A ternary of paradoxes the magnetick cure of wounds, nativity of tartar in wine, image of God in man / written originally by Joh. Bapt. Van Helmont and translated, illustrated and amplified by Walter Charleton.

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Title
A ternary of paradoxes the magnetick cure of wounds, nativity of tartar in wine, image of God in man / written originally by Joh. Bapt. Van Helmont and translated, illustrated and amplified by Walter Charleton.
Author
Helmont, Jean Baptiste van, 1577-1644.
Publication
London :: Printed by James Flesher for William Lee ...,
[1650]
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Subject terms
Wounds and injuries -- Treatment.
Science -- Early works to 1800.
Mind and body.
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http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A43289.0001.001
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"A ternary of paradoxes the magnetick cure of wounds, nativity of tartar in wine, image of God in man / written originally by Joh. Bapt. Van Helmont and translated, illustrated and amplified by Walter Charleton." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A43289.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 3, 2025.

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The Image of GOD; OR, Helmont's Vision of the Soul, Englished.

The Summary.

1. THe fear of God, the beginning: and Charity, the end of Wis∣dom. 2. Man made in the Image of God. 3. Three sorts of Atheists. 4. A wish of the Author. 5. The intellection of the minde, intellectual. 6. The intimate integrity of the minde suffereth from caduce faculties, without the passion of extinction. 7. The action of the minde scarce perceptible in us. 8. Atheists of the first Classis de∣ride the image of God, in man. 9. Atheists of the second Classis, have lately sprung up. 10. The Atheistical ignorance of such is manifested. 11. A variety of vital Lights. 12. How the minde dif∣fers from Angels. 13. An intellectual vision of the Authors. 14. All optation vain, without God. 15. The misery of the Author. 16. A vision of the soul, separate from the body. 17. That the minde hath a figure. 18. The minde an immortal substance, representing the figure of God. 19. A vulgar error, concerning the Image of God. 20. The error of such, who conceive the Image of God to be seated in the ternary of faculties. 21. The doctrine of Taulerus opposed. 22. The Image of God never yet discovered, nor positively descri∣bed, because incomprehensible. 23. The minde subject to damna∣tion, onely by accident. 24. After death, is no more Memory, or Reminiscence. 25. The will was superadded to the minde, acci∣dentally, after its Creation. 26. In Heaven, the Will is useless and frustraneous. 27. In Heaven the Will appears no power, or Faculty: but a substantial and intellectual essence. 28. If the Minde be the Image of God, this was anciently known to Plato. 29. The definition of the Minde. 30. Reason not the Image of God. 31. The Authors opinion. 32. These two Quiddities lie obscured in the soul, by reason of the corruption of our nature. 33. The love of the soul is excited onely by an Ecstasie; nor otherwise in these calami∣ties of Nature. 34. A precision of the Intellect. 35. An Objection solved. 36. That triplicity, or ternary of diverse Faculties in the

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Minde, is expressed also in every systeme, or composition of the world. 37. A more noble and exact similitude, then that of a Tri∣nity of Faculties, requisite to make out the Image of God in man. 38. The description of the Minde, rehearsed. 39. How the Minde may survey it self. 40. The original of the Imagination, constitu∣tive. 41. The Minde understandeth far otherwise. 42. The prero∣gative of the Minde. 43. An explication of living love. 44. The discrepancies of intellections in Mortals. 45. Why that amorous desire, or divine Love, cannot cease in Heaven. 46. The description of that desire. 47. How sin may be harbored in the desire of the Minde. 48. The love of the Minde is a substance, even in men, that have not yet confessed their dust. 49. How great a cloud of dark∣ness is drawn over the primitive splendor of the Intellect, from the corruption of Nature, by the original sin. 50. The Image of God, defaced and demolished in the sons of perdition.

WIsdom begins at the Fear of God; and the Fear of God begins at the meditation of death, and eternal life. But the end of Wisdom many conceive, with * 1.1 the Stoicks, to be the knowledg of a mans self; but I account the ultimate end of wisdom, and the Crown of the whole course of our life, Charity, which alone will faithfully accompany us, when all other things shall have de∣serted us. And although self-cognition, in our opinion, be onely a medium to the fear of God; yet from that, must our Tractate concerning long life, assume its beginning; in this relation, that the cognition of life presupposeth the cognition of the Soul, since the life and soul (which we have more then once intimated) are Synonymaes. Tis of Faith, that man was created, of nothing, after the Image of God, into a * 1.2 living Creature; and that his minde shall never perish; while, in the mean time, the Souls of Bruits suffer annihilation, so soon as they cease to live. The weighty reasons of which difference I have declared, in my discourse of the Original of Forms. But hitherto is it not manifested, beyond dispute, wherein that similitude of Man with God, our Archtype, or prime exemplar, doth consist. For in the Soul alone, many determine this majestick Pourtraicture. I shall deliver what I conceive; yet under an humble protestation and subjection

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to the censure of the Church. Thus it is. The Original of Forms being, in some degree of comprehension, already known; it is just we make a grand enquiry concerning the Minde of Man. But, seriously, no cognition is more weighty then that, whereby the soul comprehends her self: Yea, and hardly is any more profitable; in this interest, that Faith doth establish her foundation upon the unperishable, and in∣delible substance of the Soul. I have found, indeed, many demonstrations, concerning this verity, divulged in Books: but none at all propter quid, touching the Cardinal Quiddity, in relation to Atheists, denying one single, and from all Eter∣nity constant, Deity. Plato, insooth, hath decreed three or∣ders of Atheists. (1.) A first, which beleeveth no gods at all. (2.) A second, which indeed doth admit of gods; but such as * 1.3 are incurious of our condition here below, and idle contemn∣ers of the trifling affairs of Mortals. (3.) A third, which although it beleeve, that there are gods, and such as are both knowing and observant of the smallest occurences in the World; yet imagineth them so exceeding merciful, that they are flexile, by the finger of the weakest prayer. And this kinde is most frequent among Christians, and even such, who pro∣fess themselves the most perfect in our days: and on this presumption, they dare any thing, and beleeve Religion to be no more but an engine of mature policy, to coerce the peo∣ple, with the terror of Laws, the obligation of Faith, and the penalty of Hell. For these impose heavy burthens on the shoulders of others, which themselves touch not with one of their fingers; drain the purses of their disciples, prostitute Heaven for money to dying men, and continually intrude themselves into secular affairs, in regard they opinion, that Religion cannot subsist without State-policy. My highest wish should be, that they had once, though but in a moment, tasted what it is to understand intellectually; that so they might perceive sensibly, as it were by the touch, the immortality of * 1.4 the Minde. I confess, I have not invented rules or a method, whereby I might be able to illustrate the intellect of another man. I protest therefore justly, that such who ever study, making disquisitions concerning truth, but can never attain

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the knowledg of it, in respect, being puffed up with Learn∣ing, they have no Charity, do foster secret Atheism. But this one mystery I have learned, That the minde doth not at * 1.5 all understand by the mediation of the Phansie, nor by figures and images; unless the miserable, and afflicting discourse of Reason be annexed; but when the Soul comprehends her own nature, Reason falls off from her, and the image of her self fails her, by which she might represent her self to her self: therefore the Soul can, by no means, apprehend her self by the discourse of Reason, nor by Images. For after that I had known, that the verity of an Essence, and the verity of the Intellect were one and the same: I certainly knew that the intellect was a certain immortal Entity, far removed from all frail and perishable things. The Soul, indeed, is not per∣ceived; yet we firmly beleeve her to dwell within us, not to be idle, not to be weary, nor afflicted with diseases. Therefore sleep, madness, and ebriety, are not symptomes of the immortal * 1.6 soul suffering exorbitancy; but the attendants of life and onely passions of the sensitive Faculty; since bruits also fre∣quently endure the same passions. For just it is that the im∣mortal Being owe these disturbances to her adligement to ca∣duce and mortal things. For as the minde inhabiteth within us, and yet is not perceived by us: So neither are her con∣tinual and uninterrupted operations subject to sensation; because if they were sensible, verily they could not have been spiritual and meerly abstracted. And although it appear to us, that we understand nothing by the total sequestration and abstraction of discourses from all things corporeal, which can fall under the comprehension of our sense, minde, and intel∣lect; and that in the very beginnings of our Contemplations: yet really, the Soul doth, all that while, act by her own in∣sensible way, and by an efficacy wholly spiritual: which I thus understood. The penitentiary very often doth not sensi∣bly perceive the effects of his contrition, and with groans de∣ploreth * 1.7 that his insensility: yet being asked whether he would willingly commit a sin, would perchance answer, that he had much rather die. Insensible therefore is the operation of the soul in penitence and confession, being the supernatural

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effect of Faith: because the intellectual actions are derived from a higher principle, and are clients of a more noble and indesinent Magistracy. And on this ground Mystical Divines lay their Doctrine, That the soul doth more effectually ope∣rate, and in her operations more benefit her self, in faith alone, without discourse and cogitation; then he who pray∣eth in a multitude of words, and by tedious discourses ex∣citeth compunction in himself. But happy he, who hath ob∣tained that excellent endowment, to perceive these insensile operations of the soul, and by secret emanation to reflect them upon the operations and powers of the sensitive Soul; since such frequently leave their impresses upon the whole after life, and excite the memory, in faith operating together with grace, for the future.

The Libertines of Christianity, and Atheists of the first * 1.8 Classis deride this Article of our Creed, as if the Image of God, in us were onely imaginary, and it a meer traditional fiction that man was fashioned after the similitude of the Deity. But other Atheists of the second and third sort beleeve, not onely that we are created in the Image of God; but feign also that in our nature there is an identity with the essence of the im∣mense, * 1.9 uncreated Divinity; and that man doth differ from God in substance no otherwise, then a part doth from the whole, or that which had beginning from that which is non∣principiate; but not at all in point of Essence, or internal propriety. Which besides the Blasphemy, doth comprehend very many and gross absurdities. Since whatever once began is in that very notion a Creature; and it doth tacitely involve * 1.10 an imperfection in God, to be able to create extra se, without the limits of his own nature, any thing in substance equal to himself: Since truly from Philosophy it is evident beyond doubt, that all the parts of an infinite are infinite, of necessity. The Creature therefore cannot be in substance more infinite, then it hath been in duration equal to its eternal principle: and much less is the Soul of man a part of the Divine substance, or essentially like unto it; which in power, magnitude, dura∣tion, glory, wisdom, &c. in her self, and of her self, is a meer nothing. If therefore she was not made out of God,

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much less out of her self; but out of nothing. Infinitely therefore do they wander from truth, who beleeve a quiddity of the Divine Image implanted in the Soul, by an identity of substance: when they are distinguished each from other by infinite disparity; yea, the soul would at length, of her own accord, be again resolved into that nothing, from whence she began, unless she were constantly conserved in being, by the Divine goodness. Seriously, the damned souls might wish to be resolved into their primitive nothing, which the Divine Justice doth conserve in Being. The Soul, indeed, from the minute of her creation forwards to the future, hath an eternal permanence; not from her own essence, but from her native eternity, freely conferred upon her by the bounty, and con∣stantly conserved by the providence of her Maker.

Suffice it therefore, that the Soul be a spiritual and vital substance; and a luminous Creature. And since there are many * 1.11 kindes and species of vital lights, this light of the minde dif∣fers from all other vital lights, in this, that it is a spiritual and immortal substance; but all other vital lights are not sub∣stances Formal, though they be Forms substantial; and there∣fore, by the Chymistry of Death, they are reduced into their ancient nothing, no otherwise then is the flame of a Tapor extinct. But the Minde differs from Angels; in respect it is framed in the similitude and representative figure of the eter∣nal * 1.12 God, for the soul hath that light and luminous substance from the gift of her Creation, since she her self is that vital light: but an Angel is not that substantial light, nor hath he any light genial and inherent to his essence, but is onely a mirror of the increated light; and so in this particular falls short of the excellence and perfection of the Divine Image. Otherwise an Angel, since he is an incorporeal spirit, were he luminous from the right of his own essence, would express the Image of God more perfectly then man. Moreover, what∣ever God doth bestow more love upon, that is more noble: but he hath loved man, much more then the Angels; for not to the redemption of the Angelical nature did he assume the figure of a Cacodaemon, as the thrice glorious Lamb of God, the Saviour of the world, assumed the nature of a Servant.

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Nor can this Doctrine be staggered by the opposition of that, The meanest in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater then John the Baptist: For the Son of Man is not inferior, in dignity of essence, to the Angels, though he was pleased to become a little lower then the Angels; for in the calamitous condition of his life, he was made a little lower then the Angels, as also was John the Baptist. And for this reason, an Angel is con∣stantly called a ministring Spirit: but is no where read a friend of God, the Son of the Father, the delight of the Son of Man, or the Temple of the Holy Spirit, wherein the thrice glorious Trinity takes up his Mansion. For that is the maje∣stick prerogative of the Divine Image, which the Light Eter∣nal doth impress upon every man that comes into this world.

In the year 1610, after a long weariness of contemplation, * 1.13 that I might acquire some gradual knowledg of my own minde, since I was then of opinion, that self-cognition was the complement of wisdom, faln by chance into a calm sleep, and rapt beyond the limits of reason, I seemed to be in a Hall sufficiently obscure. On my left hand was a table, and on it a fair large Vial, wherein was a small quantity of Liquor: and a voice from that Liquor spake unto me: Wilt thou Honor and Riches? At this unwonted voice, I became surprized with extream amazement. I walked up and down, seriously con∣sidering with my self, what this should design. By and by, on my right hand, appeared a chink in the wall, through which a light invaded my eyes with unwonted splendor: which made me wholly forgetful of the Liquor, voice, and former counsel. Then pensively returning to the Vial, I took it away with me; and attempted to taste the Liquor, but with tedious labor I opened the Vial, and assaulted with extream horror I awakened. But my ancient intense desire of knowing the nature of my soul, in which I had panted uncessantly for thirteen whole yeers together, constantly remained with me. At length, amidst the anxious afflictions of various for∣tunes, when yet I hoped a Sabbath of tranquillity from the se∣curity of an innocent life transacted, in a vision I had the sight of my soul. It was a transcendent light, in the figure of a man,

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whose whole was homogeneous, actively discerning, a substance spiritual, Crystalline, and lucent by its own native splendor. But enshrined it was in a second nubilous part, as the husk or ex∣terior cortex of it self, which whether it did emit any splen∣dor from it self, I could hardly distinguish, by reason of the superlative fulgor of the Crystalline spirit inshrowded within it. Yet this I could easily discern, that there was no sexual impress, but onely in the cortex or shrine. But the mark of the Crystal was light ineffable, so reflexed, that the Crystal Image it self became incomprehensible: and that not by nega∣tion or privation (since these are terms onely accommodate to our imbecillity) otherwise then this, that it presented a ma∣jestick Ens, which cannot be expressed by words; yet so fine∣ly, that you could not have comprehended the quiddity of the thing beheld. And then was it revealed unto me, that this light was the same, which I had a glimpse of twenty three yeers before. And these things I saw by an intellectual vision; in my minde; for had the eye of my body once beheld this resplendent excessive object, it would for ever after have ceased from vision, and consta•…•…ly have celebrated a blinde mans holy day. And thus my dream discovered unto me, that the beauty of the humane Soul doth far transcend all conception of thought. At that instant I comprehended thus much, that my long desire of seeing my soul was vain and fruitless; and thereupon I did acquiesce. For however beautiful the Cry∣stalline * 1.14 spirit did appear; yet my soul retained nothing of perfection from that vision, as at other times she was wont to do after an intellectual vision. And so I came to be instructed, that my minde, in this somnial vision, had as it were acted the part of a third person; nor was the discovery sufficiently satisfactory to compensate so earnest and insatiate a desire of exploration.

But as to the Image of God impressed upon the Soul; accord∣ing to my slender capacity, I confess, I could never conceive * 1.15 any thing, whether a body, or spirit, whether in my phansie, or the most pure, and abstracted speculation of my intellect, which in the same act of meditation, did not represent some certain figure, under which it stood objected to my concep∣tions.

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For whether I apprehended it by imagining an Idea probably correspondent to its essence, or whether by concei∣ving that the intellect did transmute it self into the object un∣derstood; still it occurred unto my thought invested in some figure. For although I could familiarly understand the minde under the notion of an incorporeal and immortal substance: yet could I not, while I meditated upon the individual exi∣stence of it, consider the same devoid of all figure; yea, nor so, truly, but it would respond to the figure of a man. Since when ever the soul being sequestred doth see another Soul, * 1.16 Angel, or Cacodaemon, requisite it must be, that she perfectly know, that these are presented to her, to the end she may distinguish a Soul from an Angel, and the Soul of Peter from the Soul of Judas. Which distinction cannot be made by the sense of tasting, smelling, hearing, touching; but onely by the proper vision of the Soul; which vision necessarily impli∣eth an alterity or difference of figure. Since an Angel is so far restrained to locality, that at once he cannot possess two different places: in that also there is included as well a figu∣ral, as a local circumscription. Thence I considered the minde of man figurated after this manner.

The body of man, accepted under that distinct notion, * 1.17 cannot give to itself the figure of a man; and therefore hath need of an external Sculptor or Delineator, which should be secretly ambuscadoed in the material mass of the seed, and descend upon it from above. Yet this, in so much as it is of a material condition, and far below the fineness of a spiritual nature, cannot derive the plastick or conformative virtue no more from it self, then from the gross mass of the body: necessary it is therefore, that there be some precedent or elder principle, which must be wholly and purely immaterial, yet real, and operative, to which may be justly attributed the power of figuration or delineation, by a sigillary impression upon the Archeus, or Regent Spirit of the Seed. The Soul of the Genitor, therefore, when it descends to visit and relieve the inferior faculties, and makes a progress to survey the Seed, in a paroxysm of carnality, doth upon the mass of seed, en∣grave and adumbrate the impress and figure of it self, (which;

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in sober truth, is the onely cause of the foecundity of seeds) and thence is that comely and magnificent structure of the Infant. Otherwise if the Soul were not figurated, but the figure of the body did arise spontaneously: a father maimed in any one member could not beget a son but maimed in the same member; in regard the body of the Generant hath lost its primitive integrity, and is become imperfect, at least in the implantate spirit of that member. If therefore the figure be impressed upon the seed; undoubtedly it must receive that image or model from some other more vital and elder principle, alien to it self. But if the soul impress that figure upon the seed, she will not counterfeit an exotick, or strange image; but accurately pourtray the similitude of her self. For by this means also Beasts, by the souls modelling of her own picture, constantly maintain their species. And although the minde of man, if we relate to its original, far transcend the Laws of Nature; yet by the same method or way, whereby it first entred the portal of Nature, was incorporated and as∣sociated to her, it is constrained to progress in traduction, and is constantly adliged to the observance of her rules and pre∣scriptions; in this respect, That the progress and end of vital generations is always univocal.

Nor otherwise could it want many and gross absurdities, that so excellent an operation, as is the generation of man, should be performed without the consent and cooperation of the Soul. Which if it be thus, it is also of inevitable necessi∣ty, that the foecundity be given to the seed by the Soul, by the communication of its figure, and other vital determina∣tions requisite to specification. Which verily doth not come to pass otherwise, then by the sigillation or engravement of the Soul upon the seed, whereby the matter of the seed doth obtain a requisite maturity and adumbrated figure: that at length it may acquire from the Creator the formal light of life, or soul of its species, whose similitude is expressed in the figure.

Moreover, we apprehend it as matter of Faith, that our soul is a spiritual substance, that shall never know annihilati∣on: * 1.18 the fabrication of which substance out of nothing be∣longeth

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to the Almighty God alone. Who since he hath vouchsafed to adopt onely the soul of man to the Image of himself: it appears also a genuine consequence, that the im∣mense and ineffable God is also of humane figure; and that by an argument drawn à posteriori, if arguments be of any vali∣dity in this incomprehensible subject. Since the body is like wax, whereupon the impression of the image of the Soul is imprinted: but the Soul hath her image and essential per∣fection from him, whose stamp or similitude she wears. But on consideration that the body of man doth frequently be∣come * 1.19 subject to mutilation and monstrosity; hence have most Divines conceived that the glorious Image of the Deity is wholly consistent in the Rational Faculty: not at all consider∣ing, that the representative Divinity of man doth in a more perfect and proxime relation consist in the Soul, and so in the Body formed after the exemplary character of the Soul; nor perpending, that the Rational Faculty is but Handmaid and subservient to the Intellect, no part at all of its essence, nor adliged to it by the inseparability of union, or identity: which we have to satisfaction demonstrated in our Treatise, of the Venation of Sciences. Now if any error be in the confirma∣tion of the body, in the womb of the Conceptrix: that error is not adscriptive to any imperfection of the Image of God; but to the incapacity of the material principles, and other ex∣ternal causes, invading the Plastick virtue of the seed, and perverting its exact delineation of the parts. But the more Learned number of Christians doth hold it of Faith, that the Soul doth proximly express the Image of the Trin-une God, in the univocal simplicity of her substance, and the Trinity of her Faculties, namely, the Intellect, Will, and Memory. Which analogy ever sounded, in the ears of my reason, so ridiculous * 1.20 and empty as an old wives dream; and improper to make good the proxime, singular, and excellent reflex of the God∣head in the Soul: since the term, Image, doth include a simi∣litude of Essence and Figure, and not onely a bare parity of numbers. Again, if the Soul, in her substance, represent the thrice sacred Deity; but the Intellect, Will, and Memory re∣flect the Trinity of Persons: necessary it is that these three

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faculties are not proprieties, or accidents of the Soul; but the very univocal substance of the minde; or else, that the pour∣tracture doth ill quadrate and respond to the Prototype, or prime exemplar, whose image it is beleeved to be. I consider∣ed moreover, that not onely the minde of man, but even the whole man was framed after the Image of God; and that it was a bloody absurdity to compare the persons of the Trinity to the Memory, or Will: since no person of the most Holy Godhead, can in any latitude of resemblance, represent the Will, nor the Will the Person, none the Memory, or the Me∣mory none; as also that no one, separated from the other two, can hold any analogy to the Intellect. And then, that the three faculties of the Soul are ever accepted under the notion of Accidents: but, insooth, Accidents fall short of expres∣sing the Image, in any neerer relation, then the naked Ternary of Qualifications, heaped together upon the substance of the Soul. In which sense, the Soul doth express the Image of God far less, then any the smallest piece of wood: which by retro∣grade Analysis or resolution of it self into its primitive En∣tities, holdeth forth, Sal, Sulphure, and Mercury: and not onely (as the Minde in the forementioned similitude, credited by the vulgar) three diverse proprieties, or a naked Ternary of accidents. For every Wood hath three several substances, comprised under the unity of the concretion, distinct in the supposed Essences of their principles; but concurring in the composition of the whole, they make onely the single sub∣stance of Wood.

Taulerus hath divided the Soul, not into three faculties, but two distinct parts, viz. the inferior or outward, which by * 1.21 peculiarity of appellation he denominates the Soul; and the Superior or inward, which he entitleth the profundity of the Soul, or Spirit; in which he affirmeth the Image of God to be comprehended, since therein is seated the King∣dom of Heaven, and therefore the Devil can obtain no ac∣cess unto it. And to each of these parts he hath assigned several acts and proprieties mutually distinct each from other. But alas! this holy man expungeth that simple homogeneity of the Soul, wherein she ought principally to express the

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similitude of the Deity: or at least hath hitherto denied the Image of God to be propagated and diffused through, not onely the whole man, but even through the whole Soul. Verily, the ears of my Faith are not easily open to this Doctrine of the Duality of the immortal Soul; nor the alterity of those two parts: especially when in her essence, the Soul ought to resemble the Image of the most simple Divine Nature. I should much rather assent, that the minde of man doth carry the resemblance of the most immense Godhead, in the most simple unity, and indivisible Homogeneity of spirit, under the symbol of immortality, of indissolution, and identity, beyond all connexion or alterity. Wherefore my assertion is, that the glo∣rious * 1.22 Image of God is neither separate, nor separable from the Soul; but the very minde is the very Image of God, fully so intimate to the Soul, as the Soul is to her self, that is, the Image of God is the Soul of the Souls essence: and for that reason, that no sober head can conceive or express any the least analogy essential betwixt the supream increated Ens, and the soul of man; since the nature of Divinity is wholly incomprehen∣sible, and the most subtile thought can never finde any cha∣racter of identity and unity with God, impressed upon the minde, whereon the similitude should be founded. Sufficient it is, that the minde is a spirit, dearly beloved of God, homo∣geneous, simple, immortal, created after the Image of the immense Deity, a single Ens, to which death can adde, and from which Death can detract nothing that is proper and ge∣nial unto it in the essence of its simplicity. And in regard the * 1.23 Soul, in the primitive constitution and destination of its es∣sence, is participant of beatitude: therefore is damnation su∣pervenient to it by accident, besides the originary decree of Creation, by reason of a succeeding defection.

This Semideity, the Soul, thus nobly enriched with science, * 1.24 when once enfranchized from her prison, the body, doth then for ever suspend all use of memory, and no longer makes use of the tedious induction of Reminiscence, intuition of place, or duration; but being single, in that homogeneal simplicity comprehendeth all things. For which reason, should any Memory remain to the Soul, after her flight from Earth, it

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would of necessity be not onely frustraneous and useless, but burdensom: when it must eclipse her transcendent actual in∣tellection. And from Reminiscence must arise the same incon∣venience; since that can never be invited into act, but by the circumambages and complex discourse of Reason; and there∣fore it possesseth no room in Eternity; where in the full pro∣spect of verity, without being subject to declination, defati∣gation or defect, the soul standeth exalted far above the neces∣sity of Recognition. The inference is, that the Soul must be constituted in beatitude (understand, in her primitive destina∣tion) without the conjunction of the forementioned Ternary of Faculties; and so in that analogy cannot resemble the Image of the incomprehensible Deity, for the sole representa∣tion whereof she was created. Yea, upon a more intimate scrutiny, I do not finde the Memory to be any singular and distinct power of the Soul: but onely the bare manner of recognition. For such, who have shallow memories, to relieve this infirmity do, by the help of the imagination (Vicegerent to the intellect) contrive for themselves an artificial memory, and that far more retentive then otherwise their natural me∣mory could have been.

Moreover, the Will also taketh an eternal farewel of the Soul in death: why, because it is not essential, but acci∣dentally * 1.25 advenient to the Soul. Since God, so soon as he had finished his Creation of man, constituted him in the absolute power of his own Free Will; which in sober truth, accord∣ing to my apprehension, doth plainly import, that the Will is not, by any peculiar manner, essential to the Soul, from the first of her Creation: but onely annexed to her, by way of concession, or trust, as a talent to the hand of a servant; to this end, that man might have free power to choose what path best liked him, to unravel his life in. Otherwise I deny not, but in the whole scene of things, there can be no one more pernicious then a free and unregulated will, as being that onely, which introduceth all variance and discord betwixt God and man. This faculty, therefore, must be for ever exiled from the beatitude of Eternity: for the liberty of willing being taken away, the will it self doth also of necessity perish;

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and of what use can the power of Volition be, when there is no longer remaining any occasion to will? And on this basis the Schoolmen found their doctrine, that in Heaven the will is confirmed, or rather wholly evacuated by death: that is, the beatified Souls in Paradise, have no power to will, nor will to will, but what is conform to the will of the highest; and those who are compleat in Charity and Glory, retain no power of willing any thing which is not of Charity. The Will there∣fore expires, when the liberty of Volition is dissolved; and by sequel, the Will can be no essential, but temporary and caduce power of the Soul; since it cannot be of use or ad∣vantage to that Soul, which in the consummation of beati∣tude and highest fruition, hath suffered an utter evacuation of desire and hope: when it can no more be deduced into act, but must be a bare optation, which cannot be admitted in the * 1.26 state of bliss, where is a full satiety and abundant possession of all desiderable good. Sufficient let it be for us; by the power of Volition in this life, to thesaurize, or make provision for the life to come.

Now after this transitory power of Volition is abolished, * 1.27 in the next life there springeth up, and manifesteth it self, a substantial Will, in no respect an alien to the intellect and essence of the minde; and therefore having a being absolute∣ly distinct from the accidental and variable Will. For as the Imagination is aliened in Phrensies, distracted in perturbations of the Animal Faculty, and eternally suspended at the disunion of the Soul and body: even so is the power of Free Will for ever abrogated by death. And thus I came to beleeve, that the Image of God in man is seated in the spiritual substance of the Soul; and not in the ternary of its Faculties. In a word, the Analogy stands thus. God is an Ens increate, single, incomprehensible, eternal, infinite, omnipotent, good, a supersub∣stantial Light and Spirit. But the Soul is a Creature, single, indivisible, dependent, immortal, simple, and from the date of her creation eternal, a substance spiritual and lucid. Finally, in God * 1.28 there can be no accidents: but all and every one of his Attri∣butes are the very indistinct and most simple essence of the Divine Spirit: which Plato his Parmenides in some measure

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understood. And so the Soul, since she is the representative of God, doth also admit no accident in her nature: but her whole substance must be a simple light, and the very intellect. For as smoak ascending from flame, is in figure and matter the same thing with flame: even so the Soul is the naked, pure, and simple intellect, and the luminous shadow of the increated light. So that as the eye doth behold nothing more truly, and more * 1.29 neerly then the Sun, and all other objects by the Sun: even so the beatified Soul understandeth nothing more neerly then that light, by whose eradiation she is illuminated, and upon which she doth totally and immediately depend. And as the eye of our body cannot endure to gaze upon the excessive lustre of the Sun: so cannot the Soul by intellection com∣prehend the glorious Essence of God, much less while, in this vale of ignorance, she stands obliged to the obscure mediati∣on of her transitory Faculties. Otherwise the intellect, eman∣cipated from the thraldom of flesh, doth by the act of intel∣lection acquire the figure of the object understood; in so much as it transformeth it self, by commigration, to that unity of Light, which penetrateth, and by penetrating invigorateth it with beatitude. And thus the Soul doth principally and primarily contemplate the immense Nature of God, in the act of intellection; and for this end was she created the true and real representative of the Divine Essence.

They who opinion the Image of God to be seated in the rational faculty of man, depend upon this Argument. The * 1.30 Law is the Image of God; but this Law is engraven upon our Souls, by Reason: therefore, is the Soul the Image of God, as she is onely rational. But such consider not, that according to the intent of this Sophism, the Soul, indeed, would contain the Image of God; but yet the Soul her self would be the Law it self essentially. Which absurdity is too palpable to escape the observation of any, who shall but perpend, how much the Law and the Soul differ in the suppositionality of Essence: and that the constitution and engravement of the Law succeeded the Creation of the Soul. Verily, I abhor me∣taphorical locutions in serious and abstruse subjects. As if these words, God created man in his own likeness, would

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naturally bear this onely interpretation, that God gave man the use of reason: and that such who enter this scene of mor∣tality, with native idiotism, or a durable infatuation of rea∣son, about them, have forfeited their plea to this grand prero∣gative of mankinde, the Image of the immense Deity. Again, to impute the Image of God to Reason, is to prophane and blaspheme the Sacred Majesty of God, as I have amply de∣clared in my discourse of the Venation of Sciences: When there is no adequation of reason to God, no comparison be∣twixt a transitory and uncertain faculty, and an eternal omni∣scient substance. But omitting the opinions of other men, I shall presume the liberty to declare my own.

The Intellect hath a Will coequal, and substantially united to itself; not such as may be accounted a power or accident: * 1.31 but the very light intellectual, a substance spiritual, an essence spiritual and indivisible, onely distinguished from the intellect by suppositionality, not reality of essence. Beside these, I finde also in the Soul a third native propriety, which in defect of a more proper appellation, I name Love, or constant Desire; not of acquisition, possession, or fruition: but of Complacency: which is equally essential to the Soul with the other two, the Intellect, and the intellectual Will, and equally simple in unity of substance. Which Ternary of proprieties meet in the sin∣gle and indivisible substance of the Soul, and make one perfect unity. But this Love is no act of the will singly; but pro∣ceedeth from the intellect and substantial will together, as a distinct and glorious act: for even in this life, we may love those things, which our understanding concludeth not to be amiable, and which our will adviseth us not to love: and fre∣quently we love objects, that transcend the comprehension of the understanding, and will, as in an Ecstasie both the intellect, and will are suspended, and consopited, during the abstraction of the minde, for so long have they resigned their scepter to Love. Nor is this Love a passion: but an Essence dominant, and an Act glorificant. The Will therefore, and Love, of this * 1.32 place, hold no community at all with the sensual and transi∣tory will of man, or of flesh and blood: in regard they are essential titles, by which (in our great poverty of words) we

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endevour to demonstrate, wherein the minde of man doth represent the Image of God: forasmuch as the intellect en∣franchised from the body doth intuitively understand, intend, and from the abyss of the minde, love God, in one entire and never-discontinued act of love, or desire of complacency, ac∣cording to the simplicity of her substance. But so long as we sojourn in walls of flesh, we come not so neer beatitude, as once to use our substantial and purely Intellectual intellect; but most of our obscure cognition of any Entity is derived from the information of Phansie, which, as Viceroy, usurpeth the throne of the intellect. For (as before) in an ecstatical rapture, the intellect, will, and memory keep holiday, and are as it were lost in a somnolent inactivity; the ardent act of Love onely remaining vigorous and operative: yet so distinct from the three former, that it cannot subsist without the in∣tellect, and substantial will; since, when the Soul is totally homogeneous in her substance, she would plainly lose that her absolute simplicity, if any one of the three could subsist without essential dependance on the other. Love therefore, while the other two proprieties continue bound up in an Ec∣statical slumber, doth as it were ascend to the superficies: or rather, in terms of neerer similitude, the other two are as it were imbibed and overwhelmed in Love. While we sojourn in the Tents of Kedar, in this vale of misery, Love is elder then Desire; because it is a passion of the Amatory Faculty, which proceedeth from that suppositionality of the Soul (which is true love indeed) and representeth the idea or resemblance of the corporeal Faculty: and hence is it, that all the affections are, by invincible propensity, rapt on to irregularity and con∣fusion. But in the Citizens of New Jerusalem, this Love knows no priority, or distinction from Desire: neither is it a Faculty, nor Habit, nor Act of willing, nor subsisteth with∣out the Intellect.

And thus the Intellect is a formal Light, and the very sub∣stance of the Soul, whose Cognition is perfect by intuition, with∣out * 1.33 the help of eyes, which discerneth, willeth, and desireth, in the unity of it self, whatever it comprehendeth within it self, and judgeth by volition. Nor doth it then any longer remember by

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a repetition of the species, or in age of the object once known; nor is it any more induced to the cognition of an Essence, by circumstances: but then becometh the onely and exact cog∣nition of all intelligible objects, and the intuitive aspect, with∣in it self. Yet so, that it knows one object more presentially then another, while the Intellect reflecteth it self upon the objects understood, in the distinct Unity of Verity: even as it frequently happens in the artifical Memory, where that re∣cordative memory is no distinct act from the inductive judg∣ment of the intellect. And will this not be more genial and proper to the minde, when once delivered from the tedious, turbulent, and complex way of understanding by the imagi∣nation? Nor can the stability of these our assertions be shaken by this objection, that frequently in exorbitances of * 1.34 the Brain, the Memory doth perish, and yet the Judgment con∣tinue firm and sound; and on the contrary, the Judgment doth suffer impairment and desolation, and yet the Memory con∣serve its integrity and tenor, as many Drunkards perfectly remember all passages as well before, as in and after their Wine: in regard these are Heterogeneal Faculties of the sensitive Soul, seated in distinct provinces of the body, and subject to intension and remission according to the exact and irregular temperament of the Organs. And to inanimate Creatures also, according to our observation, there undenia∣bly * 1.35 belongeth a kinde of imperfect and obscure cognition of their particular objects: as also a blinde sense and dull affecti∣on of the most convenient and adaequate; which Creatures have, for this determinate election of their determinate ob∣jects, lately acquired the name of Sympathetical: and this dark perception of the most accommodate objects, serveth them in stead of the sense of Vision, and faculty of reason. Besides this, there is also implanted in these inanimate sympa∣thetical Creatures a certain Virtue, or Vital endowment, of infallible valor, and energy; as to those ends ordained by the Creator. There is also a third power conferred upon Crea∣tures of this qualification, resulting from the conspiracy, and coefficiency of the two former: which sitteth as a silent Counsellor, and dispenseth commands to them, either to ad∣vance

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towards the amiable and •…•…eneficial, or retreat from the offensive and harmful object. In which the most blear-ey'd reason cannot but behold a certain natural sensation, or affecti∣on of determinate objects: yea, and what is more, a dislike and aversation. Which Climax, or threefold degree of non∣intellectual cognition, is more manifest in the most stupid sorts of Insects, as also in Fools and Mad men; who are no sub∣jects to the prudent scepter of the Intellect, but subordinate to the doller advisoes of sense, and conform to the provoca∣tions of onely visual light. And yet in these there is moreover a second power, or act of their virtues specifical and functions vital: for the onely exercise whereof they were ordained. And thirdly, there is comprehended in them a far more con∣spicuous act of Address or Application, and Aversation or Avoidance: which ariseth from the instinct of their Forms. All which natural proprieties do yet more powerfully declare themselves in sensitive Creatures: for to these belongeth a certain sensitive Imagination, with a gradual discourse of ob∣scure reason, which supplieth their defect of an Intellect, and is more or less resplendent and conspicuous in every single species: so that sagacity, voluntary election, and memory in such fall under the apprehension of a comparative intellect: their objects being yet changed, according to the variety of matter, propense to variations, distinctions, and singularities. Moreover, in such there is an emanative or effluxive power collaterally annexed to their virtues; whereby their Souls are more or less propense to the exercises of their element, be∣nign, and wholsom, or wilde and destructive endowments, or qualities essential. And finally, they are enriched with a native desire of complacency, of abhorrence or dislike, and of concupi∣scence, immediately ensuing upon their consideration of the good or evil of the object: which power or propensity is so firmly counited to the sensitive soul, that it seems almost im∣possible to observation, that any man should at once see two strange persons together, and not instantly become more affected to one then the other. And these things, which are sufficiently operative even in meerly Corporeal and inanimate natures, of confessed efficacy in sensitive, and in both admit

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of more or less acuteness, according to the obedient or re∣fractary predisposition of the recipient: cannot but be, for the same reason, of more clarified and sublime energy in man.

Finally, it is not the sense of our thoughts, that the Image of God in man should fall under such gross disparagement, as * 1.36 to be considered as dependent on any Ternary of Faculties; which naturally belongeth also to other inferior natures in this scene of the world. Because the dignity of the Image of the most glorious Jehovah is not, in any the largest latitude of Analogy, participated by any other Creature whatever: since the Divine Image is peculiarly radicated in the humane Soul, and equally proper to it with its very essence: but all other proprieties of the Soul are not of the essence of the Minde; but productions and subsequent acts. Nor can it stand with the Majesty of the Divine Image, to be desumed from so poor an original as qualities; for the proprieties and excellencies of all other created forms concur, and are as it were colli∣quated or melted together into the essence of the Soul, by virtue of the Divine Image. But if these be accounted as at∣tributes and productions: that must be charged upon the mise∣rable manner, and customary abuse of understanding, ac∣cording to the capacity of the Vulgar. For in equitable truth, * 1.37 the minde is one single act, pure, simple, formal, homogeneous, and indivisible; in which the Image of God doth subsist proximely and essentially. So that in this Image, all faculties do not onely lay aside the nature of Attributes: but also col∣lect and binde up their suppositionalities into an unity in∣distinct. Why, because the Soul is a certain substantial light within her self; or a substance so lucid, that in suppositiona∣lity of essence, it cannot be distinguished from the very light: and her intellect is so the light of the Minde, that the very Minde is the meer lucid intellect. And in this self-light the * 1.38 Minde, once uncaptived from the opacity of flesh and blood, doth wholly and intimately survey it self, and understand its own nature: and therefore hath no need either of brain or heart; in which material Organs, the substance of the Minde doth seem to stoop unto the assumption of the progeny or stock of proprieties; that is, the Soul is diffused or emissively

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expansed into several transitory Faculties. To speak more plain∣ly; in the body, when the Intellect is abstracted in speculati∣on, it makes use of corporeal Organs, to which it is obliged: and assumes a certain Virtue qualitative, called Imagination; which from the conjunction or society of the power phanta∣stical, and concurrent splendor of the intellect, suffering some * 1.39 degradation in the Organs, springeth up, by a certain com∣bination, into the forementioned qualitative Faculty. And hence comes it to pass, that this Faculty groweth weary by long and intense Imagination, seemeth wholly vanquished by difficult, knotty, and abstruse meditation, and frequently sub∣mits to dementation or madness: nay, as the observation of Physicians telleth us, with one nights pensive study, and anxi∣ety of thought, the hair of young heads hath put on the silver Livery of old age. But the minde, once emancipated from the pedantism of flesh and blood, is never weary with continued intellection. Moreover, the Imagination in this life is not onely subject to lassation: but from the magazine of it self hath not any intellective species, which it hath not drawn in from sensible objects. And therefore the Intellective Faculty, which concurreth and cooperateth with the phan∣tastical function of the Sensitive Soul, followeth the consti∣tution or temperamental disposition of the Organ, and arbi∣trary dictates of the Sensitive Life: no otherwise then in Naturals the effect followeth the weaker part of their Causes. But the Soul, whatsoever is requisite for Cognition, Com∣memoration, or Volition, either for one single act, or many, * 1.40 hath wholly from it self, and borroweth it from no other forein Causality concurrent. For the good substantial Will of a Soul advanced to beatitude, ariseth not from the object understood: but from the radical goodness of her own For∣mal love, which is, indeed, no proper passion of the soul, no habit, no propension, nor any quality; but a substantial act of goodness, by which the blessed Soul is substantially, uni∣vocally, and homogeneally, not qualitatively good. And this prerogative it enjoyeth, because it is the Typical Image of Di∣vinity. * 1.41 But bodies, of their own accord, perpetually fall into the attributes of forms, heterogeneity, vicissitudes, and at

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length into dissolution. Therefore Love or Desire of the Minde, is no function of the Appetitive faculty: but is a part * 1.42 of the substantial Minde, or rather the very Minde it self, flowing from the Intellect and Will. Which three are, by the hand of the Creator, married indissolubly into an eternal unity, in the purest and most absolute identity and simplicity of substance. Yet in Mortals they are separate and distinct, as well in respect of the necessity of Organs, and disparity of functions; as the collateral society and conjunctive operation of the Sensitive Soul: Since now we frequently desire those things, which the Intellect judgeth not desiderable, and the * 1.43 Will would wish never to enjoy. But necessary it is that such things, whose operations are different, should be also different in the root of their Beings, by a manner of distinction, where∣by each single nature is separated from others: in the Minde truly by a Suppositionality relative: in the Sensitive Soul, ac∣cording to the corporeal and qualitative nature. And there∣fore that amorous desire of the Minde, is the radical essence * 1.44 of the Soul, consubstantial and coaevous to it. So though in Heaven be a satiety and perpetual fruition of all desiderable good: yet doth not this desire of the Soul therefore cease, which is a constant study of Complacency: nor doth it more infer a passion into the Minde, then Charity it self; since Love and Charity are in the Soul radically one and the same thing. Otherwise should this desire cease, and the ardor of Love suffer extinction, either a satiety or insensility of fruition would instantly spring up; which cannot consist with a state of full beatitude, and would infer discord upon the calm and con∣stant harmony of a Soul once admitted into the Chorus of Saints triumphant. And thus this Desire is the incendiary that doth both kindle and maintain the flames of interminable de∣lectation, * 1.45 and joyes insatiate and inextinguishible; in which consideration the Soul wears the resemblance of the Holy Ghost the Comforter. Now manifest it is, that in the Minde, the Intellect, Will, and Love are substantially counited: but in the sensitive Soul, their operations are distinguished, ac∣cording to the determinate alterity of Faculties and their Organs; when we understanding many objects, we do not

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desire, and desire many we hardly understand, and such in∣deed as our will, if let to the swinge of its own native pro∣pensity, would decline the enjoyment of; as in example, we will what we desire not, when we willingly submit to the * 1.46 stroke of the Executioner: and desire what our will abhors, when we call for the dismembring sawe of the Chirurgeon, and gladly embrace the horror of amputation. Whence it comes to pass, that sometimes the Will giveth laws to the desire; and on the contrary, frequently the desire usurpeth the scepter and commands the Will: So that these two Lords mutually vanquish and succeed each the other, by vicissitudes. Which Civil War must so long continue in these our walls of flesh, as the sensitive Soul draweth and engageth the Intellect, and the body draweth and engageth the sensitive Soul, into a multiplex and various ataxy or irregularity of division. And from this intestine Duello arise those absurd desires of objects impossible to be obtained, and wishes of things in the present tense, which the unalterable Grammar of Time hath made in the preterperfect, and excepted from ever being declined in the future.

But this Desire, enshrined in the substance of the Soul, must be of the essence of the Minde: Otherwise he could not commit a sin, who looked upon a woman to lust after her, before the plenary consent of the Will. Our desires therefore are elemented and coyned in the mint of mortal and caduce faculties; which seated in the Sensitive Soul, rival the opera∣tions of the immortal and rational: whose objects are many times rejected by the Will as inconvenient and ungrateful. As to the manner also, the desire, in this life, operateth one way, and the Will another: and in the narrow circle of a day, sometimes the desire precedeth the Will, and anon again the Will getteth the start of the Desire, and one subdueth the other successively, that the victor may restrain and coerce something distinct from it self: and this wholly in the transi∣tory faculties; because each ariseth from the concupiscence of the Sensitive Soul. But in the glorious denizens of Paradise, * 1.47 this excellent Love, or amorous Desire, feeleth a resurrection and brighter ascension, as being the luminous substance of

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the Soul: for there is nothing desired, which is not also the full object of the Will: and that is collected into an unity, as well in regard of the act, as of the substance: although Volition and Optation seem two diverse branches expansed from one root; which far transcendeth the manner and method of intellection in those, who have not yet confessed their dust.

Lastly, in man is situate the Kingdom of God, that is the very Deity it self, by whose perpetual splendor all things are collected into the unity of verity. The Image of God therefore is primarily in the minde of man, whose very essence is no other then the very Image of God. Which Image falleth not under the comprehension of the most subtile thought, nor can be expressed by any the most significant words, in this vale of ignorance: in regard it is the mirror of the incomprehensible Divinity; and hence also is it, that the soul while immured in this cloyster of flesh, cannot reach the knowledg of her own nature, but must remain a stranger to it self.

But in the Cortex or shrine of the Minde, the sensitive and vital Form, this Image of Divinity is visible by reflexion, as * 1.48 being relucent in the Faculties: yet suffering a great allay of splendor from the opacity of the body; because obumbrated by the cloud of brutal generation, and infected with morta∣lity and pollution by the inquination of our nature faln from its primitive purity: by reason whereof the body hath not received the Image, but at second hand borrowed onely the Figure of the Deity. But alas! the miserable Minde, de∣volved into outward darkness, as it hath divorced it self from * 1.49 an unity with the Light uncreate, and infringed the originary energy of this Image of Divinity: so also hath it lost the primitive light of that Image, by the bold appropriation of it as justly proper to it self by the title of merit; so that ever since the fall it can understand, will, or love no object besides it self, and in order to it self. For the damned shall arise from the dead unchanged: because their bodies, in the resurrecti∣on, shall receive their determinations from their souls, which since they appear with all their depraved affections, reflected onely on themselves, after a corporeal manner; they shall not, in the resurrection, represent the Image of God, being

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as it were suffocated within them, unless in that corporeal similitude derived from Adam, the Protoplast, by the means of generation; that is, they shall have no more of the Image of God, then what is weakly and darkly reflected in the figure of the body. Lastly, the Soul (understand onely such, as is excluded the New Jerusalem) being once faln, by the horrid Cataract of death, upon the privation of those assistant Fa∣culties, the Imagination, Memory, and Will; doth for ever after understand, will, and love all objects, by a blinde ap∣prehension, addicted onely to it self. For it knoweth its own immortality, becometh sensible of its damnation, and with secret murmurs complaineth of it, as an act of high injustice done upon it. Because all the bent and scope of its love is one∣ly to defend its excuses for sins, secretly to recriminate upon the hand of Justice, by palliating the guilt of Crimes, as if committed in the days of ignorance and innocence, with great fragility of nature, many crafty wiles and treacherous invitements of our three Adversaries, the World, Flesh, and Devil, and the defect of Grace sufficient to encounter such forcible temptations: and that an eternal punishment (as far beyond all patience to endure, as all flux of time to end) can∣not according to the laws of Justice be due for a momentany transgression. And at this it burneth with blasphemous rage and furious hatred against God: chiefly because it is too well ascertained, that the judgment can never be reversed by any replea of error, nor the arrest taken off by any reprieve, till the impossible period of eternity; all hopes of evading the uncessant scourge of Gods wrath being for ever cut off in despair. Thus the impossibility either of evasion or cessation being as long lived as Eternity, the Caitiff soul, plunged in a deluge of desperation that shall never know an ebbe, from the first minute of her disunion from the body, passeth into an abyss of horror; where shall be no piety, no compassion, no consolation, no relaxation, and no redemption or revoca∣tion. To which sad truth we may adde, that since the intellect doth naturally transform it self into the idea of the object understood (which the ancient Ethnick Philosophers well knew, and elegantly blended under the parabolical fiction of

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Proteus) that is, into the full similitude of those cursed Devils and Spirits created for revenge, that are ever objected unto it: Hence is the Soul contiually possessed with an high hatred of God, and his blessed Army of Saints and Angels; together with desperation, malediction, damnation, and the vindictive tortures of those infernal executioners. O may the Mercy of Omnipotence, upon the sole motive of his own infinite goodness and clemency, vouchsafe to break those snares laid in all the paths of our life, to precipitate us into this misery, that must finde neither remedy, release, nor end.

Amen.
FINIS.

Notes

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