he saw the back-side of him whom he had heard in White and Galloping away upon a white Horse he called after him Marsilius Marsilius and followed him with his Eye but he soon vanished out of sight He amazed at this extraordinary Accident very solicitously enquired if any thing had happened to Marsilius who then lived at Florence where he had breath'd his last and he found upon strict Enquiry that he died at that very time wherein he was thus heard and seen by him And Sophronius Bishop of (a) Prat. Spir. c. 195. Referente Baroniâ— ad An. 411. Jerusalem delivereth this Passage to Posterity as a most certain thing That Leontius Apamiensis a most Faithful Religious Man that had lived many Years at Cyrene assured them that Synesius who of a Philosopher became a Bishop found at Cyrene one Evagrius a Philosopher who had been his old Acquaintance Fellow-Student and intimate Friend but an obstinate Heathen and Synesius was earnest with him to become a Christian but all in vain yet did he still follow him with those Arguments that might satisfie him of the Christian Verity and at last the Philosopher told him That to him it seemed but a meer Fable and Deceit that the Christian Religion teacheth Men that this World shall have an end and that all Men shall rise again in these Bodies and their Flesh be made Immortal and Incorruptible and that they shall so Live for ever and receive the Reward of all that they have done in the Body and that he that hath pity on the Poor lendeth to the Lord and he that gives to the Poor and Needy shall have Treasures in Heaven and shall receive an hundred fold from Christ together with Eternal Life these things he derided Synesius by many Arguments assured him that all these things were certainly true and at last the Philosopher and his Children were Baptized A while after he comes to Synesius and brings him three hundred Pound of Gold for the Poor and bid him take it but give him a Bill under his Hand that Christ should re-pay it him in another World Synesius took the Money for the Poor and gave him under his hand such a Bill as he desired Not long after the Philosopher being near to Death commanded his Sons that when they buried him they should put Synesius Bill in his Hand in the Grave which they did And the third Day after the Philosopher seemed to appear to Synesius in the Night and said to him Come to my Sepulchre where I lye and take thy Bill for I have Received the Debt and am satisfied which for thy Assurance I have Subscribed with my own Hand The Bishop knew not that the Bill was buried with him but sent to his Sons who told him all and taking them and the chief Men of the City he went to the Grave and found the Paper in the hands of the Corps thus Subscribed I Evagrius the Philosopher to thee most Holy Sir Bishop Synesius greeting I have received the Debt which in this Paper is written with thy hands and I am satisfied and I have no Law or Action against thee for the Gold which I gave to thee and by thee to Christ our Lord and Saviour They that saw the thing admired and glorified God that gave such wonderful Evidence of his Promises to his Servants And saith Leontius this Bill Subscribed thus by the Philosopher is kept at Cyrene most carefully in the Church to this Day to be seen of such as do desire it As to these Apparitions of the Dead Although it cannot be denied but in some grand and extraordinary Cases as the Resurrection of those dead which appeared upon our Saviour's Crucifixion and the Apparition of Moses and Elias at the Transfiguration And in some other Cases as many Instances might be reckon'd up The Departed may Converse with us or appear but perhaps ordinarily Apparitions are not the Souls of the Dead but of other Spirits and mostly of evil ones Augustine was of this Opinion and said if 't was a common thing he was sure his Mother Monica wou'd have appear'd to him whose Love was so extraordinary great whilest living Neither had Dear Eliza a lesser Concern for my Souls welfare than Monica had for her Son Augustine and cou'd She come again I 'm sure She wou'd to tell me what she (a) She 'd often say in her Sickness Well 'twont be long now e'r I shall know what 's the Future State learnt by dying and to assist me in all my Distresses These with some other credible Instances which have occur'd argue that either some departed Souls have particular Commissions in this Case or that all of them have a Cognizance of our Affairs agreeable to the Parable of Dives and Lazarus and that of the Angels in Heaven rejoycing at the Conversion of a Sinner And it must be a Truth if departed Souls and Angels come under the same Predicament as to their Essence and I don 't yet know in what they differ But have the Saints in Heaven such a general Knowledge of their Friends that arrive there and of those they left behind them in the State of Mortality then I 'd further know says another Querist Whether they see and know the wicked in Hell and whether the Damned particularly know those that are in Heaven who in this Life they scorned and abused and possibly were Instruments by some violent Means of hastening them thither and also whether they know one another in Hell or their Companions in Sin which they left on Earth To this I Answer this presupposes another Question viz. In what state or condition the Bodies of the Just and Vnjust shall arise at the Day of Judgment The Consequence of which Answer will Resolve the Question In order to which I affirm That they shall both arise alike equally Immortal and equally qualified for an Eternity of Duration diversified in nothing but their last Sentence Neither State shall so much as change a Thought but think of all things together which will be actually present to the Intellect of both We shall then see not by receiving the visible Species into the narrow glass of an Organized Eye we shall then hear without the distinct and curious Contexture of the Ear. The Body shall then be all Eye all Ear all Sense in the whole and every Sense in every part In a word it shall be all over a common Sensorium and being made of the purest Aether without the mixture of any lower or grosser Element the Soul shall by one undivided Act at once Perceive all that variety of Objects which now cannot without several distinct Organs and successive Actions or Passions reach our Sense Every Sense shall be Perfect the Ear shall hear every thing at once throughout the spacious Limits both of Heaven and Hell with a Perfect Distinction and without Confounding that Anthem with this Blasphemy the Eye shall find no Matter or Substance to fix it and
Dear that Conjugal Affection can be dissolved by Death The Arms of Love are long enough to reach from Earth to Heaven Fruition and Possession principally appertain to the Imagination If we enjoy nothing but what we touch we may say farewell to the Money in our Closets and to our Friends when they go to Agford Part us and you kill us nay if we wou'd we cannot part Death 't is true may divide our Bodies but nothing else and scarce that For to use your Words whilst alive We may on Earth lawfully please our selves with Hopes of meeting hereafter and in lying in the same Grave where we shall be happy together if a senceless Happiness can be call'd so But suppose Death shou'd part our Bodies yet we have Souls to be sure and whilst they can meet and carress one another we may enjoy each other were we the length of the Map asunder Thus we may double Bliss stoln Love enjoy And all the spight of Place and Friends defie For ever thus we might each other bless For none cou'd trace out this new Happiness No Argus here to spoil or make it less 'T is not properly Absence when we can see one another as to be sure we shall tho in a State of Separation ' For sight of Spirits is unprescrib'd by Space ' What see they not who see the Eternal Face Vid. P. 54. in the Essay The Eyes of the Saints shall out-see the Sun and behold without Perspective the extreamest distances for if there shall be in our Glorified Eyes the Faculty of Sight and Reception of Objects as I prove to Ignotus there shall I cou'd think the visible Species there to be in as unlimitable a way as now the Intellectual St. Augustine tells us The Saints of God even with the Eyes of their Bodies closed up as now Yours are shall see all things not only present but also that from which they are Corporally absent for then shall be the Perfection whereof the Apostle saith we Prophesie but in part then the Imperfect shall be taken away Whither this be so I cannot say tho you know who have shot the Gulf yet sure I am that nothing can deprive me of the Enjoyment of thy Vertues while I enjoy my self Nay I have sometimes made good use of my Separation from thee we better fill'd and farther extended the Possession of our Lives in being parted you lived rejoyced and saw for me and I for you as plainly as if you had your self been there The World may perhaps censure this as a piece of Flattery or at least as the Fruit of unwarrantable Passion but had they known thy Worth as I did they would not presume so much as to blame me The Letter you sent me (a) Printed in Mr. Turner's History of Remarmable Providences p. 146. in your last Sickness shews thou' rt above Praise I 'll insert it here as a Proof of this and as a Pattern for other Wives Thy Letter 's this Viz. I received my Dearest thy obliging Letter and thankfully own that tho God has exercised me with a long and languishing Sickness and my Grave lies in view yet he hath dealt tenderly with me so that I find by Experience no Compassions are like those of a God 'T is true I have scarce Strength to answer your Letter but seeing you desire a few Lines to keep as a Memorial of our Constant Love I 'll attempt something tho by reason of my present Weakness I can write nothing worth your Reading First then As to your Character of me Love blinds you for I don't deserve it but am pleased to find you enjoy by the help of a strong Fancy that Happiness which I can't tho I wou'd bestow But Opinion is the rate of things and if you think your self happy you are so As to my self I have met with more and greater Comforts in a Marry'd State than ever I did expect But how cou'd it be otherwise when Inclination Interest and all that can be desired concur to make up the Harmony From our Marriage till now thy Life has been one continued Act of Courtship and sufficiently upbraids that Indifference which is found among Married People Thy Concern for my present Sickness tho of long Continuance has been so Remarkably tender that were it but known to the World 't would once more bring into Fashion Mens loving their Wives Thy WILL alone is a Noble Pattern for others to Love by and is such an Original Piece as will ne'er be equall'd I next come to consider the Imprudence of where I must say I am so far from blaming your Conduct that I admire the Greatness of your Conjugal Love in that very Particular which shewed it self to be like the Apple of the Eye which is disturbed with the least Dust But my Dear be concern'd at nothing for I am pleased with all you say or do and have such a Kindness for you that I dread the Thoughts of surviving thee more than I do those of Death Cou'd you think I 'd marry again when it has been one great Comfort under all my Languishments to think I should die first and that I shall live in him who ever since the happy Vnion of our Souls has been more dear to me than Life it self I shall only add my hearty Prayer That God wou'd bless you both in Soul and Body and that when you die you may be convey'd by the Angels into Abraham's Bosom where I hope you 'll find Your Constant E This Letter shews what a Wife thou wert and justifies this Address but to shew thy Piety was the same in Health as on a Sick-bed I 'll trace thy Life from the Cradle to the Grave And here when I remember you Unmarried in your Father's Family in your Blooming Years and Flaming Piety How does it pierce my Soul with fresh pangs of my first Love and sometimes transports me so far with the Thoughts of my Beloved Object that I am ready to forget I have lost her and willing to indulge my self as Men do in a Dream that they actually are in Possession of that which they admire but when I come to my self again and consider that I have lost thee the Thoughts of thy Excellency renders me inconsolable Again when I reflect on the Love of our Espousals our Mutual Affection and Endearments which many Waters could (a) When I went beyond Sea I gave Eliza a Ring with this Inscription Cant. 8.7 not quench nor distance of Place diminish I fancy my self in the midst of Greater Pleasures than the Poets ever fancied in their Elisian Fields My old Joys begin to revive and their Fruit is sweet to my Taste but when I consider that God hath poured out such a bitter Cup to me as the depriving me of one half of my Soul I am not able to contain my self nor to express my Grief In the next place when I think on the Sweets I enjoyed by thy Excellent Society who
of a different splendor and as the Stars the Air and Water by their borrowed Lights do raise us to behold the Sun the Fountain of all that Light so wheresoever the Rays of Glory are cast whether on Angels or Men we cannot but behold God shining on each Nature and confess Him to be All in All. Moreover it is not a glance but a fixing on the Creature which in that state is not to be feared can endanger our Happiness otherwise neither God nor Angels are truly Blessed for the Divinity of former Ages would persuade us That God as it were cometh daily out of Himself to behold his own Image in the Angels and the Angels look upon the same Resemblance as cast from them and reflected by the Soul but neither God nor Angels are so ravished with those dimmer Beauties as to dwell upon them but do suddenly return back to the Fountain God to Himself and the Angels unto God Thus have I Answered two of the Objections Against knowing our Friends in Heaven and have proved we shall know 'em if we get thither since Heaven is a Place where since nothing requisite to happiness can be wanting we may well suppose that we shall not want so great a satisfaction as that of being knowingly happy in our other selves our Friends c. Object 3. But how can it be may some say that the Saints can know their Earthly Acquaintance again after so great an alteration by the Resurrection and so great an addition of Luster and Beauty to what they had before when many times we can hardly know a man again here after some Years absence or after the disfigurement of a Wound or sharp Disease Neither do I know one Angel in Heâ—ven or the Spirits of any Just men that are gone thither so that when I come there I mâ—â—ike â—o be a meer stranger to that Blessed * As was hinted at the beginning of this Essay Company To this I Answer First as to the Angels What if thou knowest not one Angel in all the Heavens Is it not enough says a late Writer That many of 'em may know thee But how shall I know that How Thou hast been their special Charge ever since thou wast born to Jesus Christ Are they not all Ministring Spirits to all them that are Heirs of Glory How kindly did an Angel Comfort Mary Magdalen and the other Mary when they early came to visit the Holy Sepulchre of our Lord How well did he know their Persons and their business when he said Fear not I know that ye seek Jesus which was Crucified he is not here for he is Risen as he said come see the place where the Lord lay and go quickly and tell his Disciples that he is Risen from the Dead and behold he goeth before you into Galilee there shall ye see him Mat. 28.5 So as I have told you what Discourse could be more kind friendly and famliar So that the Ministration of Angels is certain but the manner how is the Knot to be untied 'T was generally believ'd by the Antient Philosophers That not only Kingdoms had their Tutelary Guardians but that every Person had his particular Genius or Good Angel to Protect and Admonish him by Dreams Visions c. We read that Origen Hierome Plato and Empedocles in Plutarch were also of this Opinion and the Jews themselves as appears by that Instance of Peter's Deliverance out of Prison who retreating to his Friend's House the unexpectedness of his Escape made 'em believe it could not be Peter but his Angel We are not without Examples of the Friendly Offices of Angels Witness Grinaeus his Admonition and Escape from Spires Vide Melancthon's Commentary upon Daniel Bodinus his Relation of his Friend 's Calestial Monitor with many more which would be too tedious to recount particularly We possitively affirm say the Athenians that every Infant has his particular Angel Matth. 18.10 and that it is a good Angel is deducible from Matth. 19.14 nor can we believe that good Angels cease to preside over Adult Persons thâ— never so Vicious Luke 15.10 Now if God has commissioned his Angels to minister to his Saints to defend and keep them to guard and shield them from Dangers and Mischiefs and if these glorious Harbingers bear so * See Mr. Steven's Sermons on Dives and Lazarus great Love to Men as has been plainly prov'd doubtless they are very ready to receive and carry the Souls of good Men into Heaven one of the Fathers calls the Angels Evocatores Animarum the Callers forth of Souls and such as shew them Paraturam Diversorii the Preparations of those Mansions they are going to which supposes a very particular Knowledge of them Hence we observe says the same Author when good Men die they are often in silent Raptures and express a kind of Impatience till they are dissolv'd and why because they Spiritually see what they cannot utter as did St. Paul when he was wrapt up into the third Heaven There is a kind of a draught presented to them by their Guardian Angels of those Transcendent Joys they are almost ready to enter in Possession of and therefore long and pine till they are convey'd into that place of unspeakable Felicity and these Heavenly Spirits adds this Author succour and support them under their Pain and Sickness and when their Souls are storm'd out of their Bodies they encompass and embrace them soaring through the Regions of evil Angels as the Text speaks concerning Lazarus till they are carry'd into Abraham 's Bosom And as the Angels shall know us so the Saints shall see and know the innumerable Company of Angels their Natures each of their Persons in particular As the Angels know every Elect Person because it is their work to gather the Elect from all the Corners of the Earth and to sepaparate them from the wicked Matth. 13.41 so the Glorified Saints shall know the Holy Angels whom the Lord sent forth to minister for them whom the Lord appointed for their Guard while they were upon Earth who encamped round about them while they were encompassed with so many Dangers Some Divines are of Opinion that the number of the Angels is so great that they exceed without comparison all Corporal and Material Things in the Earth Again If every one of the Angels yea tho it be the least Angel among them all be more beautiful and goodly to behold than alâ— this visible World what a Glorious Sight shall it then be to see and know such a number of beautiful Angels to see the Perfections and Offices that every one hath in that high and glorious City There do the Angels go as it were in Embassages are exercised in their Ministry there the Principalities and Thrones Triumph there do the Cherubims give Light and the Seraphims burn with Fervent Love to God Who all like Stars have Brightness from his Rays And they Reflect it back again in Praise Mr. Foe All the