Kaina kai palaia Things new and old, or, A store-house of similies, sentences, allegories, apophthegms, adagies, apologues, divine, morall, politicall, &c. : with their severall applications / collected and observed from the writings and sayings of the learned in all ages to this present by John Spencer ...

How to know whether a Man be Heavenly or Earthly-minded. [ 1301]

ALL things in Nature,* 1.1 have a principle to carry them to their pr••p••r place; As for example, take Earth and close it in a vessell; and tak•• Fire and put it in another vessel; then open the vessels, let them out, and they'l both go to their proper place, the one upward, the other downward, because the place of Fire is on high; hence is it that sparks fly naturally upwards: And because the place of Earth is below, thence is it that it tends downward. Thus if the place and center of the Heart be in Heaven, then certainly it will move upwards to∣wards Heaven; but if on Earth,* 1.2 then it will bear downward; So likewise the Souls of Men, when they are gone out of the body, they go to the place, where they had a Principle to carry them, not a Principle that shall be put into them

when they die, but a Principle, that they were led by before; so that if their hearts he press'd down by Earthly things, when they die, they will fall down; but if Heavenly-minded, they will mount upwards: It stands therefore upon eve∣ry Man to know how his Soul worketh.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Jer. Burroughs Moses choyce.
• * 1.2

  E••itus acta probac.