your wise Contrivances and mighty Foundations But moreover How comes it to pass that when ye despise the Cross ye don't admire the Resurrection since those who speak of one have also writ of the other or Why are ye when ye remember the Cross silent of the Dead rais'd the Blind who had their Sight restor'd the Sick of the Palsie who were heal'd and the Lepers that were cleans'd and the walking a Foot on the Sea and other Signs and Wonders which shew Christ not to be meer Man but God also Truly to my mind ye do your selves wrong and have not read our Writings with Sincerity But pray read and see that the things which Jesus did shew Him to be God pilgrimaging upon Earth for the Souls of Men But pray tell us of your great Signs 47. What can ye plead for Irrational Gods and their Savageness Ye may if ye please fly to shelter by Allegorising Let Proserpine be the Earth Vulcan's Lameness the Fire Juno the Air Apollo the Sun Diana the Moon and Neptune the Sea But nevertheless this does not make it any more the Worship of God This is to serve the Creatures more than the Creatour for ye have compacted these Stories out of the Consideration of the Creation's being Beautiful These Works should be admir'd but they should not have been made Gods for by this means ye have given the Architect's Honour to the things that he Built which is just like paying that Honour to the House which is due to the Builder or the mis-placing the General 's Honour on the Common Souldiers Come answer me these Questions that

but by the Flower of the Mind the very Phrase used by Proclus and the same which the Mysticks call the Fund of the Spirit of the Soul 's being inebriated from God which Plotinus calls being drunk with the Divine Nectar and Psellus explains of Divine Illuminations and Extasies of Abstraction from the Body and extending the Mind upwards and hastening to the Divine Light and the Beams of the Father with several other passages to the same purpose And for the EGYPTIANS the same Author tells us That Jamblicus in his Book of the Egyptian Mysteries which he writ in answer to an Epistle of Porphyry to an Egyptian Priest and wherein Proclus saith that he writ like a Man inspir'd discourses at large concerning Divine Extasies and Visions and Inspirations in which he describes the Persons just after the Mystical way as no longer leading a humane Life or having any Operations of their Senses or Vnderstanding but their Mind and Soul is only in the Divine Power and not in their own being acted and possessed wholly by it Afterward he sets down the several Degrees and Kinds of those in some they have only Participation in others near Communion and in the highest of all Vnion In some of these he saith the Body wholly rests and sometimes breaks out into Singing and all expressions of Joy sometimes the Body is raised up from the Ground as M. Teresa thought hers sometimes it swells into a greater bulk and sometimes the contrary Then he lays down Rules to know Divine Inspirations by viz. by Enquiring In what manner God appears Whether an appearance of Fire come before Him Whether he fills up and acts the whole Soul so that there is a Cessation of all its own Acts For this he makes the main Character of a Divine Inspiration that the Persons are wholly taken up and possessed by the Deity from whence follows an Extasie and alienation of the Senses But if either the Soul acts or the Body moves then he saith it may be a false Inspiration No Man can express himself more emphatically concerning the Excellency of Contemplative Prayer than Jamblicus doth This quickens the Mind inlargeth its Capacity opens the Secrets of the Divinity and fits it for Conjunction and Vnion with God and never leaves Men till it hath carried them to a State of Perfection and by degrees doth alter and change Men that it makes them put off Humane Nature and bring them into such a State of Dei-formity that they become Gods The first degree of Prayer saith he brings to a State of Recollection and hath some Divine Contact which helps our Knowledge The second carries the Soul to a nearer Communion with God and excites the Divine Bounty to freer Communications to it But the third is the Seal of the ineffable Vnion which makes our Mind Soul to rest in God as a Divine Port or Haven And he concludes his Book with saying That this Vnion with God is Man's greatest Perfection and the End of all Religion among the Egyptians whose Mysteries his Design was to explain and vindicate Many other Passages might be produced out of him concerning the Knowing of God by Divine Contact and the Insufficiency of any Act of the Mind for this ineffable Vnion but these are enough to shew how well acquainted Jamblicus and if we believe him the Egyptians were with the profoundest Secrets of Mystical Divinity There is a Book translated out of Arabick intituled Of Divine Wisdom according to the Egyptians wherein are many things to this purpose but our Author takes notice but of one passage in it which he sets down as the Words of Plato But before we come to Plato it is fit to be noted that PYTHAGORAS and the PYTHAGORIANS could not but be well acquainted with this Mystical Theology though they did not ordinarily deliver it in such express terms but in a more occult manner For it is known confessed That Pythagoras himself was from his Youth greatly inclin'd to an Inquisition into Religious Rites and Mysteries That he travelled into Egypt to hear their Priests was there 22 Years had recommendations from the King to the Priests and was permitted to acquaint himself with all their Learning entred into the Egyptian Adyta and was instituted in things unexpressible touching the Gods gave himself exact Information concerning Persons and Things not omitting any Person eminent at any time for Learning or any kind of Religious Rites or any Place where he conceived he might find somewhat extraordinary That he went thence to Babylon and continued there 12 Years conversed with the most Eminent of the Chaldeans as also with the Persian Magi who entertained him very courteously gave him insight into their more hidden Mysteries and Religious Rites and without doubt with the most Eminent for Knowledge of the Jews in both places and likely enough as Selden and others think with Ezekiel in particular That he made Theology or the Knowledge of God the First most Universal Being the Centre of all his Philosophy That he was by way of Eminency call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his Philosophy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he treated chiefly of God his Nature and Worship That he was a great Devoto or Advocate for God his Worship and Sacred Institutes That the Confederation of his Coenobium for so they called it or College had reference to some Divine Temperament and to Union with God and to Unity with the Divine Soul That the Institutions of his Society and Sect for the Admission and Probation of Disciples distinction of Persons Reverence to their Elders Celibacie Communion of Goods Retirement from the World c. were very much the same with those of the Esseans and the Christian Coenobites afterward That of the differing Sects afterward none did Pythagorize more than Plato especially in Divine matters as Aristotle and Laertius have observed yea that the choicest of his Metaphysick Contemplations seem to be traduced from Pythagoras and his Followers and that Plotinus did more clearly explicate the Principles of the Pythagorick Philosophy as well as of the Platonick And from all this put together we may very reasonably conclude especially if we take in what is related by Jamblicus That he continued 3 days and 2 nights at one time in the same Posture without taking either Meat or Drink or Sleep lib. 1. cap. 3. That he must have been well acquainted with this Mystick Theology which was in such Esteem with both those from whom he recieved Instructions and those who received from him and that in Plotinus and others we read the Pythagorick as well as Platonick Principles and that in both was a mixture of the Judaick and what was derived by all from the Common Parent Noah To this I will add only a Passage or two of his out of Demophilus Being born of God and rooted in Him let us cleave to our Root For the Streams of the Waters and the Sprouts of the Earth if they

that the only Way for our Souls to recover themselves is to bring them into themselves by which Means the True Being is present with them and we become united to God Which Vnion of the Soul with God Holstenius thinks it very probable that Porphyry understood by the Book which he mentions in the Life of Plotinus called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sacred Nuptials because both Plotinus and he supposed this Union to be wrought by the Power of Divine Love as well as the Mystical Divines and Porphyry saith upon the reading of it some thought him Mad because there were several things spoken in it after a Mystical and Enthusiastical manner for which he was highly applauded by Plotinus Jamblicus was Porphyry's Disciple but out of him our Author recites no more than what is set down before concerning the Egyptian Mysteries but out of PROCLVS another Platonick Philosopher who lived long after these and of whom Marinus gives this Character towards the Conclusion of his Life That his Soul was so recollected and drawn into its self that it seemed to be separated from the Body while it remained in it he hath this passage In the beginning of his Theology saith he he distinguisheth between that Intellectual Faculty in us whereby we are capable of Vnderstanding the Nature and Difference of Intelligible Idea's and that which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Summity as the Mysticks speak and pure Fund of the Spirit which he saith is alone capable of the Divine and Mystical Vnion so he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For saith he though there be many Intellectual Powers in us yet it is by this only that we can be united to the Divinity and be made partakers of it For we cannot reach the Divine Being either by our Senses or by Opinion or by Apprehension no nor yet by Ratiocination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It remains therefore that if the Divine Nature can any ways be known by us it must be by the Essence of the Soul For the Soul being drawn into its own Vnity and removing from it self the Multiplicity of its Powers it ascends to the greatest height of true Contemplation While the Soul looks about on things below it it sees nothing but Shadows and Images of things When it comes to a State of Introversion then it sees its own Essence and Operations of the Vnderstanding But when it searches deeper then it finds the Mind within it self and the several Orders of real Beings When it goes yet farther into the most secret Closet of the Soul there it contemplates as it were blindfold the Divine Beings and the first Idea's or Vnities of Beings And this saith he is the most excellent Operation of the Soul in the Rest or Quiescency of its Powers to stretch it self toward the Divine Nature and dance as it were round it and to raise up the whole Soul towards this Vnion with it and abstracting it self from all Inferior Beings to rest upon and be conjoyned with that Ineffable and Super-essential Being And by this means the Soul comes to have the truest Vnderstanding of all things All these Notions saith our Author both among the Chaldeans and the Platonick Philosophers are built upon a very ancient Hypothesis but very different from that of Christianity which Hypothesis being granted this Mystical Divinity appears with some face of Reason and colour of Probability It was this That the Souls of Men did exist in another World long before they came into the Body that in their Descent to the Body they had an Aetherial Vehicle joyned to them which upon the conjunction of the Soul and Body became the Means of Communication between them and takes up its chief Seat in the Brain which is the same which we call the Imagination that the Soul being in this state is apt to be much inveigled with Kindness to the Body and so forget its Return home that the Body is capable of doing the Soul mischief no other way being it self under the power of Fate then as it draws it downward that the Mind being the upper part of the Soul is always acting but we know not its operations but only by the Impressions they make upon the Phansie that the Mind hath the true Idea's of things within it self but we are deceived by the Representations conveyed by our Imagination and therefore our Ratiocination is very short and uncertain that our only way of Recovering our Souls is by drawing them off from the Body and retiring into themselves and that upon this the Mind hath the Divine Being so nearly conjoyned to it that it passeth into a Divine Nature and recovers its former State when it parts from the Body But because it is not to return alone without the Aetherial Vehicle it brought with it therefore the Chaldeans and Egyptians had several Sacred and Symbolical Rites for the purifying of the Vehicle as they called it which they made necessary for this End and with them Jamblicus joyns but Porphyry thought them not necessary but that Philosophy and meer Contemplation would purifie enough without it This is the true Account of their Hypothesis as may be fully seen in Hierocles and Synesius without going farther and was the first Foundation of Mystical Divinity which I will not deny to be well enough accommodated to it But it is as remote from Christianity as the Hypothesis it self is This is said by our Author to disparage Mystical Divinity because he supposeth it will not be consented to by any that are Friends to it But how doth it appear that this Hypothesis was the first Foundation of Mystical Divinity which for any thing he hath shewed to the contrary may be more ancient than it His bare affirmation in his own Case certainly is not to be admitted for Proof But in case that were admitted how is that different from Christianity for he would not say contrary though no doubt many of his Readers would be apt to take it so The Jews did believe it before our Saviour's time the Apocrypha doth favour it the Apostle's Question concerning the Man who was born Blind doth favour it nor doth our Saviour's Answer at all contradict it but rather suppose it and it hath been asserted by Learned Men both of the Church of England and other Protestants from Proofs of Scripture as well as Reason His Conclusion also is observable that Mystical Divinity is as remote from Christianity as the Hypothesis it self such another cautious Expression not to expose himself but by which the generality of his Readers may easily be imposed upon Truth is a very venerable thing and Divine matters ought to be treated with great Reverence the very Heathen Mysticks would have thought so whatever our Rationatists think Besides these ancient Philosophers our Author takes notice of the like Notions and Practices among other Gentiles even at this day but of what antiquity amongst them he saith not It is taken from a Letter of Monfieur