thine essence separable thy continuance eviternall But what do we call in reason and nature to this parle where faith by which Christianity teacheth us to be regulated finds so full and pregnant demonstrations No lesse then halfe our Creed sounds this way either by expression or inference where in whiles we professe to believe that Christ our Saviour rose from the dead and ascended we implie that his body was â—ot more dead then his soul living and active That was whereof he said Father into thy hands I commend my spirit now we cannot imagine one life of the head and another of the body his state therefore is ours every way are we conform to him as our bodies then shall be once like to his glorious so our souls cannot be but as his severed by death crowned with immortality and if he shall come to judge both the quick and the dead those dead whom he shall judge must be living for as our Saviour said in the like case God is not the Judge of the dead as dead but the Judge of the living that were dead and therefore living in death and after death And whereof doth the Church Catholick consist but of some members warfaring on earth others triumphant in heaven and what doth that triumph suppose but both a beeing and a beeing glorious What communion were there of Saints if the departed souls were not and the soul when it begins to be perfect should cease to be to what purpose were the resurrection of the body but to meet with his old partner the soul and that meeting only implies both a separation and existence Lastly what life can there be properly but of the soul and how can that life be everlasting which is not continued or that continued that is not If then he may be a man certainly a Christian he cannot be who is more assured that he hath a soul in his body then that his soul shall once have a being without his body Death may tyrannize over our earthly parts the worst he can do to the spirituall is to free it from a friendly bondage Chear up thy self therefore O my soul against all the fears of thy dissolution thy departure is not more certain then thy advantage thy being shall not be lesse sure but more free and absolute Is it such a trouble to thee to be rid of a clog or art thou so loath to take leave of a miserable companion for a while on condition that he shall ere long meet thee happy SECT. II. Of the instant vision of God upon the egression of the soul and the present condition till then BUt if in the mean while we shall let fall our eyes upon the present condition of the soul it will appear how apt we are to misknow our selves and that which gives us the being of men The most men how ever they conceive they have a soul within them by which they receive their animation yet they entertain but dull and gloomy thoughts concerning it as if it were no lesse void of light and activity then it is of materiality and shape not apprehending the spirituall agility and clearly-lightsome nature of that whereby they are enlived wherein it will not a little availe us to have our judgements thoroughly rectified and to know that as God is light so the soul of man which comes immediately from him and bears his image is justly even here dignified with that glorious title I speâ—k not only of the regenerate soul illuminated by divine inspirations and supernaturall knowledge but also even of that rationall soul which every man bears in his bosome The spirit of man saith wise Solomon is the candle of the Lord Prov. 20.27 searching all the inward parts of the belly And the dear Apostle In him was life and the life was the light of men Joh. 1.4 and more fully soon after That light was the true light that lightneth every man that cometh into the world v. 9. No man can be so fondly charitable as to think every man that comes into the world illightned by the spirit of regeneration It is then that intellectuall light of common nature which the great illuminator of the world beams forth into every soul in such proportion as he finds agreeable to the capacity of every subject Know thy self therefore O man and know thy maker God hath not put into thee a dark soul or shut up thy inward powers in a dungeon of comfortlesse obscuritie but he hath set up a bright shining Lamp in thy breast whereby thou maiest sufficiently discern naturall and morall truths the principles and conclusions whether of nature or art herein advancing thee above all other visible Creatures whom he hath confined at the best to a mere opacity of outward and common sense But if our naturall light shall through the blessing of God be so happily improved as freely to give place to the spirituall reason to faith so that the soul can now attain to see him that is invisible and in his light to see light now even whiles it is over-shaded with the interposition of this earth it is already entered within the verge of glorie But so soon as this vaâ—â— oâ— wretched mortality is done away now it enjoyes a clear heaven for ever and sees as it is seen Amongst many heavenly thoughts wherewith my everdear and most honoured and now blessed friend the late Edward Earl of Norwich had wont to animate himself against the encounter with our last enemy Death this was one not of the meanest that in the very instant of his souls departing out of his body it should immediately enjoy the vâ—sion of God And certainly so it is The spirits of just men need not stand upon dâ—stances of place or space of time for this beatificall sight but so soon as ever they are out of their clay lodging they are in their spirituâ—ll heaven even whiles they are happily conveying to the locall for since nothing hindred them from that happy sight but the interposition of this earth which we carry about us the spirit being once free from that impediment sees as it is seen being instantly passed into a condition like unto the Angels wel therefore are these coupled together by the blessed Apostle who in his divine rapture had seen them both Ye are come saith he unto Mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels and to the spirits of just men made perfect As then the Angels of God wheresoever they are though imployed about the affairs of this lower world yet do still see and enjoy the vision of God so do the souls of the righteous when they are once eased of this earthly load Doubtlesse as they passed through degrees of Grace whiles they took up with these homely lodgings of clay so they may passe through degrees of blisse when they are once severed And if as some great
from sinfull mankind Wo is me what odious sents arise to you perpetually from those bloody murders beastly uncleannesses cruell oppressions noisome disgorgings of surfeits and drunkennesses abominable Idolatries and all manner of detestable wickednesses presumptuously committed every where enough to make you abhorre the presence and protection of debauched and deplored mortality But for us that are better principled and know what it is to be over-lookt by holy and glorious spirits we desire and care to be more tender of your offence then of a world of visible spectatours And if the Apostle found it requisite to give such charge for but the observation of an outward decencie not much beyond the lists of indifferencie because of the Angels what should our care be in relation to those blessed spirits of our deportment in matter of morality and religion Surely O ye invisible Guardians it is not my sense that shall make the difference it shall be my desire to be no lesse carefull of displeasing you then if I saw you present by me cloathed in flesh Neither shall I rest lesse assured of your gracious presence and tuition and the expectation of all spirituall offices from you which may tend towards my blessednesse then I am now sensible of the â—nimation of my own soul THE INVISIBLE WORLD The Second BOOK SECT. I. Of the Souls of Men Of their separation and Immortality NExt to these Angelicall Essences the souls of men whether in the body or severed â—rom it are those spirits which people the invisible world â—exâ— to them I say not the sâ—me with them not bettâ—r Those of the ancient which have thought that the ruine of Angels is to be supplyed by â—lessed souls spake doubtless without the book for he that is the truth it self hath said they be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} like not the same And justly are those â—xploded whether Pythagoâ—eans or Stoicks or Gnostâ—cks or Manichees or Almaâ—icus or if Lactantius himself were in that errour as Ludovicus Vives construes him who falsly dreamed that the souls of â—en were of the substance of that God which inspired them These errours are more â—it for Ellebore then for Theologicall conviction spirituall substances doubtlesse they â—re and such as have no lesse distant originall from the body then heaven is from earth Galen was not a better Physiâ—â—an then an ill Divine whiles â—e determines the soul to be the complexion and temperament of the prime qualities no other then that harmony which the elder Naturalists dreamed of an opinion no lesse brutish then such a soul For how can temperamet be the cause of any progressive motion much lesse of a rationall discourse Here is no materiality no physicall composition in this inmate of ours nothing but a substantiall act an active spirit a spirituall form of the king of all visible creatures But as for the Essence originall derivation powers faculties operations of this humane soul as it is lodged in this clay I leave them to the disquisition of the great Secretaries of Nature my way lyes higher leading me from the common consideration of this spirit as it is clogged with flesh unto the meditation of it as it is devested of this earthly case and clothed with an eternity whether of joy or torment We will begin with happinesse our fruition whereof I hope shall never end if first we shall have spent some thoughts upon the generall condition of this separation That the soul after separation from the body hath an independent life of its owne is so clear a truth that the very heathen Philosophers by the dimme light of nature have determined it for irrefragable In so much as Aristotle himself who is wont to hear ill for his opinion of the soules mortality is confidently reported to have written a book of the Soul Separate which Thomas Aquinas in his so late age professes to have seen Sure I am that his Master Plato and that heathen Martyr Socrates related by him are full of divine discourses of this kind In so much as this latter when Crito was asking him how he would be buried I perceive said he I have lost much labour for I have not yet perswaded my Crito that I shall flye clear away and leave nothing behind me meaning that the soul is the man and would be ever it self when his body should have no being And in Xenophon as Cicero cites him Cyprus is brought in saying thus Nolite arbitrari c. Think not my dear sons that when I shall depart from you I shall then cease to have any being for even whiles I was with you ye saw not that soul which I had but yet ye well saw by those things which I did that there was a soul within this body Beleeve ye therefore that though ye shall see no soul of mine yet that it still shall have a being Shortly all but an hatefull Epicurus have astipulated to this truth And if some have faâ—cied a transmigration of souls into other bodies others a passage to the stars which formerly governed them others to I know not what Elysian fields all have pitched upon a separate condition And indeed not Divinity only but true natural reason will necessarily evince it For the intellective soul being a more spirituall substance and therefore having in it no composition at all and by consequence nothing that may tend towards a not-being can be no other supposing the will and concurrence of the infinite Creator then immortall Besides as our best way of judgging ought is wont to be by the effects certainly all operations are from the forms of things and all things do so work as they are Now the body can do nothing at all without the help of the soul but the soul hath actions of its own as the acts of understanding thinking judging remembring ratiocination wherof if whiles it is within us it receives the first occasions by our senses and phantasms yet it doth perfect and accomplish the said operations by the inward powers of its own faculties much more and also more exactly can it do all these things when it is meerly it self since the clog that the body brings with it cannot but pregravate and trouble the soul in all her performances in the mean time they do justly passe for mentall actions neither do so much as receive a denomination from the body we walk move speak see feel and do other humane acts the power that doth them is from the soul the means or instrument whereby they are done is the body no man will say the soul walks or sees but the body by it but we can no more say that the soul understands or thinks by the aid of the body then we can say the body thinks or understands by means of the soule These therefore being distinct and proper actions do necessarily evince an independing and self-subsisting agent O my soul thou couldst not be thy self unless thou knew'st thine originall heavenly
absolute good the will instantly proves vicious As therefore there can be no possible fault incident into the will of him who propounds to himself as his only good the utmost end of all things which is God himself so in whatsoever willer whose own particular good is contained under the order of another higher good there may without Gods speciall confirmation happen a sin in the will Thus it was with these revolting Angels they did not order their own particular supposed good to the supream and utmost end but suffered their will to dwell in an end of their own and by this means did put themselves into the place of God not regulating their wils by another superior but making their will the rule of their own desires which was in effect to affect an equality with the highest Not that their ambition went so high as to aspire to an height of goodness or greatnesse equall to their infiniâ—e Creatour This as the greater Leader of the School hath determined it could not fall into any intelligent nature since it were no other then to affect his own not being for as much as there can be no beeing at all without a distinction of degrees and subordinations of beeings This was I suppose the threshold of leaving their first estate Now it was with Angelicall spirits as it is with heavy bodies when they begin to fail they went down at once speedily passing through many degrees of wickednesse Let learned Gerson see upon what grounds he conceives that in the beginning their sin might be veniall afterwards arising to the height of maliciousness whom Salmeron seconds by seven reasons alledged to that purpose labouring to prove that before their precipitation they had large time and place of repentance the point is too high for any humane determination this we know too well by our selves that even the will of man when it is once let loose to sin finds no stay how much more of those active spirits which by reason of their simple and spirituall nature convert themselves wholly to what they do incline What were the particular grounds of their defection and ruine what was their first sin it is neither needfull nor possible to know I see the wracks of this curiosity in some of the Ancient who misguiding themselves by a false Compasse of mis-applyed Texts have split upon those shelves which their miscarriage shall teach me to avoid If they have made Lucifer that is the morning Star a Devill and mistake the King of Babylon for the Prince of darknesse as they have palpably done I dare not follow them Rather let me spend my thoughts in wondring at the dreadfull justice and the incomprehensible mercy of our great and holy God who having cast these Apostate Angels into hell and reserved them in everlasting chains under darknesse unto the judgement of the great day hath yet graciously found out a way to redeem miserable mankinde from that horible pit of destruction It is not for me to busie my self in finding out reasons of difference for the aggravation of the sin of Angelâ— and abatement of mans as that sin began in them they were their own tempters that they sinned irreparably since their fall was to them as death is to us How ever it were Cursed be the man who shall say that the sin of any creature exceeds the power of thy mercy O God which is no other then thy selfe infinite whiles therefore I lay one hand upon my mouth I lift up the other in a silent wonder with the blessed Apostle and say How unsearchable are thy judgements and thy wayes past finding out SECT. IV. Of the number of Apostate Spirits WHo can but tremble to thinke of the dreadfull precipice of these dâ—â—ned Angels which from the highest pitch of heaven were suddainly thrown down into the dungeon of the nethermost hell who can but tremble to think of their number power malice cunning and deadly machinations Had this defection been single yet it had been fearfull should but one star fall down from heaven with what horrour do we think of the wrack that would ensue to the whole world how much more when the great Dragon draws down the third part of the stars with his tail And lo these Angels were as so many spirituall stars in the firmament of glory It was here as in the rebellion of great Peers the common sort are apt to take part in any insurrection There are orders and degrees even in the region of confusion we have learned of our Saviour to know there is a Devill and his Angels And Jewish tradition hath told us of a Prince of Devils It was in all likelyhood some prime Angell of heaven that first started aside from his station and led the ring of this highest and first revolt millions sided with him and had their part both in his sin and punishment Now how formidable is the number of these evill and hostile spirits Had we the eyes of that holy Hermit for such the first were we might see the air full of these malignant spâ—rits laying snares for miserable mankinde And if the possessors of one poor Demoniack could style themselves Legion a name that in the truest account contains no lesse then ten Cohorts every Cohort fifty Companies and every Company 25 Souldiers to the number of 1225 what an army of these hellish fiends do we suppose is that wherewith whole mankinde is beleaguered al the world over Certainly no man living as Tertullian and Nissen have too truly observed can from the very hour of his nativity to the last minute of his dissolution be free from one of these spirituall assailants if not many at once The ejected spirit returns to his former assault with seven worse then himself Even where there is equality of power inequality of number must needs be a great advantage An Hercules himself is no match for two Antagonists yea were their strength much lesse then ours if we be but as a flock of Goats feeding upon the hils when the evil spirits as the Midianites Amalekites were against Israel are like grashoppers in the valley what hope what possibility were there if we were left in our own hands for saefty or prevalence But now alas their number is great but their power is more Even these Evil Angels are styled by him that knew them no less then principalities and powers and rulers of the darknesse of this world and spirituall wickednesses in heavenly places They lost not their strength when they left their station It is the rule of Dionysius too true I fear that in the reprobate Angels their naturall abilities stil hold No other then desperate therefore were the condition of whole mankinde if we were turned loose into the lists to grapple with these mighty spirits Courage O my soul and together with it victory Let thine eys be but open as Gehezies thou shalt see more with us then against us One good