30. It is a riddle to me, how this story of Oracles hath not worm’d out of the world that doubtfull conceit, of Spirits and Witches; how so many learned heads should so farre forget their Metaphysicks, and destroy the Ladder and scale of creatures,182 as to question the existence of Spirits: for my part, I have ever beleeved, and doe now know, that there are Witches; they that doubt of these, doe not onely deny them, but Spirits; and are obliquely and upon consequence a sort, not of Infidels, but Atheists.183 Those that to confute their incredulity desire to see apparitions, shall questionlesse never behold any, nor have the power to be so much as Witches; the Devill hath them already in a heresie as capitall as Witchcraft, and to appeare to them, were but to convert them: Of all the delusions wherewith he deceives mortalitie, there is not any that puzleth mee more than the Legerdemain of Changelings; I doe not credit those transformations of reasonable creatures into beasts, or that the Devill hath a power to transpeciate a man into a horse, who tempted Christ (as a triall of his Divinitie) to convert but stones into bread. I could beleeve that Spirits use with man the act of carnality, and that in both sexes; I conceive they may assume, steale, or contrive a body, wherein there may be action enough to content decrepit lust, or passion to satisfie more active veneries,184 yet in both, without a possibility of generation: and therefore that opinion, that Antichrist should be borne of the Tribe of Dan by conjunction with the Devill, is ridiculous, and a conceit fitter for a Rabbin than a Christian. I hold that the Devill doth really possesse some men, the spirit of melancholy others, the spirit of delusion others; that as the Devill is concealed and denyed by some, so God and good Angels are pretended185 by others, whereof the late defection of the Maid of Germany hath left a pregnant example.186
31. Againe, I beleeve that all that use sorceries, incantations, and spells, are not Witches, or as we terme them, Magicians; I conceive there is a traditionall Magicke, not learned immediately from the Devill, but at second hand from his Schollers; who having once the secret betrayed, are able, and doe emperically practice without his advice, they both proceeding upon the principles of nature: where actives aptly conjoyned to disposed passives,187 will under any Master produce their effects. Thus I thinke at first a great part of Philosophy was Witchcraft, which being afterward derived to one another, proved but Philosophy, and was indeed no more but the honest effects of Nature: What invented by us is Philosophy, learned from him is Magicke. Wee doe surely owe the discovery of many secrets to the discovery of good and bad Angels. I could never passe that sentence of Paracelsus without an asterisk or annotation; Ascendens constellatum multa revelat, quarentibus magnalia naturæ, i.e. opera Dei.188 I doe thinke that many mysteries ascribed to our owne inventions, have beene the courteous revelations of Spirits; for those noble essences in heaven beare a friendly regard unto their fellow natures on earth; and therefore beleeve that those many prodigies and ominous prognostickes which fore-run the ruines of States, Princes, and private persons, are the charitable premonitions of good Angels, which more carelesse enquiries terme but the effects of chance and nature.
32. Now besides these particular and divided Spirits, there may be (for ought I know) an universall and common Spirit to the whole world.189 It was the opinion of Plato, and it is yet of the Hermeticall Philosophers; if there be a common nature that unites and tyes the scattered and divided individuals into one species, why may there not bee one that unites them all? However, I am sure there is a common Spirit that playes within us, yet makes no part of us, and that is the Spirit of God, the fire and scintillation of that noble and mighty Essence, which is the life and radicall heat of spirits, and those essences that know not the vertue of the Sunne, a fire quite contrary to the fire of Hell: This is that gentle heate that brooded on the waters, and in six dayes hatched the world;190 this is that irradiation that dispells the mists of Hell, the clouds of horrour, feare, sorrow, despaire; and preserves the region of the mind in serenity: whosoever feels not the warme gale and gentle ventilation of this Spirit (though I feele his pulse) I dare not say he lives; for truely without this, to mee there is no heat under the Tropick; nor any light, though I dwelt in the body of the Sunne.
As when the labouring Sun hath wrought his track,
Up to the top of lofty Cancers back,
The ycie Ocean cracks, the frozen pole
Tbawes with the beat of the Celestiall coale;
So when thy absent beames begin t’impart
Againe a Solstice on my frozen heart,
My winters ov’r, my drooping spirits sing,
And every part revives into a Spring.
But if thy quickning beames a while decline,
And with their light blesse not this Orbe of mine,
A chilly frost surpriseth every member,
Ane in the midst of June, I feele December.191
O how this earthly temper doth debase
The noble Soule, in this her humble place!
Whose wingy nature ever doth aspire,
To reach that place whence first it tooke its fire.
These flames I feele, which in my heart doe dwell,
Are not thy beames, but take their fire from Hell:
O quench them all, and let thy light divine
Be as the Sunne to this poore Orbe of mine.
And to thy sacred Spirit convert those fires,
Whose earthly fumes choake my devout aspires.
33. Therefore for Spirits I am so farre from denying their existence, that I could easily beleeve, that not onely whole Countries, but particular persons have their Tutelary, and Guardian Angels: It is not a new opinion of the Church of Rome, but an old one of Pythagoras and Plato;192 there is no heresie in it, and if not manifestly defin’d in Scripture, yet is it an opinion of a good and wholesome use in the course and actions of a mans life, and would serve as an Hypothesis to salve many doubts, whereof common Philosophy affordeth no solution: Now if you demand my opinion and Metaphysicks of their natures, I confesse them very shallow, most of them in a negative way, like that of God; or in a comparative, between our selves and fellow creatures; for there is in this Universe a Staire, or manifest Scale of creatures, rising not disorderly, or in confusion, but with a comely method and proportion:193 betweene creatures of meere existence and things of life, there is a large disproportion of nature; betweene plants and animals or creatures of sense, a wider difference; between them and man, a farre greater: and if the proportion hold on, betweene man and Angels there should bee yet a greater.194 We doe not comprehend their natures, who retaine the first definition of Porphyry,195 and distinguish them from our selves by immortality; for before his fall, man also was immortall; yet must wee needs affirme that he had a different essence from the Angels: having therefore no certaine knowledge of their natures, ’tis no bad method of the Schooles, whatsoever perfection we finde obscurely in our selves, in a more compleate and absolute way to ascribe unto them. I beleeve they have an extemporary
knowledge, and upon the first motion of their reason doe what we cannot without study or deliberation;196 that they know things by their formes, and define by specificall difference, what we describe by accidents and properties;197 and therefore probabilities to us may bee demonstrations unto them; that they have knowledge not onely of the specificall, but numericall formes of individualls, and understand by what reserved198 difference each single Hypostasis199 (besides the relation to its species) becomes its numericall selfe. That as the Soule hath a power to move the body it informes, so there’s a Faculty to move any, though informe none; ours upon restraint of time, place, and distance; but that invisible hand that conveyed Habakkuk to the Lions den, or Philip to Azotus,200 infringeth this rule, and hath a secret conveyance, wherewith mortality is not acquainted; if they have that intuitive knowledge, whereby as in reflexion they behold the thoughts of one another, I cannot peremptorily deny but they know a great part of ours. They that to refute the Invocation of Saints, have denied that they have any knowledge of our affaires below, have proceeded
too farre, and must pardon my opinion, till I can thoroughly answer that piece of Scripture, At the conversion of a sinner the Angels of heaven rejoyce.201 I cannot with those in that great Father securely interpret the worke of the first day, Fiat lux,202 to the creation of Angels, though (I confesse) there is not any creature that hath so neare a glympse of their nature, as light in the Sunne and Elements; we stile it a bare accident,203 but where it subsists alone, ’tis a spirituall Substance, and may bee an Angel: in briefe, conceive light invisible, and that is a Spirit.
34. These are certainly the Magisteriall & master pieces of the Creator, the Flower (or as we may say) the best part of nothing,204 actually existing, what we are but in hopes, and probabilitie, we are onely that amphibious piece betweene a corporall and spirituall essence, that middle forme that linkes those two together, and makes good the method of God and nature, that jumps not from extreames, but unites the incompatible distances by some middle and participating natures;205 that wee are the breath and similitude of God, it is indisputable, and upon record of holy Scripture,206 but to call our selves a Microcosme, or little world, I thought it onely a pleasant trope of Rhetorick, till my neare judgement and second thoughts told me there was a reall truth therein: for first wee are a rude masse, and in the ranke of creatures, which onely are, and have a dull kinde of being not yet priviledged with life, or preferred207 to sense or reason; next we live the life of plants, the life of animals, the life of men, and at last the life of spirits, running on in one mysterious nature those five kinds of existences, which comprehend the creatures not onely of the world, but of the Universe;208 thus is man that great and true Amphibium, whose nature is disposed to live not onely like other creatures in divers elements, but in divided and distinguished worlds; for though there bee but one to sense, there are two to reason; the one visible, the other invisible,209 whereof Moses seemes to have left noe210 description, and of the other so obscurely, that some parts thereof211 are yet in controversie; and truely for the first chapters of Genesis, I must confesse a great deale of obscurity, though Divines have to the power of humane reason endeavoured to make all goe in a literall meaning, yet those allegoricall interpretations are also probable, and perhaps the mysticall method of Moses bred up in the Hieroglyphicall Schooles of the Egyptians.212
35 . Now for that immateriall world, me thinkes wee need not wander so farre as the first moveable,213 for even in this materiall fabricke the spirits walke as freely exempt from the affection of time, place, and motion, as beyond the extreamest circumference: doe but extract from the corpulency of bodies, or resolve things beyond their first matter, and you discover the habitation of Angels, which if I call the ubiquitary, and omnipresent essence of God, I hope I shall not offend Divinity; for before the Creation of the world God was really all things. For the Angels hee created no new world, or determinate mansion, and therefore they are every where where is his essence, and doe live at a distance even in himselfe: that God made all things for man, is in some sense true, yet not so farre as to subordinate the creation of those purer creatures unto ours, though as ministring spirits they doe, and are willing to fulfill the will of God in these lower and sublunary214 affaires of man; God made all things for himself,215 and it is impossible hee should make them for any other end than his owne glory; it is all he can receive, and all that is without himselfe; for honour being an externall adjunct, and in the honourer rather than in the person honoured, it was necessary to make a creature, from whom hee might receive this homage, and that is in the other world Angels, in this, man; which when we neglect, we forget the very end of our creation, and may justly provoke God, not onely to repent that hee hath made the world, but that hee hath sworne hee would not destroy it.216 That there is but one world, is a conclusion of faith. Aristotle with all his Philosophy hath not beene able to prove it, and as weakely that the world was eternall; that dispute much troubled the penne of the antient Philosophers, but Moses decided that question, and all is salved with the new terme of a creation, that is, a production of something out of nothing; and what is that? Whatsoever is opposite to something or more exactly, that which is truely contrary unto God: for he onely is, all others have an existence, with dependency and are something but by a distinction;217 and herein is Divinity conformant unto Philosophy, and generation not onely218 founded on contrarieties, but also creation; God being all things is contrary unto nothing out of which were made all things, and so nothing became something, and Omneity informed Nullity into an essence.219
36. The whole Creation is a mystery, and particularly that of man, at the blast of his mouth were the rest of the creatures made, and at his bare word they started out of nothing: but in the frame of man (as the text describes it) 220 he played the sensible operator, and seemed not so much to create, as make him; when hee had separated the materials of other creatures, there consequently resulted a forme and soule, but having raised the wals of man, he was driven to a second and harder creation of a substance like himselfe, an incorruptible and immortall soule. For these two affections221 we have the Philosophy, and opinion of the Heathens, the flat affirmative of Plato, and not a negative from Aristotle:222 there is another scruple cast in by Divinity (concerning its production) much disputed in the Germane auditories, and with that indifferency and equality of arguments, as leave the controversie undetermined. I am not of Paracelsus minde223 that boldly delivers a receipt to make a man without conjunction, yet cannot but wonder at the multitude of heads that doe deny traduction,224 having no other argument to confirme their beliefe, then that Rhetoricall sentence, and Antimetathesis of Augustine, Creando infunditur, infundendo creatur:225 either opinion will consist well enough with religion, yet I should rather incline to this, did not one objection haunt mee, not wrung from speculations and subtilties, but from common sense, and observation, not pickt from the leaves of any author, but bred amongst the weeds and tares of mine owne braine. And this is a conclusion from the equivocall226 and monstrous productions in the copulation of man with beast; for if the soule of man bee not transmitted and transfused in the seed of the parents, why are not those productions meerely beasts, but have also an impression and tincture of reason in as high a measure as it can evidence it selfe in those improper organs? Nor truely can I peremptorily deny, that the soule in this her sublunary estate, is wholly and in all acceptions inorgan-icall,227 but that for the performance of her ordinary actions, is required not onely a symmetry and proper disposition of Organs, but a Crasis228 and temper correspondent to its operations; yet is not this masse of flesh and visible structure the instrument and proper corps of the soule, but rather of sense, and that the hand of reason.229 In our study of Anatomy there is a masse of mysterious Philosophy, and such as reduced the very Heathens to Divinitie; yet amongst all those rare discoveries, and curious pieces I finde in the fabricke of man, I doe not so much content my selfe, as in that I finde not, that is no Organe or instrument for the rationall soule; for in the braine, which wee tearme the seate of reason, there is not any thing of moment more than I can discover in the cranie of a beast:230 and this is a sensible and no inconsiderable argument of the inorganity of the soule, at least in that sense we usually so receive it. Thus we are men, and we know not how, there is something in us, that can be without us, and will be after us, though it is strange that it hath no history, what it was before us, nor cannot tell how it entred in us.231
37. Now for these wals of flesh, wherein the soule doth seeme to be immured before the Resurrection,232 it is nothing but an elementall composition, and a fabricke that must fall to ashes; All flesh is grasse,233 is not onely metaphorically, but literally true, for all those creatures we behold, are but the hearbs of the field, digested into flesh in them, or more remotely carnified234 in our selves. Nay further, we are what we all abhorre, Antro-pophagi and Cannibals, devourers not onely of men, but of our selves; and that not in an allegory, but a positive truth; for all this masse of flesh which wee behold, came in at our mouths: this frame wee looke upon, hath
beene upon our trenchers; In briefe, we have devoured our selves. I cannot beleeve the wisedome of Pythagoras did ever positively, and in a literall sense, affirme his Metempsychosis, or impossible transmigration of the soules of men into beasts: of all Metamorphoses or transmigrations, I beleeve onely one, that is of Lots wife, for that of Nabuchodonosor proceeded not so farre;235 In all others I conceive there is no further verity then is contained in their implicite sense and morality: I beleeve that the whole frame of a beaste doth perish, and is left in the same state after death, as before it was materialled unto life; that the soules of men know neither contrary nor corruption, that they subsist beyond the body, and outlive death by the priviledge of their proper natures, and without a miracle; that the soules of the faithfull, as they leave earth, take possession of Heaven: that those apparitions, and ghosts of departed persons are not the wandring soules of men, but the unquiet walkes of Devils, prompting and suggesting us unto mischiefe, bloud, and villany, instilling, & stealing into our hearts, that the blessed spirits are not at rest in their graves, but wander solicitous of the affaires of the world; that those phantasmes appeare often, and doe frequent Cemiteries, charnall houses, and Churches, it is because those are the dormitories of the dead, where the Devill like an insolent Champion beholds with pride the spoyles and Trophies of his victory in Adam.
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