abstinence and force they offer to nature and the very kinds of their works which cannot be understood of any other than the Egyptian Monks and so Petavius and Holstenius confess And after he hath thus described them he gives this character of their way that it was barbarous and contrary to human nature for saith he we are not pure and unmixed minds but joyned together with bodies so that we cannot be wholly imployed in contemplation of divine things but our minds must divert themselves to other matters and this saith he they confess themselves by the great necessity of working which they lay upon all I could wish that we were so framed that we could live wholly in contemplation but since that is impossible I wish then saith he sometimes to be taken up with the best things and at other times to partake something of the delight and pleasure of life For I know my self to be a man and not a God to be wholly above these pleasures nor a beast to be under the power of them and therefore that state of life which is between these 〈◊〉 most agreeable to human nature And then falls upon them for preferring manual labour before the exercise and improvement of the mind in knowledge and useful Learning which is both an imployment and pleasure to the mind But in their adamantin way as he calls it there is no order no gradual improvement but all depends upon motions and impulses and strange heats and transports whereby they hope for the end without the means and aim at things above reason without the exercise of it How do these things agree to be now above the Heavens and presently to be twisting Reeds and making Baskets But mans excellency lyes in his Reason which they take the least care about and those will attain mans end the soonest that act most agreeably to his nature He doth not deny that there have been some extraordinary minds which without arts or improvements can do as much as others with them but these are as rare as the Phoenix in Egypt but the common sort of mankind are uncapable of this and all their labour and pains is to no purpose that think to attain to the perfection of the mind by any other way than by improvement of the mind it self And it is not safe or lawful for us to think that God should dwell in any other part of us than in our mind which is his proper Seat They mightily cry up temperance and continence and admire themselves for those things which in themselves are the least any further than they serve to higher ends And afterwards he takes notice of their confident pretences to the knowledge of divine things they saith he are Divines like Cadmus his souldiers sprung out of the earth and in good earnest condemns them at last not only for their barbarous way of living but for a strange mixture of Pride and Ignorance having very absurd opinions and yet very arrogantly assuming to themselves a greater measure of divine knowledge than others had for they had a particular way of improving their minds by ignorance which was a sort of Mystical Divinity among them too By this and his Epistle to Hypâ—tia wherein he describes them again by those peculiar vertues of their ignorance and confidence we may see what opinion this great man had of the Monastick way when it was in its greatest height and it was not a meer matter of hypocrisie as it hath been for the greatest part in the Western Church but men did truly and honestly live in poverty and real abstinence and continual labour with Psalms and prayers hoping by those means to come to the greatest perfection of our Souls but he saw through all this and found that when they labour'd only or chiefly to keep down the inclinations of the body spiritual pride and self-opinion were like to get the better of their Souls And S. Hierome who had some experience of this way describes the temptation of spiritual Pride as the most common and dangerous snare which the most severe and mortified men were apt to fall into nay he saith that Antony himself fell into this by reflecting on the perfection of his life and that he was cured by an Angel which revealed to him the greater perfection of Paul the Eremite One would wonder to meet with so many combats with Devils as we find in the History of the old Monks either it was as S. Hierome intimates concerning some that they feigned them for greater reputation among the people or that state could not be so much perâ—â—cter than others wherein the Devils were allowed to converse so much more freely with men than in other places And if any one will read but S. Ieroms description of his own temptations in the Desarts or his life of Hilarion he will easily find it is not running away from the world will make men more perfect unless they could leave their passions behind them and that a constant care of our mind and actions in the midst of our imployments is not only more pleasing to God but a more likely way to subdue all disorderly passions than the severest life of a Monk or an Eremite We have no reason then to believe that either the Monastick state at first or the Benedictin Rule did come from any divine inspiration but as this was borrowed from the former Rules so the former was taken up out of an unreasonable opinion that God is better pleased by our running from the World than by serving him in it § 8. 2. That the Benedictin Rule hath manifest signs of human Weakness in it and therefore cannot be supposed to come from divine inspiration Of which the first is misapplication of Scripture To this purpose the Person of Honour mentions the bringing of that place We have not received the spirit of Bondage again to fear but the spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father to prove that the Abbot doth supply the Room of Christ in the Monastery Christ himself being the supream Abbot To which Mr. Cr. answers by expressing his wonder how he could find the least defect incongruity or want of prudence in that passage and he spends very needless pains to prove that Abbots being lawful Superiours for the direction of Souls the most proper title that can be given them is that of Father and that Abba signifies Father Very well but what is this to the producing that place for it methinks Our Father which art in Heaven had been altogether as proper for that would have shewed the title of the Abbot as well and withall that the Abbot was Gods Vicar upon earth God himself being their Abbot in Heaven And if S. Benedict had thought upon this place all that Mr. Cr. saith would have held as well to prove there was not the least incongruity in producing it and it would have afforded altogether as useful an admonition to the
Abbots to govern as Fathers and not to Tyrannize as Lords But there is yet farther incongruity in it for as the Person of Honour observes S. Benedict brings this in to prove that the Abbot supplies the Room of Christ in the Monastery Christienim agere vices in Monasterio creditur quando ipsius vocatur praenomine whereas there is no such thing in the Text Christ is not called there by the name Abba but God the Father for after they are said by the spirit of Adoption to cry Abba Father it is said And if Children then heirs heirs of God and joynt-heirs with Christ. So that Christ here is not represented under the notion of Abba but rather as a Son and heir to him that is called Abba therefore he that sustains the Person of Christ can only be the eldest Son i. e. the Prior and not the Abbot so that it is impossible to clear S. Bennet from an impertinent allegation of this place of Scripture But this is far from being the only place so impertinently produced by him for in the preface of his Rule we have a whole Cluster of them wherein he puts together many places of Scripture expressing the earnestness and sincerity of Gods calling men to repentance and sincere obedience to the Monastick life and observing the Rules of it As though it were impossible for men to repent and to do Gods will unless they did presently renounce their estates and submit to the Monastick Rules This if he speaks to the purpose he must account awakening out of sleep not hardening our hearts at Gods call hearing what the spirit saith unto the Churches running while we have light entering into Gods Tabernacle and what not As though all Religion were confined within the walls of Monasteries and the strait gate were no other than that which gives men admission into them This indeed was the great and fundamental cheat of the Monastick Orders in the Roman Church they would be called the Religious Orders and would have men believe that all piety and devotion was kept warm only under a Monks Cowle and that if there were any such thing in the world as they called all out of their own precincts it grew very cold by taking too much aire abroad But although they durst not openly defend this for fear of giving too great offence both to Clergy and Laity yet their insinuations tended this way for they only were the Religious and the rest were but the World Which was a horrible abuse of mankind as well as of the Christian Religion which doth never suppose men to be a jot nearer to Heaven for their nastiness and lying in their cloaths for abstaining certain days from flesh for eating and drinking upon a common stock for having their garments of such a shape and colour or whatever other observances were peculiar to the Monastick state The Christian Religion requires sincere humility and not a Monkish affectation of it inward purity and a chastity within the bounds which God hath set us and not binding our selves by perpetual vows to abstain from what he hath allowed us heavenly mindedness and a mighty regard to the rewards of another life and not a needless renouncing what the bounty of Heaven and the care of our Ancestors have provided for us as to the conveniences of this life The Obedience necessary to salvation is that to the commands of Christ and not of an Abbot But this they would fain make people believe that doing only what their Superiours command them is the self-denyal and renouncing their own wills which the Gospel makes so necessary to salvation which is a notorious misapplication of our Saviours commands but these things are common to other Monastick Rules S. Benedict hath other faults of this kind peculiar to his own Rule as when he brings these places for the Monks confessing their sins to the Abbot Revela Domino viam tuam spera in illo It is great pitty the word Abba was not there for Dominus for then it had been a plain case but as it stands it is somewhat hard to conceive how the Abbot comes to be concerned in our making known if that were the meaning of our ways to the Lord and to as little purpose are the other places that follow confitemini Domino and several others that speak of confessing our sins to God but not one word of the Abbot no nor of Priest in them yet this is not all for in the same chapter he brings something for Scripture which was never there as when he makes the Publican to say Domine non sum dignus ego peccator levare oculos meos ad coelum which makes Menardus cry out miror sanè quia nunquam in toto Evangelio repereris haec verba dicta à publicano he justly wond ed at this quotation there being no such words to be found in the whole Gospel as spoken by the Publican but the fairest excuse he hath to bring him off is by saying that he quâ—ted the words without Book by the help of his memory which if it be allowed will be certainly an argument to them that he was not infallibly assisted by the Hâ—ly Ghost But besides these we have other arguments sufficient of humane weakness in this Rule if I should undertake to rifle and examine the several constitutions of this Rule particularly that when the Abbot requires impossibilities not meerly moral as they would now soften it but things utterly impossible or unlawful to be done as when the Senior in Cassian required Iohn the Egyptian Monk to remove a stone which multitudes of men could not stir and another commanded Mucius to take his Son and throw him into the river which they thought themselves obliged by vertue of Monastick obedience to perform and in the case of such impossibilities S. Bennet bids them if the Abbot persist in them to trust to Gods help and obey But the reason given for this is that they must look on the commands of their Superiours as if they were the commands of God himself which is a most senseless and unreasonable thing but it seems by this they give the Abbot the Title belonging to God not meerly for name sake but in case a man were required as Mucius was to destroy his own Child they must say they are bound as much to obey as Abraham was upon Gods command to sacrifice his Son Nay we read in Cassian that God revealed to the Abbot that Mucius had performâ—d the obedience of Abraham and so they say of another who threw his Child into a fiery furnace upon the Abbots command in imitation of Abraham But to justifie this blind obedience to the commands of Superiours S. Benedict brings other very impertinent places of Scripture such as obauditu auris obedivit mihi â—on veni facere voluntatem meam sed ejus qui misit me c. But I am sick of such idle and impertinent stuff
Countenance which seemed wholly to abstract her and afterwards she saw him altogether but not with her corporal eyes she confesses and she satisfied her self it could not be her imagination only although her Confessor told her so because the beauty was so great as to exceed her imagination yet he still encouraged her when as appears by her own confession others about her whom she had a great opinion of endeavoured to convince her it was only her imagination to her great trouble insomuch that she saith the contradiction of the good were sufficient to have put her out of her wits This Vision of the Beauty of Christ continued ordinarily with her for two years and an half in which she had a great desire to see the colour of his eyes and what bigness they were of but never could obtain that favour When the Iesuit-Confessor was out of the way others told her plainly it was the Devil that deluded her and they bid her cross her self when she saw a Vision she held a Cross in her hand to save her self the trouble and Christ took it in his and gave it her again with four Precious Stones which had the five wounds artificially engraven upon them which no body could see but her self After this she had a vision of Angels and clearly discerned the coelestial Hierarchy but she supposed one of those she saw to be one of the Seraphins who pierced her heart with a fiery dart and when he pulled it out again it left her wholly inflamed with great love to God but under excessive pain which yet caused so great pleasure that she could not desire to 〈◊〉 removed in the dayes that this 〈◊〉 she saith she was like a Fool she desired neither to see nor speak but to embrace her pain Not long after she relates how sometimes for three weeks together her imagination would be so tormented with trifles and toyes that she could think of nothing else then she fell into such a fit of dulness and heaviness without any kind of sense or remembrance of her former Visions and Raptures or else no otherwise than as of a dream to afflict and then she was full of doubts and suspicions that all was but imagination and if she conversed with any the Devil put her in such a distasteful spirit of anger that it seemed as if she would eat all not being able to do otherwise Then again she had comfort in an instant sometimes with a word sometimes with Visions which continued for a time more frequent than before then she thought that her bodily sickness was the cause of her former disturbance and that her understanding was so unruly that it seemed like a furious fool whom no body could bind neither was she able to keep it quiet for the space of a Creed At other times again she compares her self to an Ass being in a manner without any feeling and so it falleth out oft-times she saith that one while she laughed at her self and other times she was much afflicted and the inward motion provoked her to put posies and flowers upon Images and such kind of imployments After this the scene of her imagination was quite changed for it represented nothing but Devils to her in which state she tryed one pleasant experiment viz. how much more the Devils are afraid of Holy Water than of the Sign of the Cross from the Cross they fly but so as to return presently but from the Holy Water so as to return no more Methinks then she should have used it but once and it was not more terrible to Devils than she found it comfortable to her soul for she saith that she found a particular and very evident comfort when she took it and such a delight which strengthned her whole soul which she found very often and considered it with great reflection then she relates her being in Spirit in Hell and what she endured there and towards the conclusion her being placed in Heaven in a rapture and seeing what was done there where she saw her Father and Mother c. after which she adds that our Lordshewed her greater secrets What! than what is done in Heaven for it is not possible she saith to see more than was represented unto her the least part of it was sufficient to make her soul remain astonished and found it impossible to declare some little part of it And now we find her at S. Pauls height and need go no farther in the account of her Visions which continues to the end of her Book but let me ask O. N. who hath particularly recommended this life to the consideration of any sober Protestant whether he doth in good earnest think that M. Teresa had the same kind of Raptures that S. Paul had I know he must not say otherwise since the Roman Church hath Canonized her for a Saint but I think they had done her a greater kindness to have appointed her good Physicians in time instead of her Iesuitical Confessors I could hardly have thought that among Christians I should have found S. Pauls Rapture parallel'd by such as these but we have lived to see strange things If S. Paul had discovered in his Writings so many Symptoms of a disturbed fancy such an oppression of Melancholy such rovings of Imagination such an uncertainty of temper could we ever think the world would have believed that Ecstasie which he expresseth with so much Modesty and makes so many Apologies for himself that he was forced to mention it by the false Apostles boasting of their Revelations It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory I will come to Visions and Revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago c. Of such a one will I glory yet of my self I will not glory but in mine infirmities but now I forbear lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be or that he heareth of me Although he had many Revelations he mentions but one and that with the greatest modesty that may be under a third person and that above fourteen years ago He tells no long stories of a succession of Visions and Raptures and sights of Angels and Devils mixed with many impertinencies and indications of a disordered Imagination But saith O. N. that could not be in S. Teresa considering the diligence that was used for several years in the tryal of her Spirit and her Visions were confirmed to be from God by a general attestation of them throughout the Christian World even those who suspected and questioned them at first afterwards magnifying them But I desire no other evidence in this case than what she gives her self supposing the matters of fact to be true according to her own relation not that I would condemn her according to Mr. Cressy 's soft language as a hypocritical Visionaire
unsearchable depth of Wisdom Any one that â—asts an eye upon this kind of Discourse will easily find it to proceed upon very different gâ—ounds in order to the perâ—ection of mens minds from what are delivered in the Christian Religion For there it is said to be eternal life to know God and his Son Iesus Christ here we are told that we cannot come at perfection in the way of knowledge but of Ignorance and not knowing There it is said that God is Light and in him is no darkness at all here that he is the most profound darkness and obscurity Here we meet with no difference at all as to the clearness of our apprehensions concerning the Divine Nature from what men had before the Christian Doctrine whereas it is one of the excellencies of Christianity that by it we come to know the true God much better than mankind had done before and are able to form a very true and distinct conception of him in our minds as of a Being of infinite Wisdom and Goodness and Power Although we cannot attain to a full comprehension of the utmost extent of the Perfections of the Divine Nature yet that doth not hinder our conceptions from being clear and True though not adequate and perfect And if we could have no clearer knowledge and more steady conceptions of the Divine Nature by the doctrine of Christ to what end are we told by it that no man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosome of the Father he hath revealed him that now the vail of darkness is taken away and we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image not that our transformation is to come by darkness and the cessation of intellectual operations as this Mystical Union implyes But besides this Mystical way pretends to carry men above all external Revâ—â—ation as well as intellectual knowledge for so much is implyed in the raising the mind above all Divine Lights and heavenly Sounds and Words i. e. saith Hersentius above all the manifestations of God what soever which are made to the Mind Which Mystical way of Perfection being supposed possible I see no necessity at all of Christs coming into the World nor of any influence his Death or Sufferings or Doctrine could have upon the bringing men to a State of Happiness For the whole Hypothesis proceeds only upon these principles 1. The obscurity of the Divine Nature and the impossibility of our attaining so clear a perception of God in our minds as for us ever to hope for a state of Perfection with the exercise of our Reason and Understanding 2. That the only possible way of attaining it is by the abstraction of our selves from all sensible and intellectual operations and thereby bringing our souls to an immediate Union with the Divine Essence § 13. Having thus endeavoured to bring these things out of the Clouds of the sublime Nonsense and seeming contradictions which they were wrapt up in we may more easily discern from whence all these notions were taken and slyly conveyed into the Christian doctrine as the highest way of Perfection For which we are to consider that the Christian Religion growing very considerable notwithstanding all the endeavours used by the Roman Emperours and Governours of Provinces to suppress it and very Learned men having taken upon them the profession of it in several parts of the Empire but especially at Alexandria the Heathen Philosophers saw there was an absolute necessity of making the best they could of the Pagan Theology To this end they bestirred themselves to gather together the most considerable parts of the Chaldaick Aegyptian and Platonick Theology and putting them together to form such a method for the Perfection of mens souls as would appear more sublime than the Christian Institution For this end Plotinus Porphyrie Iamblichus Proclus and the rest of them did imploy the utmost of their study and care for they saw now it was to no purpose for them to spend their time in idle curiosities and the vain disputes of the several Sects of Philosophers therefore they endeavour to lay aside these Ammonius of Alexandria having shewed them the way and to bend their studies chiefly about shewing men such a way of Purifying their Souls as might bring them to a State of Perfection without embracing Christianity For they saw that the common people were become Philosophers by the help of the Christian Religion and out-went them in the bearing Torments and all sorts of Miseries only in expectation of that Blessed State which the Christian Religion did give men so great assurance of and gave such excellent directions by the practice of all divine vertues for mens attaining to it We know there was no greater enemy in the world to the Christian Religion than Porphyrius was against whom Eusâ—bius Methodius and many others writ in defence of Christianity Yet it appears by what we have remaining of his writings that he had a very mean esteem of the common customes of sacrificing and of those Daemons which were pleased with the smoke of flesh and he looked upon the Theurgick way as lyable to deceit and not capable of advancing the soul to highest perfection Which Thâ—urgick way lay in the initiating of men in some sacred mysteries by partaking of certain rites and symbols by which they were admitted to the presence of some of their Deities the end whereof as they pretended was reducing the souls of men to that state they were in before they came into the Body So S. Augustin telâ—s us from Porphyrie that they who were purified after this manner did converse with glorious appearances of Angels which they were fitted to see but Porphyrie himself as he did not utterly reject this lower and symbolical way so he said that the highest perfection of the soul was not attainable by it but it was useful for purifying the lower part of the soul but not the intellectual By the lower part he understood the irrational which by the Theurgical Rites might be fitted for conversation with Angels but the intellectual part could not be elevated by it to the Contemplation of God and the Vision of the Things that are True and herein he placed the utmost perfection of the soul in its return to and union with God in this upper part or fund of the soul for the utmost the other attained to was only to live among the Aetherial spirits but the Contemplative Souls returned to the Father as he speaks which as many other of his Notions he borrowed from the Chaldaick Theology To shew what this Intellectual or Contemplative Life was that should bring mens souls to this state of Perfection Porphyrie writ a Book on purpose Of the Return of the Soul as S. Austin tells us who quotes many passages out of it and this particular precept above all the rest that the soul must fly
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 understanding 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 Ideas or Unities of Beings And this saith he is the most excellent operation of the soul in the rest or quie scency of its powers to stretch it self towards the Divine nature and dance as it were round it and to raise up the whole Soul towards this Union with it and abstracting it self from all inferiour beings to rest upon and be conjoyned with that ineffable and superessential Being And by this means the soul comes to have the truest understanding of all things § 16. Many other passages might be produced out of him to the same purpose but this comprehends in it so much of the very Marrow of Mystical Divinity that Carolus Hersentius confesseth either that Proclus borrowed from Dionysius or Dionysius from Proclus but he is willing to believe that Proclus and the rest of the Modern Platonists did borrow those notions out of Dionysius Marsilius Ficinus indeed is of the same opinion for being a skilful Platonist he saw such an agreement of notions and expressions in Dionysius and the writings of Plotinus Iamblichus and Proclus that either they must have taken from him or he from them but for the honour of the Platonick notions he believed the former And Sâ—ides an Author of no great judgement saith that some of the Philosophers and especially Proclus made use of his very expressions without any alteration from whence it might be suspected that the elder Philosophers at Athens had hidden his works that they might seem to be the Authors of those sublime notions contained in them A very likely story why should Proclus take those things out of Dionysius which he might have found as well in the Books of Plotinus Porphyrie or Iamblichus whom he had a far greater esteem of than of Dionysius and quotes every one of them very frequently and with great Veneration and mentions them together as a sort of inspired Persons in the very beginning of his Theology And Proclus hath nothing peculiar in him upon this subject the very same notions were delivered by Plotinus an Egyptian Philosopher and Proclus quotes him for the chief of them viz. the two fold operations of the mind the one of it as the mind viz. ratiocination the other of it as drunk with the Divine Nectar thence comes the Mysticks Ebrietas Spiritualis of which Rusbrochius hath several Chapters and which saith Harphius makes some sing and others cry and others utter strange noises as Fr. Masseus that cryed V. V. V. and others tremble and quake and others run over Mountains and Valleys like Fr. Bernard and others dance and lastly others ready to burst like a Vessel filled with new Wine and that the Mind becomes Deified by its Union with God which being the Fundamental principles of Mystical Divinity Proclus doth acknowledge that he had them from Plotinus and if we believe Iamblichus they came from the ancient Mystical Theology of the Egyptians and Chaldeans I expect that those who have not considered these things should be still ready to believe that all these notions among these Philosophers were taken from some of the Christians at least if not from this Dionysius Which Plotinus his education under Ammonius at Alexandria seems to make probable where he continued 11. years but whatever doctrine he heard from Ammonius it is certain Plotinus his opinion as to these matters together with his followers was derived from other Oracles than those of the Sacred Scriptures For Psellus in his Commentary on the Chaldaick Oracles doth say that Plotinus Iamblichus Porphyrius and Proclus did wholly approve of the Chaldaick Theology and by what remainders there are still extant of it we may discover the Footsteps of these Mystical notions in it If the Chaldaick Oracles were still extant which were frequently quoted by these Philosophers and from them in a great measure the Fragments were preserved we might more fully manifest these things yet as they are they give us sufficient ground to draw the Fundamentals of this Mystical Divinity from thence For they speak of Gods being united to the Soul by the Souls clasping God to her self and that not by any act of the understanding but by the slower of the mind the very phrase used by Proclus and the same which the Mysticks call the fund of the Spirit of the Souls being inebriated from God which Plotinus calls being drunk with the divine Nectar and Psellus explains of divine illuminations and Ecstasies 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 But lest any should say that these Chaldaick Oracles were framed by some Christians at first in Greek as it is supposed the Sibylline were Ioh. Picus Mirandula saith he had an entire copy of them in the Chaldee Language with a Chaldee Paraphrase upon them which he valued as a great Treasure But in truth all these notions 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 which I suppose will not be consented to by Mr. Cr. or any of the Friends to Mystical Divinity Which 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 Aethereal 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 than as it draws it downwards that the mind being the upper part of the soul is alwayes acting but we know not its operations but only by the impressions they make upon the Phansie that the mind hath the true Ideas 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