Three tractates by Jos. Hall, D.D. and B.N.

SECT. VII.

TO begin with the former, never was there a more close prisoner then my soul is for the time to my body; Close in respect of the essence of that spirit, which since it's first Mitti∣mus, never stir'd out from this strait room; never can doe, till my gaole-delivery.

If you respect the improvement of the operatiōs of that busie soul, it is any where, it is successively every where; no place can hold it, none can limit it; but if you re∣gard the immortall, and imma∣teriall substance of it, it is fast

lockt up within these wals of clay, till the day of my chan∣ging come; even as the closest captive may write letters to his remotest friends, whilest his per∣son is in durance; I have too much reason to acknowledge my native Jayle, and feel the true Symptomes of it to my pain; what darkness of sorrow have I here found? what little-ease of melancholick lodgings? what manacles and shakles of cramps? yea what racks of torturing con∣vulsions?

And if there be others, that finde less misery in their prison, yet there is no good soul, but findes equall restraint: That spirituall substance, which is im∣prisoned within us, would fain be flying up to that heaven whence it descended; these wals of flesh forbid that evolation, (as Socrates cal'd it of old) and will not let it out, till the God of spirits (who placed it there)

shall unlock the doors, and free the prisoner by death; He that insused life into Lazarus, that he might call him from the pri∣son of the grave, must take life from us, when he cals us out of this prison of flesh; I desire to be loosed, and to be with Christ, (saith the Apostle) as some ver∣sions expresse it; whiles we are chained to this flesh, we can have no passage to heaven, no free conversation with our Saviour: Although it was the singular priviledge of that great Doctor of the Gentiles, that he was in heaven before his dissolution: whether in the body, or out of the body, he knew not: How far that rapture extended, whe∣ther to both soul and body, if he knew not, how should we? But this we know, that such extasie and vision was in him, without separation of the soul from the body; which another should hope for in vain: And for him,

so he saw this glory of Paradise, that he could not yet enjoy it: Before he, or we, can be blessed with the fruition of Christ, vve must be loosed: that is, freed from our clog, and our chain of this mortall body.

What but our prison wals can hinder us here, from a free prospect? What but these wals of flesh can hinder me from a clear vision of God? I must now, for the time, see as I may: No∣thing can enter into my soul, but what passes through my senses, and partakes, in some sort, of their earthlinesse; when I am freed from them, I shall see as I am seen; in an abstracted and heavenly way; so as one spirit apprehends another: I do now, at the best, see those spirituall objects darkly, by the eye of faith, as in a glasse; and that not one of the clearest neither: (Alas, what dim representations are these, that I can attain to here,

of that Majesty, whose sight shal make me blessed?) I shall once see as I am seen, face to face; the face of my glorified soul shall see the face of that all-glorious Deity, and in that sight be eter∣nally happy; It is enough for a prisoner in this dungeon of clay, to know of, and fore-expect such felicity, vvhereof these earthly gieves render him as yet uncapa∣ble.