THE VISION: OR A Dialog between the Soul and the body. Fancied in a Morning-Dream.  
Sumbolum Auth. Senesco, non segnesco.  
LONDON, Printed for William Hope at the Blue ●●chor on the North side of the Roya● Exchange, Anno Dom. 1651.   

To the knowing Reader.  

MAn is the world's Abridgement, who enrouls  
Within himself a trinity of souls;  
He runs through all Creations by degrees,  
First, he is only Matter on the lees,  
Whence he proceeds to be a Vegetal,  
Next Sensitive, and so Organical:  
Then by Divine infusion a third soul,  
The Rational doth the two first control:  
But when this soul comes in, and where she dwells  
Distinct from others no Dissector tells.  
And, which no creature else can say, that state  
Enables her to be Regenerate;  
She than becomes a Spirit, and at last  
A Devil or a Saint, when she hath cast  
That clog of flesh, which yet she takes again  
To perfect her beatitude, or pain;  
Thus Man is first or last allied to all  
Creatures in heaven, Earth, or Hells blackhall  
This Vision may conduce to let us know  
Our present baseness, and our future bliss,  
If it make any gentle souls to glow,  
And mend their pace that way, I have my wish   
JAM. Howell.   

TO The Right Honourable the Lady ELISABETH DIGBYE, &c.  
Madame,  
COuld the Rational soul, whom Philosophy calls the Queen of forms, and Divinity, the Image of the almighty, be seen by the outward eye of sense, she would (as Plato sometimes spoke of Virtue were she so visible) raise in us a world of admiration; We should be so ravished with her beauty, and so struck in love, that we would leave all things else to win her favour.  
An odd Humorist vapouring once that Women had no souls, was answered by a modest Lady, 〈◊〉 Sir, you are deceived, for I can p●●duce a good Text to the contrary. My soul doth magnify the Lord, and it was a woman that spoke it: No less humorous was He, who would maintain that the salique Law was in force in Heaven, as well as in France, which excluded women from reigning. But much more civil was a farewell that the Count of Lemos took of the Duchess of Pastrana, who having invited him to see a new Palace that she had built, with a stately chapel annexed, at his departure said, Madam, I see your body is fairly housed, but I find that your soul is far better housed than your Body. Madam, I have the happiness to know your L shp many years (near upon 4. lives in the law) and truly I never knew any whose soul was better lodged, and furnished with more virtues and graces, which makes me resolved to live and die.  
Your Lshps most humble and dutiful servant JAM. Howell.   

The PROEM.  
IT was about the Summer solstice, when the Measurer of Time, that glorious luminary of heaven, allowed but little above three hours' night to cover this part of the Hemisphere, That after my sleep, a second stole gently upon me, which happened about the dawnings of the day, when those grosser sort of soporiferous fumes, that are wont to ascend from the stomach to lock up the outward senses for their natural repose, being dissipated and spent, the purest kind of subtle rarified vapours rise up to the Region of the brain, which use to represent more plain and even objects to the Imagination, and make the story and circumstances of dreams more coherent and clear, though the ●ost lucid fancies that appear u●●●●s in sleep, be but as stars in a cloudy night, or the branches of trees in a thick standing pool; I say it was about the break of day, that I had an unusual Dream, or Vision rather; For, me thought, a little airy, or rather an aethereal kind of spark did hover up and down about my body; It seemed to have a shape yet it had none but a kind of reflection, it was, me thought, within me, and it was not, but at such a distance, and in that posture, as if it lay sentinel. At last, I found it was my Soul which useth to make sollices in time of sleep, and fetch vagaries abroad, to practise how she can live apart after the dissolution, when she is separated from the body and becomes a spirit. Afterwards the fantasma varying, she took a shape, and the nearest resemblance I could make of it, was to a veiled nun with a flaming cross on the left side of her breast, who in doleful tones and thr●●●●g accents, broke out into these que●●●ous ejaculations.   

A DIALOG between the SOUL and the body.  Soul. 
OMe! how much reason have I to rue the time that ever I was cloistered up among those walls of clay; What cause have I to repent that ever I was thrown into that dungeon, that corrupt mass of flesh? For when I first entered, I bore the image of my creator in som● lustre, but since that time, 'tis scarce discernible on me, in regard of those soul leprous spots and taintures which I have contracted from those frail corporeal organs, which have so pitifully disfigured and transformed me, that I cannot be called the same Thing I was at first, the Character of my creator being almost quite lost in me.  Bodie. 
Dear Soul, how comes it to pass that you are in so much anxiety? how comes it that you are so discomposed, and transported with passion, imputing the cause of your indispositions to me? Alas! you know well that I am but an unwieldy lump of earth, a mere passive thing of myself. It is you that actuates and animates me, otherwise I could neither think, speak, or do any thing, nay without your impulss I could have no motion at all; you are the Pilot that steers ●his frail Bark; you fit in the box of the Chariot, I am but the organ, you are the breath; you are the intelligence that governs and enlightens this dark orb of mine, so that all my motions are derived from the poles of your commands, it is you that denominates me a man; therefore, if any thing be amiss, 'tis I that have more reason to complain, in regard that being but a mere unwieldy trunk of myself, I am quickened altogether by you, whether you be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a continual motion as some Philosophers would have you to be, or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the perfection from whence all motion proceeds as others term you; therefore because I am liable also to future punishment as well as you, 'tis I that have more cause of complaint, and to repent me of that syneresis and union which is betwixt us: For it had been less danger for me to have been an inanimate thing, and to have had neither vegetal, sensitive, or rational Soul, either by traduction or infusion cast into me, for than I had been free from those numberless incommodities which all three are liable unto; The First being subject to excess of moisture and drought, to blastings and the fury of the Meteors; The Second to hunger and thirst with multitudes of diseases; The Third, to wit the Rational, not only to all these, but to vexation of spirit, to corroding cares, to griping thoughts, to a perpetual clashing and combating of the humours, insomuch that Man of all creatures is Heautontimorumenos, a self-tormenter, a persecutor and crucifier of himself, all which are emanations from the Intellectual soul; which besides useth to puzzle the brain with sturdy doubts, and odd furrnises, touching the mysteries of saving Faith, whereas indeed, as sense should veil to reason, so reason should strike sail to faith; moreover she is forward oftentimes to question the very works of Creation, and quarrel with Nature the handmaid of the Almighty in the method of her Productions, as (to make one instance for all) the Philosopher was angry with Her, because She did not make the stones of the river for bread, as she did the water thereof for drink.  Soul. 
'Tis true (to answer the first part of your answer) that it is my office to inform and actuat you, which operations are emanations from me; I am, I confess being undivisible, inextensive, without parts and inorganical, Tota in toto, & tota in qualibet parte, I am diffused up & down throughout that fabric of flesh, I am all in the whole, and all in every part; you have no movement at all without me, but you, yielding more obedience, and being more pliable to the sensual appetit, and the Will, than to the dictates and directions of the Intellect my principal faculty, have brought me to this pass; whereas those eyes of yours should be as crystal casements, through which I might behold the glorious firmament, and study my Creator in the Volumes of Nature, you have made them to intromit, and let out beams of vanity and lightness; They are foiled so thick with earth, that I can scarce discern Heaven through them; Those ears of yours, whereas they should let in holy Exhortations, and wholesome Precepts, you have used them as trunks to receive any idle discourses, and vain sounds, they have delighted more to hear carols and Catches than Hymns and Anthems. That mouth, tongue and voice of yours, whereas they were given you for Organs to sound out the glory of your Creator, and sing hallelujahs unto Him, you have made them Instruments of equivocation, and profaneness; Those hands of yours, whereas they were designed to be stretched forth to do deeds of charity, and to pen Divine Meditations, you have employed them to work your own revenges, and to scribble idle frivolous fancies; That throat of yours, whereas it was created for a conduit-pipe to let out Pious Ejaculations, you have made it the gullet of luxury and excess; Those feet of yours, whereas they were made you to walk in the paths of piety and virtue, and lead you to God's holy House, you have used them to run into the road of all licentiousness; When I examine your heart, the seat of your affections, whereas you should have made it a Closet for your Creator to reside in, and kept it sweet and cleanly for that purpose, I find you have made it a cage of unclean birds, of hatred, hypocrisy, choler and spiritual pride, the fuliginous evaporation whereof hath fumed up into your brain, and infected all the cells thereof, your fantasy hath been extravagant and wild, your memory hath been like a fierce that hath kept the chaff, and let out the pure grain, you have been more mindful of bad than good turns; your understanding hath been full of scepticisms, your will hath clashed with Reason, your Reason with Faith, your Faith with Heaven; In fine, when I take you all in a lump, I find you nought else but a bladder puffed up with airy passions, and malignant humours, amongst whom I am perpetually crucified as betwixt so many Judases; insomuch that I may justly say, that you stand as a rotten wall twixt me and the beams of my Creator, which would glance upon me with a stronger reverberation, were it not for that foul bulk of matter, that Cargazon of all sorts of infirmities which are stowed up in that sluggy and frail vessel.  Bodie. 
A frail vessel indeed, yet, under favour, you sit at the helm of it; but I confess you cannot give me terms low and vile enough in comparison of yourself, who are of an infinitely more noble extraction, the rational soul being Queen of forms, and the body, when she departs from it, the gastliest, and most noisome of things, yet though you be a ray of divinity, and I but a rag of mortality, though you bear God almighty's image, & I but Adam's, though you be in me as a Diamond set in Horn, though you be by a mysterious heavenly infusion, and I by a seminary traduction, yet we have the same Creator, (as Ants and Angels have) his hands have made me, and fashioned me in the womb, and the holy Text tells me, that I am wonderfully made; Nature his subordinate minister took much pains about me, she used great deliberation in the business, for the passed four several successive acts before I was completed.  
First there was a conjunction and cooperation of the sexes, which among some require divers years before the work take effect, as the present King of France was two and twenty years a getting; and the last Prince of Conde thirteen months in the womb.  
Secondly, Then followed Conception which required a well tempered vessel to conserve the generative sperm by occlusion and constringement of the orifice of the Matrix, which sperm being first blood, and afterwards cream, was by a gentle ebullition coagulated into a cruddie lump, which the womb by its natural heat made fit to receive form, and to be organised, whereupon Nature fell a working, to delineate all the members and other parts, beginning with those that are most noble, as the heart, the brain, and the liver, whereof the Galenists would have the liver to be first framed, in regard it is the source and shop of blood; but the peripatetics held the heart to have the precedency, because it is the first thing that lives and the last that dies.  
Thirdly, Nature continued in this operation until a perfect shape was introduced, which was the third Act, and is called Formation, being nought else but a production of an organical shapen body out of the spermatical substance caused by the plastic virtue, and vigour of the vital spirits, nor can I tell whether this Act was finished in thirty, fifty, forty two, or forty five days after the Conception, for the Naturalists allow such variety of times according to the disposition of the matter before the embryo be formed; moreover, they observe, that Nature proceeds with those deliberate pawses, that forty days after the Conception, the creature is no bigger than a grain of wheat.  
Fourthly, This being done, I was wrapped in three tunicles or membranes, than I was animated with three souls, the first with that of Plants, called the vegetative soul, then with a sensitive, wherein I communicate with brute animals, and lastly, with the rational soul, was immitted; The two first were generated ex Radice, as the Philosophers term it, viz. from the seeds of the Parents, but the last, which is yourself, was by immediate infusion from God himself, though neither naturalists nor Divines have yet positively determined when this Infusion is made; Nor could ever any Anatomists, by their curious dissections, and inspections, find yet any organ in the body, or cranny and receptacle in the brain, or any distinct place differing from other Animals where this rational soul should reside in the human body: Thus hath man an intellectual soul he knows not where, and infused he knows not how, nor when, so ignorant he is of the manner of his Creation; This last Act is called Animation, and as the Physicians allow Animation double the time that Formation had, which sometimes happeneth in eight months, sometimes in ten, but most commonly in nine: By these degrees and pauses was I made, and casting off my secundine, I came into the world to be a domicile not a dungeon for you, to be a kind of ark to carry you to the port of Bliss, to be a tabernacle for you, nay, to be a Temple for the Holy Ghost to dwell in: Nor did Nature altogether play the Bungler in doing her work, for she was pia Mater, a Pious Mother in framing the cells of my brain, and though she set me forth in no great volume, yet by this slenderness & gracility of constitution, I have the advantage to carry less corruption about me, for the more flesh, the more corruption; Now, touching those frailties you speak of, whereunto I am subject, you know they accompanied me to the world, and that I derive them from the protoplast, from the loins of my grandsire Adam, the rust and canker of whose skin and sin, stick unto me, being moulded of the same matter.  Soul. 
'Tis true, that you are moulded of Earth as Adam was, but the earth itself which gave him his composition and denomination, did blush when she went to make him, foreseeing, as it were his infirmities and propensity to all ill.  
But I find by this reply of yours, that you are well acquainted with yourself, by the account you give me of the method that Nature used in your Generation; Now, self-acquaintance is, after the knowledge of the Creator, the wisest; it is one of the paths, though a flabby one, that leads us to the high road towards heaven, (which is a rougher way than that you found o'er the Alps and Pyrenean mountains; The speculations whereof would make you truly value and vilify yourself, it should prick those tumors, and timpanies of pride that use to rise up in the human creature, when he contemplates how near that vessel wherein he slept so long in the bosom of his causes, is to the excrementitious parts.  
Now, out of your discourse may be inferred, that Man is that great Amphibion of Nature, he passeth through the degrees of all creations; He was first but mere Matter, than he grew up to be a vegetal, afterwards a sensitive, than a Human Creature, in which condition he is capable of a regeneration, and he is to be at last a Spirit, good or bad;  
Now, you have two things that distinguish and specificat you from the first three; the one is outward, which is that erect upright Posture and shape you bear to behold Heaven your last and indeed your only true country, this being but a transitory passage to that, whereas your other fellow creatures have their faces looking upon the earth; The 2 is inward, viz. the faculty of reason, which makes you a compensation for some inconveniences and weaknesses, whereby you are inferior to other elementary Creatures; By Reason man tames the Libyan Lion, he puts Castles upon the Elephants back, makes the huge Camel to kneel and take up his burden, by Reason he fetches the Eagle out of the Air, and with his Harping-iron drags up the great Leviathan out of the deeps; by Reason he rules and curbs Nature herself, making her pliable to his ends; Now all the operations of Reason, which are the best of human acts, you derive from me; But whereas you say that there can be no particular place found out either within you, or without you, more than there is in the Sensitive Creature where I should reside, you must know, that as the Solar Light displayeth itself throughout the whole Hemisphere, yet it cannot be said to possess any place more than another; so I, being a beam of immortality, am diffused through that little World of yours to quicken and heat all parts, yet I confine myself to no peculiar cell, and this inorganity showeth, that I can live separate from you (though you by no means without me) as appears already by some functions that I exercise, and those abstracted speculations that I use without the help or concurrence of matter, and quantity, which are my instruments only in ordine ad sensibilia, not Intelligibilia: yet I let you know that I have some closets in that fabric of yours, more choice than others, I am radically in the heart, where the vital spirits have their residence, where the arterial and most illustrious blood doth run in the left ventricle; But I am principally in the brain, where the animal Spirits inhabit, and whereon I cast my intellectual influences for Discourse and Reason, which influences, the brain of a brute animal is not capable of, or adapted by Nature to receive; Moreover, the veins are branched up & down the body, the blood is in the veins, the spirits in the blood, and I am much in the spirits.  
By this intimacy of communication I am polluted daily more and more, I am infected hereby and leprified with sin, and I fear me, that as the wounds of my Saviour appeared upon his body after his Resurrection, so those gashes and black spots which I have received from you, will appear upon me after my separation; And whereas you allege, that you are liable to future punishment as well as I for the aberrations and transgressions of this life, I must tell you, that when after my divorcement from you, I become a spirit, a simple substance and a sphere of myself, the sharpness and activity, the simpleness & subtlety of my pain being purely spiritual will be far more grievous and cruciatory than, any those gross members of yours can be capable of, I shall endure all torments at once with certain knowledge of a succeeding perpetuity, without any hopes of the least discontinuance or relaxation.  
Furthermore, whereas you say that I sit in the box to guide and govern that chariot of yours, 'tis true I do so, but as the divine Philosopher said, that chariot of the body is led by two horses, the one black, the other white, this last which are your good inclinations I can easily rule, but the black one, which are your turbulent wild passions and and obliquities I cannot govern, so that I am afraid he is oftentimes so headstrong & furious that he will at last tumble us both down the precipice of destruction; Lastly whereas you allege that I sit at the stern of that leaking bark of yours, 'tis true I do so, but I sail in her as one passing upon some part of the Danubius, where she meets with the River Sava, and the two Rivers running in collateral consortship many miles without intermingling, the Boats that row along the stream, have oftentimes, on the one side, a black muddy water, and on the Danubs side, a clear stream. In this manner do I sail in that body of yours, through good and bad affections, through clear and turbid humours (though the last be more predominant) whence such vapours arise, that cause strange tempests in me, and disturb the calm of my mind, which makes me weary of this habitation, when I think on those pollutions, and black specks wherewith I am contaminated, whereunto my meditations tended lately in these few Stanzas of multifarious cadences.  

Lord I cry,  
Lord I fly  
To thy Throne of grace,  
This world is irksome unto me;  
In my mind  
Stings I find  
Of that dismal place  
Where pains still growing young ne'er die;  
O thou whose clemency  
Reacheth to earth from sky  
Set my sins from me as wide  
As is East  
From the West,  
Or the Court of bliss  
From the Infern abyss,  
So far let us asunder ever bide;   

Angels blessed,  
With the rest  
Of that Heavenly choir,  
Which Halelujas always sing,  
Fain would I  
Mount on high,  
And those seats aspire  
Where every season is a constant spring;  
O thou who thought'st no scorn  
To be in Bethlem born  
Though grand Monarch of the sky,  
Through a flood  
Of thy blood  
Let me safely dive  
And at that port arrive,  
Where I may ever rest from shipwreck free.   

Faith and Hope  
Take your scope,  
And my Pilots be,  
To waft me to this blissful bay,  
Gently guide  
Through the tide  
Of man's misery  
My Bark, that it lose not the way,  
When landed I shall be  
At that Port, pardon me  
If I bid you both farewell,  
Only love  
Reigns above  
'Mong celestial souls  
Where passion not controls,  
Nor any thing but Charity doth dwell.  
Lord of light  
In thy sight  
Are those Mounts of bliss,  
Which human brains transcend so far,  
Ear nor eye  
Can descry,  
Nor heart fully wish,  
Or tongues of men and saints declare,  
Those sense-surmounting joys  
That free from all annoys  
For those few up-treasured lie,  
Which ere sun  
Shone at noon  
Have their names enroled  
In characters of gold  
Through the white volumes of eternity.   Bodie. 
You are beholden to my frailties for this and such like Meditations, who raise them in you, as rusty steel useth to strike sparks of fire; sin itself becomes an advantage to us sometimes; nay, mankind may be said to be beholden to the Jews and Judas, because they were the outward Instruments that wrought salvation; for the Cross, which they set upon mount ●alvarie for the crucifying of our Saviour, was the first Christian Altar that ever was erected, and it may be well doubted, whether he that hates the Altar, shall ever have benefit of the Sacrifice, as one said. But I am sorry to hear from you, that your dwelling in me is so tedious unto you, all that I can say, is, I could wish you were better housed; Now touching those Passions and Affections you speak of, (which are also my Inmates) they are to the soul, as sails to a ship, they are also as so many gales to fill those sails, as so many breezes to blow this small Vessel of mine, wherein you are embarked to the haven of happiness, and as I said before, they are mere Emanations from you; for there is nothing of motion in me, but what I derive from you; Now touching Affections and Passions, how uncouth would all human actions be, unless they were sweetened by them: how stupid and slumbering would our Spirits be without them? What a dull thing were Generation, if there were no Concupiscence? What comfort would there be in educating children, if there were not a natural love that affected us? Charity would grow key-cold, if Pity did not heat her to action; and that soldier fights best, who being in the field, is possessed with the Passion of anger, which the Philosopher calls the Whetstone of fortitude; He cannot become a true Penitent, that is not affecten with sorrow nor a true Convert, who is not affected with hatred of sin.  
Touching other infirmities you charge me withal, you know I have them by natural and hereditary propagation from my first Parents, whose corruption was entailed upon all mankind, which may also excuse, at least extenuat my faults. But besides these reasons, I have another that may serve for an apology in my behalf, which is, that all these members of mine, and that mass of blood which runs through them, with the cistern of humours, as likewise all the cells of my brain, are guided and governed by the motions of celestial bodies, whose influxes do perpetually invade me, and are irresistible: Add hereunto, that there is a malus Genius an ill Spirit that is always busy about me, and ready to take all advantages to impel me to acts of weakness. All these things being well considered, and weighed in a just balance, conclude me to be of myself but a poor passive thing, and to act by the impulses of others.  
Touching those Affections and Passions you speak of, which are nought else but a conglobation of the Spirits, I not only allow, but am glad of them, they serve as wings to carry me up to heaven (and you after me) or as you say, they are as so many gales to send me thither, provided that the one do only blow, not bluster and raise tempests; And that the other be not irregular or exorbitant, but directed to their true Object: The Passions are as so many pleaders wrangling at a bar, and reason, my chiefest faculty, should be their chancellor; But oftentimes those troops of furious Spirits, which Passion musters up, and sends up boiling to the brain, are so violent, that those Spirits which are under the jurisdiction of reason, are not able to encounter them, though she unite all her forces to that purpose.  
Moreover, whereas you would pin your infirmities upon your first Parents, 'tis true, that although Adam at first was created in a state of integrity and perfection, being he was the Epitome of the Creation, and a kind of Microcosm, a little World of himself, whereunto there may be some allusion in his name, which comprehends the four corners of the World, the word Adam being made up of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, viz. East, West, North and South; Although at first he was completed to that state, and yet made capable of a higher perfection, which capacity was no imperfection, but a seal to a higher; I say, that although he was so accomplished to present happiness, yet by the seducement of the ill Spirit, he fatally fell from it; nor was the fault as much in the Woman, being the weaker vessel, but in him who was the stronger; Now the trial of man's universal Obedience, being intended in him, and he failing, the guilt thereof falls upon his posterity, that were all then potentially in his loins, who ever since have brought with them into the world the stains of that original Corruption, which yet Christians have a way to wash off in the Font of Baptism, the lavoir of Regeneration: yet there is an Eve lurking still within the human body, viz. the Will, which is so full of obliquities and frailties, that while I lie at close ward against one infirmity, another is ready to wound me; which makes me so great a sinner, that the Indulgences of a whole jubilee (had they such a virtue as some believe they have) were not able to absolve me.  
Moreover, whereas you aver the Stars to bear sway, and to have an incontroulable predominance over all sublunary creatures, and consequently over that body of yours; It is a truth that cannot be denied, as we find by daily experience, that all Elementary creatures depend upon the motion and virtue of the heavenly: but though these influxes from above do by their operation toss and tumble the humours as they lift, and work upon corporeal things in man; yet notwithstanding, it cannot be said that these operations do extend to those inclinations and actions, that depend immediately upon the Empire of the Will, with the other faculties and Powers of the Mind, which are immanent, and merely spiritual; yet I confess, if we observe the order and method that the Understanding and the Will do use in the production of their functions, it will be found, that the influence of the Celestial Luminaries, and the impressions that they make, must have something to do herein; but it is indirectly and accidently, in regard that all terrestrial bodies by a gradual kind of subordination being governed, as was said before, by the superior, it must be inferred of necessity, that whatsoever is natural in the human creature, as the organs of that body of yours, must feel the Power of their influences; In regard that the spiritual faculties are so united, and have such an intercourse with the corporeal organs, that they cannot operate, unless the said organs ministerially concur, and contribute thereunto, by presenting the objects, which are the sensible species; but I except the abstracted ideas and speculations of the Mind; whence it inevitably comes to pass, that in regard of this strict league, and natural correspondence, which is between them, the inward faculties partake somewhat of, and submits to the dominion that the Planets and Constellations have over the sensual appetite, which together with the will, are disposed often, and incited, I will not say constrained, by their influxes.  
Out of these premises this conclusion doth follow, that the Stars do operate, and make impressions upon the human creature (as well as other productions of the Elements) both outwardly and inwardly, but they serve themselves of those material parts and organs of yours, that are as portholes to let in the influxes which they dart from above to work upon the faculties, to incline and incite them to good or ill, according to their dispositions, though not by way of enforcement, for they have not such a tyrannical and absolute supremacy, but there is a freedom still left to a well-ordered Will; And as there are outward Bongraces, to preserve the face from being tanned by the violence of Solar heat, so there are intern Graces to keep the inward parts from all ill and malignant influences that are lanced from above; according to the Poet,— Sapiens dominabitur Astris.  
The Wise man sways o'er the Stars; Therefore it was a very pertinent answer that one gave to a Genethliacal ginger, who having taken much pains to pry into the horoscope for the calculating of his nativity, and telling the party, that in regard such and such stars were in conjunction at the hour of his Birth, therefore he must be subject to such and such ill humours and dispositions. 'Tis true, said he, that I was born such a one, but I was born again, meaning his spiritual regeneration: For as we find that a virtuous education doth oftentimes correct the infirmities, and rectify the obliquities of nature, so there be interior motions of Grace, which come from a higher power than the Stars, that curb and check the operations which proceed from the supern influxes: Yet are the intellectual powers easily inclined to be transported, and snatched away by the sensual appetit, and the natural allurements thereof, for the human soul is not sui juris, she is not so independent and absolute of herself, but that she may be said to depend upon the Totum compositum, upon the body in general, by the mediation of whose instruments she employs her faculties, end exerciseth her actions in order to sensible things.  
But as the stars in this firmament are whirled away by the overruling motion of the Primum mobile, the first mover from East to West, yet they have a particular and contrary motion of their own from West to East, wherein they, proceed notwithstanding, in a constant interrupted pace; so I may be said to be oftentimes whirled away by the irregular and violent motions of that Compositum, that fleshly sphere of yours, yet I go on still in my own motion towards my last goal, and my sovereign good.  
Now whereas the heaven's work on inferior bodies, by three instruments, viz. by Light, Motion, and Influence, the first engendering heat in the air by attrition and rarefaction, which is done by a simple or compounded ray, to wit, reflection; The second, by measuring our times and seasons, both which may be said to be external visible instruments; The third, which is influence, is a hidden intern quality, it produceth metals, causeth fluxes and refluxes, ripens the embryo in the womb, with such like effects, and as it was discoursed before, it operates in the human creature upon his very intellectuals, through the exterior material parts; yet not by way of compulsion, but inclination, as was said before, therefore the influxes of Heaven are no excuse for you, as you allege, because they are resistible.  
Lastly, touching the Malus genius an ill spirit, which you say doth haunt you, and is ever at your elbow, to push you forward to ill actions, and suggest into you bad conceptions, I must tell you there is also a Bonus genius or daemon, a good spirit that always attends you, whose infusions, precepts, and cautions if you would obey, you would not only see the best, and approve of it, but follow and put it in practice.  Bodie. 
This discourse doth administer me but small comfort, yet I thank you that you make me know myself better by displaying unto me my own condition, and that magazine of infirmities which are stored up in this little tabernacle of yours, yet I shall never make those infirmities, nor all the effects thereof, were they more in number, greater than my creator's mercy, either out of any despondency of Spirit, and despair, in rejecting it as some do, or by presumption, in slighting it as others do: For if the first Man, who was immediately moulded and made by God himself in such a state of perfection, had his frailties; If Samson the strongest man had also his; If Solomon the wisest man had his; If David, the holiest of men, who had so many advantages, as to be a Prophet, and so anointed with oil above others; if that Prophet who came of the chosen seed, and consequently, was not cast in so corrupt a mould as others, I say, if the Prophet David who was a Man after God's own heart, a character, the like whereof was never given to any but unto him, I say if such a man, and such men had infirmities in so high a measure, how is it possible but that I should have them in a greater number? therefore my transgressions are but deeds of my defects, and effects of those general frailties that have attended, and are entailed upon the best of men.  
Now, touching my corporeal Organs and Senses which you tax so much, 'tis true that my eyes have oftentimes gazed upon earthly vanities, and grass-green objects, yet at other times they have looked upon sky-colour. I have cast them up towards Heaven, and fixing them a good while (with some ejaculations) upon a part of the deepest azure I could spy, they cured me once of a shrewd defluxion (by which experiment, I also found that such a fixation doth much corroberat the nerves and conserve the sight) that distiled into them. I have by Them oft admired the fair fabric of the universe, surveying all the parts thereof round about as far as my optics could reach, & stood astonished at their Excellencies, as beams streaming from a heavenly Creator (& refracting on the visible world) on whom their preservation depends, and in whom they were concentred intentionally before they had any existence; I observe how Nature is here and there checked by Him, when I see how he sets bounds to the vast tumbling Ocean, and that those mountains of snow, which hang in the airy Region, & those floodgates of waters do not fall down and precipitate at once to overwhelm the earth, which is so little a thing in comparison of the vast expansion of the Air; As also in the operation of divers other productions of Hers. For if Nature did go on still in her own course & constant method of effects and causes, this might induce a belief, that she were Governness of all things; but when we see, that sometimes she hath not her full swing, intending things that she is not able to perfect, but falls short of her purposes, as also that her ordinary operations are restrained, and grow lame, We must conclude, that there is a predominant Power that ore-sways her, and moves the sphere of her activity as he lift. Thus by the optics of the Ey, (the eminentest of my senses) I make the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, the Universe my university to study my Maker, breaking out often (when I go into the fields, and find all things subservient to Man) into that ejaculation of the Psalmist, Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and declare the wonders he doth for the children of men. Nor do I by the benefit of the ay read divinity among sublunary creatures where every spire of grass may serve for a letter, but I spell my Creator among the stars, and indeed there is not any mundane object doth delight and ravish me so much, as to contemplate those glorious lamps of heaven in a clear night, wherewith I find myself so much affected, that with Emilius I could find in my heart to congratulate the moon's delivery from an eclipse; therefore it may stand well with Christianity, to hold those the best of Pagans, that ask blessing of the Sun.  
Touching my Organs of hearing, 'tis true as you say, they serve too often to let in every frivolous tale, or sonnet, yet as the Philosopher calls the Hearing sensum disciplinae, the sense of learning, whereby the soul, as he thought, being at first infusion a kind of rasa tabula, recovers all her notions by way of Reminiscence, I have made it often (let all this be spoken without vanity) the sense of saving knowledge for Faith comes by hearing; I have set open the anfractuous passages thereof to take in the sacred Oracles of God, and the mysteries of salvation, and when I hear a holy anthem it brings all my spirits to my ears in throngs; A grave elaborat sermon works the like effect, such a sermon as he speak of, who coming out of a Church, and being asked whether the sermon was done, yes, said he, 'tis done in the church, but it begins now in me: but while my Faith is fed, I do not love to have my reason famished, I do not love to be worded to death by such tautological & rambling insipid confused stuff that some Enthusiasists use to evaporat, wherein it is as difficult to find any coherence in point of matter or methodical contexture, as it is to make a rope of that sand whereby they prate.  
My feet 'tis true, go too often astray to the by-paths of vanity, but they come back again to the right tract, as one going on a journey, and hearing by the way a pack of hounds, he goes and follows the sport a while, and then returns to his road; I have the grace to direct them often to God's holy house, where with legs and knees I employ them in the humblest manner of genu-flection, to offer him sacrifices of prayer and praises;  
I reach out my hands sometimes to lend unto the Lord, by relieving the poor (according to my pittance) knowing that Charity doth cover a multitude of sins: my fingers also I find pliable now and then to write divine meditations, whereunto I employ them altogether upon the holy Sabbath.  
My mouth, my tongue, and heart, also join (be it still spoke without vainness) at least to ejaculat my guilt and his glory; and I find the arterial blood, which is in the least ventricle thereof boiling, methinks, within me in affection towards him, the exhalations whereof rise up, and fill all the cells of my brain to contemplate his goodness, as will appear unto you in these few ternaries of Stanzas.  

Could I screw up my brain so high  
With soaring raptures that mightfly  
Unto the Empyrean sky,   

How would I laud the Lord of light,  
Who fills all things, and every wight  
With plenty, vigour, and delight.   

My voice with hallelujahs loud  
Should pierce and dissipate the clouds  
Which in the airy region crowd;   

Then through the Element of fire  
Unto the Stars they should aspire,  
And so to the seraphic choir.   

Thus earth and sky, with every thing  
Should join with me, and carols sing  
Unto the everlasting King.   
Touching my interior Passions, I confess, they have too great a dominion in me, choler, which hath more heat than light in it, doth too often transport me, some fires glow in me, as if they were flown from hell, and such a fire no meaner man than Saint Paul, though a Convert, and one that had been a Traveller in the other world, felt within him, impatience and rashness, intemperance, self-conceit, and hatred have reigned in me, I have other odd things (and indeed all things which attend human weakness) that I am subject unto, as too much credulity and lightness; sadness contracts, and mirth too suddenly dilates my spirits, and makes them break out into violent fits of laughter, which though it be a harmless Passion, yet there is none that distorts a man so much, for it extends the forehead, declines the brow, half shuts the eye, raising a kind of splendour about them, it crumples up the nose, drives back the cheeks, and makes pits in them, it shows the teeth, makes the tongue pendant in the mouth, it hindereth the swallowing by contracting and shutting the muscles which serve that action, it gives such girds to the Diaphragma that it obstructs the respiration for the time, it contracts all the members, and beats upon the flanks, it puts forth arms, legs and hands in strange postures; It causeth Syncopes sometimes, and raiseth an irregular motion in the pulse; thus this Passion disguiseth me too often, & betrays my folly, though one, apologizing for this Passion, saith, that laughter doth not as much discover a man to be a fool, but that there is a fool in his company, which causeth him to laugh. There is so much prodigality in me, that I think I shall never be covetous, I shall never be condemned for a rich man, nor be so simple, as to roast meat for others, while I starve myself; I have other Passions that dwell in me, whereof there can be no excess, as Hope and Love; by the first I think I shall be long lived, for of all the Passions there is none so advantageous for health, in regard the spirits therein, which coroborat and quicken all the parts, are moderate, she stops, and keeps them back that they cannot dissipate nor make any vehement agitation or eagerness; for if the spirits be too active and violent in their operations, they may produce strong actions, but it shortens our days, because those spirits easily scatter, and so consume the natural moisture, which Hope useth not to do.  
Touching the other Passion, viz. Love, Nature herein hath been benign, and bountiful unto me, for she hath given me good store, so that I think I am not in the arrear to any for that, I take much more pleasure in the retaliation of a good turn, than in the revenge of a wrong, &c.  
This Love extends to all my fellow creatures, for it makes an impression of a kind of tenderness in me, when I see any of them go to the slaughter; Insomuch, that I could live a Pythagorean, all the days of my life, upon roots, fruits, pulse and whit-meats, which Nature reacheth unto us so gently without any violence; what a coil there is with so many hounds, horses and men to take away the life of a Hare or Partridge: what blowing and puffing, what sweating and swearing is used in killing a poor Dear? which makes me think upon the madman, whom the Italian Doctor had put naked in a Pond up to the navel, and it happening, that a Falconer passed by, luring after his Hawk, he asked the madman whether he had seen her, the madman staring upon him, and asking him divers questions touching his Hawks, Hounds, & horse, & finding that all that expense and pains was but to kill some poor Bird; he told the Falconer, Get you gone hence as soon as you can, for if the Doctor comes out, and finds you, whereas he hath put me here but to the navel, he will clap you up to the very neck for a greater madman.  
But touching Rational creatures which are of my own species, and bear the Character of Christians, I can hate no man only for his opinion, difference of Fancy and face to me is all one; it moves Pity rather in me than hatred; The Greek, all the while he hath the same Creed with me, though among other tenants, he denies, that the souls of holy men do enjoy the blissful vision of God, or the souls of wicked men are tormented in Hell before the day of judgement; The Melchites or Assyrians, the greatest sect of Christians in the Orient, though among other wrong opinions, they hold, That the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father, &c. The Russian, though he receive Children, after seven years of age, to the Communion, and mingleth warm water with the Wine in the Eucharist, &c. The Nestorian, though he hold, That there are two Persons in our Saviour, as well as two Natures, &c. The Jacobit, though he signs Children before Baptism, with the sign of the Cross, some in the face, some ●n the arm, some in the breast, which badge of Christianity, they carry with them to their grave, &c. The Cophtis, or Christians of Egypt, though they baptize not their children till 40 days after their birth, and then presently Administer the Sacrament of the Eucharist unto them, &c. The Habassins, which are the Ethiopians, a vast continent of Christians, as big as half Europe, though they circumcise their children, as well as Baptise them, & so are Jews from the girdle downward, though the cake of unleavened Bread which they administer in the Sacrament, have five dents in it, alluding to the five wounds of Christ, and that day they communicate, they do not spit till the Sun be set; and the Emperor, when in his Progress, he comes to the sight of a Church, he presently lights down off his Dromedary, and crawls a while on his knees, but never remounts, till he be out of the sight of the Church, with other Ceremonies of theirs, &c. The Armenians, who have more privileges in the Turks dominion than any other Christians, though they deny the Holy ghost to proceed from the Son, and receive infants presently after baptism to the communion of the Eucharists &c. The Maronites that inhabit about mount Libanus though they hold that human souls were all created together from the beginning, that the father may dissolve the matrimony of his son or daughter if he mislike it, Though they use to create children 5. or 6. years old subdeacons, and believe that no human creature entereth the Kingdom of Heaven before the general ●udgement &c. The Anabaptiss, ●hough they baptise not their children till they come to years of dis●retion &c. The Presbyterian, though ●e be against hierarchy, and the ce●emonies of the church and only ●n love with the wealth thereof &c. The Hollanders though they allow a man to cohabit with a woman all the days of his life, and if upon his death bed he marry her, 'tis time enough to restore her honour, and make the children formerly begot between them legitimate, &c. The Roman Catholics, though they Invoke Saints, and pray for the dead, &c. All these, with sundry sorts of Christians besides, all the while they have the symbol of saving Faith, and same Apostolical Creed with me, all the while they have the Decalog, and holy Scriptures, I have so much charity to hold that they differ from me, not as much in Religion as in Opinion; (Now Opinion is that great Lady which sways the World) therefore I wish that they might go up the same scale of bliss with me. Nor are the Swi●s and Gritons to be hated, because they permit the Lutheran to preach in one end of the Church, and the Calvinist in the other, yet in thei● moral civilities and negotiations, they live peaceably together.  
To conclude this discourse touching common charity and Love, 'tis true my Fellow-cretures, my Kindred and Friends have a great share of it, but I reserve the quintessence thereof for my Creator and Saviour, the one being the sea, the other the spring of all felicity. I love my Creator a thousand degrees more than I fear him, which makes me praise him more often than pray unto him; and for matter of fear (as I displayed myself elsewhere) I fear none more than myself, who am indeed my greatest foe, I mean those obliquities and depravations which are my inmates, whereof the ill spirit takes his advantage, ever and anon, to make me run into aberrations, so that I may say, I stand more in fear of myself than of the devil, or death who is the king of fears. Now touching this elixir of love that I reserve for my Creator, it melted one morning into these Stanzas:  

As the parched field doth thirst for rain  
When the Dog-star, makes Sheep, and Swain  
Of an unusual drought coplain,  
So thirsts my heart for Thee.   

As the chased deer doth pant and bray  
After some brook, or cooling bay,  
When hounds have worried her astray  
So pants my heart for Thee.   

As the forsaken Dove doth moan  
When her beloved mate is gone,  
And never rests while self-alone,  
So moans my heart for Thee.   

Or as the teeming Earth doth mourn  
In black (like Lover at an urn)  
Till Titan's quickening beams return,  
So do I mourn, moan, pant & thirst  
For Thee, who art my last and first.   Soul. 
I am glad beyond measure to hear these discourses drop from you, first that you make so good use of the objects of this Inferior world, as to study your Creator in them, proceeding from the effects, to the search of the cause which is the method of Philosophy, whereas the Theolog proceeds commonly from the cause to the effect. The Pagan Philosophers by the twilight of nature soared so high, that they came to discover there was a primus Motor, an Ensentium, an optimus maximus, they came to know that he was ubiquitary and diffused through the universe, to give vigour, life and motion to all parts as I do in that body of yours, though invisibly, if I may be so bold as assimilat so incomprehensible a greatness to so small a thing; Now there is no finit intellect can form a quidditative apprehension of God, no not the Angels themselves. There may be negative conceptions of him, as to say he is immortal, immense, independent, simple, and infinite &c. Or there may be relative conceptions had of him, as when we call him Creator, Governor, King, &c. Or there may be positive conceptions of him, as the chiefest Good, a pure Act, or he may be described by an aggregation of attributes, as, merciful, Wise, Pious, &c. But for the comprehensive quiddity of God, it cannot be understood by any created Power; Among all these, one of the best ways to describe him, is by Abstracts, as to call him goodness itself, Justice itself, Power, Pity & Piety itself, He being the rule of all these; some of those ancient wizards among the Egyptians and Grecians came by reach of natural reasons, to the knowledge of one Incomprehensible Guide and conserver of the universe; specially Tresmegistus and Socrates, but they durst not broach their opinions publicly for fear of the fury of the people, among whom there was a kind of zeal in those dark times; Plato flew as high as Socrates his Master in divinity, and among other Passages throughout his Works, there is one that is very pregnant, for Writing to a friend of his, he saith, When I write to thee seriously; I begin my Epistle with God save thee, when otherwise, The Gods save thee; Aristotle, Plato's scholar, courted Nature only, groping her secrets; a great Philosopher he was, and no less a Sophister, he was the first that entangled Philosophy with subtleties, coined words and Paralogisms, as the Classicans did first distract divinity, so that it was no improper Character which one gave, That Aristotle's school was a great scold;  
Touching the celestial bodies I love you the better, that you are affected with them so much, that you sometimes speculat and spell your Creator among the stars. Now some of the Rabbins hold, that the word Jehovah (which is the highest name of God almighty, and pronounced publicly in the synagogue but once a year) may be plainly made up among the Oriental stars. Nay, they affirm, that all the Hebrew letters may be found in the firmament, which letters were the true characters of the constellations before the Egyptians came with their hieroglyphics, & that the Greeks hoist up such monsters so near the throne of God, as Bears, Bulls, Lions, Goats, Rams and Scorpions; together with pitchers and planks of rotten wood. They hold moreover, that the fate and periods of Monarchies may be read, not only in Comets, but in those fixed stars that are vertical over them. When Medusa's head was vertical to Greece, there were divers that presaged her destruction. Jerusalem's ruin was read plainly among the stars, some years before. Nay, Postel, a Christian writer, takes God and Christ to witness, that in the Hebrew characters among the stars, vidit omnia quae in Rerum natura constituta sunt, he saw all things that were constituted by nature. Doubtless that tongue which was spoken in Paradise, and by the almighty himself, may have some extraordinary privilege and mysteries in it, nor was Postel lunatic when he broke out into such a protestation. But the Authors of this opinion add unto it this caution, that he who will be a scholar, and a proficient in this sidereal school to spell the stars, and study this book (for the Heavens are called so in holy Scriptures) must be an extraordinary pious, patient and prudent wel-wisd man, so he may find old Orpheus' words to be true, when speaking of God he sings,  
— {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman},  
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}.  
Thy certain order doth run immutable commands aong the stars:  
Now, touching those ancient notaries of Nature, it may be well thought, those large Ideas of knowledge they had, were illuminations from heaven, whence every good and perfect gift doth descend, therefore Erasmus cannot be much blamed for canonising Socrates for a Saint, so confident he was of his salvation; And it were no profaneness to say, That as the Holy Prophets were harbingers to the Second Person of the trinity, so the Philosphers were the Heralds of the First. Touching your Passions, Senses and Organs, though the first have been traitors so often unto me within doors, and the other rebels without, yet you apologise indifferently well for them; Age will take off their teeth and ougles in time, for they are no other than wild Beasts; Insomuch, that it was not said improperly of him, who having passed his gran Climacterique, viz. 63, said, that he was got loose from his unruly Passions, as from so many tigers or Wolves. But I like it well, that you have so much of Hope and Love; Touching the first, you say well, it maybe a cause of longevity, because it keeps the Spirits in a temperate motion, and preserves them from wasting too fast; And this may be one reason why Kings and sovereign Princes are not commonly so long lived as others, because they have fewer things to hope for, and more things to fear.  
Touching the largeness of your Love, that it extends to a tender compassion towards sensitive animals, it is a thing not to be altogether discommended in you (though it may be smiled at by some) nor are you alone herein, but there be some Noble Christian Authors that are of your disposition, who say, that they could find in their hearts to inveigh against the cruel, bloody and nasty sacrifices of the Jews, had they not served as Types of the great Oblation for Mankind; nor is your charitable large Love towards all those that bear God almighty's Image, to be blamed, being well interpreted, specially towards Christians, considering that they have the Decalog, wherein there are omnia facienda all things to be done, and the Dominical Prayer, wherein there are omnia petenda all things to be asked for, and lastly the Creed, wherein there are omnia credenda all things to be believed; though the Roman Church be accused to mutilat one of them. 'Tis true, there have been Haeretiques and Hetroclits in divinity from all times, specially in this doting age, and not only in divinity, but also in Philosophy, and Policy. The Church of Christ, like Saint Peter's bark, must expect, in this troublesome World, to be tossed with cross winds, and sometimes with tempests, which proceed from the light and airy opinions of human brains; and while they think to make the said bark tight, and stop the leaks, they make more holes in her; Others, going about to exalt the Church, do raise her upon the devil's back; And the worst is, that people fall out about mere niceties, and extern indifferent forms; for though they agree in the fundamentals and doctrine, yet they come to exercise mortal hatred one to the other; but it hath been so from the beginning: what a huge clash did one little Vowel made in a great general council, whether {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, was more Orthodoxal; and what a huge gulf of separation is made now among Christians, whether, in the holy Eucharist, we take panem Domini, or panem Dominum; There may be garments of divers fashions made of one stuff; the same faith may admit of divers rites; And indeed, it is very observable, how the Genius of a Nation may be discovered by their outward exercise and forms of Religion; The Romans, who had large souls, did always delight in magnificence and Pomp, in stately fabrics, in rich ornaments, in exquisite Music, in curious sculptures and Paintings, in solemnities and stately Processions; all these the Italians, who are extracted of the Romans, as also divers Families in Spain and France, do exercise in the practice of their Religion, thinking nothing too costly and precious for their Churches, and that it concerns all Arts to contribut their best, and most quintessential Pieces for the beautifying thereof, wherein all others, who are under the Roman Church do imitat Her; But there are other people that have souls of another temper, they care not for Exterior shows, and appearances of pomp, or for feeding the eyes: And whereas the other Nations do deck, trim up, and embellish Religion with the rarest Ornaments, and richest Jewels and furniture they can find, to set a good face upon Her, whereas they house Her in the stateliest manner they can, adorning, perfuming and keeping her Temples as neat and decent as possible can be, to draw the people to a love and frequentation of them; The other sort of people put Her in homely plain attire, being loath to spend much money upon her, lest if devotion should produce too much wealth, the daughter would devour the Mother. Touching the charitable conceit you bear towards those sects of Christians which you have named, discovers a candid & charitable nature in you, for though the number of the Elect be few, yet to confine them to one clime, and coop them up in one corner of the Earth, is a presumption; Yet every one should be so confident of his own religion, as to wish that all mankind were of the same as He.  
I like it extremely well that you reserve the best and purest motions of love for your Creator, who is the source and wide sea, who is the sum and centre of all happiness; This love you may be well assured will not be lost towards him who taketh delight in nothing more than in the good of his creatures, and to see them do well; He is always more ready to open than they to knock, more ready to hear than they to cry, more ready to bestow than they to beg; moreover I like well those submissive and decent postures wherein you prostrate yourself before him, there can be no excess of humility in your comportment that way, the inward man is known by the outward carriage, and when the members bow without, 'tis a sign that the heart doth so also within: I like it well also that your praises are more frequent than your prayers; prayers bend God, but praises bind him; prayer concerns our own interest, but praise aims principally at his glory, and they who doth truly preform this part of piety, may be said to discharge the duty of an angel upon earth; God, who is omniscious, knows all our wants before hand, and what's fitting for us, therefore to be too importunate and over-tedious in one prayer, to eflagitate him with reiterations of the same thing discovers a doubting and diffident heart, therefore it more becomes a Christian to be more vehement in praise rather than in prayer, the one issuing out of the foggy vapours of sin, the other from the pure exhalations of piety and gratitude, which sooner ascend to heaven; Therefore a Christian should not stand always knocking and begging at the gates of heaven, but endeavour to bestow some thing upon his Creator, and there cannot be a better gift than praise, with expressions of thankfulness and with admiration of his longanimity and love, of his preservation and providence, of his power and greatness; yet prayer should have a longer preparation than praise, in regard by it we make our addresses immediately to God in the second person, and familiarly speaks to him as it were face to face; whereas oblations of praise are commonly in the third person; Therefore under favour I do not much approve of their custom who before and after meat, when their brains are full of worldly thoughts, and tied to civil compliances do rush rashly into a speech with him in the second person having no time for a fitting praemeditation; At such times a short ejaculation expressed in the third person (though it be only mental if the case requires) may be more acceptable, and freer from presumption than a long grace, For among those innumerable sins which man is subject unto, the sin in prayer, though least thought upon, is one of the greatest, when without trembling precogitations, God almighty is spoken unto, and thoued in the Vocative case. Now, those Benedictions, and strains of praises which are uttered in the Nominative and other Cases, have a larger scope of boldness, and a greater latitude of notion, they keep at a further distance, and consequently require not so much reverence, and recollection of the thoughts beforehand, but may be extemporal; 'Tis one thing to say God be praised, another thing to say, O God I praise thee: the latter requires much more premeditation, for one presupposeth he is as it were locally and presentially before him, though the first may have as much of the heart, & be as effectual as the other. This makes me to take some pains when I invoke God in the second person by my orison, to obstract myself from all commerce with you for the present, and elevat myself upon the wings of Faith in the sublimest posture I can towards heaven taking the choicest affections and ideas with me along where I figure to myself a huge mountain of most pure and inexpressible light wherein methinks I discern a glorious majesty, but the more I look upon him, the more he dazzles mine eyes, that I cannot make him a fixed object, or discover any shape in him, in regard of the refulgency of his glory; during this action, I endeavour to mingle with that light, for true love is nothing else but an appetit of union, and if I hold myself to be a spark, or part of that light from the beginning, and to be dart thence into that body of yours, and made a soul, may be no extravagant speculation.  
Now touching this last Notion, and the other concerning extemporal Prayer, it is not uttered to give the least occasion of scandal to any other soul, but only to intimat, that there are for Acts of Devotion, as well as for all things else, fit places and times, where there may be a greater opportunity for one to summon his spirits, to marshal his irregular thoughts, and raise his affections towards that glorious object, to whom Prayer is directed.  Bodie. 
Dear soul, my spirits are raised to an exceeding great height of comfort, that in the first part of this last discourse, you are pleased with the method of my Devotions, and carriage towards Heaven; that I reserve my purest and most intense Affections for my Creator, which I shall be most careful ever to do,— dum spiritus hos regit artus; He being my sole & sovereign good; and truly, I must tell you, that when by my lubricities, as by too free a genius in the fruition of a friend or otherwise, I chance to have offended him, I can never be friends with myself, till I am reconciled to him, and that I conceive his countenance to be turned again towards me; yet, I had once a long fit of dejection of Spirit that made me break out into these complaints, which you may well remember, for they were Emanations from you.  

Early and late, both night and day,  
By moonshine and the Sun's bright ray,  
When spangling stars embossed the sky,  
And decked the World's vast canopy,  
I sought the Lord of life & light,  
But oh, my Lord kept out of sight.   

As at all times, so every place  
I made my Church, to seek his face;  
In forests, Chaces, Parks and Woods,  
On Mountains, meadows, Fields and floods,  
I sought the Lord of life and light,  
But still my Lord kept out of sight.   

On Neptun's back, when I could see  
But few pitched planks twixt death and me,  
In freedom & in bondage long  
With groans & cries, with prayer and song,  
I sought the Lord of life & light,  
But still my Lord kept out of sight.   

In chamber, closet (Swollen with tears)  
I sent up vows for my arrears,  
In chapel, Church and Sacrament,  
The soul's Ambrosian nourishment,  
I sought the Lord of life and light,  
But still my Lord kept out of sight.   

What! is mild heaven turned to brass,  
That neither sigh nor sob can pass!  
Is all commerce twixt earth and sky  
Cut off from Adam's Progeny?  
That thus the Lord of life & light,  
Should so, so long keep out of sight?   

Such Passions did my mind assail,  
Such terrors did my spirits quail;  
When lo, a beam of Grace shot out  
Through the dark clouds of sin and doubt  
Which did such quickening sparkles dart,  
That pierced the Centre of my heart;   

O how my spirits come again,  
How every cranny of my brain  
Was filled with heat and wonderment,  
With joy, and ravishing content,  
When thus the Lord of life & light  
Did reappear unto my sight.   

Learn sinners hence, 'tis ne'er too late,  
To knock and cry at heavens gate,  
That beggar's blessed, who doth not faint,  
But re-inforceth still his plaint;  
The longer that the Lord doth hide his face,  
More brighter will be his afterbeams of Grace.   
Thus at last I made mythridat of that Viper, which me thought had gnawed so long upon my Conscience, which prompted me all the while of my dangerous condition, and exhibited me my Quietus est at last.  Soul. 
I like it very well, that you make the Conscience your Guide, and that you use to listen to his counsel; for he is my Dictator, & may be said to have a coordinat Power with God himself. Therefore it is the chiefest part of a wise Christian, to take his Conscience for his Admonisher here, lest he become his Accuser hereafter, He is Fraenum, and Flagrum, he is a bridle before, but a Scourge after sin. But I hope, those turbid intervals of grief and gripings bettered you afterward; for confession and sorrow without amendment (as one truly said) is like the pumping of a Ship without stopping the leaks: It is a pithy and ponderous advice that an ancient Father gives, Commissa dole, dolenda non commit, repent of things committed, and commit not things to be repented; there is another saying, that administereth both comfort and caution, that if sins present do not delight thee, sins passed will never destroy thee. There is a third which reflects upon God and man; Qui promittit poenitenti veniam non promittit peccanti poenitentiam. He who promiseth pardon to the penitent, doth not promise repentance to the peccant.  
It behooves you now, that you have passed above seven Climacteriques; and seen above seven and twenty hundred Saboth's, to make a more exact and frequent account with Heaven, for all the noble natural parts must grow less vigorous in you (and so draw you to your end) specially the heart, which according to the old Egyptian doctrine receives two dramms every year till it comes to 50, and then decreaseth so fast to a 100, whence turning to its original weight it makes no further progress; Therefore Rogus & urna meditanda, you must now meditate on the pile and the pitcher, viz. on your winding-sheet and grave: for death may lie in wait for you in your shadow as you tread it. You must not now thirst so much after human knowledge, and spend your time in the school of nature, by making such greedy researches into her causes and effects, you must seek after Theological verities, you must not so much look after Jacobs' staff, as after his ladder. But in the search of divine mysteries, let me give you this caution, not to affect scepticism too much, for it may make you guilty of spiritual pride, the two gran sins which reign in these times. It is a wholesome Rule satis est sapere ad sobrietatem. It is enough to be soberly wise, to be contented to be of God's Court, not of his council, specially of his Cabinet council. Nor in adiaphorous things must you be to violent, strict and insolent, or hating any to destruction.  Bodie. 
Well fare you now, and better may you fare hereafter, that you have so much care of me, as it appears by affording me these instructions. It is a while since that I have put them in practice, by employing my intellectuals to Divine operations, and to give you some small instances, I will offer you from among others, a few of the Psalms of the holiest of Men, and the first instance shall be the verse that should precede all Prayers and Praises, which I have made to run upon English feet as smoothly and as faithfully as I could, diversifying it in four Stanzas, whereof the Reader may choose which he please.  
PSALM 19 Vers. vlt.  

1 O Lord my Saviour and support,  
Grant that the words and cries  
My heart doth vent, and tongue report  
Be pleasing in thy eyes.  
2 O let the notions of my mind  
And words my mouth doth yield,  
Still in thy sight acceptance find  
My Saviour, strength and shield.  
3 O Lord my Saviour strength and might,  
Grant that the thoughts and words  
Be always pleasing in thy sight  
My mouth and heart affoards.  
4 O let the words my lips prolate,  
And plaints my heart doth pour,  
Find favour at thy mercy gate  
My Saviour, strength and tower.   
Now you shall receive some of the Penitential Psalms, which I hope I have not murdered in the version, as others are said to have done.  
PSALM. 51.  

1 Some pity, Lord,  
To me afford  
Of thy abundant grace,  
For thy great love  
My sins remove  
And trespasses deface.  
2 Wash off the slime  
Of this foul crime,  
And throughly purge the blot;  
For I confess  
My wickedness,  
I always see the spot.  
3 O Lord 'gainst Thee  
And only Thee  
Have I committed ill,  
That thy words might  
Be counted right  
And clear when judged still.  
4 Lo, in a frame  
Of sin and shame  
Were knit my flesh and bone,  
When I, alas,  
An Embryon was  
Of sinners I was one.  
5 In the inmost parts  
Of contrite hearts  
Thou wisdom dost demand,  
And secretly  
Thou shalt make me  
True wisdom understand.  
6 With hyssop cleance  
This foul offence,  
And purge my soul from ill,  
So shall I be  
White in degree  
To snow on Hermon hill.   

7 O let me here  
News that may cheer  
My trembling heart with joy,  
May free from groans,  
My shattered bones,  
Broke by Thee with annoy.   

8 O turn aside  
Thy face, and hide  
It from my foul offence;  
And throughly blot  
This ugly spot,  
Ere I be sumoned hence.   

9 Renew my heart  
In every part,  
Thy saving Grace inspire,  
So that my breast  
May be possessed  
With flames of heavenly fire.   

10 Oh do not chase  
Me from thy face,  
Nor of thy spirit deprive,  
For then should I  
In misery  
Be worst than thing alive,   

11 Thy joys once more  
To me restore  
Of thy salvation,  
So shall I preach  
And sinners teach  
The way to heavens throne.   

12 O Lord from blood  
That cries so loud  
Fo● vengeance me defend,  
So shall I still  
With accents shrill  
Thy noble deeds extend.   

13 My lips unseal  
For to reveal  
Thy wondrous acts of old,  
So shall my tongue  
The saints among  
Thy righteousness unfold.   

14 Nor blood of lambs,  
Or fat of rams  
Are pleasing in thy sight,  
Else would I come  
With hecatombs  
Didst thou in them delight.   

15 The sacrifice  
Which God doth prize  
Are hearts with sorrow bruised;  
A heart broke so  
And split with woe,  
Lord, thou hast ne'er refused.   

16 On Zion hill  
O Lord, distil  
Thy gifts in a good hour;  
Build Salem's walls  
And keep from falls  
Thy temple and her tower.   
Here followeth another in a differing cadence and Tune.  
PSAL. 6.  

1 Correct me not in rage,  
Nor chastise me in ire,  
But Lord thy wrath assuage,  
And me with grace inspire,  
For I am faint,  
and all my bones,  
are vexed with groans  
Of just complaint.  
2 My soul doth also swell  
For griefs that me torment,  
But, Lord, how long, oh tell,  
Wilt thou thyself absent?  
Return O God,  
Lord of all bliss,  
For I do kiss  
Thy smarting rod.  
3 For in the shades of night,  
No mortal can thee mind,  
And in the pit what wight  
To thank thee canst thou find?  
Behold my tears,  
wherewith I drown  
each night my down,  
For old arrears.  
4 My beauteous days are past,  
For griefs that me dismay,  
And like a flower I fade,  
And wither quite away,  
For fear of those  
that me annoy,  
and would destroy  
Like deadly foes.   
PSALM. 130.  

1 OUt of the floods,  
Out of the suds  
Of sin I roar and cry,  
Lord bow thine ear,  
'Tis time to hear:  
My groans and agony.   

2 If Thou observe  
How oft we swerve  
From thee, who can abide  
To stand before  
Thy judgement door  
To be arraigned and tried?   

3 But there's with thee  
Rich clemency  
And plenteous store of grace,  
Which makes Thee Lord  
To be adored  
So much by human race.   

4 My soul for Thee  
Incessantly  
Waits as the sentinel  
Waits for the day  
And Phoebus' ray,  
Night's darkness to repel.   

Let Israel  
Then boldly dwell  
And trust in God above.   

For there's with Him  
Up to the brim  
Abundant store of love.   

6 For it is He  
Can only free  
And Israel forgive,  
And of his crimes  
Done at all times  
An absolution give,   Soul. 
I am mightily well pleased that you employ your thoughts and words (which are the chiefest creatures of the mind) upon such meditations as these; It much joys me that you wind up your spirits to David's harp, a music that is sweet and rich enough to be of consort with that of the spheres, specially if your heart keeps touch with the tone for He is the truest penman of heavenly things, who feels the joys thereof, while he is enditing them; Now, in those holy Hymns of David's, there is a coincidence of Prayer, and praise, which like two currents falling into one channel, makes the stream the stronger. But to enlarge myself a little further in that point whereon I insisted a little before, touching the study of divine knowledge, which is the unicum necessarium, I advise you again, now that you have stepped a good way in the autumn of your age, and that a little bark of yours hath been tossed and shattered with so many tempests, It were wisdom that you would think upon your last Port, and ballast her accordingly to arrive thither; Therefore whereas you have courted the handmaids so long, you should now make your principal applications to the Mistress, you should devote yourself to the theory of divine things, which is the true fruit of the tree of knowledge, whereas the other are but the leaves thereof. Now Christianity of all other Religions hath the hardest and highest reaches, the purest Ideas and abstracted furthest from sense, and harshest to flesh and blood, in regard of sundry transcendencies, and mystical tenants she contains, as the Trinity, the Incarnation and Resurrection, in the reserches of which points the quickest sight, may be said to be but one degree above blindness, therefore in the discussion and investigation of these, it is fit that you make reason (whose uttermost ken can reach no higher than the sphere of nature) to lie succumbent at faiths feet, and so conclude certainties out of impossibilities, and God being omnipotent may in justice demand such beliefs from us. Nor must you be too presumptuous by prying into the Power, prerogative and nature of the Incomprehensible Deity; for if all the fages that ever were yet in the world, could not come to the knowledge of the least star in heaven, so far as to tell what substance she is made of: how is it possible for any human capacity to ascend so high, as to the knowledge of the immense majesty which created them; therefore the safest and certainest knowledge touching God, is to confess, That we cannot know Him in any perfection. Insomuch that that inscription which was found upon the Pagan Altar among the Greeks was a very modest one, & may be said to be still in date {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, To the unknown God: For the further that a finit Intellect doth launch forth into the boundless and bottomless sea of this contemplation, the more he is in danger to go astray and lose itself, all human brain being too narrow and uncertain a compass to steer the course by, though stars and angels contribute their help to direct him; Therefore it is a far securer way for a sober minded Christian to sit down in an humble astonishment, and to vent forth this interjection of wonder, O the inscrutableness & immensity of God, his ways are past finding out &c. Therefore you must be modest in your indagations this way, and cautious how you go awry into any by-path from the beaten road, and so wander in the wilderness of your own imaginations: For it is the common practice of the Devil, when it pleaseth God to give him the reins to punish a nation, to tamper first with their intellectuals, and puzzle the brain with new doubts, and peremptory conceits, till he leads them into a maze of confusions, where at last he seizeth upon them for their spiritual pride. You must take heed of such an insobriety, and insolent zeal, but seek after singleness of heart, rather than after singularity of opinion; Be wary also how you meddle with classical divinity, but leave it to them whose holy function it is to controvert such matters, and doubtless are specially inspired for that purpose, employ your chiefest hours in penning or perusing things that may elevat the thoughts above the Elements, and fill them with pious raptures; But what Authors so ever you read whither old or new, whither Historical, polemical, or paraenetical, take this rule along with you to believe Them for the Holy scriptures sake, and the scriptures for Themselves. Antiquity is venerable, therefore the older the Author is, the more to be valued, it being a maxim that may bear sway in divinity as well as in Heralday, Tutius est cum patribus quàm cum fratribus errare.  Body. 
These are wholesome precepts that you give me which I shall conform unto. And whereas in your former discourse you gave me an item of my age, and that having now made a good step in the Autumnal part thereof, therefore Rogus & urna medstands, it is sitting that the funeral pile and pitcher should be thought upon. Truly, were it the custom of Christianity, and that when you have left me, I must be reduced to my first principles, I could be well contented that this small bottom of clay whereon the ravelled and thrumbed thread of my life hath been wound up so long, should be turned to earth and ashes by fire, which is the noblest of the Elements, rather than by letting it putrify, and be made a feast for ugly worms in the grave so long, and to be digested in their maws. A conceit not altogether so extravagant as he who thought drowning to be the gentlest way of goin● out of the world, when the body b● smooth waving undulations glide● softly to its last home. Let it not b● termed a vanity in me to tell yo● that touching this Elementar● world I have been a good while o● of conceit with it, and had I b●lanc'd account with it, I could wi●lingly pay nature her last debt, an● render this small bagful of bon● to the earth whence it first came ● know there be sundry modes ho● this debt is paid, in some life go● out like a lamp when the oil spent, and so takes a gentle fa●well, in others life is puffed out violence, and so it commonly their streams away in blood, or i● thrust out at the postern door; in●thers, life is starved away, in som● in long lingering hectiques and s● like diseases; some fall like mellow fruit, others are plucked off; there be a thousand ways to go out, but one way to come into this world: I have lived already to see such things that former Ages never saw, nor future I believe, can ever see; I will confine myself within the compass of these last fifteen years, only, wherein there have happened the most prodigious revolutions, and horridst accidents, not only in Europe, but all the earth over, that ever befell mankind since Adam covered himself with fig-leaves. I will begin with the fyeriest parts, with Africa, where the mighty Habassin Emperor was met in nostile way, and slain, together with his two Sons, in open field, by ● common vassal of his, who had ●aised military forces against him, ●nd so made himself chief of that ●ncient and vast Empire of Ethio●ia; The wild Tartar rushed through that four hundred mi●es huge wall, which fever's China from Tartary, and so piercing the very bowels of that luxurious and most delicate continent as far as Quinz●y (the celestial City as they call her) and besieging the very palace of that most Eastern Monarch, he caused him to set it all on fire, and to do away himsel● violently with his thirty Wive● and Children, rather than he would become an inglorious Captis● The great Ottoman Emperor, an● head of the Musulmans was strangled by his own slaves in the Seraglio. The Knez org●an Duk● of Moscovia had some of his prim● Nobles, and principal Officer hacked to pieces before his fac● and their heads being thrown int● vessels of strong water, they wer● fixed upon poles, and made t● burn before his Court gate. I●Naples a barefooted Fisherma● made himself the head of an Army in less than four days of 50000 men, and rendered himself as absolute as any monarch: Two provincial Kingdoms revolted quite from Spain, viz. Catalonia on the one side, and Portugal on the other, renouncing all obedience unto him. The Republic of Venice solely with her own strength of treasure hath wrestled seven years together with the great Turk. A King of Great Britain, the defender of the Faith, and Head of the Church, had his head choped off in a juridical way. I live in a time that England's chiefest Temples are turned to stables and ster●oraries, that dogs have been christened at the Font, and horses ●ed on the Communion Table, with sundry other spectacles, than which if I should live a thousand years longer, I think I should not see more strange and stupendous.  Soul. 
All this that you say is too true, but there is nothing to be wondered at now adays. It is a good while since that I have given over wondering at anything; And the greatest wonder is, that people have been so habituated to see such strange things of late years that they have quite lost their wondering: But it is the pleasure and permission of the great Architect of the world, in whose sight the vastest Monarchies are but as so many molehills; he who transvolves Empires and tumbles down Diadems as he lifteth, that things should be so: nor is all this and what daily happeneth, but the effects of that branch of our daily prayer, Thy will be done.  
Moreover, when I seriously contemplate the frame of this frail inferior world, and find man to be the principallest part of it; when (as I have touched else where) I consider that fluxible stuff which goes to make him up, and that the humours within him according to the elements are in perpetual agitation, man will be man still, he will be subject to changes and innovation; As long as the Moon shines above his head, and hath that dominion over him that he cannot cut a corn, or hair, or land his tree, without seeking into her age: I say, as long as that instable Planet makes impressions upon his brain, and those sluices of blood that run up and down his body, he will be ever covetous of novelty, and gaping after mutation, specially the common fort of people, who will find some time or other to show what they are: now, touching the Moon, they that pry into the influxes and operations of heavenly bodies, do observe that she hath a greater power over this Island then upon others, which causeth the British seas to swell up above fourscore cubits high in some places; Besides, daily experience shows, that Empires, commonwealths and kingdoms, with all kind of civil bodies as well as natural, are subject to distempers, to hot fevers, to fits of convulsions and vertigoes: They have also their degrees of growth, they have their consistences, declinings and Catastrophes: And indeed the world itself which some held to be a great Animal, as well as its parts, hath the like, which is now come to its decrepit Age, the Infancy whereof may be said to have been from Adam to Noah, the Childhood from Noah to Abraham, the Youth from Abraham to David, the Manhood from David to Christ; the old Age from Christ to the Consummation: Insomuch that the older the world grows, the more subject the parts thereof are to distempers, so that it is not to be wondered at, that men grow worse, that charity grows colder, that morosity and peevish inconstant humours reign more than ever, whereunto all revolutions, quarrels, and preli●tions may be attributed, whereby people become active and eager oftentimes in the pursuits of their own ruin, and in li●u of those Feathers which they cried out before were such grievous burdens unto them, they draw sows of lead upon their backs.  Body. 
To this the Pagan Poet hath long since alluded, when he sung;  

Hoc placet O superi vobis cum vertere cuncta  
Propositum nostris erroribus addere crimen.   

Thus O ye Gods, when ye intend to frame  
New Governments, our errors bear the blame.   
This make some cry out that the times are such that they are able to turn one to an Epicurean, who was not such an Atheist as to think there was no God, but that the sublunary things of this lower world were too mean for him to take care of; Whereat another Poet glanced, when he said,  

Non vacat exiguis rebus adesse lovi.   Soul. 
'Tis true, there are some sort of crying black sins that reign now adays, which are able to eclipse the Sun itself, and obscure the whole face of Heaven; therefore I cannot be much blamed of being weary of your consortship, and that I desire to be enfranchised from that flesh, and made free denizen in a better world.  Body. 
I confess, my dear soul, that you have little comfort to sojourn in me, and I as litt●e to sojourn in the world as I said before; yet though I am not so happy here as I desire, I am not so wretched as I deserve. there are many odd extravagant humours that reign now adays, which make men to wander in the wilderness of their own exorbitant fancies, and leave the beaten road; now, the vials of the Almighty's vengeance are various, but the sourest and sorest are those which fall upon the brain, when the ill spirit is permitted to intoxicat the understanding, whereby some in searching after the the Truth, do overreach it as far as others come far short of it. The world was never so full of fancy, not only in d●vine notions, but philosophical also as now it is. Some presumptuous overweening Sciolists to raise the terrace of reason, would ruin the battlements of Faith, they would make the miracles of Holy Scripture to proceed from natural causes, they would make some asptaltique bituminous matter to be the cause of the burning of Sodom and Gomorra; They would impute the drowning of Pharaoh and his army to a high spring tide; The passing over of the Israelites to a low ebb and eddy water: They admire not the raining of Manna in the wilderness, because there is good store found in Calabria, and other places; They cannot believe that Lazarus was raised from the dead, but they must be satisfied where his soul was all the while; They censure the miracle of making the blind to see, because he saw men walk like trees, whereas he had never seen trees before, having been blind from his nativity: They think it strange the● should be a Tree in Paradise so soon, in regard the text says positively that the plants of the fields were not yet grown, because it had not rained; They question whether the handle of Goliath's spear was as big as a weaver's beam, and whether David had so many hundred thousand talents of treasure: Moreover, they cast blemishes upon Christian truth because general and great ecumenical counsels did so clash one with another: And that the Fathers of the Primitive Church in divers opinions were not only differing one from the other, but dissonant to themselves, as among other positions in the computations which they make of the years from the Creation of the world to the Incarnation, wherein they are so discrepant; Nay, they would derogat from the dictates of the Holy Ghost himself touching some texts of Scripture, because in the second of Kings we read Michal for Merah, as may be perceived by comparing it with the first Book of the same History: As also because St Matthew hath written Zachary for Jeremy, chap. 27. Likewise that St Mark in the first chapter citys a passage out of Isaiah which is recorded in Malachy: Moreover, when he saith that our Saviour was crucified on the third hour, whereas St John saith, Chap. 19 that he was but only condemned by Pilate the sixth hour. So likewise where St Luke saith, that Cainan was the son of Arphaxad, and Salec the son of Cainan, the place is contradicted in Genesis 23. where it is said, that Salec was not Arphaxed's grandchild but his son, no other generation intervening betwixt the two; And when ●● is said Genesis the 11. that the Cave which Abraham bought was in Sichem, being indeed in Hebron, and that he bought it of the sons of Emor the son of Sechem, yet Moses saith it was of Ephron the Hittite; Moreover whereas he saith that Emor was Sichem's son, it is said in Genesis 3●. quite contrary, that Emor was Sichem's Father, and not his son.  
Other supercritical spirits would cast aspersions upon Christianity, because Constantin the first Emperor of that Religion was a very lewd man Gildas, accusing him to have been a murderer, a perjurer, the tyrannical whelp of the unclean lionness of Dannonier's That likewise Clovis the first Christian king of France was as bad, And that Henry the eight, the first reformed king, worse than either of Them. There are others that have another kind of spiritual pride, it being not only sufficient to Arrogat from the Holy Scriptures, to pick ho●es in Christianity, & criticise so upon her, but while they go about to magnify man, they detract from the chiefest instruments of God's glory, and his principal attendants the blessed Angels, by paraleling man's Creation to theirs, and that they were made, as all things else, for man, whom they cry up to be the Epitome of the world, and that the principal ministerial function of the Angels is to guard him. Such as these may be said to be possessed with a giddy kind of spiritual drunkeness, or madness rather; and touching those of this last conceit, they are like the cobbler who drunk himself into a kingdom and thought himself a king while he continued in that humour.  
Nor is Religion only troubled with such critics and Detractors, but these times afford such in all sciences, to magnify their own fancies they slight all Antiquity, they will not stick to call Plato a dotard, and Hippocrates a quack-salver, thinking that they have more sublime notions than any. It is true, that in some sense, restraining it to saving knowledge, a child that understands his primer may be said to be more learned than all the Philosophers that ever were, as the least fly, in regard she hath a sensitive soul within her, may be said in some respects to be more noble than the sun because he is inanimat.  Soul. 
It is too true that the present times do swarm with such arrogant and overcurious spirits, though they be full of doubts and still at a loss, going after nothing else but more teaching still, yet they seem to have such a peremptory certitude of their salvation, as if they had seen their names registered in the book of life, expunging thence all other but their own. They cannot modestly believe the Creed but they must know the very tract that our Saviour went to Hell, they would string the rainbow and be satisfied what kind of wood it is that the man of the moon carrieth on his back, &c. With a spirit much like this was Scaliger possessed, who while he went about to amend the times, and correct errors, committed as gross ones himself as any one Author he condemns; he makes Dagon a woman, the Emperor of Habassia, Prester John; what shallow conceits hath he of the depth of the sea, and how poorly was he versed in Cyclometria, how scurrilously he rails against whole nations, and would understand nothing but what he liked?  Body. 
Truly I have been ever averse to raise frivolous quaeres in any thing specially in the essentials of faith, or enter into disputes and altercations or heat touching matters indifferent, I was never of their mind that against a Cap and a Surplis would put on a Helmet, and armour; I have been contented to follow the first road I was put in towards heaven, moving after the motion of the superior orbs that were placed in the firmament of the Church, though not altogether in an implicit way; I have always made reason, and other sciences to truckle under Divinity their mistress; I have taken as much spiritual delight (let all this be spoken without vanity, or any scandal to other souls) in other offices and holy duties of the Church as in Sermons; which makes me reflect upon a saying of S. Lewis the French king, to Henry the third of England, who asking him (in those times of implicit Faith) whether he would go sooner unto the Eucharist or to a Sermon, he answered. I had rather see my friend then hear him only spoken of; I have always inclined to love Order and degrees of respect, & to abhor confusion, to love decencies rather than slut●isness, nor I hope, shall I be ever of their gang who to avoid superstition do fall into palpable profaneness.  Soul. 
I like you humour well touching all these particulars, nor will they offend, I believe, any one that is of a s●ne & sober judgement; & concerning the last thing you spoke of, it makes the Church Militant to be most like the Church Triumphant, for in Heaven, which is nothing else but one great Temple, there is among the Angels (which are compounded of Essence and Existence as you and I are of matter and form) there is I say a most exact order. They are divided to three Hierarchies & in every Hierarchy there are three orders; The first consists of Seraphims, the second of Cherubims, the third of Thrones. The second consists of Dominations, of virtues, and powers; The third consists of Principalities, of Archangels, and Angels; Now those of the supremest Hierarchy partake of Divine illuminations in a greater measure than of the inferior, and they one to another in respective manner, who are subordinat unto them; you and I are created in a capacity to dwell in that Temple of Eternity, you after the Resurrection, and I as soon as I part, with you, to see the face of my Creator, and converse with those holy Angels by thoughts and looks.  Body. 
'Tis hard for flesh and blood to believe that, considering the immense distance which is twixt this ball of earth and 〈◊〉 Empyrean Heaven, you should so instantaneously arrive thither to behold the beatifical vision; For the lowest neighbour to earth of all the celestial bodies which is the Moon, is by the opinion of the best Astronomers computed to be 52. Semidiameters distant from the earth, every diameter containing near upon 3500. miles; so that put case one could fly thither, and mount 100 miles an hour, yet he would be above four months in his journey; moreover from the first sphere, the primum mobile, put case a millstone should descend thence to the centre, it would be 60. years a coming down, though it make 40. miles every hour as the prime of Astronomer averrs; therefore under favour, how is it possible that you should immediately upon your separation from me post up with such inexcogitable speed up to Heaven, and behold the blissful vision.  Soul. 
Touching the operations, the movements, and conveyancies of Spirits you must know that they are instantaneous, and so wonderful, that the speculation thereof strikes Philosophy dumb; They need no succession of Time or place, as bodies require in their motions, they meet with no stop or resistance at all in their passage: Now, if Light which is nothing else but dilated fire to the utmost tenuity that can be, and comes nearest to the nature of a spirit of any corporeal creature, if light I say doth exercise its function with such an admirable agility and suddenness as to expand itself from East to West over the whole surface of the Hemisphere, what shall we think of Spirits that are far fuller of activity: But you must understand, that when I am devested of you, the wall of partition, that interposition is instantly taken away which stood twixt me, and my Creator, who is the Son of the Invisible world as that in the Firmament which you see with the sensitive optics here is of this material; therefore I shall immediately behold that infinitely more glorious Sun the veil of flesh being taken away, I shall be instantly within the Temple of glory, whereof every Corner is filled with the light of his countenance, insomuch that who is once in it, can never be able to go again out of it; Therefore though the blessed Angels are employed up and down the world upon his service, yet they are always within the verge of the beatifical vision.  Body. 
Let it not be held a petulant, or impertinent curiosity in me, if I covet to know, since you now speak of Angels, what degrees of difference there may betwixt Them and separated souls in Heaven.  Soul. 
As they agree in many things, so they also differ in many; Angels and separated souls agree in that both of them are spirits, both of them are intellectual and eternal creatures, They behold the blissful vision; They are Courtiers of Heaven, and act merely by the understanding, The merits of Christ was beneficial to both, it made the one capable of the state of glory, and it confirmed the other in it that they can never be apostates hereafter; besides, (as some hold) at the day of judgement they are to receive augmentation of bliss by being freed from further employment, cares, and solicitings for men, and continue in an uninterrupted rest.  
Now, as the blessed Angels, and separated souls, do thus agree, so they differ also in sundry things; They differ in their very essentials; for the principles of Angels are merely metaphysical, viz. Essence and existence; but a separated soul continueth still a part of that compositum which formerly consisted of matter and form, and is still apt to be reunited to the body, till than she is not absolutely completed for all that while she changeth not her nature but her state: moreover they differ in the Exercise of the understanding, and manner of knowledge, for a separated soul knows still by discourse and ratiocination which an Angel doth not; They also differ in dignity of nature, for Angels have larger illuminations, and at the first instant of their Creation they beheld the beatifical vision, yet separated souls are capable to mount up to such a height of glory as to be like them in all things, both in point of vision, adhesion, and fruitio●.  Body. 
But when you are settled in that state of blissfulness, how can I expect that you will desire to be united again, to reform so frail and foul a thing as this body of mine; why may not I think rather that you will assume some body of a nobler and more refined matter, according to the speculation of him who imagined, that rational souls be they never so pious and pure, mount not up presently after their separation from the corrupt mass of flesh to enjoy the beatifical vision which is the height of all celestial happiness; but first they are carried to the body of the Moon, or some other Star according to their degrees of piety and goodness in this life, where they enter into, and actuar some bodies of a purer mould; and being refined than they reascend to some higher Star, and so to some higher then that, till at last they be made capable to behold the lustre of so glorious a Majesty in whose sight no impurity can stand; which fancy may be illustrated by this comparison, that if a prisoner (as I touch elsewhere) after he hath been kept close in a dark dungeon for many years, should be taken out and brought suddenly to look upon the Sun in the Meridian, it would endanger him to be struck stark blind; So, no human polluted soul, sallying out of a dark dirty prison as the body is, would be possibly able to appear before the incomprehensible Majesty of God, or be susceptible of the fulgor of his all-glorious countenance, unless he be fitted before hand by certain degrees thereunto which might be done by passing from one Star to another; who, we are told in a good Text, differ one from the other in glory, and consequently the creatures that are within them: Now, they who please themselves in this fancy adhere to their opinion who think that every Star in heaven is peepled with some kind of creatures, which God Almighty hath pleased to place there for his honour and service, it standing not with his providence that the concavities of those vast bodies whereof some are computed to be many hundred of times bigger than the globe of the earth, should be empty and void; therefore these Theorists frame a kind of scale of of creatures; they place the Elementary lowermost, as the most gross: The Selenites or Lunary people are of a finer composition than they, and as one Star exceeds one another in height and glory, the creatures that are colonized within them do so accordingly, but the most immaterial, the purest, and the most intellectual are seated in the Sphere of the Sun where the Almighty hath settled his Throne, and they are his nearest attendants: The Elementary Creatures have more matter than form; The Solar have more form than matter, the Inhabitants of the Moon with other Astraean colonies are of a mixed nature, and the nearer they approach the body of the Sun, who is the fountain of light and heat, and the glorious Eye of the world, the more pure and spiritual they are.  Soul. 
All this is but fancy, which although something of illumination and sublimity may be in it, yet there is allo an extravagance in the Idea, nor is it any way consonant to the orthodoxal Faith, therefore never fear that by assumption of any other, I shall ever quite abandon that body of yours, but I shall reserve not only an aptitude, but a willingness to have you for my tabernacle again, and to be recompact; I shall be desirous to be a soul again, till when I shall be only a Spirit; but that bulk of yours shall be refined and sublimated to the perfection of celestial matter, which is the purest and most quintescentiall part of the whole body of matter: It is the Region wherein we shall go in equal pace with eternity itself; therefore as man while he sojourns among the Elements, bears a body suitable, congruous, and sympathetique to them; so when he is exalted and made free Citizen of the Heavenly Jerusalem, which is the true Country for which he had a being, he shall be purified and ad●pted to the temper of it; wherein man shall not only return to his first state of perfection, but to a far higher and greater exaltation of glory; the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} shall be no more {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the Body sh●ll be no more a sepulchre which may be the Etymology of it here, but it shall become a perpetual Temple for the Holy Ghost; There his understanding shall not be subject to error, nor his will to passion, incertitudes and topics shall be turned to de. monstrations, & Faith to intuition; provided, that he prepare himself accordingly, and in this School of nature make himself capable to remove thither; provided, that he make use of those means which his Creator hath prescribed him here, and that he employ his thoughts, words, and actions, to that end; for man shall have degrees of happiness in Heaven according to his works, though not for his works; which makes me reflect upon a passage that happened in the reign of Edilred one of our Saxon Kings, who having changed his Crown for a friar's cowl, and his Court for a cloister, went to visit a favourite of his that had been a licentious young man, who telling the King that a vision had appeared unto him the night before of two youths which he had seen, one at his bed's head with a white book thin written, the other at his bed's feet with a large black book blurred and very thick written; The King answered that the meaning of this vision was, that the little book contained all his good works, the other his bad, yet God was so infinitely merciful, that one good work would cover a multitude of bad ones, for he never desired or absolutely designed any Creature of his for damnation, &c.  Body. 
Yet there want not now adays such busy and profane spirits who rushing into his secret counsels, do affirm that he hath by his determinat will preordained such and such creatures will they nill they for perdition; an opinion then which we cannot conceive worse of the devil himself.  
But, my dear soul, you solace me beyond imagination, that you tell me, I shall be reunited unto you, & made fit to share of your future beatitude; yet, this, under correction, is a hard thing for human capacity to apprehend; that the very same entire body should be found out and recompacted, after such putrefactions, after so many changes and revolutions; where can all the splinters of a bone which a Cannon bullet hath shivered and shattered to pieces be found again? where can all the atoms which a corrasive hath eaten from our limbs be found? what coherence, what rejoinder, is there ever like to be between a leg lost in Turkey, and an arm lost in India? The Shark and other ravenous fish of the Sea; the tiger, the Bear, the Crocodile, with other savage beasts of the land use to devour, to digest and turn to chylus and so to blood, the bodies of thousands of men, and that blood goes to the generation of other such brute animals, the worms do the like in the grave; Burnt bodies are resolved into ashes, those ashes are blown into the gutter, that puddled water is carried by common-shores into rivers, those rivers pay tribute to the vast Ocean which runs in, and retreats by so many ebbings and flowings, how can it enter into the brain of man that all the parts of these bodies can be retreeved to make up the same Compositum again?  Soul. 
I know that the most searching and sagacious wits that ever were, were all at a loss when they meditated on this transcendent mystery, nor can the common principles of philosophy herein be preserved by any strength of reason, for they are bones that Nature cannot digest: But (as I told you before) in the scanning of divine mysteries we must oftentimes infer certainties out of impossibilities, as also that God is omnipotent, otherwise it were not just for him to require such beliefs at our hands; Moreover, to illustrat unto you a little this article of the Resurrection, you must understand that as at the Creation there was a separation of the Chaos that huge indigested lump which went to the making of all creatures, so, after the last fire hath reduced all to their first principles and calcined them to ashes, there shall be a separation of that confused mass of ashes by the same all powerful hand, there shall be a kind of second creation, and rallying of the individual bodies which were formed at first, and every soul shall enjoy her first consort, though much more purified than it was before.  Body. 
You raise my heart to an exceeding great height of comfort, methinks you imp this dull body, with eagle's feathers to fly upwards, by telling me that after this transitory life which hangs upon such small filaments of sister thread is cut off, I shall be wrought into you again.  Soul. 
To make this point a little more perspicuous unto you, you must consider that matter taken singly by itself hath no distinctive form at all there is an indifference & homogereous identity runs through the whole bulk of Matter; it is the substantial form which is the soul that doth give a distinguishing shape and numerical individuation to everybody ; now, as long as she continueth the same, the creature is still the same; For that Body of yours though you have not the same flesh about you, nor the same blood in your veins which you had twenty years ago, yet is it still the same body as long as I inform it; For as the Bucentoro in Venice is held to be still the same vessel though having been so often upon the carine, new caulked, ribbed and planked, she may not have any of the first timber she was built of in the first dock; In like manner human bodies continue still the same as long as the same Individuator is in them which is the soul, notwithstanding, that they are in a continual fluxibility, and a kind of succession of consumption and restauration; for although the flesh and blood in no man be the ●ame in his youth as it was in his Infancy, nor the same in his manhood that it was in his youth, because they use to wast away by the intern principles of heat, as also to transpire, breathe out and evaporate insensibly through the pores to make still room for fresh nourishment which is concocted and so converted to new blood, and new flesh, yet is the whole body always numerically, and individually the same, as long as the same soul doth inform and actuat it; So at the general resurrection what part or parcel so ever of that indifferent●omogeneous huge mass of calcined earth and ashes which my Creator shall assign me to reinform, it will be the very same that you bear about you now, though much refined, and so we shall cohabit eternally, without any future divorce.  Body. 
The Revolution of Plato's great year seems to have some analogy with our Resurrection, whereof that divine and high soaring Philosopher might have a glimpse when he held, that after such a period of years the world should be repeepled by the same creatures; which makes me think (now that you have quickened my spirits) with these plesing ideas) upon the witty answer of the Tapster at Botley, who having filled two pots of ale to a poor scholar as he was returning from Wales to Oxford, and the scholar telling him that he had spent all his money in his journey, but he would pay him the next time they met, The Tapster asked when that would be, why said the scholar if it be not sooner, we are sure to meet here again at the revolution of Plato's great year, for at the period of so many thousand years all things return to their former state, you and I shall meet here just as we do now, with the same bodies and minds, for so the world hath continued hitherto, and will so renew for ever; why then said the Tapster you and I met here so many thousand years ago, yes said he; I thank you for putting me in mind of it, for I remember you left then two pots of ale upon the score, pay me for them first, and then I will trust you for these two.  Soul. 
It cannot be denied but those great students of nature though they were solely guided by her twilights, had many glances of divine illuminations: Now touching these mysterious tenets of christian religion, it is with them as with the body of the Sun, there is somewhat in that glorious Planet (according to the comparison of a very ancient Father of the Church) which we may behold, if we will b●e contented to see that, we may freely do ti: But there is somewhat in the Sun, that may not be looked on; now, if we be not satisfied to see what we may see, we may chance come to s●e nothing at all, for he that gazeth and settleth his optics too fixedly on the Sun, comes to see nothing at all, for he loseth his eyes: So the mysteries of saving Faith, there is much in them that may be apprehended by the faculty of reason, and by what is revealed unto us, but if we will not be contented with that, but pry further, we may not only be dazzled, but struck stark blind; therefore we must contemplate them with reservedness and sobriety: This may be also paralleled with the Moon; there is somewhat in the opacous orb of the Moon, that no mortal yet could ever come to the knowledge of it: The Astronomers by all their curious inspections, and optic instruments cannot tell what are the spots, what the darkness is, that goes interwoven in the body of the Moon, though she be nearest neighbour to us of all the heavenly: But there is somewhat in that Planet, which we can tell what it is, and it is the luminous part, by that it affords us light to know what it is; So in the high points of salvation, there be some dark parts that are not comprehensible, and there be other parts that are comprehensible; the first we may boldly look upon, but for the other, the dark and abstruse parts, we must close our eyes, and sit down with admiration, and comfort ourselves that we cannot understand them, That there is something in this great work which concerns us, yet 'tis impossible to be comprehended: Touching the parts which may be understood, we may look on them with a modest eye of inspection, but the parts that are obscure and cannot be looked on, we must not be overcurious to find prospectives to look into them, but believe them; let it satisfy us that they cannot be discerned by mortal eye, in regard it is the pleasure of God not to have them known, let us be contented to be ignorant of that which God would have us to be ignorant of, till our Faith be turned to intuition, and where the understanding shall be adequate to Truth, as Truth is the adaequat object of the understanding, which must be in the other world, in that true Region of intellectual light, where such abstracted speculations that so much puzzle us here, shall be as clear as the Sun in the Meridian, where we shall conceive the true sense of the ninth of the Romans, of the apocalypse of Saint John, and all other passages of holy Scripture without an Interpreter, and not to be subject to false judgements, constructions, or glosses.  Body. 
What an unutterable kind of joy do I feel running through all the veins of my heart, to hear that this flesh of mine shall rise again to be worn, and actuated by you, and to partake with you of that knowledge, and blissfullness which so far surpass all my senses, and your Imagination I believe as yet!  Soul. 
I do not say you shall rise, but you shall be raised, for solus Christus resurrexit, alii suscitati, Christ only did rise again by the power of his Godhead, all others shall be raised; that same body of yours shall be raised the same in substance not in quality, for it will be made purer and freer from Corruption; as I during the time of my separation on I shall not change my nature but my state; I may be said to have no integrity, but remain as a part of you till our reconjunction, whereunto I shall still incline and propend, because you were the instrument whereby I became first a soul, which may be the cause that all the Saints in Heaven do so much long after the day of Judgement, because they may be reunited to their bodies, and by that consortship have a fuller fruition of bliss. Those eyes of yours shall then receive their reward for their liftings up to Heaven, those hands of yours for being instruments of charity; those ears of yours for their attention to holy duties, those knees of yours for their bendings in God's holy house, that mouth of yours for receiving the blessed Sacrament in such humiliation; that tongue, heart, and brain of yours for their praises and ejaculations, and all other parts of yours that were the interpreters of your piety, shall all than receive their reward in the Temple of Eternity.  Body. 
But after your recess, and separation from me, let it not be esteemed a too overbold curiosity, if I desire to know whether you will give then a final farewell to Earth, and be seen no more in the Elementary world, because there be so many stories told of spirits that walk to discover hidden tresures, to detect murders, &c. As also that they have appeared in Churchyards and charnel houses.  Soul. 
Touching this speculation and doctrine of walking of Spirits it hath graveled the highest wits both in Divinity, and Philosophy, they are all put to a nonplus, concerning the latter, they would produce natural reasons why in Cimitiers and other places they sometimes appear; and one is by the example of a vegetal body which being burnt and reduced into ashes, the form of the same numerical plant by a curious Artist may be revived visibly to the eye of the beholder, and made to start up out of those ashes being shut u● in a glass, and heated in the bot●tome, in regard that the fixed fa● (though much of the volatile hat● flown away) remains there still so a human body or cadaver bein● reduced to ashes in the grave, b● the heat which the penetrating beams of the sun infuseth thereinto, the shape of the said body may be exhaled up and made to appear in the air.  
Now touching the Theologues, the common opinion is that it pleaseth God Almighty to give the Devil a privilege and permit him to assume any shape, that of man not excepted, whereby he deludes, and makes compacts with the weaker sort of people to destroy their souls; for there is no creature that the Devil maligneth, and hates more than mankind, in regard he succeeds him in the beatitude that he lost; which makes some Divines hold, that when that number of Angels which fell, and were tumbled down to Hell is filled up by human souls, the day of judgement will come; But, as I said before, the ill spirit hath power by God's permission to transform himself to sundry shapes and to transfer that power to his petty cacodaemons and imps to beguile and inveigle the simplest sort of mankind, and most commonly women the weaker vessels, who sometimes out of a desire of revenge, and to wreck their malice, sometimes for lucre, and some petty supplies of money use to indent and make pactions with him though always without a witness; And hereof these times afford more instances than ever any age did, therefore whosoever denieth there are such kind of actual delusions, and ill spirits, showeth that he himself (as was said elsewhere) is possessed with the spirit of contradiction and obstinacy; For there are no nations new or old but have published laws against such who adoperat, and make use of the devil for the ends afore mentioned, as also for other curiosities and predictions, 〈…〉 against them; there are Edicts in France, and Acts of parliament in England against such who invoke ill spirits, & make any contracts with them, whereof the very instrument and deed hath been discovered in divers places with the Devils claw for his signature; together with the injunctions that he laid upon them before hand, which in the Romish countries are, that they must first renounce Christ and the extended woman (meaning the blessed virgin) they must contemn the Sacraments, tread on the Cross, spit at the Eucharist, &c. As I have noted else where. Therefore without any controversy there are airy spirits that hover up & down perpetually about us; But when I shall become a spirit which will be immediately, upon my dissolution from that body of yours, I hope I shall appear no more in this Elementary world, till I attend my Saviour at the day of judgement, to fetch you up also to Heaven, as soon as we part from one another here you shall return to earth whence you first came, and I to God that gave me, you to your common Mother, and I to the Father of lights whence as a beam of immortality, I was sent to quicken, organize, and inform that body of yours, and make it capable of heavenly beatitude in time, being refined, and fitted first for that purpose; I thank my Saviour, I have that within me which assures me hereof, I am not left to such incertitudes & anxiety that have any thing of despair in them, such that an Italian Prince expressed when being upon his death bed and comforted by his friends touching the joys of the other world whereunto he was going, he fetched a deep groan & said, Oh I know what's passed, but I know not what's to come; much like another in the same condition who said Dubius vixi, anxius morior, quò vadam nescio, I lived doubting, I die anxious, I know not whither I go; To these may be added an odd speech of a French Baron not long since, who meeting two capuchins going barefoot in cold frosty weather with their scrips upon their backs a-begging, & knowing them to be gentlemen of a good family, He said, How grossly are these men cozened, if there be no Heaven: That of Rabelais was not so bad as this, who being upon his death bed, and the extreme unction applied unto him, a friend of his who had come to visit him among other passages of consolation wished him good speed for he was upon his journey, to a good country, viz. to heaven, He answered, so it seems, that I am upon a journey, for you see they are lickering my boots already to that purpose: but that which is fathered upon Paul the third is beyond all these, when he said upon his death bed that shortly he should be resolved of two things, whether there be a God, and Devil, or whether there were a Heaven and Hell; Therefore Earth may be said to be worse than Hell in one respect, because it bears Atheists, which Hell doth not, but rather converts them, in regard they feel God there by his judgements, and begin to have an historical faith of him, which here they had not. Nor am I of that drowsy opinion to think that I shall sleep all the while among the common mass of souls in some receptacles ordained I know not where for that purpose till I be rejoyned unto you; Nor doth the Religion I am of, admit of any suburbs in hell as purgatory and other places where I must be purified some years before I ascend to heaven; As Fray Julian of Alcala doth aver upon record (which is made authentic) producing other spectators besides himself, that he visibly saw the soul of Philip the second going up to Heaven in two ruddy clouds some two years after his death at such an hour of the night.  Body. 
Let not my Soul be offended if I be curious to know something touching that most comfortable point of the immortality of the Soul; and this curiosity doth not arise out of any doubt, but a desire to be further confirmed therein; because there be some busy Spirits that stumble at it, alleging that it is but a new tenet of Christian Faith not established in the Church till the latter Lateran council, and pumping out other quaeres and cavils concerning this Article.  Soul. 
It is in Divinity as in Philosophy; for as it was said long since that in this an impertinent Sceptic may blurt out a question which all the Sages of Greece were they alive, could not answer; So in Divinity, an irresolute, inconformable stubborn spirit may raise doubts that the whole Academy of Christian learning cannot solve, such Pyrrhonians, and perverse spirits have been in all Ages, there are no principles can tie them; their brains may be said to be like a skein of thrumbed small thread, any thing will entangle them, and their thoughts like a bush of thorns that takes hold of any thing; they are never satisfied either in points of faith or the operations of nature, like him who would have found something to shear off upon an egg. This may be called one of the truest sorts of superstitions, whose etymology is super stare to stand too precisely and peremptorily upon a thing, specially things indifferent, and to be over hot either in the abolition or maintenance of them to the destruction of whole Nations, as also in recerches after supererogatory knowledge, and interpretations of Scriptures, whereby they would make the Holy Spirit speak what he never meant; whereas the moderate, and submiss sober minded he or she are the best proficients in the school of Divine knowledge.  
But whereas you say that you desire to be strengthened and illuminated further touching the imateriality, and consequently the incorruptibleness and immortality of the Rational Soul, Let me tell you that not only Christian Divines but the best of Pagan writers both Poets, Philosophers, and Orators have done Her that right. One calls Her— Divinae particulam aurae. Another sings, Igneus est olli vigor, & coelestis imago; Another Mens infusa Deo, mortalis nescia sortis. And Cicero among other hath a remarkable saying to this purpose, si erro, credendo Animam esse Immortalem, libenter erro; If I err in believing the soul to be immortal, I willingly err. Moreover the intellectual human soul doth prove herself to be immortal both by her desires, her apprehensions and operations; Her desires are infinite, and still longing after eternity; now there is no natural passion given to any finit creature to be frustraneous; Her apprehending of notions of eternal truth which are her chiefest employment and most adaequat objects, declare her immortal; all corruption comes from matter and from the clashing of contraries, now, when the soul is severed from the body, she is beyond the sphere of matter, therefore no causes of mortality can reach her, there is nothing in her that can tend to a not being: Her operations also pronounce her immortal, which she doth exercise without the ministry of corporeal organs, for they are rather a clog to Her; she doth use to spiritualise material things in the understanding, to abstract ideas from all Individuals; she is an engine that can apprehend negations, and privations, she can frame collective notions, all which conclude her immateriality, and where no matter is found there's no corruption, and where there is no corruptibleness there must be an immortality; now her prime operations being without any concurrence of matter, she may be concluded immortal by that common principle, Modus operandi sequitur modum essendi: for in the world to come the state of the soul shall be a state of pure Being, nor will there be either action or passion in that state; whence may be inferred she shall never perish, in regard that all corruption comes from the action of another thing upon that which is corruptible, therefore that thing must be capable of being made better or worse, now, if a separate soul be in her utmost final estate that she can be made neither, it follows she can never lose the being she hath; Moreover, since the egress out of the body doth not alter her Nature but only her condition, it must be granted that she was of the same nature while she continued incorporated, though in that imprisonment of hers, she was subject to be forged as it were by the hammers of material objects beating upon her, yet so, as she was still of herself what she was; therefore when she goes out of the passable ore wherein she suffers by reason of the foulness and impurity of that ore, she immediately becomes impassible and a fixed subject of her own nature, that is, a simple pure Being; Both which states of the soul may be illustrated 
Sir K.D.  in some measure by what we find passeth in the coppelling of a fixed mettle, for as long as any lead or dross, or any allay remains with it, it continueth melting, flowing, and in motion under the muffle, but as soon as they are parted from it, and that it is become pure without mixture, and single of itself, it contracteth itself to a narrower room, and at that instant ceaseth from all motion, it grows hard, permanent, and resistent to all operations of the fire, and admitteth no change or diminution in it's subject by any extern violence; so the Rational Soul when she departs from the drossy ore of the body and comes be her single self, she becomes as it were exalted gold & to be perfectly by herself; she can never be liable any more to diminution, to action, passion, or any kind of alteration, but continueth fixed for ever.  
Add hereunto that every human Soul is still breathed, and immediately created by God Almighty himself, for though the sacred Code tells us that he rested from all his works the sixth day, yet touching Rational souls he may be said to be still a perpetual Agent touching their creation, not any creature else to concur in that work, as he useth to do in the production of mortal and corruptible creatures.  
Therefore there are none but they whose souls s●ar no higher than their senses, but may feel within them an immortal essence, the apprehension whereof is as irksome to the reprobat, as it is comfortable to the Elect.  Body. 
Let me not be held too bold a sceptic if I desire to know whether you carry with you to the other world the knowledge you had here, and reserve it still?  Soul. 
Yes, I shall bring along with me the habit of all the science, and intelligible species that I had here, and get an infinite addition of more, for I shall not arrive to the full use of my understanding till then; I shall retain also the habit though not the operations of the vegetal and sensitive souls as I did in the time of information when I was embodied: I shall still know things by Ratiocination and discourse, which Angels use not to do; I shall become an indivisible substance exempt from place and time, yet present to both, my activity shall require no application to either of them, but I shall be Mistress of both, comprehending all quantity whatsoever in an indivisible apprehension, ranking all the parts of motion in their complete order, and knowing at once what is to happen in every one of them, whereas when I was immersed in the body, and confined to the use of exterior senses, I could look but upon one definit place or time at once, needing a long chain of various discourses to comprehend the circumstances of any one singular action.  
My capacity shall not be confined to the small multitude of objects, which division and time gives way unto, I shall be a self Activity, an essence free from all encumbrances oftime; For to be subject to Time, or comprehended in Time, is to be one of those moveables whose Being consisting in motion taketh up part of Time, and useth to be measured by Time, which belongs to Bodies; But when I shall become a Spirit, and have my operations entire, as being nothing but myself, I shall be absolutely free from Place and Time, though both do glide by me and under me, Insomuch that all which I shall know or do, I shall do it at once with one Act of the understanding, therefore I shall not need time to manage and order my thoughts as when I was affixed to that orb of yours, nor shall I need any extrinsical mover, or the work of fancy, or any previous speculations residing in the memory; I shall be a simple and self-subsisting form, a cement, and miroir to myself.  Body. 
These high abstracted notions do far transcend the short reach of of my sensitive faculty, but, under favour, you speak only of your activity and increase of knowledge in the life to come, I would be glad to hear something of the joys and blissefulnes thereof.  Soul. 
These, as they are beyond expression, so are they beyond all imagination, that vast sea of felicity which I am capable to receive, cannot flow into me till those banks of earth be removed; The joys of Heaven have length without points, breadth without lines, depth without surface, they are even and uninterrupted joys, and to endeavour to relate them in their perfection, were the same task as to go about to measure the Ocean in Cockle shells, or compute the number of the sands with pebble stones.  
Touching these faint and fading earthly pleasures, we covet them when we need them, and the desire languisheth in the fruition; moreover, worldly things when we want them we use to love them most, but less when we have them; meats and drinks they nauseate after fullness, carnal delights cause sadness after the enjoyment, all pleasures breed not only a satiety but a disgust, and the contentment terminats with the act: 'Tis otherwise with celestial things, they are most loved when they are enjoyed, and most coveted when they are had, they are alwaiesful of what is desired, and the desire still lasteth, but it is a desire of complacency and continuance, not an appetite of more, because they are perfect of themselves; Yet there is still a desire, and satiety, but the one finds no want, nor can the other breed a surfeit: The higher the pleasure is, the more intense is the fruition, and the oftener repeated, the greater the appetite will be; whence this inference may be made, that there can be no proportion at all' twixt the delights of a separate and an embodied Soul.  
But it must not be forgotten, that as good souls being become purely spiritual, and beatified as soon as they are separate from the body, do by their simplicity and acuteness apprehend and enjoy the blisses of Heaven in their true nature, beyond the extent of quantity, and above all conceit of fancy: So a damned Soul being a simple Act also, and nothing but Spirit, doth apprehend and endure the torments of Hell, with all the activity, subtleness and energy that can be, still receiving new strength and vigour to be able to lie under the said torments: And as the assurance of a succeeding eternity delights the one, so it doth torture the other. Moreover, as the greatest strains of anguish which torments the one, is to have lost Heaven, so one of the highest conceptions of joy to the other, is to have escaped Hell; Insomuch that Heaven in some sort may be called the Hell of the damned, and Hell the Heaven of the Blessed.  Body. 
Let it not be termed a presumption in me, if I desire to be rectified in one point, that considering the human creature is finite, and temporary, and that all which proceeds from him is so, how can it stand with the justice of almighty God, whose will is the Rule of Justice and equity, who also is the source and sea of mercy, how can it stand, I say, with his goodness, that there should be such a disproportion betwixt the offence & the punishment, as to punish his poor frail finit creature with infinite and eternal torment?  Soul. 
This hath been a quaere much scanned & discussed in the very infancy of the Church, which made one of the original Fathers thereof out of excess of charity, to think that the damned souls, and Devils should be saved at the day of Judgement. But you must consider that though human transgressions are finite, yet they are committed against an infinite and eternal Majesty; and had the sinner who committed them lived eternally, he would have sinned eternally; Besides the reward which is reserved for human souls is infinite and eternal, therefore it is just the forfeiture thereof should be so to the forfeiture of Heaven, one dram of whose happiness is more than the whole mass of all earthly contentments; One drop of whose abstracted, pure, permanent and immarcessible delights is infinitely more sweet than all those mixed and muddy streams of corporeal and mundane pleasures, than all those no other than Utopian pleasures of this transitory world were they all cast into a li●beck, and the very Elixir of them distilled into one vessel.  Body. 
Me thinks, I feel that small triangle of flesh which beats towards the left side of my breast dilated with excess of joy to hear this discourse touching your immortality, being so infinitely happy that I have so precious a guest within me, specially when I look upon the former discourse you made touching the Resurrection, and that I shall be also fitted to be reunited unto you in the Region of Eternity: moreover these pathetical expressions of yours have filled me with thoughts of Mortification, whereof I shall endeavour to show some future symptoms; A salad or posy gathered in a churchyard shall be more pleasing to me, and that my shirt be dried there hereafter rather then in a garden; therefore I desire that you would join with the rest of the separated souls in Heaven that the time of my reunion with you may be hastened; And so, good morrow to my soul.  
Upon this the Nun vanished into me I know nor how, and diffused herself through all the cells of my brain, and through the whole mass of blood among the spirits; Now, it is observed that it is the practice of human souls in time of sleep and the silent listening night to go oftentimes abroad, and exercise their abstracted notions, as also to try here (as it was touched before) how they can live separate hereafter by these noctivagations. It is recorded of Julius Caesar that he dreamt to have lain one night with his Mother, and I may be said to have lain with my Soul; By his mother was interpreted the Earth the common parent of all, and it was presaged of him by that Dream that he should be Conqueror of the world, which proved true; so I hope this dream may foretell that I shall conquer this little world of mine, For both Divines and Philosophers make every Man a Microcosm or little world of himself.  
And now 'twas high time for me to awake, which I did.  

For, lo, the golden Oriental gate Sp.  
Of gray-faced Heaven 'gan to open fair,  
And Phoebus like a Bridegroom to his mate  
Came dancing forth, shaking his dewy hair  
And hurls his glittering beams through gloomy Air.   

So Rest to Motion, Night to Day doth yield,  
Silence to Noise, the Stars do quit the Field:  
My Cinque Ports all fly open, the fantasy  
Gives way to outward objects, Ear and Eye  
Resume their office, so doth hand, and lip,  
I hear the carrmans' wheel, the coachman's whip;  
The prentice (with my sense) his shop unlocks,  
The milk maid seeks her pail, porters their frocks,  
All cries and sounds return, except one thing,  
I hear no bell for matins toll or ring.   

Being thus awaked, and staring on the light  
Which silvered all my face and sight,  
I closed my Eyes again to recollect  
What I had dreamt, and make my thoughts reflect  
Upon themselves, which here I do expose  
To every knowing soul; And may all those  
(Whose brains Apollo with his gentle ray  
Hath moulded of a more refined clay)  
That read this Dream, thereby such profit reap  
As I did pleasure, Then they have it cheap.   

Est sensibilium simia somnium.   
I. H.  
FINIS.   

The Ingredients, whereof this discourse is compounded, are  

1. Divinity,  
2. Metaphysic,  
3. Philosophy,  
4. Poesy, &c.   
The principal points it handleth are  

The Faculties & functions of the soul.  
The generations and frailties of the Body.  
The Influxes and operations of the stars.  
The ways of knowing God Almighty.  
The Heavenly Hierarchies and their degrees.  
The Resurrection.  
Of walking Spirits, of the old Philosophers.  
Of the state of Souls after this life.  
〈◊〉 the joys of heaven.  
〈◊〉 he torments of Hell.  
〈◊〉 sceptics and critics.  
〈◊〉 Sund●y sorts of Christians throughout the world with many emergencies of new matter.  
〈◊〉 The prose goeth interwoven with sompeeces of poesy, and History all along.