Natures their Operations their Quires their Hierarchies And now there is but one great step more to behold the influence of the Divinity upon all and in all manners but in none so great and admirable as in shewing its self its Face its Essence to the blessed Spirits That Blessing that Adoption that Deification as it is the most wonderfull of all Gods works so will it be strangely ravishing to behold in others as well as feel in our selves Soul I have not the least scruple but that these delights are farre beyond all you have hitherto mention'd they clearly deserving that estimation and rank by the Excellence and Nobility of the Objects and the pleasure which I feel even in the meanest of them for those I confesse most affect me as being most suitable to my low and heavy disposition Light So 't is with you for the present but if much and solid contemplation make you able to manage this point you will in time experience that even here these sublime things overdraw all others Look upon the pains a Democritus an Archimedes a Plato and other Philosophers have taken to know the lowest of Truths The first is said to have put out his eyes that he might contemplate the better The second to have been so absorpt that he suffer'd death for not taking notice of the danger before him The third to have travailed through all parts where he could hear of learned men to be their Scholar Another to have liv'd in the fields two and twenty years to discover the customes and operations of Bees Think you not these excellent witts found great pleasure in their contemplations who was ever mov'd to so difficult undertakings by any worldly designe As for your Alexanders and Cesars if their lives be well look'd into they had many collaterall respects and by-invitements alwayes conversing amongst multitudes of men who crying up their conquests as actions of immortall fame still encourag'd them to go on and finish their triumphs Soul When time and experience shall have encreased my force I shall be able I hope to grapple with these motives But in the mean while is there nothing in these secrets of Nature which may touch my self and so make me more quick and sensible of the pleasures thereof Light If it so little move you that this knowledge is the proper mark at which your nature aimes at least consider that the knowledge of your self is a speciall part of it and if you believe you are concern'd in your self if delighted with your own parts and perfections you shall not want cause of content What would you have would you be the Center of this great Circumference would you have nothing done but you should have a share in 't If no lesse will satisfie you let 's see how much is true of this What think you are any two things exactly like one another Soul Peradventure yes I conceive it no paradoxe to believe so Light Then they would be in the same place have the same figure c. whereby they would be the same and not alike Soul That 's true I confesse therefore no two things are absolutely alike Light Can two things in any respect unlike one another proceed from the same causes in no respect differing from one another Soul Certainly they cannot for wherein they vary there must necessarily be some cause of their dissimilitude but the same causes still work the same therefore the causes must some way be different if there be difference in the effects Light This is well Then you and all the circumstances had not been the same if any one of the causes which concurred to the making of them had been alter'd in any thing concerning your making Soul That 's very true Light Then cast with your self what part of Nature you draw with you of all that pass'd before you Soul I see well that neither the causes immediately concurring to the making of me nor any that concurr'd to the making of them such as they ought necessarily to be for the making of me could from the beginning of the world to this hour be other then they have been if I were to be what I am But how farre this extends it self I do not clearly see Light Looke well into the causes of your body Doe you thinke the Aire contributes nothing Soul Yes certainly for it piercing all tender bodyes by Perspiration must of necessity alter much the disposition of either Man or Child if it self be different Light And if the very next Aire to that which enters into your body be different can that which enters be the same Soul Clearly it cannot for the next part in so fluid and penetrable a body must of necessity have great Influence into that which pierces my Body Light And how far reaches this operation Soul Marry in this way going from one to another and still arguing If the next be altered this cannot be the same I see no stop as far as the Air or any other such penetrable Body extends it self but the same consequence must be applyed to the whole Light You have forgotten your agreement with me in this point that the Air contributes to the bodies which are in it else you would easily have seen that all which communicate in the same Air must be chang'd if any the least thing in you were alter'd Soul Then if it be true what I see Astronomers now almost consent in that there are no Sphears but a continuall Aire or other subtile body runs through the whole frame of Nature all bodies that are must be alter'd for the alteration of any one unlesse Almighty God or some other Spirit by a particular and extraordinary interposure make an unexpected and preternaturall change in some one or more of them Light You are in the right but do you reflect upon the consequence that nothing created before you could be otherwise if you were to be what you are nor any thing following you could become what it is to be were not you what you are So that you shall find your self a partiall cause of all either before or after you Soul 'T is easie to conceive I may be cause of what comes after me because when once I have a being I can work and some effects may flow from me but before I my self am how can I be cause of any thing Light Do you not know that God creates nothing but he foresees and fore-wills all the good which is to follow upon such a production and makes it with designe that such good may proceed from 't Whence you may safely conclude that he intended you out of all that went before you and you are not ignorant that among the four kindes of Causes the finall or good intended is the chief and principall so that you are more the cause of what 's past then of what 's to come The eighth discourse Soul THough I know not what to answer to your Discourse nay though it seem clear
and evident yet the strangenesse and even incrediblenesse of the Conclusion makes me distrust mine own understanding But is it possible that all these great knowledges shall fall to my share if I come to Heaven Light Why should you fear the lesse if you be sure of the greater Do you peradventure doubt whether you shall be partaker of the sight of God and yet this is so farre beyond all we have hitherto spoken of that there is no comparison between them not so much as of a drop of water to the whole Sea Soul How can this be since God is but one indivisible Essence and in what you have declared there is an infinity of most worthy and ravishing Objects For though I doubt not but the sight of God exceeds farre the sight of any one his perfections infinitely surpassing all yet methinks when there is nothing else to be done for ever but to see the one and the other the variety carries so high an advantage in respect of taking delight in knowledge that there needs a vast excesse in any single object to counterpoise it Light Your own words convince you for admit that God exceeds any one object compared with him as to the pleasure of seeing infinitely that is to the proportion of his worth and dignity you by the same reason conclude him preferrable to two or three and so to any number that is to all However I shall rather apply my self to give you content in your demand then presse you severely with your own argument First then consider if there were a colour or beauty of so high a degree that our eye were not capable to see it without the assistance of some new-found spectacle and this not for the littlenesse or distance of the Object but because the purity of the light or excellency of the colour was so striking and glorious that an eye of this composure would be blinded with the lustre of its brightnesse do you not conceive the sight of so radiant a splendour would be nobler then the view we have of our ordinary world and this in the proportion that the Eye improv'd and fortified with the new spectacle is better and nobler then of its own single nature Soul So far I can espie no way to escape your reason for if both Eye and Object be heightned in a proportion the very seeing and by consequence the pleasure taken in it must of necessity rise in the same degree or I have lost my understanding Light Then ponder what I 'm sure you have been often taught that the sight of God is so great so sublime an operation that it exceeds the power of all celestiall spirits not onely such as are but even all that can be made and the whole campasse of creatures and whatsoever is not God Consider now how full and overflowing a measure of delight must necessarily follow upon these premisses I believe you 'l find it no lesse then I speak of Soul What may be the reason of this incredible excesse though I 'm a fool to ask a question you have already so fully answered by resolving it into the infinite beauty of Almighty God whose perfections are beyond all comparison Light In the beginning I bargain'd with you not to expect the causes of things in this discourse but the effects that is what pleasure arises out of them upon supposition of their truth Yet if you understand the excesse of a Spirit above Bodies and their grosse parts conceive that God so exceeds a Spirit as that is more excellent then a Body I mean not in equality of proportion but I would onely expresse that their excellencies are cleare of a different kinde so that there is no comparison of worths between them but the supereminent dignity of one so farre surpasses the other that in respect of the first the second is no wayes estimable A more particular account you may make your self at your leisure by reflecting that our apprehension of things has three degrees some we conceive as compounded others as simple and one onely thing which we call Being has a different nature in our very language and understanding from all the rest Now our Masters put Almighty God in the degree of Being alone and by himself If you could throughly penetrate these three manners of apprehending it would be a great advance toward the knowledge you desire For the present let me acquaint you with this observation that many great Clerks and studied Sages have so much esteem'd this Notion that they fear'd not to pronounce Almighty God absolutely invisible to any created understanding and inhabiting a light by no power accessible But herein the goodnesse of God has exceeded the wit of Man and found a means to communicate himself to our Soules Wherefore wiser are our Masters of Mysticall Divinity who acknowledge the gracious happinesse of the next life though here they find themselves silenced For when by long speculation they have heaped up all these great Titles of Being Goodnesse Truth Eternity Immensity Omnipotence Infinitenesse and whatever else we find attributed to the Deity after they have some little while exulted in that height reflecting upon what they are pleas'd withall suddenly they turn the leaf and with a more high Ignorance acknowledge he is none of all these but an unknown Nobility whereof all these are so poor and deficient an expression that they are asham'd of what they had said and now rest in a mute admration not finding words wherewith to expresse the thing which they onely can attain to by confessing themselves totally ignorant of it And this is not onely true in respect of Men but even of Angels whose languages if we could speak that is were our apprehensions and conceits as high and great as any of theirs yet would it not profit us because not necessarily conjoyned with Charity However even their languages exceed our short capacities and are not to be expressed with the tongues of Men which seems the cause why Saint Paul who was made partaker of their knowledge though short of the sight of the face of God said he had heard words of secret that were not in the power of Man to speak for so as I take it the Originall Text beares and not that it was unlawfull since what Law was made against speaking that which we have heard unlesse we participate of the first Errour conceiving God through envy to hide Mysteries great knowledges from us It was not then unlawfull but impossible to declare what was revealed to Saint Paul no words of Man being capable to expresse the conceits of an abstracted Intelligence amongst whom he then convers'd Soul You seem to drive me farther off from relishing this which you exalted as the most eminent pleasure of all others For if you afford me no other conceit of it then of an unapprehensible Light of a mysterious Darkness and a learned Ignorance I know not how to fasten any Armes of love or liking upon
descent of effects from causes draws out this long Play that has so many Ages been acting upon the stage of this world there you shall discern the golden threads whereby the just retrive themselves out of the Labyrinth of sinners you shall penetrate the Adamantine chain with which the wicked are confin'd to eternall flames In all you shall see the glorious Liberty casting out its Rayes in God and his Saints strengthned with an undeceivable force of Light in the wayes of Men struggling in a perpetuall Agony with contingency and servitude except where in few souls the supernall light more and more hinders the instability of its estate The seventh discourse Soul TEll me no more of these great pleasures for I feel my self already full I can endure no longer I pant for breath and languish through excessive heat of desire I doubt not henceforth but the state of eternall Blisse contains farre more and higher joyes then ever entred into mortall hearts to conceive Nor fear I whensoever I enter this great field but for ever to find a most pleasant and delightfull feeding and eternally drink of the torrent which inebriates the City of God Light You are too tender Remember that the kingdome of heaven suffers violence and the violent onely can be Masters of it You must look for a strong Purgatory of love and desire if you walk this way you must not give over without resisting even to blood As yet you are scarce got out of the Circle of Man 't is time now to cast your eyes on the rest of this glorious frame we call the World and see what pleasure it affords It is the whole whereof mankind is but a little though a principall Part. It is a thing in a manner above us in a manner our end If our understanding be but a hunger of truth and truth but the perfect possession of a thing without us you see this great machine the world is a principall end to which nature has design'd our application And truly when we reflect that the universall Masse of Beings is the most full expression of Almighty God's Essence which nature can attain to what doubt remains but that our felicity in a notable degree consists in the perfect contemplation and knowledge of it Soul This I easily believe For when I have the good fortune to hear a strange discovery of some secret of nature such as Philosophers and Astronomers use to look into I cannot understand the joy I feel in mine heart 'T is not of that kind which I have when I laugh and am taken with some witty conceit 'T is not such as when I encounter any welcome news of some advantage to my self or friends but of a higher strain mixt with admiration methinks I am better and greater then I was before methinks they who know these things are more then men and are a kind of Demi-gods And I observe that Poets and persons of great brain and capacity having spent their youth in vain and worldly pursuits desire ordinarily to consecrate their riper yeares to these Sciences Light Reflect then upon the wonders which are stored up in Nature for your content Place before your eyes the admirable government of this great Fabrick the World Consider the courses of the Sun Moon Planets and fixed Starres and hope one day to know what causes and wheels they turn upon See the Globe of the Earth and Men heels to heels walking round about it without any nayls or glew to fasten them to it yet how laborious it is to remove from it Really the serious consideration of the Antipodes renders the mystery so strange and hard to be believ'd that though we are assur'd by experience of the truth yet if we should alwayes strongly imagine our selves so walking we could not but fear still falling into the Clouds when we travail'd to one another See the perpetuall floating of the Sea like a monethly or yearly Clock warning us of the seasons with as great exactnesse as do the Moon and Starres See the various Climes with all their affections The bounds of Seas and Lands The difference of temperature in the same proportions to the Sun The diversity of Beasts Birds Fishes and Plants according to the variety of their habitations Men themselves here black there white in some parts tawny some red and their very Wills and Affections following the temperament of their bodily qualities When you are weary of these wonders look into particular Natures The mixture of Metals and Stones How Juices and Liquids penetrate all and incorporating themselves frame these strange multiplicities of things we converse with Plants more wondrous then these who can choose but be delighted to see a little Flower or Meal hidden in the earth and peep out again now green then take body and strength disperse it self into branches bud forth leaves and flowers and fruit and at last other such bags of Meal as it self was Yet Living creatures are furnisht with a farre greater plenty of wonders The Wormes the Flies the Birds the Beasts the Fishes every one affording a world of admiration and variety But above all MAN the End and Master of all is a subject of amazing contemplation Who would not think a life spent in delight to understand what composition that should be which turn'd into blood becomes first one part of a heart afterwards a whole heart what should make it spring and shoot out into other vitall parts how can a poor heart frame such a variety of Members as are necessary to the perfect body of a man What should set two Armes two Legs two Eyes just such a number of Fingers and Toes upon every man so many different parts so various in their Nature Figures Use and Service and all these to agree together and Man compos'd of all to keep so long in tune and harmony the deeper we go the greater's the admiration though the words fewer But what astonishment will it be to discover the subtil nets wherewith Power and Act as Metaphysicians call them are forbidden parting to penetrate the divisibility of substance it self to sing the loves of Matter and Form and see how by the Influence of the Overflowing Being they become the Basis and Foundation of this fair Pageant Shall I seek into the rationall Soul and see the union of the two worlds or search the Conduits and passages by which knowledge is conveyed through the Body to the Spirit How the beating of divers weights and figures upon our senses can beget the skill of knowing all things Shall I ask why the Spirit being subsistent within our limbs seems dead or asleep and can do nothing but by the impression it receives from the body But what will it be to make this an occasion of passing into the next world there to contemplate the state of so many separated souls all different yet all like one another then still to mount up higher to the never-bodied Spirits and see their Being their
Why this is but nature whereas to go to Heaven 't is necessary we walke in a supernaturall Path much contrary to nature wherefore sure this cannot be right Light There are two things in Man which are call'd Nature one Reason which truly is his Nature ruling all his actions as he is Man and distinguishing him from Beasts The other is this frame of our Materiall Instruments which we call our Body consisting of Motion of Blood and Spirits which have a course in us so depending from other causes that neverthelesse a great part is in our power Of these two Natures Reason often contradicts the Inferiour and therefore Grace and our supernaturall way must do the same Whereas for Reason Grace never contradicts it but guides it and shewes it that many things which otherwise it would never have attain'd to are very reasonable and by force of reason it self ought to be enacted and put in execution For our supernaturall life is like a Graft which though it bear a better fruit then the Stock yet can it bring forth nothing but by means of that and in the season wherein the Stock of it self flourishes Soul Then I must employ my time in gaining knowledge and governing my self according to it but what should I seek to know Light Your enquiry may be fully satisfied if you confine your search to these two Heads To learn the things that concerne you in the next life which are chiefly Heaven and Hell in Heaven I comprehend all that belongs to Almighty God as well to his Godhead as his Humanity And secondly to study what in this life imports you which is the real valuation of those motives that govern mankind here and the true and straight way that leads to blisse hereafter Soul Surely this cannot chuse but be a pleasant and delightsome Method For what more pleasant then to know especially such truths as most are ignorant of what more delightsome then to enjoy a clear serenity of mind free from those errours we see our Neighbours tossed and turmoyl'd in But above all what can be so ravishing as to understand we are in the direct path towards those great felicities promised us in the next life Light If you take the right course and ply it diligently you shall instead of that anxious and troublesome way you walk possesse all this pleasure and much more whereof as yet you have no feeling nay which you little think your whole pursuit shall be after pleasures and those the highest this life can afford For since Reason is our Nature which hath the greatest stroak in all our actions and whatever is conformable to Nature the more powerfull Nature is the more pleasant that must be it follows the pleasures of Reason are greater far then those of Sense Now Grace being but an heightening of Reason what is conformable to Grace must be still more pleasing to Nature Soul I can easily apprehend the Contemplation of Heaven must be full of pleasure especially if the Contemplatour findes in himself hopes of attaining thither but I know not how the dreadfull consideration of Hell and Death and Judgement should be pleasing being of themselves such frightfull things Light As for those fearfull objects you need not trouble your self yet if you find the considerations of Heaven take hold of your Soul which when they are once settled and well possess'd of your heart will alone so entertain and fill you that you will be free and secure from the irksomenesse of other apprehensions but you must first strive to be in love with heaven and heavenly things if possibly you can Soul I confesse hitherto my considerations have been very dry I not being able to make any apprehension of what pleasure can possibly be found where all that gives us content here will be wanting The second discourse Light NOw if you were sure to find there the same pleasures you enjoy here in this only changed that what ever makes them short noysome tedious or allayes them here with any other discommodity is not there to be found so that the pleasure is there more clear more sweet perpetuall and never cloying you must of necessity make a good apprehension of a desirable place and lovely end to aim at Soul If you can make me see this I hope I shall be better affected to Heaven that with a naturall tye Whereas now I force my self to love a thing which I cannot understand what it is Light Well then do you take pleasure in company of friends with whom you can be free Soul Very much especially if their discourse be such as goes down with some smartnesse and delight Light At least then there 's one pleasure in heaven which you can relish for friends and acquaintance you cannot want there all that are in Heaven knowing all being familiar with all and their hearts lying open to all so that what delight you can imagine in conversation you shall have there a thousand fold multiplied above what it is here Soul But that which pleases me here is to be with a friend in a corner where no body may hear our discourse for it would be a great annoyance to have any one partaker of our secrets Light And why if you have reflected upon it is it troublesome to have overhearers of your discourse Soul Because some would laugh at my follyes or imperfections and jeere at my conceits different from theirs others would carry tales abroad and make a businesse of nothing others are indiscreet and altogether unable to give me either advice or comfort but talk nonsense and rather trouble me then do me good Light Then if the company were such that from every one you could promise your self all respect love prudence and such parts as should be fit to improve heighten the content you aimed at the plurality of those with whom you converse would rather strengthen your pleasure then any way diminish it Soul 'T is true but I cannot conceive if the company be greater then a certain proportion which by interchange may still keep life in the discourse but that the conversation must either be hindred by many speaking at once or dull by one party's speaking so seldome Light But on the contrary if you did apprehend the whole multitude without intermission speaking together and that he that speaks perfectly understood all the rest and himself also were perfectly understood by every one so that each continually declared his own mind without the least impediment to understand perfectly at the same time what all others said and this not onely to himself but any one to any other do you not see what the proportion of content by such discourse would be to the satisfaction you find here when you are in the fullest careere of joy that ever you experimented or can wish or even imagine according to the course of our conversation Soul If this were true I see an extreme increase of pleasure in Heaven over the greatest our
Nature is capable of here but withall I see it is impossible men should hear and understand so many persons together and speak to them all in exchange Light I confesse this is hard to be believ'd by one that hath not yet reached to the nature of a Spirit but he that could conceive all this we call Body and diffusion of bignesse and parts must of necessity be resum'd in the indivisible thing we call a Spirit so that all the imaginable operations of materiall substances can never arrive to equall the activity of the least Spirit he would easily allow it this priviledge of being capable to do as much as a thousand tongues and a thousand eares at once But 't is not my task now to evince a possibility only to exact a belief of this opinion and upon supposal of its truth shew you how infinitely greater the content in Heaven must necessarily be then the highest pleasure this world can afford Soul But unlesse I talk of such persons and things as both my self and they with whom I converse know and are acquainted with the circumstances of every passage the conversation is dry and unpleasing Now here they are very few who have knowledge of the same particulars that I have for their number is confin'd to such as I live withall and I know not whether I can expect to meet many of them in heaven the straitnesse of the way and the paucity of the enterers being so often and so strongly inculcated to us Light It were a very hard question to determine the number of those that go to heaven and at this time would divert our discourse only this I will say that the paucity of the blessed may well stand with this truth that many of such Christians as live innocently in the world are saved Wherefore I fear not but you may have enough to converse with who are acquainted with the particulars your self are But what will you think if every one hath as cleare a sight of all your circumstances as your own heart for it were a great simplicity to imagine the Soul abstracted from the Body hath no means to know things without it since in the Body it hath and if it be furnisht with any means it is not possible but it should know whatever it pleases But as I said before the proof of these things is to be sought elsewhere here we are onely to consider how great and full the pleasure of a blessed Soul is these things being so as I have declared Soul I must confesse you have now made Heaven a tractable thing to me for by these considerations I do not onely find a common apprehension of good but I can lay hands upon intelligible pleasures whereby to content my naturall desires and with hope thereof make them pursue the endeavours and undergoe the difficulties necessary to the attaining them Light Reflect then a little and summe up or rather conclude what kind of life in Heaven this pleasure will afford you Remember some afternoon or couple of houres in which your pleasing conversation hath been at height remember the twinkling of some one conceit which especially carryed away your heart and for the time possessed it wholly think with your self had the whole two houres continu'd like that minute how unspeakable your pleasure had been Then elevate your fancy and conceive in Heaven not houres nor dayes nor yeares but ages of ages but an eternity will be of that dainty ravishing contentment Joyne if you are able all these encreases and advantages which we have expressed whereof there is not one but drawes an incomparable extremity with it and if only this were once well master of your thoughts I do not see how any temporall thing could either please or discontent you or that you would not as much long for death as now you adhorre and fear it Soul The world 's chang'd with me I find my self refresht with this thought and in a cheerfull disposition Light Yes for the present but it will not stay long with you unlesse you play your part and cultivate the opening seeds which now ferment in your heart and this must be by often thinking of and remembring these and such other considerations partly at set times and partly whenever you find your self in a fitting disposition that is at ease alone your mind free or peradventure inclin'd to good thoughts lose not these tides as I may call them for they bring great waves of spirituall profit In the happy opportunity strive to penetrate with a cleer understanding the verity of such points then turn your self upon your self and see what you do and what you should do according to these truths Encourage your self to what is wanting amend what is amisse and sigh after the great reward we all labour for The third discourse Soul HItherto it goes well but in so great a happinesse and so glorious a State is there but one content Light If there were no other then what is already declared I believe there were more not only then you can wish in this world but also then you would be weary of in the next Neverthelesse since your palate is so dainty that it must have varieties think with your self what other thing there is here wherein you take great pleasure and love to spend your time Soul The next that comes to my mind is that I am much delighted with Masks and Shews and in going to Court especially when there are grea meetings and bravery there these things extreamely take me in so much that I can endure to expect a great while as half a day or more in some disease to be present at such sights and Assemblies Light And when these things are in their perfection can you tell what it is that therein delights you Soul I think it is those passages which meeting afterwards with others that have or have not been there I use to discourse of and commend And all those being either Things or Persons in Things I commend the greatnesse beauty or good proportion some fine conveyance some rare and new invention in Persons I praise their comlinesse the gracefulnesse of their behaviour the perfection and compleatnesse of their actions These I conceive for the most part are the principal causes of the delight and relish I find in such encounters Light I hope then you will not want this contentment also in heaven For to begin with Persons you shall have in your company those who have ever been the greatest and worthiest in all considerations Adam the beginner of the World Noah its restorer you shall have Abraham the Father of that Nation which after so many ages continuance in the Prerogative of the Elect people of Almighty God is now by their dispersion into all Nations become to them a Testimony of Christianity you shall have Moses who like the Lieutenant of the highest in all sorts of miracles establisht the Law the Field wherein Christianity was blazoned you