A discourse of the freedom of the will by Peter Sterry ...

1. Proposition.

The Intellectual Soul in Man is an indivisible Unity, comprehending Variety, Diversity, Contrariety of Forms. This is the first Proposition. There is a three-fold Unity.

1. There is an Unity in the Division of Parts. This is the most im∣perfect Unity, or rather a shadow of Unity, the Unity of shadows, of Corporeal substances or bodies.

2. There is an Unity in Diversity of Forms or Essences, above all divisibility of parts. This also is an imperfect Unity. This is the Unity of Essences, of Intellectual Substances, of all created Spirits. The Unities of this sort are the Essences of things in their created state, which are said to be indivisible.

3. Above all Divisibility, or Diversity is the first, the supream, the perfect Unity, having in it self the first, the fullest Variety, and di∣stinction. This is the Unity of the Divine Nature, or the Divine World. This for its infinite heighth, above all expression or compre∣hension, by any created Image or Understanding, for the equal con∣currence of the first, the most entire Unity, and the first, the most full Variety, both alike boundless and infinite, is well termed 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Above an Unity.

The Humane Soul is an Unity of the second Rank, whether you ascend or descend, in the number of Intellectual Substances, like the Angels, above all Division, but subject to Diversity.

This is an Unity in a Diversity. Diversity (which is Variety con∣tracted and obscured) by a mixture of the Contrariety with the Unity, overshadows the Unity of the Soul, and rendreth it a shadowy Unity. The Divine Unity and Variety lie hid and vailed beneath the Diver∣sity, in the shadowy Unity of the Souls natural Form.

This Diversity, as it over-shadows, so it also bounds the Unity, and renders it finite, infinitely beneath the first and supream Unity in the Divine Nature.

This is the Unity of the Intellectual Soul, an Unity free from, raised above all Division, or divisibility of parts, lying one without another, as they appear in Bodies, or Corporeal Substances.

The explication of this Unity in the Intellectual Operations of the Soul, as I humbly conceive, will be a full demonstration of it.

There seemeth, according to common sense and language, to be manifest in us, a Life, a Power, which compareth and judgeth things; which discerneth the differences of things, relations, proportions, agree∣ments, disagreements; which is delighted with Harmony, Beauty, Mu∣sick; which taketh in, entertaineth it self with the Essences of things, the whole, Universals, as its most native, and most suitable Compani∣ons; which adorneth it self with Sciences. The Sciences are an An∣gel-like building, which this Life or Power hath framed by single no∣tions, or forms of things regularly composed into Propositions, by Propositions in a most beautiful order laid one upon another, and by fit joynts, like Jewels knit together into one Body of Divine Light, which setteth its Feet on the Earth, and raiseth its Head into the un∣seen Glories of the highest Heavens.

This Power and Life within us, which makes good all this, or a similitude of this, with more or less degrees of Perfection, is that which we call the Intellectual Soul in Man.

If the Object, or its Image, be extended, and so composed of parts, which lie all one without another, if the Subject, which receives into it self the Object, or the Image, be of the same nature, Now the one part of the Object is taken into, and seated in one part of the Subject; Another part in another. Thus all lie diffused differently in different parts; not only divisible, but actually divided from each other. Now they no where meet together in one, they are no where compared and judged, the Discord, the Harmony, the Whole, is no where understood.

Yea, These are no more in the nature of things. There is no such thing as Picture, Prospect, or Person, Life, Love, or Joy, Death or Suffer∣ing. All is an unimaginable heap of unconceivable Atomes, which have no Relation to, no Commerce with each other, if there be no indivisible Unity, in which things meet, in which they are compared, judged, and proportioned. How an Atome it self, or any thing of whole, or part, can be without Unity, which constitutes it, which con∣nects it, into which it Ultimately resolves it self, from which it first ariseth, is of all things to me most hard to comprehend.

But this is a digression, and more than is necessary to my present design.

Let us return. The two essential Operations of the Intellectual Soul, are to understand, and to will. The Objects of these, are Truth and Goodness, real or apparent.

1. Truth is a representative conformity of the Image to its Ori∣ginal.

2. Goodness is a mutual, perfcctive Conformity, or suitableness of the Original and Image, or of the Object to the Faculty, Power, or Spirit, to which it relates.

These two are the Divine Meat and Drink of the Soul, like the Ambrosia and Nectar of the Gods, or separated Spirits, with the Poets.

But where there is any impression, any sense or relish of these two, Truth or Goodness, in the lowest forms of things, These three must meet undividedly in one, The two terms or bounds of conformity or suitableness, the relation between these two, their suitableness and conformity to each other.

The Intellectual Soul riseth an higher pitch, according to the Doctrine of all the Schools, and its own innate testimony of it self, in all its Motions, in all its Virtues and Vices. It is carried up upon these two soaring wings, as the wings of an Angel, quite out of the sight of sense, above all the tumult of Individuals and particulars, to the invisible Glories, and Harmonies of universal Forms. The universal Truth and Good are its only mark and rest, where its motions terminate.

The heavenly Beauty of the universal Truth, can be no where seen, the heavenly sweetness of the universal Good, can be tasted by no Spirit, but that alone, where all Truths, all kinds and degrees of good, all things in their friendships and enmities are met and con∣centred with a full, with an exact Harmony, in one indivisible Point, or in a perfect Unity.

It is indeed a Divine Unity, running like the Spirit of Musick through all these, terminating them all by it self, recollecting them all entirely (with their several Divisions) after the most undivided manner into it self, which makes this Harmony, the Joy, the Glory, the Divine Life of Angels, of God, and God-like men.

This Divine Unity can be no where received, but into an Unity like it self. This Unity in the Intellectual Soul, makes it a Divine •…•…ye, Ear, and Spirit, capable of taking in the Beauty, enjoying the

Musick, being entertained at the heavenly Feast of the universal Truth and Goodness, in the Society of all blessed and immortal Spirits.

Keep the Unity of the Spirit, saith St. Paul, in the bond of peace. Peace in Hebrew is the same with Persection. The word signifieth the Harmony of things, mutually answering each other in fit and full proportions. In Greek, peace signifieth the harmonious Union of things, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, peace, from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, to knit or joyn together.

Without Union, without Order and Harmony in the Union, Many things can never become One; there can be no Beauty to the Eye, no Musick to the Ear, no Life, no Light of Sense or Under∣standing, no Form of things, no Peace, no Perfection, no Power, no Pleasantness, no Person. Without an undivided Unity, where all meet in one, which is One, the same undivided in All, there can be no Union, no Order, no Harmony.

The eternal Spirit is the first and supream Unity. Intellectual Spi∣rits, next to this Spirit, are Similitudes and Births of it. Substantial, undivided Unities, the Springs, the Seats of the universal, the su∣pream, the incorporeal Beauties, Musicks, Perfection, Order, Har∣mony, through the Creation; the only Persons; the bonds of all Union, Order, Harmony, Peace, Perfection, Beauty, Life, Loveliness, Virtue, Joy, Power, Personality, in all Bodies, in all Corporeal Forms.

By one Spirit, saith that Spirit, we are all baptized into one Body. In spirituality, by meeting together undividedly in the Unity of the eternal Spirit, which is undividedly one and the same in all, by which all are one, and the same in every one, All the Saints become one heavenly Body. This Unity of the Spirit, springing up into eve∣ry one, as a Divine and compleat Image of it self, having thus the Whole, the Image, the Life, the Spirit of the whole in it self, is the bond of their fellow-membership.

This is the ground and spring of their Sympathy, of all their Mo∣tions, by which in a Divine Love and Harmony they exactly accord with each other. We have the shadowy figure of this mystery in natural things.

How inexplicable is motion in Bodies, without the understanding of this Unity? What shall excite Motion in any Corporeal Subject? Accidents, Virtues, Qualities, pass not from one Corporeal Substance to another. They are essentially inseparable, from their Individual Subjects. Corporeal Substances are impenetrable each to other, and so cannot operate immediately one upon another.

In what order shall Motion be advanced, if it be excited? Shall the part immediately touched move first? How can it, until that part next before it, give place to it? Upon what account shall this before move, until that behind it on which the impression is first made, thrust it forward?

How Beautiful? how Harmonious? how Easie is all? If an Intel∣lectual Spirit, containing the whole Body, the whole Corporeal frame, in an undivided Unity, being undividedly entirely one and the same

through the whole Body, and in each part, immediately, at once, by it self Act all the parts in a mutual exact Correspondency to each other, like persons in a figure-Dance? All is now it self, in so many shadowy figures of more substantial and sublimer Variety, in the Uni∣ty, and Harmony of its own Essence.

This is a clear reason for that Sympathy, by which all the parts most remote of the same Body, have a present sense of, are acted and moved together with, all the essential acts and motions of each other. They are all by one Spirit baptized into one Body. They all are comprehended together in the undivided Unity of the same Spirit. So they mutually penetrate, possess each other in One; as One in the Fountain of their Being, Life, and Motion, the same Spirit. This Spirit is each Intellectual Soul to its own Body.

Let us sum up this whole Argument into a brief and clear conclu∣sion.

The Intellectual Soul, in the perfection of its natural form, un∣derstands, compares, judges, not only particular Beauties and Har∣monies, but the Beauty and Harmony of the whole Universe, the Uni∣versal Truth and Goodness. All particular Beauties and Harmonies, all Agreements and Disagreements, Strifes, Friendships, all forms and parts, as they make up the Beauty of the Universe: Then all forms of things, in all their Similitudes and Differences, Conformities and Contrarieties, in all their Essences and Accidents, in all their several distinct Proportions and order, in their Beauties and Harmonies, with all the Parts and Elements which compose these, as they make up the universal Harmony and Beauty meet together, clearly, compleatly in the undivided Unity of the Souls Essence.

Thus also this Soul contains within it self its own Body, its Image and Organ, in all the forms, parts, and proportions of it. Neither doth it so comprehend this alone, but the universal Body, as it relates to its own particular Body, as it stands in the senses of this Body, like Images in a Glass.

Here, in this Unity, is the Corporeal Image, as in a Divine Mould, formed in all its parts and proportions, to answer to their Original in the Soul, and to each other, for here only are they seen together, to be compared and judged, from hence they come forth, by this Unity they consist in their Union, are acted every moment unto mo∣tions corresponding with each other, and to a Sympathy; for one Spirit springs up through the whole Body, as it self descended into a shadowy figure of it self, and abiding ever with it self, within the Unity of its own Essence.

The most eminent Character of the eternal Spirit, is its Unity. Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God. How glorious an Image of God, in this Character of the Divine Glory, is man in the perfecti∣on of his natural form? What is the amplitude, the majesty of this Divine Unity, in which the whole Creation, with all its beauties and fulness, appear together at once, in One, as upon its Throne?

Thus, I hope, I have from common sense, and principles universally received, made plain in some imperfect degree, this indivisible Unity of the Intellectual Soul in man.

2. Propos. The Humane Soul is an indivisible Unity, containing in it self all Variety of forms.

The Argument before taken from the Operations of the Soul, in knowing and judging things, to explain its Unity, declares also this Variety in its Unity.

The Soul hath naturally a desire, and power, or potentiality of knowing all things, especially the Harmony of things, which is the Intellectual Beauty. The Harmony in no part can be understood without the knowledge of the whole. If the Soul then in the primi∣tive, and pure state of the Creation, did actually enjoy it self in the perfection of its natural form and faculties, it contained within it self, in the Unity of its Essence, all Variety of things in all their Distincti∣ons, Differences, and Divisions, Originals, and Copies, Causes and Effects, Substances, and Circumstances, or Accidents, Essence•…•…, and Operations.

The power or potentiality in the Soul of Man, is not Passive but Active. It is a pure Act, free from the passiveness, which is the con∣sequent of corporeal or bodily matter. The Intellectual Spirit ha∣ving alwayes in it self the judgment of all things, in the potentiality or power of it, which either is its Essence, or inseparable from it, hath also all forms of things in the same Capacity, or Power, and so in its Original Act. Indeed as it subsisteth in the Body, this plenitude in the Original Act, or power of the Soul, is very much vailed by mat∣ter, or corporeity, at least under the fall.

But I pass from this Argument, to another, drawn from the Unity of the Soul, established in the former Proposition.

The Soul being in its Essence, by Virtue of its essential Unity al∣together undivided, and so above all place or time, which consist of divided parts, is thus uncapable of Absence, Distance, or Division from any thing. All things then are ever present with it.

There is only a two-fold presence imaginable, Corporeal, and Spiritual.

1. The Corporeal, or bodily presence is after the manner of Cor∣poreal Substances or Bodies, with Division, a divided presence.

This is the presence of two Bodies, one containing the other as its proper place, or of two Bodies, contained in one Body as their common place, one common space of Air, one Field, one Chamber, one Bed.

2. The spiritual presence is a meeting in one Incorporeal Form, or in one Spirit, which is an Indivisible Unity. This the Schools express by the penetration of Spirits, which penetration, where there are no extensions or dimensions, as in Bodies, seemeth to me, uncapable of any other sense, in the strict examination of it, than their subsisting together in the same undivided Unity, and their mutual subsistencies in the undivided and essential Unities of each other.

Harmonious with this, are those two well-grounded and unshaken Axioms in Philosophy,

1. The Essences of things are Indivisible.

2. The understanding alone reacheth to, and comprehendeth the Essences and Substances of things, whiles sense feeds only upon empty shadows, Aiery, accidental Forms.

Proclus thus teacheth us, That all things are in the Soul 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, ac∣cording to the peculiar property and character of the Soul. In like manner the Lord Jesus saith to the unbelieving Jews, which look for signs of the Divinity, for a Pomp and Glory without, in their senses, The Kingdome of Heaven is within you.

The Heathen Philosophers stiled the Unities of things, Gods. This Unity, to which all things were present, was, with them, the Character of a God. The Scriptures upon the same ground, stile all Intellectual Spirits, both Angels and Men, Gods. He calleth (saith Christ) them Gods, to whom the word of God came. That living Word, which is the Image of the invisible God, (and so containeth all Forms, the whole nature of things in it self) cometh by Nature, and by Grace, although after a divers manner, to all Intellectual Spirits. That Scripture, which our Lord Jesus relates to, seemeth peculiarly to regard Humane Souls, I have said, ye are Gods, but ye shall die like men. Ye Intellectual Spirits, which in your abstracted forms are immortal, impassible, undivided, comprehensive Unities, To which all forms of things, in their immutable Essences, are ever present by my presence with you, who am the eternal Word of the Divine Mind, the Divine and Universal Image of things, Ye being humbled be∣neath the Angels, into a Body of Dust, a Corporeal Form, in this, by your sympathy with this, are subject to the Government of the Elements and Coelestial Bodies, of the Powers ruling in them, as Tutors over you, and so to their Laws of Time, Place, Division, and Death, until you grow up to the full Age of the Intellectual Life, by returning into the Bosome of your first Divine Ideal Unity in me.

All diversity of Forms are in this manner present with the Intel∣lectual Soul, meeting together, and being contained in the Unity of its Essence, as in an invisible Palace, or City, like the City of God de∣scribed by the Psalmist, which is compact in it self.

Object. Is God then, are all the Angels, is this visible World so present with the Soul, so contained in its essential Unity, as to be one Essence, one Spirit with it?

Answ. I shall give three distinct Answers to the three parts of this Objection,

In relation,

• 1. To God.
• 2. To Angels.
• 3. To the visible World.

1. Answ. This comprehensive Unity, which is the proper Cha∣racter of Intellectual Spirits, is called by Philosophers, the Apex, or supream Point, the Head of the Soul, hid in a Divine Glory, the Divine part of the Soul, in which it symbolizeth with, is capable of Commerce with the Divinity it self, and of enjoying in it self the Di∣vine presence, as in its most proper and beloved Temple.

I shall humbly present to the Readers Candor four Distinctions, for the unvailing of this Divine presence in the Soul.

1. Distinction. God is not present in the Soul, as in a place Divisible, but as in an undivided Unity; for he were otherwise no more a pure, an infinite Spirit, the first, supream, simple Spirit of Being, Beauty, of all Excellency and Virtue, a Life of Sweetness, a Light of Glory, without allay, shade, or limit: He were now Corporeal and finite.

Of this Local Circumscription (which hath no place here) is that Rule rightly understood, The container is greater than the con∣tained.

2. Distinction. God by his Omnipresence, and undivided Unity, is every where, in every Creature, in every part and point of the Creation, with the fulness of his Glories and Godhead after a two-fold manner,

1. God is present to himself in every Creature, Secundum modum Dei, after the manner of a God.

2. God is present in each Creature, to that Creature, Secundum modum Creaturae, according to the manner of the Creature.

1. God is present to himself in every Creature, after the manner of a God.

Where-ever he is present, He is entirely present with all the Joys and Glories of eternity, ever undivided, His own Heaven to him∣self, in the Depths of Hell beneath as in the Heighth of Heaven above, in the dust of the Grave, in a wave of the Sea, as in the most shining Cherubim or flaming Seraphim.

God is not thus present to any natural Spirit, no, not in the purity ofits Creation, with his unvailed Beauties, shining forth in the bright∣ness of his Glory, in the fulness of his Godhead. Then should he transfigure that Spirit into the same Image of one Divine Form and Glory with himself. Then would there be no difference between Adam in Paradise, the Angels in Heaven, and Jesus Christ in his Pa∣radise and Heaven above all Heavens, the Bosome of the Father. No, after this manner God dwells in Jesus Christ alone, as he is risen from the Dead, in the eternal Spirit, in the Glory of the Father.

2. God is in every Creature present with that Creature, accor∣ding to the manner of that Creature, By the divers manners of his Appearance, as by the ingraving upon the Seal, setting divers impres∣sions upon the Creature, and giving divers forms of Being to it like the Seal in the impression upon the Wax. He thus becometh the fulness of every Creature, filling all, in all parts of it, and so Omni∣present to it.

Therefore the School-men say of the sending, giving, powring forth, the coming of the Spirit to us, to be in us, That it is only Novus modus apparendi, A new manner of appearing. The Holy Spirit, the third Person in the Trinity, from whom the other two Persons are ever undivided, God blessed for ever, is ever in every Creature, in every Spirit. He only changeth his Appearances and Effulgencies there. By the change of his Appearance, he changeth and formeth each Creature, each Spirit in all its Changes. Thus he turneth to himself

the Heavens and the Earth, as the Clay to the Seal, according to the Language in the Book of Job.

How divinely pure and pleasant a prospect, or living Picture, is now the nature of things, while God himself, according to the distinct Idea, or eternal exemplar of each Creature, cometh forth, and appeareth together with it, as Twin-brothers, as Twin-Loves, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, one the reflection of the other? while a Third Love breaks from both these, in which they are blest, and made per∣fect, with a mutual Union, and the fruition of each other.

The ever-glorious, and eternally-joyous Trinity of the highest, and first Love, seems to multiply and figure it self in each Creature. All Creatures now seem to be in a lively and living Beauty, repre∣sented by the two Breasts of the heavenly Spouse, Like two Twin-Roes of a lovely kind, two Twin-Loves, the Births of their heavenly Mother, the Universal and Divine Image in the Person of Christ, feeding among the Lillies, the Ideal, eternal Lights and Beauties of her soft and shining Bosome.

But all this is to be understood of simple Nature, abstracted from the Corruption by Sin, with which, in the midst of the pure, peace∣ful, pleasant Varieties, the charming Harmonies, the golden Calms and Gardens of Divine Love, cometh in a scene of War and Death, of tempestuous Seas, fields of Blood, Contrariety and Enmity, God willing to shew the Power of his Wrath. That God, who is the God of Love, that Will, which is Love it self, All Love in the beloved Soul, to the beloved Soul here in its faln state, puts on this strange person of an Enemy. Under this dark Disguise, and horrid Vizat, he hideth all his Beauties and Sweetnesses, he acts a part of Wrath. But this it self at last appears to the beloved Soul, to be a most de∣lightful Love-part. While, by it, the Variety is made more full, being extended to the greatest Contrariety, and utmost extreams. While in the reconciling of these, the Divine Harmony is more full and ravishing, The Divine Love heightned to an excess of Sweet∣ness, and triumphant Joys, The Wisdome of the Design more admi∣rd and adored in its rich and glorious Depths, All expectations of Men and Angels are suspended, most happily deceived, and in the end infinitely transcended.

But how have I wandred, and delightfully lost my self, by drink∣ing in eagerly this Wine of Angels and glorified Saints, the Sweet∣ness of this Divine Light and Love? I will now pass from this second Distinction to the third, for the illustration of the Divine presence in the soul.

3. Distinction. God is one with the Soul, not formally, but tran∣scendently.

God is not one with the Soul formally, as the formal and proper Essence of the Soul or of any created Spirit, much less as a Constitu∣tive part of its Essence. This would make God and that Spirit essen∣tially one. The Essence of that Spirit would reciprocally be the Essence of God. That Spirit would be essentially God. Is not this the utmost heighth of Ignorance, Profaneness, Impiety, Blasphemy,

Giant-like, Lucifer-like to war with God, for the Throne of his God∣head?

Besides all this evil, how great were the loss to every Spirit, of Angels and Men? Their Sun, which makes the eternal Day and Spring, were now set in an hopeless Night of Clouds and Confusions. All their Loves, Hopes, and Joys, aspiring to an infiniteness above themselves, would now all droop and die in their own Bosome. The beginning, the end of them all is taken away. That distinction of things, which is the Mother of all Lives, Loves, Beauties, and Plea∣sures, as Unity is the Father of them, would now sink into a rude undistinguished Darkness; the first and the fountain of all Distincti∣ons being taken away, in taking away the Distinction of the Divine Nature from the created form of things.

How unpleasant were it to the Eye below, to be perswaded that there were no Sun, besides it self, above it self? Now the joy in be∣holding the face of the Sun and of Heaven, the taking in of the sweet Light of Heaven and the Sun, the charming Delights in the Varieties of Lights and Shades, of Colours and Pictures, in the Light and the Sun-shine, were no more.

2. God is transcendently one with the Soul, as he is with all things by the transcendency of his Unity, and his Infiniteness. He compre∣hendeth all things in one in Himself, after a manner altogether in∣comprehensible. As he is the first, the Universal Cause, the most immediate, the most intimate, the inseparable, the Ideal Cause of all things, He is the Unity of every Unity, the Being of Beings, the Essence of every Essence, not formally, but transcendently, not after a finite, but an infinite manner.

Cusanus, saith, God is the Sun in the Sun, not formally, finitely, but after a transcendent, infinite manner. He is so the Sun in the Sun, that he is all things with the fulness of the Divine Nature and eter∣nity in that form.

4. Distinction. God is present with, and in the natural form of the Soul, as in an earthly and shadowy Image. He is present, according to his heavenly, his eternal form in this shadow, as vailed and hidden beneath it.

As Jesus Christ at his Incarnation, so the first man by his Creation, was made under the Law, (the Law, the Glory of the created Image improved and heightned.) The Holy Spirit saith of the Law, That it is a shadow of good things to come, not the very Image. It is com∣monly said, That the Law is the Gospel vailed, the Gospel, the Law unvailed.

Jesus Christ, as he is the essential Image, the brightness of the Glory of God, is the first Adam, vailed, beneath a shadowy Image. He is there, as the Truth, the Original, the Root of this shadow, bring∣ing it forth, bearing it in himself, comprehending it. He is in it, as the Spirit and beautiful form of a Plant in the Seed, ready to spring forth through it, to transfigure it into the similitude of its own Beauties, to fill it so transfigured with its own Divine Life, Virtues, and Fruits in the proper season.

St. Paul makes the first man, in his pure State and in his Fall, a Type or Figure of Him, who is to come, Jesus Christ, Rom. 5.

God in the Light of his Glory, Jesus Christ, according to his heavenly Image, hidden in God, The Soul, according to its Divine Life, in the state of Grace, are all present vailed in the natural man, as in their proper shadow.

Some think this following sense to be intended by St. Paul in these words, [Christ is the Image of the invisible God, the first-born of the whole Creation, or of every Creature,] Col. 1.

God in that same second Person, which is the Godhead in its essen∣tial Image, (which in the fulness of time, took flesh of the Virgin Mary,) in the beginning of Time came forth from the secret and un∣accessible Light of Eternity, in a shadowy Image. This Image was the full figure of his Person, with all its Divine Glories, according to the capacity of a shadow. This was the whole Creation compleat in its first Draught. All the Glories of the Divine Nature, which are imitable, were here first distinctly figured in the primitive, and pure forms of all the Creatures. Thus was he the Image of the Invisible God, the first-born of the whole Creation in general, and of each Creature in particular.

Thus was He in the Language of the Jews, the great Adam, who brought forth the little Adam in his own likeness.

Thus was Jesus Christ in Adam, at once, the life of all, in his essen∣tial Glories, the Original Copy, or first Draught of the Creature, in the whole compass of it, of each Creature in particular. All this in the Humane Soul, in Adam, as the only perfect and proper Figure of this Original.

I understand nothing in this interpretation of St. Pauls words, con∣trary to the Analogy of Faith, or the Scriptures. There seemeth to be in it a compleat Harmony, and order in the nature of things, ac∣cording to this sense.

1. All things stand first in an Uncreated Subsistence and Essence, Then in an Uncreated Subsistence or Person, they come forth into Created Essences or Natures, Lastly, By this medium uniting all, they pass in Created Subsistencies and Essences, into created Persons and Natures.

2. Jesus Christ gradually descends from his essential Glories, into an Universal, Original Figure of himself, of the whole Creation, of each Creature. Through this He passeth into the particular form of faln man, in the Womb of the Virgin. So he descends to the nether∣most parts of the Earth, ascends again through all forms of things, with all, united in his own Person, above all Heavens, and fills All.

After this manner, the Lord Jesus is the Mediatour of the Creati∣on, as well as of the Reconciliation and Regeneration. All things are made by him, and nothing that is made (or brought forth from the be∣ginning of things to the end) comes forth without him. As according to his appearances in Grace or Glory, the Saints appear together with him; so according to his Appearances in Nature, all things appear

together with him. He lives and subsists in the form of every Crea∣ture. Every Creature subsists by its transcendental Union with him in Nature.

Thus it is most true, That we are in this World, as he is in this World. We are Sojourners together with him in his Land. He suffers in all our Sufferings, is straitned in all our straitnings. He is in all things made like unto us, Sin only excepted. He carries along in every par∣ticular form the Universal Harmony, the Divine Glory, even in all the sufferings and straitnings of every Creature. The Universal Har∣mony and Divine Glory is to him the liberty, the joy of Paradise, Heaven, Eternity, in each straitning and suffering. Sin only is the breach of this Harmony, the violation of this Glory, not by a priva∣tion only, but a Contradiction and Enmity founded in the privation. This can bear no part in the Divine Harmony, save as it is reduced into Order, and the Harmony carried on through the Wrath and Righteousness of God, in the Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

But I desire to leave my self, and my Reader free in this Point.

I have now finished, in four Distinctions, my Answer to the first part of the Objection, made against the Variety of forms in the Uni∣ty of the Soul. In this part of my Answer I have endeavoured to state the presence of God with and in the Soul of man, as perspicu∣ously as my dark and narrow mind is capable of taking in, and ex∣pressing a Divine Mystery of so great an amplitude, and such an heigth of Glory.

I pass now to the second part of my Answer, which concerns the Angels.

2. Answer. Angels, with the whole Company of invisible substan∣ces, or separated Forms and immortal Spirits are contained in the Unity of the Soul these two wayes,

1. They are Superior and Universal Causes, subordinate to the first Cause. Thus they are most intimately, and inseparably present in the Constitution of the Soul. As Entity, or Being, and substantiality in their Superiour and Universal Nature descend into incorporeal Spi∣rits, and through these, into Corporeal Shapes and Bodies; so do all the Angels, greater in Might and Glory, cloath themselves with the Incorporeal Form of the immortal Soul, communicating all their divers Virtues, Powers, and Glories to this Form in which them∣selves subsist, and live together with it, being an head of Glory to it.

2. All Angelical, Immortal Spirits, are another way in the Soul, as making up the full diversity of all Forms in it, and so composing its Essence. Thus all Angels, all Essences, all Forms of things in their immortal Substances, as Intellectual Spirits, meet in the proper Unity, under the peculiar Character and Diversity of each Intellectual Soul, as, in some obscure resemblance, Variety of colours in a particular colour, or as all the Elements in each Element, in each mixt Form, under the proper Character of the predominant Element or Form.

3. Answer. The Intellectual Soul containeth all Corporeal Forms or Bodies in it self, two wayes,

• 1. Virtually.
• 2. Formally.

1. The Soul hath in it self all Bodies virtually from the Angels above it, as the shining Bosome, where the eternal Spring through Jesus Christ powres forth its living streams. Here the Soul drinketh in the Essences, and essential forms of things, in their Angelick Truth and Goodness. These feast and fill the Understanding and the Will. In the Understanding, or Angelick Light of the Soul, they shine as the Exemplars or Patterns of all below in the visible World. In the Will, as in the Angelick Love of the Soul, they lie as in the Womb, or in the seminal Virtue, or executive Power, which brings them forth.

2. This Soul comprehends the Corporeal World in it self formally. The Essences of all Bodies, as they are Objects only of the Under∣standing, and not of Sense, so are they, according to the Nature and Law of all Essences, Intellectual Unities, and Forms, in the Unity or essential Form of this Intellectual Spirit. The Soul in these distinct Essences floweth forth into these shadowy forms, with which our Senses, the shadows of the Intellectual Light, are entertained.

The Intellectual Unity diffuseth it self into the continued parts of these divisible Forms. This Unity formeth the Proportions of the parts in their mutual Correspondencies, knitteth them together unto a mutual sympathy in each natural Body. For as I have before said, a mutual correspondency of parts suited exactly each to other through the whole Corporeal Frame, a concurrence in all the parts of the sensations, mutations, or impressions seated in each distinct and divided part, seemeth altogether unimaginable, if there be not an undivided Unity, which is one and the same in all the divided parts, where all the parts meet in one, and are one. By this Unity alone can all the parts have a mutual proportion, a comprehension, pene∣tration, sensation, or feeling of each other through out, as they have of themselves, and in the same undivided moment. This rend the sympathy true and perfect.

The Unity then of the Intellectual Soul, as it diffuseth it self into all Bodies, in all their extended forms and divided parts, so it bind∣eth them all up within it self. This is the substance to these shadows, and Contextures of shadowy Forms or Accidents in which they sub∣sist. This is the Spring out of which they rise up every moment. This is the band which joyns and tyes them together in one. This is the Bosome or proper place, which incompasseth, imbraceth, brings forth, sustains, and cherisheth them.

I have now answered the Objection, and so endeavoured to clear from all Clouds the beauty of the Soul, as all Varieties shine most pleasantly in the face of it, in the diversity indeed of the shadowy Image, but an Angel-like Diversity, and a God-like Image.

Thus I have finished the two Propositions in the Description of the Souls Essence. Asserting, 1. The Unity, 2. The Variety in the Diversity.

3. Prop. The Image of God resulting from the most harmonious Union of these two, the Unity, and the Diversity of Forms, is the proper Essence, and essential form of the Soul.

This Harmonious Union consists in a two-fold Perfection.

1. The Unity and Variety of things under a form of Diversity, meet in the Essence of the Soul, with the Character or Propriety of the Unity and Harmony.

When God had drawn the several parts of his Divine Image in the several Angels and Creatures, according to the Diversities of their several Characters or Properties, He now summons them, and calls them all together to meet in Man, in him to be united and com∣pleated in the entire Unity and full Harmony of the Divine Image. Thus he speaketh to himself in the Trinity, to all the Quires of Angels, to all his fore-going Works, Let us (saith He) make man in our Image, in our own likeness. The expression is doubled, to give the more force and emphasis to it. So afterward God created man in his own Image, in the Image of God created he him. The entireness, the Eminency, the Principality of the Divine Image in man is thus set forth, and therefore the Dominion is immediately added to it.

Angels, and all other Creatures, have their distinct Ideas in the Divine Mind. But God himself in his own essential Image, in the Person of the Son, the Idea of Ideas, is the Idea of Man. This there∣fore alone, as it is his glorious beginning in Nature, is his Beatifical End in Grace and Glory, his Righteousness, Rest, Eternal and full Blessedness, in his full, immediate, entire Union, Conformity, Com∣munion with it.

The Lord Jesus is the Head, the Unity, the Harmony of the whole Creation, in this Region of Diversity. The Angels, in the heights of a Created Glory next him, are like Notes in a Musical Lesson, Diversities in the Harmony springing forth from this Unity.

But each of these Diversities, as the top of the Beams next the Sun, standing in the highest degree of Diversity, beneath the Unity, bear in themselves the Universal Harmony, the Universal Nature of Diversity, the whole Creation, in the shadowy figure of the God∣head. Therefore are they in Scripture stiled, Thrones, Principa∣lities, Gods. They are so many Divine Unities in a shadowy Image, but under the Character and Property of so many distinct Diver∣sities.

Thus are they ministring Spirits; As they are shadowy Unities. They are shadowy Gods. But as they are Unities under the several Characters of Diversity, they are ministring Deities, or ministring Spirits. They are Servants to the Lord Jesus, the proper Unity and Harmony in its own full Character, and Divine Property. From him they minister the whole Creation, in the several Diversities of the Universal Forms, and undivided Essences unto man. In man they all meet, as in their proper Unity and Harmony answering exactly to the Person of the Lord Jesus. So the Sun in Heaven, by his seve∣ral Beams, figureth himself into a Sun in a Cloud, by his side, or in a clear stream beneath him.

Thus are the Angels, so many Chariots, and the whole Society of Angels one Chariot, in which Jesus Christ rides forth into the Humane Nature, unto a compleat Image of himself in man.

After this manner Angels Rule over Man, are superior to him in Glory and Might, as he is the shadowy Image, in which all the lines of Nature meet, and terminate themselves. He is now the Heir un∣der Age, subject to Tutors and Guardians. But the spiritual man made lower than the Angels, in its shadowy Image, upon the stage of the first Creation, grown up to its Age of maturity, in the Resur∣rection of Christ, is now crowned with Honour and Dignity, is Heir of all things, Lord of the Angels. Together with Jesus Christ he rideth forth upon the Angels, as the Chariots and Horses, which he now governs.

Thus in this shadowy Image, and state of Diversity, the Unity and the Variety meet in man with the most Harmonious Union, the fullest Character of the Unity in the Variety. So man becomes the principal, the compleat Image of the Godhead in the whole Creation, ministred from the Lord Jesus, the Head and Harmony of the whole Diversity, by the concurrent service of all the Angels, as the whole Creation, in so many Diversities.

2. The Harmonious Union, constituting the Divine Image in man, consists in the Unity of the Soul, in its undivided Essence, sub∣sisting in all diversity of Forms, circling through them all, returning ever into it self. As the same spacious, and delightfully various Prospect, seen through several clear Glasses, diversly, but delicately shaded. So the Soul by the Unity of its Essence subsists, and con∣templates it self within it self, in all forms of things from the highest to the lowest, according to their several Angelical Diversities, as so many pleasingly new, and richly distinct, but sweet and transparent shades. This is the Soul in the perfection of its natural Form, a Di∣vine Cir•…•…le, a compleat Paradise. Every where presenting the whole, the form of a man, in the Divine Image, the Beginning and the End, meeting themselves in each Point.

The Intellectual Soul by its Unity at once subsisteth diversly in all Diversity of Forms, and circleth through them all within it self.

The Soul by its Idea, and Divine Unity, hath its Throne in the Divine World. By its Intellectual Life, and Intuitive Light, it spreads its self in flames of heavenly Love, in beams of heavenly Beauty among the Seraphim and Cherubim. In its sensitive powers and parts, it stretcheth forth it self through those lower Worlds, the Coelestial and Elementary. In its rational and discoursive faculty, it makes a distinct World of its own, at once dividing and uniting the invisible and visible Worlds, filling up the internal or middle space between them.

The Soul, from its Divine Unity, in its most immediate Union with its eternal Idea (where all Unities of things in their God-like forms do meet together in one) descendeth into its Angelick Image, or Intellectual Form. Here all things in Angels shapes dwell toge∣ther, as in a Palace of Angels. Here the Soul in her own face,

as in a Glass, beholdeth all things in their universal Forms, rouling through them all, so that in each form she is Omniform, comprehend∣ing in open view all things in their universal Forms, under the Pro∣perty or Character of that universal Form, in which she at present appears. From thence she passeth into her rational Form, in which she is a contexture of universal and particular Images mutually in∣folding each other, mutually springing up and shining forth, in a beautiful Harmony from the Christalline Bosomes of each other. So this Spirit slides by degrees into the most divided shapes in sense, and on Earth, through these into the lowest and obscurest shades beneath the Earth.

Again by answerable Revolutions, and in the same proportions, she gathereth her self up again into her first and supream Unity.

Three things make the Soul in these Circlings a most beautiful and delightful Prospect, which three Beauties and Pleasures all flow by á sweetly-natural necessity, from her Divine Unity.

1. The Changes of the Soul through all these Diversities of forms, are all most orderly and harmonious, all together make up one most ravishing Harmony of Divine Beauty and Musick. For the Unity spreadeth it self through all this diversity of Forms and Changes. The Unity preserveth it self entire in the whole composure of these Changes, and in each part, in each turn of the whole. Upon this ac∣count hath the Soul been defined to be Harmony and a self-moving Number, or a numerous Motion, a numerous spring of Motion. Harmony consisteth in, is measured, and expressed by Numbers: Inasmuch as Number is Unity diffusing it self, Unity going forth from it self, in a just order, by Multiplication or Division of it self returning again into it self, and all this within it self.

2. The Soul, through the whole Circle of its Descent and Re∣turn, carrieth along with it all diversity of Forms into every Change. For the Unity of the Soul is her self every where inseparable from the Soul, and indivisible in it self. This is clearly signified in that Maxim concerning the Soul, universally taught in the Schools; That the Soul is divisible and mutable in her Operation, that is, in re∣spect to her Change into diversity of forms; but through all this mutability of Operations, and Changes, indivisible and immutable in her Essence.

Thus is the Essence of the Soul, as a Christalline Heaven, or as a Palace composed all of purest and firmest Looking-Glass, after such a manner, that all the parts of the wonderful structure, all the per∣sons in all the Apartments, all the Changes and Motions, are seen at once, in every point of the Divine Building. All the Glories, all the Inhabitants of this Heaven in all shapes, in all postures of Light and Life, meet the Eye every where, not only by a most clear transpa∣rency, but by the Spring, or Fountain of Light and Life, which in winding streams floweth through the whole, openeth it self, with all its various streams, and all their curious windings in its Bosome every where.

3. The Soul rouleth through all these Changes, circling from the highest Lights above, to the most shady depths below, and through those shades into the brightnesses above within her self. Her own Essence is within it self, the Spring, the Center, the Seat, the Circle of all those mysterious and harmonious Revolutions. For this is the Essence of the Soul, An Unity containing in it self all diver∣sity of Forms.

This is the Soul in its Essence, in the perfection of its natural form, the Universe within it self, like God comprehending, conversing with all things, within its self alone. All this indeed was in a shadowy figure; yet such, as the Life it self, brought forth, supported, filled, illustrated, and acted. But alas! now by the Fall, this great and glorious Spirit contracted, obscured in death, wandreth within it self as a Ghost, or shade of it self, among the Dead. It looketh up, it beholdeth it self, all things round about it, and wondreth at their strange shapes, as the shades of the Dead. It understandeth, know∣eth nothing of it self, or them; not so much, as that it is dead. It calleth this state of Death, Life, This the World, which is it self be∣come its own Tomb.

Perhaps this Picture which I have drawn of the Soul, in her proper Essence, or Nature, in her true and essential form, may seem rather a fancy, than any thing taken from the Life. I shall therefore at∣tempt to touch it over again, that I may give more lustre and life to it, that I may at once make it more clear, and confirm it. I shall to this end make use of two Authorities: The one Humane, the other Divine. I shall begin with Humane Authority, that I may prepare the way to, and close all with the Divine Authority, as the seal of Truth.

The Humane Authority is taken from a Person eminent, as a Phi∣losopher and Divine, for a profound Knowledge in all manner of Learning, for a heighth of Beauty in his Life, the suitable Birth and Image of that Divine Light in his Mind, for a Death, which was an ascent to the eternal Mansions in a flame of Martyrdome and Divine Love, agreeable to both the Light of his Knowledge, and the Beauty of his Life. His Writings are universally esteemed. His Testimony universally received, and often cited as Authentick, by the greatest Persons through many Ages. He hath the stamp of Antiquity upon him.

Boetius, that great Roman, is the Person of whom I speak. The Au∣thority I cite from him, is the Meeter in the Book of the Consolation of Philosophy. It is a part of this Meeter, which describes the nature of the Soul. But the whole seems to me so pertinent to the general Subject of my Discourse, so excellent in it self, drawn forth from the inmost Treasuries of the Platonical, Pythagorean, Mosaical, Christian Philosophy and Divinity, that I thought I should oblige the Reader to set it down entire. I have therefore first transcribed it in Latin, for the sake of the learned Reader: and then rendred it into English for the benefit of all, that shall take any pleasure in those sa∣cred Mysteries of Truth presented in her richest Robes, at the

whitest heighth of her never fading Beauty and Majesty.

The Latin.

O qui perpetua mundum ratione gubernas, Terrarum Caeli{que} sator, qui tempus ab aevo Ire jubes, stabilis{que} manens das Cunct a moveri; Quem non externae pepulerunt singere Causae Materiae fluitantis opus: verum insita summi Forma boni, livore carens. Tu cunct a superno Ducis ab exemplo, pulchrum, pulcherrimus ipse Mundum mente gerens, simili{que} in imagine formans, Perfect as{que} jubens perfectum absolvere partes. Tu numeris Elementa ligas, ut frigora flammis, Arida conveniant liquidis; ne purior ignis Evolet, aut mersas deducant pondera terras. Tu triplicis mediam naturae cuncta moventem Connectens animam, per Consona membra resoluis. Quae cum sect a duos motum glomeravit in orbeis, In semet reditura meat, mentem{que} profundam Circuit, & simili convertit imagine Caelum. Tu causis animas paribus, vitas{que} minores Provehis, & levibus sublimeis curribus aptans, In Caelum terram{que} seris; quas lege benigna Ad te conversas reduci facis igne reverti. Da pater Augustam menti conscendere sedem; Da fontem lustrare boni; Da, luce reperta, In te conspicuos animi Desigere visus. Deiice terrenae nebulas & pondera molis, At{que} tuo splendore mica; tu nam{que} serenum; Tu requies tranquilla piis, te cernere finis, Principium, Vector, Dux, semita, terminus idem.

The English.

O thou, who by the golden linked Chain Of reason's Musick, with an even strain Conductest all from thy bright Throne on high, Father of shady Earth, and shining Skie. By undiscovered Tracts, Time's stream and spring, Thou from Eternity's vast Sea doest bring. Motion, and change ever unknown to thee, From thee deriv'd, and by thee guided be. This work of floating matter, which we see, By inbred form of good, from envy free, By sweetest force of Native Loves rich seeds, Without external cause from thee proceeds. In Loves eternal Garden, as its flowers, Flourish in their first forms, and fullest powers

All Beauties. These are the life, the living Law, From which thou dost all forms of Being draw. As light to dazled eyes, all things below From these pure Suns, in fading circles flow. A World all fair, from thee supreamly fair, Shines in thy mind, above controul or care. In an harmonious Image thou the same, By perfect parts dost to perfection frame. By potent Charms of sacred numbers bound, The waving Elements keep their set round. Fire, Aire, Earth, Water in mysterious Dances Move to thy Musick through all times and chances. Mixt into various figures with sweet grace, In each form undivided they embrace. Earth sinks not, nor doth fire to Heav'n fly, Frosts, Flames, Droughts, Floods, meet in an Unity. The three-fold Natures golden Knot, mid-band, The Soul thou tyest in one, by Love's bright hand. Then it by thee, unloosned, spread doth lie In Limbs well suited to a sympathy Of motion, and distinct melody, Diffus'd through things below, or those on high. This is the Spring, and Circle ampler far, And purer, than the Christal Heavens are; The universal Beauties charming face, Where sweetly spring and dance each lovely grace. Within it self divided this great Soul Into a double Globe it self doth roul. One hidden from us by excess of light, One with shades sweetly temper'd to our sight. As thorough these it moves, it still returns Into it self, still with Love's fire it burns. By force of this it still doth circle round Th' eternal minds great deep. Heav'n thus doth found, And in like figure of those unseen Lights, Doth turn about these Glories in our sights. Brought forth from causes like Souls, and less lives, Thy will aloft in airy Chariots drives, And sows in Heaven, in Earth, which by Love's Law Turn'd back to thee, thou to thy self dost draw By the innate returning flame. Grant Father, to our minds thy glorious Mount To climb, to view of good the sacred Fount: In thine own Light, which doth within us shine, To fix the clear eyes of our Souls on thine. Cast down the mists, and weight of earthly mold. The joyous splendors of thy face unfold. Thou art to holy minds the golden Calm, The sweet repose, the grief appeasing Balm.

To see Thee our Beginning, is our End, Guide, Chariot, Way, our Home, to which we tend.

I mean to take no notice of any thing in this Poem, besides that alone, which immediately concerns the Soul. In that part I shall, after the manner of a brief Commentary, present the Reader with some few Notes upon the several Passages, for the illustration and confirmation of my fore-going Discourse upon the Nature of the Humane, or Intellectual Soul.

1. Passage. The three-fold Natures golden knot, Mid-band:

The Soul.	Thou tiest in one.	Triplicis.
Naturae mediam	Connectens Animam.

1. Note. The three Natures here are manifestly, The Invisible, In∣corporeal Nature, Immortal Spirits: The Visible, Corporeal Na∣ture, Bodies, Mortal, or Immortal: The Soul, the middle between both these.

2. Note. The Soul is a middle-nature between both these, not by Abnegation or Separation, but by Participation and Connection. So that word imports, Connectens, the Golden Knot lying all in one. The Soul is a middle-nature three wayes,

1. The Soul extendeth her self through both Natures, to their utmost Heighths above, and Depths beneath, by her Idea, which is her Golden Head, by her Angel, which is her Arms and Breast of her Silver, her immediate Image and Birth, as she springs forth from her Idea, her incorruptible Essence, above all motion, the first seat of her Life, Understanding, Virtue, Power, as they flow from her Ideal Spring. Thus Plotinus believed the Soul her self, in her Essence, in her Intellectual Form, at its first abstracted heighth and purity to be her own good Angel. But the Soul dissuseth her self also by her Coe∣lestial Garment or Body, through the wide-spread Heavens. These are her Belly and Thighs of Brass, the Springs of Generation, the first seat of Motion, Division, and successive Forms. By her Elemental Body, she swims in this uncertain Sea of Generation and Corruption. The Elements in their Orbs, compose her Legs and Feet of Iron. Here is the lowest Region of Division, Motion, and Change. Here is the scene of Corruption, here is the Soul most obscured. In the lowest parts of this Earth is she resolved into a shade.

2. The Soul is a Nature distinct from the other two. Angelical Spirits are Omniforme, or Universal. Bodies are extended into divi∣sible parts. The Intellectual is composed of both universal and par∣ticular Forms, all which it contains in an indivisible Unity. The Soul circles through all forms of things, universal and particular, as they subsist apart, or united, appearing mutually, infolding each other within the undivided Unity of its own Essence, whilst, in the Unity and Majesty of its undivided Essence, it rouls through all forms and parts of it self, as the Sun through the whole compass of the Heavens. In this is a more glorious Sun and Heaven, that it is in each point of

it self, at once, as a distinct Sun in its full glory, and every Sun, a spa∣cious, transparent Glass, in which the whole Heaven of its Essence, with all its harmonious Motions, and most regular diversity of Forms, appear together by virtue of the Unity every where indivi∣sible.

3. Within the Unity of the Soul lie both the other Natures in a way proper to the nature of the Soul. The Angelical, the Divine Natures above are there, with contracted and dimmer Glories, appear∣ing through Images of less brightness, and less Majesty. All Corpo∣real Natures are there exalted into Spirits, in their Intellectual Pat∣terns and Powers, in their rational Forms and Virtues, in their Ima∣ginative figures and force, in their seminal Reasons, and plastical or formative Power.

That mystical Picture which the Prophet Esay draws of the Sera∣phim, from the Life it self, when he saw them, will serve in its pro∣portion for the figure of the Intellectual Soul. They had each six wings, with two they covered their Face, with two their Feet, with two they flew. Spirits are described by Wings. The Images of things, springing up within them, are their Wings, not by change of place without them, but by these inward Images are they present with things, and in each place. By these they work after the way of a Natural, or rather Angelical Magick. By raising and converting themselves to Images in their minds, they bring forth new forms without, as the Off-spring or Emanations from those Images, like shadows from Bodies. Upon this account Angels are said to work Cognoscendo, by the force of figures in their minds.

Each Soul hath, like a Seraphim, six wings. The face of the Soul is his Divine, his Angelical Idea, in which the face of God, and the face of the Angel, in their proper forms, are seen. The two upper∣most wings, with which the Soul covers her Angelical Face, and within that her Divine Face, is the Divine Image shining in the An∣gelical Image. These wings are full of eyes within and without. As by the eyes without, they see the Images of Angelical and Divine Glories. So by the eyes within, they see the Faces of Angels and of God, and in them their own faces, vailed beneath these Images, full of eyes.

These Eyes are the living Light, the reflection of the Angelical and Divine Glory, of which these Images are composed, and by virtue of which they, according to their pure Natures, stand in a mutual, inseparable Union with the Angels, and in the Angels with the Di∣vine Glory. By vertue of this Union, they at once look inward to their Ideal Beauties, and outward to the Images of these Beau∣ties.

The two lowest wings are the Images of all Corporeal Natures, of all Bodies which cover these, as the feet of the Soul. Nymphs, which are Souls, according to Porphyrius, are described in Poets with silver feet. Bodily Natures, in their extended and divisible parts, are the feet of the Soul, its lowest descent, the lowest and shadowest forms figured upon it. These in the Soul it self, which is an Unity,

appear only in their seminal Unities and Beauties, as Spirits in the Harmony of this Universal Spirit. For this cause are they repre∣sented by silver feet, shining, and incorruptible; for the same reason are they said to be covered with wings, which are those Spirits, the lowermost forms of things in the Soul, the seminal Unity and Har∣monies, out of which Bodies immediately flow, and in which they are seen, as in a mystical Glass.

The middle-wings of the Soul are the proper Image of the Soul it self, by which it performs its own proper Motions and Operations, flying between those Angelical, those Divine Images above, and the shady forms of Bodies below.

The Images, or Natures of Spirits are exprest by pairs of wings, not only for congruity, and the decency of the Parable, but from the Truth of the mystery; for in Spirits, each Image distinguisheth it self by a most substantial Variety into its own Original and Image, by that self-reflection, or spiritual Generation, which is the essential Act of each Understanding, of each Intellectual Nature, of each Spirit.

Thus much of this first passage, the three-fold Nature united in the Soul.

2. Passage.

Then it by thee unloosened, spread doth lye, Through Limbs well suited to a sympathy.

—Per Consona membra resoluis.

Note. How elegantly doth this Divine Philosopher, and Poet, at once, paint out to us the Soul extended into Corporeal Forms, in divisible parts; languishing, obscure, with a faint, and fading light; weak, with a feeble and dying force; as also present in its Divine Uni∣ty, the spring of Light, of Life, through the whole extent of these Bodies, and binding them up into an indivisible Unity. This Unity every where present with all the parts of the wholy Body, This Unity comprehending them all in one, making them all one by a mutual comprehension of each other in it self, is the only ground of the Con∣sonancy, the Harmony and Sympathy. The Unity of the same Spi∣rit answering to it self every where, presenting all the parts in an Uni∣ty in it self, is every where in all Corporeal Forms, the Beauty, the Musick, the Harmony.

3. Passage.

Of motion and divinest Melody, Diffus'd through things below, or those on high. This is the Spring and Circle.

Cuncta moventem.

1. Note. The difficulties in Motion, are inexplicable, if Motion have not for its Spring and Seat an essential, substantial Unity, which con∣tains at once in it self the terms of the Motion, its Beginning and End;

the Way; the Forms or Parts of that which is moved. Without this, how shall the Motion be directed? How shall the Forms or parts of that which is moved, give place to, or pass into the place of each other? How shall the Impression, or force of Motion be com∣municated? But now all things move by a divinely natural Magick; that is, by the force of Harmony, in the Unity of the same Soul or Spirit inhabiting and acting all, presenting it self in every form, part, and motion. Now all motions present themselves to our eyes, as exact and Divine Dances of persons to a Divine Musick, from unseen Musicians sounding entirely, and distinctly in the ear of each person, to which they all at once, in their order, move most agreeably.

2. Note. Immutablity; Mutation, or Change; Motion, differ after the same manner with Eternity, Aeviternity, Time. This is best ex∣plained by the three-fold Unity, the Divine, the Angelical Unity, the Unity of the Soul.

1. The Divine Unity is alone a true and perfect Unity, substantial, supream, unbounded. This hath a perfect boundless Variety in it, with an Uniformity. All forms of things here, as they are most per∣fectly distinct, by the perfection of the Variety; so are they most per∣fectly one, by the perfection of the Unity. This is the Divine World, containing innumerable Divine Worlds within it self, of which every one is infinitely new, and various from all the rest; yet entirely one with all the Rest, including at once innumerable Divine Worlds, all new, and all the same. As the Variety there, comprehends all di∣stinctions below it, and infinitely transcends them; So each, the minutest, the least distinction here, being a Variety there, is a new Divine World, having all the other Varieties compleat in it self, as so many Divine Worlds, all new. This is Eternity above all change.

2. The Angelical Unity follows. Here the Divine Unity de∣scends into a shadow, beneath which it shades it self. This is a shadowy Unity, the first and most perfect of all shadowy Unities. The shade here bounds, and diversifieth the Unity. But the Light, and the Unity in the shadow, predominate over the Darkness and Diver∣sity. The Divine Variety is here contracted and obscured in a di∣versity of Forms. But in this diversity of Forms, is an Omniformity. Each Form is Universal and Omniform. Each Form hath this Angelical Unity in it, where all diversity of Forms meet to compose it, and shine together in it, according to the diversity and property of that Form. Thus every Form of things here is an Angel, every Angel is the whole World in himself; the whole World, and a new World of Angels.

In this World is motion, not properly or simply, but with a predo∣minancy of station, over the motion: for, as the Unity is continu∣ally rouling through diversity of Forms, so it is Omniform, Univer∣sal, cloathed with, possessing, and enjoying in it self, all diversity of Forms, and so the full compass of the whole Angelical Harmony in each Form. This is Aeviternity, where mutability or change begins.

3. The Unity of the Soul is the last, this is mixt of Eviternity and Time; Of Change, where station predominates over motion, and motion single in its own kingdom. The Soul in its superior part is in the form of an Angel; In its Angelical Unity it comprehends and rouls through all diversity of Forms, in their Universality and Omniformity, carrying the whole pomp and full splendor of all uni∣versal Forms, of all Angelical Beauties along with it, in the face of it, into each diverse Form.

Thus it is all Forms in every Form.

In its inferior part, the Soul descends into all particular Forms, where the Unity in its Angelick majesty and lustre, in its universal Form and Glory, is gradually contracted and obscured by the encrea∣sing shade. The Soul now becomes each particular Form.

Here, in this inferior part of the Soul, Motion and Time have their first birth and seat. Time is defined to be the number of Motion, in an orderly Priority and Posteriority. Accordingly the Soul in re∣spect to its inferior part, most properly is described to be a self-moving number. As numbers, by a just order, spring up one out of the other, the succeeding numbers, being ever less universal, removed further from the Unity, and multiplied more into particular Unities, then the fore-going numbers. So doth the Soul after the manner of num∣ber, which is the measure of all proportion and order from its su∣pream and universal Unity, descend and re-ascend through all particular Forms, in the most just order, and most exact pro∣portions.

The Soul, being the first seat of Motion and Time, is also the first seat of Musick, which is a motion, measured by Time, and by the order of Ascents or Descents. It is therefore defined by an Harmony. There is a three-fold Harmony in the motions of the Soul,

1. All the motions of the Soul, through all particular Forms, lie together after a most agreeable and harmonious manner in the supream Unity of the Soul, in its universal Form, which is its Es∣sence. By the Harmony here are measured all the motions of the Soul, in its passage through inferior Forms, and so all Time.

2. The Soul in its Unity diffuseth it self through all its particular Forms and Motions, dwelleth as an hidden seed of Harmony in each of them, figureth it self upon each particular, and upon the whole, uniteth and bindeth up all by it self in it self into one entire piece, into one universal Harmony, which includes all particular Harmonies, all sorts of Musick in it self.

3. The Soul by virtue of its Unity, and universal 'Form, within the embraces and incompassings of that, descends most regularly to the lowest Forms. Then ascends again, ending in that Point, that Unity, where it first begun. So it finisheth in it self the Divine Circle of Musick or Harmony, within which lies all Harmony and Musick in all its most delightful diversity of Modes or Figures.

Thus the Soul in it self, as it spreads it self through time and motion, the first, the universal Musick, the measure, the Spirit of

all Musick, all time and motion here, make up the universal Musick. Again, as all universal and particular Forms, all motion and time appear at once, in one view, in the Unity of the Souls Essence, and universal Form; so is the Soul, the first, the universal Beauty, the Measure, the Spirit of all Beauty, Forms, and Harmony. This is spoken of the Soul in comparison with the Corporeal Beauties, Mu∣sick, and Harmony, Coelestial or Terrestrial. But the Harmony of the Angelick Nature transcends this of the Soul. That also is infinitely surmo•…•…nted by those unexpressible, incomprehensible Harmonies of the Divine Effence, which it is not possible for any created sense to take in.

4. Passage.

—It still returns. Into it self— It still doth circle round. The eternal minds great deep, Heav'n thus doth found. And in like figure of those unseen Lights, Doth turn about these Glories in our sights.

In semel reditura meat, mentem{que} profundam. Circuit, & simili convertit imagine Caelum.

1. Note. How the Soul in all her motions returns into her self? you see in the Harmony of the Soul described, in the last Note, upon the fore-going Passage. I will here only add this, The Soul is an indivisi∣ble Unity, yet spacious, enriched with a Variety of Powers and Forms, far beyond the compass or glory of this visible World, with all its Starry, Christalline, or Empyrean Heavens. This Soul, from it self, within it self, circles through vast and various Forms of richest Lights, deepest Shades, with all their mixtures in a most exact and ravishing order, making all one Piece, one Structure, one Palace, one Person, one Face of Beauty, most divinely beautiful, where all forms of Beauty meet in one. As it is thus from it self within it self, circles through all forms; so in each form it springs up, and brings forth it self entire in the Unity of its Essence. Thus in every Point, the beginning and the end meet; the circle of the Souls Essence, and of all Beauties; the Divine Piece, the Divine Palace, with all its bright Inhabitants, and shining Furniture; the Divine Person, the Face of Beauty, is all finisht and compleat, with all the sweet and beautiful Varieties in every part, in every point. Thus the Soul in all its motions, by virtue of the most charming Harmony, and transporting Unity, every where entire and undivided, is ever returning into it self.

2. Note. The Souls Original, the manner of its Divine Procession, from its eternal King, is with an admirable brevity, perspicuity, and depth represented to us, in the Souls circling round, the Minds great deep. The Platonists distinguish all invisible Being into three ranks; The Unity, which is God, the Mind, the Soul. The Mind

they call the Son, the World of God, the first seat of all Ideas. But with us Christians, this Mind is the Angelical Nature, the chief of those ministring Spirits, to which we in the Language of the Scrip∣ture, give the Name of Angels, The Son of God, the World of God, in the first and most proper sense, is the Uncreated Mind and Wisdome, the Lord Jesus, who, as he is the second person in the Trinity, is the supream Unity, the one only true God. The Godhead in its essential Image, where first are seated, and shine all forms of things in their Original Glories, in their eternal Patterns, as they are the Variety in the Divine Unity, every one God entirely in it self, in all the full Glories of the Godhead, and all one God, ever undivided, indivi∣sible.

Plutarch calleth Life, a Depth; This Mind is exprest by a Deep, in∣asmuch as it is Life it self, the first unbounded Life, which hath no ground, no limit, the fountain of Life, where endlesly spring up in an unconfined Circle, in a bottomless Depth, forms of Glory innumera∣ble, one within another. Thus St. Paul speaketh, That the Spirit of God, in the Spirit of a Saint, is a Spirit of Revelation, which takes the covering off from this Deep of Light and Glories in the Soul, searching out the Depth of God.

The Soul circleth round this Deep of the Divine Mind, not after a Corporeal, or Local manner, but as one Spirit encompasseth ano∣ther without Circumscription extension or distance.

1. The Soul without consinement or adaequation, contains in its Unity and Center this glorious Deep of the Divine Mind through the Angelical Mind, as the Unity of its Unity, the Center in its Center.

2. The Soul springs forth by a continual emanation, a continual irradiation or process from this Divine Mind, into an entire Image of it. As it •…•…ees the various Glories in the circle of this Deep. So doth it spring up within it self, into the similitude and forms of the same Glories, in the same Order and Harmony, to the filling up and compleating of the same circle within it self. The Lord Jesus in the Gospel, at his Transfiguration, appeared as the Sun in its strength, and his Garments as the Light. Thus the same Jesus, the Divine Mind is here a Circle, a Depth of substantial Light and Glories, fil∣ling the Light with all Variety of forms. The Soul springs forth from him, all round about him, as a Garment of Light, a Circle of Beams, all wrought with the beautiful Figures of those Glories.

Plato saith, That there are three Kings, round whose Thrones all things dance; God, the Mind, the Soul; this continual procession of the Soul from the Divine Mind, through the Angelical Mind, in the entire Image of it, with all its Divine Forms, and their Order, their Harmony, their Unity in the whole compass of their Variety, is the mystical Dance of the Soul round the Throne of her King, her Bridegroom, by which at once she contemplates, enjoys, springs up into his Divine Form in all its Beauties, and is filled with him. He in like manner hath her ever before him, as the Looking-Glass of his own Beauty, lying and playing in himself, as the Image of a Flower,

or Tree in the water, every way circled in by him, as she is cen∣tered in him.

As the Divine Mind, through the Angelical is in the Soul, so are the Divine, the Angelical Mind through the Soul in this visible World centring it in themselves, riding forth upon the Circuit of the Hea∣ven and the Earth, as the lowest figure of themselves, at once standing up out of them, and standing in them.

The Soul, as the Exemplar Form, as the Unity, the inmost cen∣ter, the outmost Circle, sendeth forth this Corporeal Image, as a figure of it self, formeth, moveth, acteth it throughout, sustaineth it in it self, filleth it with it self, every way boundeth and containeth it within it self.

The vast all-containing Unity of the Soul figureth it self, the circular, globous, round form of the Heavens and the Earth, in the Union and Harmony of all the parts, suffering no where any dis∣continuity, or vacuity, nor any deformity or discord in the whole.

From the variety of invisible Forms within it self, the Soul spring∣eth up into all the innumerable Army of heavenly Bodies in the Coe∣lestial Orbs, into all the diversity of Elementary shapes and figures in the Regions below. The Harmony and Order of the Soul in all its forms and motions through them floweth forth, figureth it self, as a Light of Beauty shineth, as a Divine Musick soundeth through all the parts and changes of the Coelestial, the Elementary Sphears, charming those Souls that have awakened and purified senses to take them in.

As the Soul within it self springeth up into each form, in its pro∣per Order, bringing forth it self at once with the entire Unity of its whole undivided Essence anew, in that distinct form; so doth the Soul from that Original, in the likeness of the same Image, each new moment, spring forth anew according to the innate Law of the uni∣versal Order and Harmony into the whole Heavens and Earth, in a new posture and figure. Thus after the similitude of its own circlings through all forms within it self, the Soul incessantly turneth round the Heavens, and the Elementary Orbs, which by their perpetual circling through each other, turn about by day and by night the rest∣less wheel of Generation and Corruption, as of all change. Thus as the Soul danceth round the Throne of the Divine and the Angelick King, these Heavens and the Elements dance round the Throne of their King the Soul.

Before I pass from the Authority and Testimony of this great Phi∣losopher, concerning the nature of the Soul, give me leave to direct this Arrow, to the white, and mark, which I aim at through this whole Discourse.

According to this Doctrine, the Divine, the Angelick Mind, the Soul, the Coelestial and Elementary Orbs, through all their powers, parts, forms, and motions, meet in, make up one Universal and Divine Harmony, one Beauty, one Musick. All exactly in the lowest, the least, the weakest stroak, touch, or shade, in most exact measure and proportion, answer one another; As the Face in the water answers

the living Face: So doth every lower Orb or Circle of things answer the superior. As the reflection of it self, in its own water or lustre, shining forth from it, and abiding in it; like the water of a precious stone. Each Orb or Circle of things is filled with, knit together by, bounded in its own Unity, which floweth through all, as the Spirit, the Life of Order and Harmony, disposing all the parts and motions in a most just measure to preserve it self, and its figure entire in the whole. The supream, the Divine Unity sits upon every one of these subor∣dinate Unities, rideth forth in them, uniteth, filleth, bindeth up, boundeth in it self all the Orbs and Circles, all in them all. This shines through them, runs with its beams, playing over every form, as one universal Beauty, one sparkling Image of the supream, uni∣versal Good, in the whole face of things. This is a Musick, sound∣ing through all, where each various form, the obscurest, the most minute, is a string upon the golden Lute, of the whole Image of things. Each motion a touch of the chief, the invisible Musitian. The Spirit of the whole, the Spirit of Unity and Harmony; each touch a part of the Musick, exactly answering in all Musical proportions to every other part, and to the whole, making perfect the Divine Consort, in which all the Angels, all the Ideal, the first Glories in the Divine Mind bear a part with every Worm and Dust on the Earth, every Wave and Drop in the Sea, every Dragon and Owl in the Desert, every flake of Snow in the Air.

How beautiful now is the Work of God in all! how worthy of a God! As his Glory is above all Heavens, the highest and purest forms of Light; so is his Name, which is that Glory, in the full ex∣pression, and fair Images of it, excellent through all the Earth, to the lowest shades.

Plato saith, That there is that, which is the least of all things, which cometh between the lowest Divisions, the least parts of things, which uniteth all one to another. Ficinus in his Comment teacheth us, That this, in the sense of Plato, is God, who by the absoluteness and simplicity of his Unity, is at once, the Greatest and the Least, the Highest and the Lowest, the Outmost and the Inmost of all things, the Band of all, that can no where be excluded.

If this be true, where, now through the whole Universe of things, is there found a place for that Liberty, which breaketh the Band of the Divine Unity and Harmony, which discontinueth the Links in this Golden Chain by uncertain, arbitrary, independant motions and forms arising from those motions? What jarring Motion or Division springeth up without its Divine Ground, without its orderly Con∣nexion, without its Patterns, and Spring above, to which it answers, without its fellow Notes, round about it, to which it is tuned? Where is this motion which thus jarreth with, disturbeth and spoileth the universal Musick? Certainly, it lies without the supream, the all∣comprehending Unity, It excludes from it self that Divine Unity, which filleth all, which bindeth all up into one.

Aristotle expresseth the Soul, by a word, which seems to have a full and deep sense to this present purpose. Those, that followed

him have with great labour and pains digged in it, with their sharpest wits, as in a Mine, from which they expected much fine Gold of Divine Wisdome and Truth. It is reported of one, That he raised a Spirit to intepret this word to him. It is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, which seemeth most properly and clearly to express that Divine Unity of the Soul, replenished with all Variety Forms in the most beautiful Order, as we have described the nature of it. It is that which hath its per∣fection, its end, and so its beginning, and so its whole way in it self.

This Perfection of the Intellectual Soul, is the comprehension of all Truth in its Understanding, the fruition of all good in the Will. The universal Truth and Good are then the beginning of the Soul, its Original, all forms of things in the Beauties of their clearest and fullest Truth, which is the eternal Light of their Ideal Glories, smiling in the face of them, all forms of things in the sweetness, de∣lightfulness, joy, in the unexpressibleness of Good, the true Good, all Good, which is the eternal Life. The eternal Love of those Ori∣ginal Beauties in their sacred Spring rising up fresh in the bosome of each Form; this is the end, this is the perfection of the Soul. Thus all things were made for Christ, in him, by him, who is the universal Truth and Good. How? St. Paul explains it, All things are yours, and you are Christs. All forms of things meet and unite in the Hu∣mane Soul, as their Perfection, their Beginning, their End. Jesus Christ, as he is the first, the fairest, the fullest Image of all Forms in one, in their most exact Order and Harmony, is the Father, the Bro∣ther, the Bridegroom of the Soul, her beginning, her exemplar Form or Perfection, her End.

That Definition of the Soul, the Act of an Organical Body, con∣tains the same Doctrine of the Soul in it. An Organical Body, is a Corporeal, or visible Image, composed of various members, various parts and forms, to be instruments and expressions of the various Beauties, Powers, and Virtues of the Soul, by which they propagate themselves in an inferior Birth, and figure themselves in a new, but narrower Orb, in a new, but obscurer light of sense. Thus the whole visible World, is one Organical Body, of which all particular Bodies are so many Organical parts.

Beauty is described to be the predominancy of the form over the matter. A substantial or essential Act is all form, a pure form sepa∣rated from every thing of Corporeal matter. The Soul then, as it is an Act, is all Beauty, Beauty abstracted from matter, a pure Light of Beauty, the Essence, the substance of Beauty, and so of Harmony, of Order.

It is a Maxim in Nature, That the last, the lowest, the least in a superior Order, or rank of things, every way excels the first, the highest, the greatest, in a lower rank and order. According to this Rule, every Soul in the excellency, beauty, virtue, compass of its Being, transcends this whole Corporeal World in the widest Circuit of its Form, and largest extent of its Duration.

Thus the Intellectual Soul is the Act of this Universe of Sense, the whole Corporeal World. The Intellectual Soul is all this World, with all Forms of things contained in it, with all their courses and changes, according to their Connexion and Order from the begin∣ning to the end, in one essential, substantial, undivided Act; One pure Act of transparent Beauty and Order, which is the Souls Unity and Essence. By this, the whole Coelestial, and Elementary World, in the emanation and springing up of all forms of things, in all their motions and orders, are uncessantly acted; In this they subsist as sha∣dows, which have no ground of substance in themselves. In this they actually are that which they are; As Mathematical figures in the mind, the Soul it self alone, filling those figures, being all the Es∣sence, Substance, Power, Virtue, and Form in them. Like shadows they vanish, as they go forth from this Bosome, where alone their Essences, which are so many distinct, substantial Acts and Unities, shine and move together in a most beautiful Harmony, as fixed incor∣poreal Stars in their proper Heaven.

Thus is each man a compleat world in himself. Thus doth each Soul cloath it self with an Aethereal, Aerial Robe, on which it puts on this earthy Garment; Like the Tabernacle of white Linnen, wrought with all fine and rich Colours, with the figures of Cheru∣bims, which had three Coverings, one over another upon it, of Goats-hair, of Ram-skins died red, of Badgers-skins.

Thus the Soul rides forth in her three-fold Chariot, Heavenly, Airy, Earthly, upon the Circuit of the Heavens, the purest Air, and the Earth, the true Venus? the true Queen of Love and Beauty, by which all things spring, shine, live, and love, through her Marriage-Union with her Lord and King, the true Adonis, or Adonai, the Lord Jesus, who died, and lives again with his beloved Bride, in the secret of Paradise, in the midst of the Field of the Coelestial Light, the pure Air, in the bosome and nethermost parts of the Earth. This is the Soul in its first make and proper state.

Plotinus teacheth, That the first Soul, which is the immediate Workman of this World, in the order of its procession, from the separate Intelligences or Angels, and from God, the only supream Father of all, hath its face ever turned to the face of God, and un∣moveably fixed upon it, from his Face, it continually takes in, as the Nectar of the Gods, the Divine Light, the Divine Life and Love, it continually takes in, as at an heavenly Feast, as the heavenly Ambro∣sia, the Ideal Beauty, the first, the Archetypal Forms in their most immediate, sweetest, freshest, fullest Effulgency or Images. This God-like Soul thus bred, thus divinely formed, thus nourished, thus impregnated, sends forth from it self this whole visible World, in the figures of those first Glories, in the similitude of their Unity, Variety, and Order, without thought, care, or trouble, without ever turning a look to this World. As a Person with his Face to the Sun, casts his shadow upon the ground behind him. There is only this difference, as this great Soul casts the shadow of this Corporeal World from it self, there is no ground for it to fall upon, besides the Soul it self.

All these Heavens, this Earth, and Sea, with all their roulings, springings, fadings, and floatings are then the soul it self in her lowest Form, bearing the figures of all her superior Glories most curiously and delightfully wrought in deeper shades. The Soul in this her lower form is her own living Looking-Glass of shadowy, shaded Light, in which she sees with a grateful Variety, with a pleasing Re∣flection of her own Divine force and fruitfulness, her own Beauties in a weaker, fainter, fading Image, maintained only by continual beams from her self.

All Souls, as they flow in their Order, and successions from this first Soul, by virtue of the first production, bring forth to themselves, and bear within themselves the whole World in its fairest and fullest measures.

Object. If any ask these Philosophers, what sign or appearance there is of this sublime state, this amplitude, this majesty in the soul of Man, they will give you such answers as these?

Answ. 1. The Soul hath now lost her wings, by which she flyes through the whole Heavens and Earth. She now lies languishing, contracted, clouded, divided, wounded, sick, dying, upon the ground of this earthly Body. You can take no more any measure of the true nature of the Soul, of the Soul in her own proper Divine Form and Image, by her present state, then you can of the humane Form, Spirit, and Life, by a worm grown out of the putrified body of a man dead.

Answ. 2. As the Soul of a man sleeping, is to the Light of this World; so is the Soul in this Body to the Light of its own Intel∣lectual, Invisible, Divine Form and Beauty. As a Prince sleeps in some private Room, with the Curtains drawn about him, within his own Palace, in the midst of all the splendors and splendid Persons of his Court, seeming to himself in his dreams, as he sleeps, to be a naked, forlorn Prisoner, at the bottome of a dark and deep Dun∣geon. In such a dream doth the Soul appear to her self, sleeping in this Body, in the midst of all her own Immortal Beauties, in the Palace and Court of her own Divine Unity and Essence.

But I have now done with Humame Authority and Philosophy in its Testimony. But as I part, I will leave Philosophy with this Honourable Testimony. The only and true Philosophy is the Light of Nature, in its primitive purity, as the scattered Beams, and dispersed remainders of it in the midst of the ruines of Nature, are collected, strengthened, and reflected from the most excellent of natural, or Divine Spirits, like Sun-beams, centered in a burning-glass.